His victims, admitted and claimed, range from women in their mid-twenties to 12-year-old Elisabeth Brichet, from Namur in Belgium, who disappeared without trace in 1989. Her body, and that of another victim, was found in the grounds of Fourniret’s ch?au in the French Ardennes last Saturday.French and Belgian police, who are likely to co-ordinate their investigation on the French side of the border, suspect he may be guilty of many more murders. He has admitted nine murders, on both sides of the French-Belgian border, placing him among France’s worst serial killers of modern days. His wife has implicated him in other killings.Investigators are checking his possible involvement in unsolved murders further south, in the Auxerre area of northern Burgundy, including the killing of the British student, Joanna Parrish in 1990.The Fournirets lived in the Auxerre area in 1987-88 before buying a chateau in the Ardennes.

He painted a cycle of frescoes in the Vatican papal apartments, nine drawings for which will be seen in this autumn’s show. The Stanze, or “rooms”, were where Pope Julius himself lived and worked. His decoration of the Stanza della Segnatura, based on the theme of the historical justification of the Catholic Church through neo-platonic philosophy, is considered by some to be his greatest work.When Bramante, the architect of St Peter’s basilica, died, Raphael took over, transforming the plans from a Greek to a Latin design and was eventually put in charge of all the archaeological excavations in Rome. He was a keen student of archaeology and of ancient Greco-Roman sculpture, whose influence is apparent in his paintings of the human figure during the Roman period.Raphael painted another series of Madonnas in Rome that demonstrated a shift away from his earlier gentleness. They are more energetic, richer in colour and show more technical sophistication. He also became the most important portraitist in Rome, painting Pope Leo X, who commissioned him to design 10 large tapestries for the Sistine Chapel.These tapestries still hang in the chapel, but seven of the cartoons on which they are based are on view at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

The Chanel suit – also introduced by Coco and, as far as clothing is concerned, the label’s most recognisable signage – came in the form of narrow shift dresses, loosely belted at the hip and worn with matching slimline coats all fashionably frayed at the edges. Since the retirement of that other great couturier, Yves Saint Laurent, in January 2002, Lagerfeld, one of the last remaining classically trained names, has been doing brisk business.The moneyed Chanel customer with her perfectly coiffed hair, surgically enhanced physique and boucl?ool tweed jacket (worn over everything from matching skirt to jeans) can still find plenty to wear. If ever proof were needed that haute couture now functions primarily as the luxury-goods sector’s most high-profile marketing tool, it came yesterday when Karl Lagerfeld unveiled his autumn/winter 2004 collection for the house of Chanel.
The stage set established the tone: the world’s most famous models were positively dwarfed by huge, bright white monoliths branded with the iconic double-C logo – in inky black, of course. When the house’s namesake, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, decreed black and white the most chic of all possible colour combinations for the contemporary woman, she can surely not have known what she was starting.Fast forward almost a century and the monochromatic palette appears to serve predominantly to identify assorted products: Chanel fragrance, cosmetics and skincare, in particular, all come in immediately recognisable black and white packaging.That is not to say that Chanel haute couture does not have its own client base Quite the contrary.