Marianne

Marianne (pronounced: [maʁjan]) is a national symbol of the French Republic, an allegory of liberty and reason, and a portrayal of the Goddess of Liberty.

Marianne is displayed in many places in France and holds a place of honour in town halls and law courts. She symbolizes the "Triumph of the Republic", a bronze sculpture overlooking the Place de la Nation in Paris. Her profile stands out on the official government logo of the country, is engraved on French euro coins and appears on French postage stamps; it also was featured on the former franc currency. Marianne is one of the most prominent symbols of the French Republic, and is officially used on most government documents.

Marianne is a significant republican symbol, opposed to monarchy, and an icon of freedom and democracy against all forms of dictatorship. Other national symbols of France include the tricolor flag, the national motto Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, the national anthem La Marseillaise, as well as the coat of arms and the official Great Seal of France.

Heath

A heath or heathland is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and is characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with — especially in the British Isles — a cooler and more damp climate.

Heaths are widespread worldwide, but are fast disappearing and considered a rare habitat in Europe. They form extensive and highly diverse communities across Australia in humid and sub-humid areas. Fire regimes with recurring burning are required for the maintenance of the heathlands. Even more diverse though less widespread heath communities occur in Southern Africa. Extensive heath communities can also be found in the California chaparral, New Caledonia, central Chile and along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In addition to these extensive heath areas, the vegetation type is also found in scattered locations across all continents, except Antarctica.

Characteristics

Heathland is favoured where climatic conditions are typically warm and dry, particularly in summer, and soils acidic, of low fertility, and often sandy and very free-draining; mires do occur where drainage is poor, but are usually only small in extent. Heaths are dominated by low shrubs, 20 centimetres (7.9 in) to 2 metres (7 feet) tall.

Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Evelyn Faithfull (born 29 December 1946) is an English singer, songwriter and actress, whose career has spanned six decades.

Her early work in pop and rock music in the 1960s was overshadowed by her struggle with drug abuse in the 1970s. During the first two-thirds of that decade, she produced only two little-noticed studio albums. After a long commercial absence, she returned late in 1979 with the highly acclaimed album Broken English. Faithfull's subsequent solo work, often critically acclaimed, has at times been overshadowed by her personal history.

From 1966 to 1970, she had a highly publicised romantic relationship with the Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger. She co-wrote "Sister Morphine", which is featured on the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers album, and had an early hit with the Jagger/Richards composition "As Tears Go By."

Early life and links to nobility

Faithfull was born in Hampstead, London. Her half-brother is Simon Faithfull. Her father, Major Robert Glynn Faithfull, was a British Army officer and professor of Italian Literature at Bedford College of London University. Her mother was styled as Eva von Sacher-Masoch, Baroness Erisso and was originally from Vienna. The family of Sacher-Masoch had secretly opposed the Nazi regime in Vienna. Glynn Faithfull's work as an Intelligence Officer for the British Army brought him into contact with the family, and he thus met Eva. Faithfull's maternal grandfather had aristocratic roots, in the Habsburg Dynasty, while Faithfull's maternal grandmother was Jewish. Erisso was a ballerina for the Max Reinhardt Company during her early years, and danced in productions of works by the German theatrical duo Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. Faithfull's maternal great great uncle was Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the 19th century Austrian nobleman whose erotic novel, Venus in Furs, spawned the word "masochism".

Anita Pallenberg

Anita Pallenberg (born 6 April 1944) is an Italian-born actress, model, and fashion designer. She was the romantic partner of Rolling Stones multi-instrumentalist and guitarist Brian Jones and later the partner of Keith Richards, the guitarist of the same band, from 1967 to 1979, by whom she has two children.

Early life

Pallenberg was born on 6 April 1944 in German-occupied Rome, the daughter of Arnaldo Pallenberg, an Italian sales agent, amateur singer and hobbyist painter and Paula Wiederhold, a German secretary. Anita became fluent in four languages at an early age and studied medicine, picture restoration and graphic design without achieving a degree. Before settling in London, she lived in Germany, her native Rome, as well as New York City, where she was involved with the Living Theatre, starring in the play Paradise Now, which featured on-stage nudity, and Andy Warhol's Factory.

Romantic involvements

Pallenberg is known for her romantic involvement with Rolling Stones band members Brian Jones, whom she met in 1965 in Munich, where she was working on a modelling assignment, and Keith Richards, for whom she left Jones in 1967 while on holiday in Morocco after Jones' violent behaviour towards Pallenberg. She remained in a relationship with Richards until 1980 although they never married. There were rumours that she also had a brief affair with Mick Jagger during the filming of Performance, and Keith Richards states in his autobiography Life that it happened. However, Pallenberg denied the affair in March 2007 when Performance was released on DVD.

Keith Richards

Keith Richards (born 18 December 1943) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, actor, and one of the original members of the rock band The Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone Magazine credited Richards for "rock's greatest single body of riffs" on guitar and ranked him 4th on its list of 100 best guitarists. Fourteen songs that Richards wrote with the Rolling Stones' lead vocalist Mick Jagger are listed among Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". The Stones are generally known for their guitar interplay of rhythm and lead ("weaving") with Brian Jones, Mick Taylor and Ronnie Wood over the years. In spite of this, Richards plays the only guitar tracks on some of their most famous songs including "Paint It Black", "Ruby Tuesday", "Sympathy for the Devil", and "Gimme Shelter".

Early life

Richards was born 18 December 1943 at Livingston Hospital, in Dartford, Kent, England. He is the only child of Doris M L (née Dupree) and Herbert W Richards. His father was a factory worker who was injured in World War II during the Normandy invasion.