Whether the grief stems from the feeling of closing a chapter in one's own life, or the larger question of mortality, the death of a former teen idol can have a profound effect on fans.
Mr Sarkozy undertook a prolonged charm campaign to position himself as America's new best friend, rewriting the Gaullist rules and closing a chapter of bitter Franco-America relations.
We thought we might have swung the bat too hard with our closingchapter in that book, when we predicted that blogs would usher in a new Age of Conversation.