There is a graffiti on the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. There's a legend going there that says that it was made by Michelangelo (there's actually a drawing he did in the Louvre's collections that looks a lot like it). Not exactly funny though. Still, imagine a graffiti being drawn by Michelangelo !

It is not exactly history because Ryszard Kapuściński was a journalist but this book is a beautiful meditation on the collapse of the Shah. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shah_of_Shahs_(book)

I read in "les mondes de l'esclavage" (a sum on slavery that was published last year in France) that 90% of black people in XVIIIth century France were based in Paris (and especially in the aristocratic neighborhoods). Auvergne being a pretty remote region at the time, it is unlikely. However it is not impossible.