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Guest Essay

By Nadja Spiegelman

Ms. Spiegelman is a culture editor for Opinion.

In Brigitte Bardot’s death I see the passing of a generation: the Frenchwomen who tried to find a path to autonomy in the 1950s and ’60s. One of the last things Ms. Bardot did was write a book, published this year in French, an abecedarium titled “Mon BBcédaire.” The book, a not very chic compendium of thoughts scrawled in her own handwriting, received a tepid reaction from the French press, which was mostly disappointed by her portrayal of France. (“F is for … France, dear country of my youth! She has grown dull, sad, submissive, ailing — damaged, ravaged, banal,........

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