0.4. CONTENTS

EACH PAGE MAKES A SEPARATE POINT

"Contents" lets you click on chapters and sections of chapters,  "Menu" gives summaries. Both let you click and scroll down, but don't go so fast that the ideas merge. 

Harald Wolff

Scrolling stops when the pages become too heavy to load so you end up clicking anyway. Clicking at the pages' end is the best way to start. Scrolling quickly via the menu works for returning to particular information or pictures.

I.

WHAT MAKES FRANCE DISTINCT?

1.1. SETTING THE SCENE

1.1. THE PLAYERS, LEGENDARY OR UNSUNG 

1.1.1. Kings, at the heart of French civilization

1.1.2. Women of the court who bequeathed their refinement 

1.1.3. The Church, inseparable from monarchy

1.1.4. Small farms: ferocious repressions and art de vivre

1.1.5. Rebels and their demand for social justice

1.1.6. Exiles and expats

1.1.7. The French language, imperialists' explosive gift

1.1.8. Immigrants, source of new energies

II.

AN UNSUSPECTED CITY

2.1. THE LOGIC OF THE LEGENDARY CORE

2.1.1. A spectral rampart: Sites of the Revolution and a haven away from 

the street / A trace of the past and a sign of the future / A rampart vestige in a 

parking lot 

 

2.1.2. Saint-Germain-des-Prés, rampart heir: Outlaws and Protestants 

 live beyond the rampart / The Church and the Grandes Écoles ("great schools") / 

Intellectuals, cafés and the Occupation / The Liberation and a brief  golden age / 

Hollywood's take / Europe's capital of movies and jazz / Brands attack, tradition

holds on / Art galleries' riches and traps / Other galleries that one can trust

 

2.1.3. Lords step out from the shadows: Push open this door to glimpse 

the nobles' world / Farther on / Plaques reveal this river bank's prestige / More 

antiquarians / Return to the river 

 

2.1.4. Back to the rampart, on to the river: A pedestrian street for gourmets / 

The Institut de France, bastion of the Old Régime / River banks and book sellers / Epitaph  

 

2.1.5. Palaces: glory and demise: Power takes off from the river / Fatal passion 

at the Louvre / Palais-Royal, a world apart / "If your son marries my daughter 

I'll give you Palais-Royal" / Another way the past stepped in: the threat from other 

royals / Libertarian gardens where the modern world began / Moving on 

 

 2.1.6. Palais-Royal now:  Evolution / The ambiance of a Balzac novel /  

Remembrance of things past / A sumptuous covered passage remains / The walk

ends in a salon / A restaurant whose elegance prolongs the mood

 Claude Abron

   Palais-Royal, where the ideas of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity took wing.

  

2.2. BRANDS TAKE OVER THE HISTORIC CENTER 

  

2.2.1. Ads hover over the river  

 

2.2.2. A left-bank oasis evokes the recent past: Gertrude Stein, classic movies,

Picasso and no cars / Beloved dinky toys, collectors' items / Fashion that was classic yet unique / End of a Japanese landmark / Metamorphosis / A bookstore where tradition 

remains intact

 

2.2.3. Shun the grotesque profits: "real" Paris's affordable shopping

Wares at a neighborhood market / A street where (some) wholesalers sell retail /  

At last a brand to appreciate / Woolens for Heads of State / Detour: knowledge 

of the past brings an extra dimension / Detour: the Boulevards, once luxury's 

planetary heart / If you absolutely must buy globalized brands

2.2.4 Willfully erasing the past: Marie-Antoinette's cell replaced by a tablet / Camouflage at the Louvre / The Opéra: Renovation hides the original goal 

2.3. A TRADE ROUTE FOR PILGRIMS AND KINGS (rue Saint-Denis)

2.3.1. Medieval spirits linger: Traces of a prison and countryside / A cemetery that bewilders / The "Court of Miracles" / That territory now / Detour: a prostitute 

who (almost) rose up from the street / The huge open space at the city's heart /  

"Les Halles," above ground and below it / Specters emerge from the cemetery

 

  Entry of Louis XI to Paris by Francois Tattegrain, 1889-90 / zoom

A 19th-century reconstruction. For images from the time, please click. 

 

2.3.2. The street that proclaimed royal power: Parades that unite kings and subjects / Marching down rue Saint-Denis / Royal funerals take the route in reverse /  

The vanished gate / Beyond the gate, the royal gibbet / Public executions, rituals of power / Executioners, necessary pariahs / Now a street that is pleasant and pedestrian 

 

Execution of the Templars (cropped), anonymous, 15th century / zoom

 This typical illustration shows the king looking on, riding a white horse.

