Elaine Sciolino

When Pope Francis touched down on French soil for the first time in his papacy with a visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg last November, Ms. Royal was the senior French official there to greet him.

At my first library job, I worked with a woman named Sheila Brownstein, who was The Reader's Advisor. She was a short, bosomy Englishwoman who accosted people at the shelves and asked if they wanted advice on what to read, and if the answer was yes, she asked what writers they already loved and then suggested somebody new.