PAVILIONS OF THE HEART

A faintly rose-scented but not uninteresting sachet featuring real and fabled lovers mainly of the 19th century, and the dwellings within which spiritual or carnal flights took place. Among the besotted: Lizst and his Princess Carolyne; a young Bulgarian nun and a monk who spent one decidedly non-clerical week in seclusion together; of course Nelson and that gamine Emma; George Sand and the fragile Chopin; Napoleon et Josephine. And there are some exotic Easterners -- for one, a French girl who became a political power as a Sultan's spouse. Blanch is very much taken with places of tryst: mansions and huts, bedrooms, and her favorite, the Eastern harems of tinkling fountains and muted light. It's all very lacy and amusing.