num_pages: 496
description: The secrets of the City of Light revealed in the lives of the great the near-great and the forgottenby the author of the acclaimed The Discovery of France. This is the Paris you never knew. From the Revolution to the present Graham Robb has distilled a series of astonishing true narratives all stranger than fiction. A young artillery lieutenant strolling through the Palais-Royal observes disapprovingly the courtesans plying their trade. A particular woman catches his eye; nature takes its course. Later that night Napoleon Bonaparte writes a meticulous account of his first sexual encounter. An aristocratic woman fleeing the Louvre takes a wrong turn and loses her way in the nameless streets of the Left Bank. For want of a mapthere were no reliable ones at the timeMarie-Antoinette will go to the guillotine. Baudelaire Baron Haussmann the real-life Mimi of La Bohme Proust Charles de Gaulle (who is suspected of having faked an assassination attempt on himself in Notre Dame) these and many more are Robbs cast of characters. The result is a resonant intimate history with the power of a great novel. 16 pages of illustrations.
language: None
title: Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company