2.3.3. Erasing rebel neighborhoods 

 

2.3.4. A hinterland for criminals, nobles and the garment district:  

Poisons and black masses / Crime that shook the Sun King's court / Nobles take over / 

The garment district, heir of boulevards and nobles / A seedy neighborhood gentrifies 

with character  

 

2.3.5. An arc built to honor Louis XIV looms over the route  

 

    Claude Abron

The Saint-Denis gate 

2.3.6. Toward the horizon: Lepers on the trade route / Catholic nobles 

become saints and heroes / Nuns' coiffes communicate / Congregations prosper, 

leave and return / Vanished jails     

 

2.3.7. Immigrants energize tradition: Traditional France on the trade 

route now / Here 72 languages are said to be spoken

2.4. VISITS WITH CHILDREN (OR WITHOUT THEM)

2.4.1. - 2.4.4: If you come with little boys (adapt to little girls) / Kids follow 

signs and pictures / A wood where children play / New horizons

Facing the medieval Cemetery of the Holy Innocents and its descendant, 

Europe's most important center for boys' casual clothes.

 

2.4.5. The Louvre through their sharp eyes: The Mona Lisa, 

one masterpiece among a multitude / Art that tells stories / Finding your way  

through the huge museum / Rewards / Save the blockbusters for last / 

Outdoor ending 

2.5. THE VISIT FOR ADULTS: NOBLES, GODS AND HEROES 

The primacy of hereditary rank / Everything aids the overclass / Allegory:  nobles vs. 

rising capitalists / Real stories and political messages / The Church gives the humble

the bodies of gods / Rubens's decor for a queen / A plea for peace and a threat of  revolt / Detour: History, anecdotes or the economy? 

Philip of France in Costume of Antiquity by Jean Nocret, toward 1650 / zoom

Louis XIV's younger brother dressed as a Roman general

2.6. THE GODS' MODERNITY: The first great work of defiance / A goddess 

becomes a plebeian revolutionary / The goddess's descendants 

2.7. WHEN OBSERVATION AND THE USUAL STORY CLASH: 

WHAT OPERA TOURS WON'T SAY

2.7.1. A palace for a new elite: A design that highlights power / Where 

new and old money cross paths / "We too can mingle with the gods"

 

2.7.2. Backers, sex and money: The backers who finance performances / 

 Detour: ballet, an art of the French court / Degas's "little dancer" / A ceiling 

decorated by an orgy   

 

2.7.3. Blackout? Tycoons equal to an emperor / Masking the monument's 

purpose / Merch does not explain the change / Ignoring the obvious and getting 

away with it

 

The backers' private salon is decorated by an orgy. 

Guides skip it. Few visitors notice.

2.8. FROM NYMPHS TO NAZIS, HOW OPERA GIRLS SAVED THE CITY 

OF LOVE: Place Vendôme and the Occupation / Why Paris didn't burn

III.

VITALITY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TRACKS 

A giant puppet in a parade on the northern fringe

3.1. EUROPE'S "CHINATOWN" 

      

3.1.1. A walk where cultures mix: "Porte"(gate) de Choisy / Come to "L'Arche 

de la Fraternité" / Cultures intertwine    

3.1.2. Colors of shops and street: The other artery / Crossroads shops / A street 

that seems ordinary at first

 

3.1.3. High-rises ahead of their time: "The neighborhood needed cleaning 

up" / An enclave / autonomy / The inspiration of royal squares / A historical panel 

that skips what counts

  

3.1.4. Asians broaden a French neighborhood: A street that is almost 

ordinary / Asians enliven Parisian sobriety / A park evokes Asians and kings / 

 The Tang supermarkets / Small, distinctive shops align 

 

3.1.5. Some of the restaurants: The multitude on avenue d'Ivry / A  

bustling Vietnamese canteen / Thai décor as refined as the cuisine. / A Chinese  

feast

 

3.1.6.  Asians emerge from the shadows: The Chinese New Year 

celebration / A parade unique in Europe / Asians in ads, the ultimate acceptance 

 

French residents observe a Chinese New Year celebration.

3.2. THE EAST, WHERE NEW WORLDS EMERGE

3.2.1. Memories of insurrection: La Commune and some of its sites /  

Preliminary fracas: the mad "Descent from La  Courtille" / Toward the Belleville  

crossroad  /  The area stays left  

 

 3.2.2.  A place where the arts spring up: Ménilmontant, where walls turn 

into art galleries / Kitch and class / "To feel the real pulse of the city go east" /  

Bars and music  

3.2.3.  A path through "real Paris" 

3.3. "BARBÈS DON'T PANIC:" Back to the wine tax / A métro station and 

a movie theater / Toward La Goutte d'Or / The media: fear, exoticism, misery 

and bias / (Not very) threatening youth / Take another look 

3.4. THE UNHAILED ENERGIES OF LA GOUTTE D'OR

3.4.1. A setting of "Gauls:" Precious books / Monotheisms as their 

founders intended / A shoemaker transmits / A school for knitwear design 

and techniques / Odd socks' comeback / Framing for  neighbors and museums / 

An immigrant nourishes the ultimate French tradition  

 

