Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780393339734)

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 Bonaparte 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.

Author: Graham Robb
ISBN-10: 0393339734
ISBN-13: 9780393339734
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English
Published: 04/11/2011
Pages: 476
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.10h x 5.40w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 05/15/2011 pg. 36