It happened on 23 September
Claudia Cardinale had chosen Nemours
Exactly one year ago today, on 23 September 2025, Claudia Cardinale has passed away in Nemours, at the age of eighty-seven, surrounded by her children.
Born in Tunis in 1938, an actress in *The Leopard* and *Once Upon a Time in the West*, and a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador since 2000, she had settled in the early 2020s at Le Picardeau, a former tannery on the banks of the Loing. She and her daughter had opened an artists’ residence there, complete with a restaurant and holiday cottages. We used to bump into her at the market.
Three days before his death, the town was exhibiting his film costumes as part of Heritage Days.
Neptune found at the tip of a pencil
On the night of 23 September 1846, the astronomer Johann Galle pointed the telescope at the Berlin Observatory towards a point in the sky that the Frenchman Urbain Le Verrier had indicated to him in a letter.
There he finds an unknown planet. The very evening he received the letter.
Neptune was the first planet to be discovered by calculation before being observed. It was found to be less than one degree from the predicted position. Le Verrier commented: «This error will be found to be very small.»
Nemours, a town straight out of a novel
Cinema has a precedent in literature. Balzac set *Ursule Mirouët* in the streets of Nemours, which he uses as the backdrop for a story about an inheritance. The novel appeared as a serial in *Le Messager* in August and September 1841.
One hundred and eighty years later, one of the world’s most famous actresses chose the same small town to spend her final years.