3.4.2. Arts known mainly to neighbors: Inventiveness that brightened 

an ordinary street / Art links the neighborhood and kids in Africa / Signs on 

park railings / Photography as singular as its site / Theater that makes the street 

the stage / Sculpture hovers over a washroom 

  

3.4.3. First steps in another land

 

3.4.4. Appearance, a way to communicate:  Making oneself a 

composition / Barbershops and beauty salons line the street / Young men's 

exuberant hair styles / How those coiffures and beards began / Hair-dresser  

salons' good humor / Shops that continue the attention / Africans' humanistic advertising / Reinventing dandies / Detour: politicizing Black 

men's fashion 

 

Making oneself a composition, an art that immigrants invent

 

3.4.5. Textiles and tailors, more emphasis: "Wax" prints, symbols of Africa /   

Start at the textile hub next door and stroll down the slope / Textile stores for prints, 

almost as omnipresent as the barber shops / Shops for notions follow up / Young 

tailors' energy / Embroidery, a royal ornamentation / Plebeian prints gain their letters 

of nobility  

 

 

3.4.6. A couturier for Kenzo and Paco Rabanne: With his perfect French... /  

Sources of  inspiration / The workshop / You may pass it and not see it.  

3.4.7. Gentrification with brakes: Empty lots and new building / A Moroccan 

restaurant changes hands  / Fast food replaces convivial bar / Traditional and 

gourmet shops intertwine / Social services, key to the mix

 

African elders ignore a trendy boutique. 

 

3.4.9. "The emerging design hub of Paris:" "An Afro brand out to 

conquer the world" / Detour: African market signs / Detour: Ads with a different 

message / An African concept store / Madame Touré's fashion / The Catholic 

fabrics of a "child of God"  

 

 

3.4.9.x.  Africans' exuberant creativity: At the markets / Foire d'Afrique /  

A trade show / Ignorance of The New York Times

 

A street musician of La Goutte d'Or

 

3.4.9.xx. Tomorrow's destination? World and urban culture for the planet? /  

The Institute for the Cultures of Islam / The Barbès metro station: accessibility 

and spaces for the arts / A 1920's cinema / The wash-house that literature 

immortalized / The City-backed couturiers' cooperative / A portal toward the music 

of the outskirts 

3.4.9.xxx. A place that Gertrude Stein would have appreciated: 

A take out...  A picnic in a park where sculpted figures play / At a time when  

the public valued only classic works...

IV.
WHY IS A CITY WITHOUT NATURAL BEAUTY 

SO GRAND? 

4.1. MAJESTY ON A HUMAN SCALE, FORGOTTEN GIFT OF KINGS

4.1.1. A parade route changes course: From "joyous" to "royal" entry /  

The path that linked kings with their ancestors / The importance of the Saint-Denis 

basilica / The church where "Gothic" architecture began / Detour: right-wing 

extremists use medieval imagery / France's first straight street and point of focus / 

Drop the ancestors, hail power / Revolt at La Bastille / Detour: Love wins out —  

unfortunately 

Illustration by Maurice Leloir in Le Roy Soleil, a history book for children, 1931

Louis XIV's royal entry trumpets tougher monarchy by passing
father's and grandfather's innovations.

 

4.1.2. The milestones and their meanings: Paris's first street and point 

of focus / The "place" that is ancestor of all / The successive statues of place des 

Vosges / A church that changes the way to salvation / A royal statue for a bridge / 

The king among his people

4.1.3. A design inconceivable elsewhere: Demolishing the city wall 

announced hegemony / The Boulevards that replaced it gave access to Versailles / 

Louis builds an arc of triumph on the main gate's site / It announces three centuries 

of calamity / Now the arches hover like ghosts over the traffic   

 

Claude Abron: photo taken from a helicopter

The line that stretches from palace to horizon symbolizes endless power.

4.1.4. The royal imprint blossoms: Straight streets and monarchy  /  

Napoleon's tomb, built for Louis XIV / Royal places multiply / At the last royal  

place, change begins

4.1.5. The curtain falls on traditional monarchy: A queen breaks rules 

that she does not understand / A bubblehead rises to the occasion / "Bonjour Sire!" 

The greeting that announces calamity / The disastrous flight revisited: the guards' 

yellow liveries / End of the 1500 year old monarchy / "The Temple," a prison that 

could have been worse /  "I have no tears left to cry / Marie-Antoinette attains 

grandeur / Louis XVII, a story that has no end / The Obelisk announces a new era / 

How France became a republic / French Presidents, heirs of kings

 

4.2. A MODERN ROYAL CITY: The Grand Axis as model / Perspectives, key to 

the city's grandeur / "Places" stay royal / The violent imagery of victors on horseback / 

Detour: heroes on white horses 

 

4.3. HAVE THE KINGS BECOME SUBVERSIVE? The Champs-Elysées, 

challenged majesty / A new society creeps in / Goddesses hover over the city / Kings 

and globalization

 

Pamela Spurdon

Louis XIV in the courtyard of the Louvre, 

and the kind of ad that hovers over the city since 2011

 V.

