Parisians
Subtitle: an adventure history of Paris
By: Graham Robb.
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.
Published: 2010
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 475
ISBN-13: 9780393067248
Subjects: Paris (France) -- History -- Anecdotes; Paris (France) -- Biography -- Anecdotes
Genres: Anecdotes; Biography
Description: 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, of the lives of the great, the near-great, and the forgotten. 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 writes a meticulous account of his first sexual encounter. A well-dressed woman, fleeing the Louvre, takes a wrong turn and loses her way in the nameless streets of the Left Bank. For want of a map -- there were no reliable ones at the time -- Marie-Antoinette will go to the guillotine. Baudelaire, the photographer Marville, Baron Haussmann, the real-life Mimi of La Boheme, Proust, Adolf Hitler touring the occupied capital in the company of his generals, Charles de Gaulle (who is suspected of having faked an assassination attempt in Notre Dame) -- these and many more are Robb's cast of characters, and the settings range from the quarries and catacombs beneath the streets to the grand monuments to the appalling suburbs ringing the city today. The result is a resonant, intimate history with the power of a great novel. - Jacket flap.

Napoleon Bonaparte, Marie Antoinette, Baudelaire, Baron Haussmann, the real-life Mimi of La Boheme, Proust, Charles de Gaulle--these and many more are Robb's cast of characters in a series of stories about the Paris you never knew.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Table of contents: title: Departure; title: One night at the Palais-Royal; title: The man who saved Paris; title: Lost; title: Restoration; title: Files of the Suö reté; title: A property in Bohemia; title: Marville; title: Regression; title: Madame Zola; title: Marcel in the Métro; title: The Notre-Dame equation; title: A little tour of Paris; title: Occupation; title: Lovers of Saint-Germain-des-Prés; title: The day of the fox; title: Expanding the domain of the possible; title: Périphérique; title: Sarko, Bouna, and Zyed; title: Terminus: The North Col; title: Chronology.