This book is dedicated to my wonderful wife Claude-Aline, my beloved friend, who, in describing her complex family history, became my tutor, mentor and guiding intelligence as she informed me about the life and lives of people I could not have known without her.
CROWNS, with its formal, intimate, repetitive focus, is, as well, dedicated to all people - people of every continent, every skin color, every gender, every nationality and every religion - willing to explore their own causal history, their culture, ideologies, ancestry and social conventions in an effort to construct and complete their psychological portrait as both fact and imagination.