Salon du Chocolat in Paris

Congratulations for your blog !
It is wonderful you are able to come up with so much useful information.
A minor correction : French names like “Leclerc” are never ever spelled “LeClerc”. In fact, capitals within a word do not exist at all in French. You may find “De Gaulle”, but that’s two separate words. Though a small difference in typography, it has some significance, as the form in two words indicates nobility, such as “Duc de Guise”, whereas “M. Deguise” would be a layman. It reminds me of Greg LeMond, who had to insist for months after winning the Tour de France to ge the French press print his name right and not “Lemond”.

Hi Boris: Thanks for you comment! And duly noted, I will keep that in mind regarding no capitals within the last name if it’s all one word.

I did learn about the importance of the ‘petit de’ suggesting that having the ‘de’ in front of your last name denoted nobility. Nobility is always a cause for fascination for us ‘new worlders’ who, apart from some ‘blue blood Bostoners’ don’t have much of what you’d call ‘aristocracy’.

I know in France you’re less impressed by the ‘aristos’ and perhaps the least impressed are the ‘aristos themselves’ who tend to downplay the ‘petit de’.