CRADLE OF UPHEAVAL:

HOW FEAR OF INSURRECTION

 BROADENED THE BEAUTY THE KINGS BEGAN

A passage built to let the army invade blue-collar territory

5.1. "OBJECTIVE HISTORY STICKS TO THE FACTS:" WHAT FACTS? Liberty, Equality, Fraternity lets capitalism take wing / The Revolution of 

1830: the forgotten capitalist triumph / Boring history, a political tool

5.2. 1830, the peopled fooled: Social classes whose interests diverge / Faceless

poor and bourgeois heroes / More on bourgeois heroes / An intelligent ogre checks in

Liberty's great painting, fervent and ambiguous / The Arc de Triomphe's lame homage

to the plebes / The July Column, as evasive / Victor Hugo's"Time of Riots" / Algeria 

enters France's conflicts

 

5.3. 1848, the people fooled again: Insurrection by accident / Schism looms / 

Popular discipline terrifies / The Parisian upheaval overwhelms Europe / Feudal 

monarchies emerge still stronger 

 5.4. Workers' first conscious revolt & first great massacre: A republic for

the happy few / A workers' revolt announces the future / The right changes too: 

Provincial nobles answer the call / Young delinquents joyously join in / Empathy from

a countess alone / The uprising brings Europe's most authoritarian regime

  The Barricade of Rue de la Mortellerie, June 1848 by Ernest Meissonnier / zoom

Painting from a sketch made on the spot.

5.5. The City Museum & the insurrections: A spectacular homage to elites /  

A French Revolution that is almost peaceful / The 19th-century insurrections before 

the renovation / 1830: Capitalism wins and elegant fighters replace plebeians /

 February 1848: Furniture replaces humble fighters / June 1848: a single sentence 

at the back of the floor / Barricades, a game for kids 

Street fighting as shown at the musée Carnavalet (the City Museum)

5.6. FEAR, UNLIKELY PROMOTER OF URBAN GRANDEUR

       

5.6.1. The metamorphosis seen up close: "An ounce of prevention:" 

churches and a park / Open the town to the army / Three huge spaces to assemble 

troops / The fountain where the Emperor crushes Socialism / The new arteries' 

military purpose / A "masterly line" cuts through the working-class east /  

Blue-collar neighborhoods' vast open spaces / Huge "places" and power symbols /  

The exception across the river / At Notre-Dame Cathedral, repression replaces 

eternity / Planning Latin Quarter bombardment has happy results / The hospital 

garden 

5.6.2. Gifts of the repression: Adapting royal majesty / Other kinds of 

beauty / Progressives hijack streets and spaces / Space meant for an army is 

used for a market

VI.

THE CHANGES TURN OUT TO BE USELESS:

LA COMMUNE

6.1. EGALITARIANISM BREAKS THROUGH

          Proclamation of La Commune, March 26 1871, anonymous engraving / zoom

La Commune acclaimed at City Hall

6.2. "The terrible year," 1850-1871 

 6.2.1. A war of choice brings disaster: "To Berlin!" cry Parisians /  

Hallucinations of an enclosed population / Treason? / Tensions rise / The Guard 

becomes a counter-power / Cannons the army neglects / Prussians parade but guards

steal the show  / The Assembly pours oil on the fire / The cannons on the hills  

6.2.2. Explosion: "Betrayed!"/ Love humanizes an icon / Crowd and soldiers 

fraternize / An unaware general steps into the fray / Commemorations of the right 

and the left / Thiers flees / A visionary future   

 

6.2.3. Civil war and carnage: The humble against the powerful / The 

slaughter of the wretched / Escape by socializing with the enemy / The Latin 

Quarter after defeat / The fate of a political painter / Soldiers whom officers mistrust / 

The officers' responsibility / The adversaries / Parisian sequels / The past sways 

pop culture: Piaf and Sinatra 

 

The Call by André Devambez, 1906, based on the memories of his father and survivors / zoom

6.2.4. Ruins, revenge and evolution: The inferno in context /The sacred hilltop /  

The "Acropolis of the Revolution" / The church of vengeance / Changed threat, 

changed city / The Sacré-Coeur frightens, Sainte-Anne heals / The "chocolate façade"

6.2.5. Mystification, old-school and now: A firing squad that makes no sense /  

Versaillais propaganda that tells (part of) the truth / "The hostages of rue Haxo," the other 

publicized killing / Catholic martyrs whom even the Church forgets / Whose violence? 

The comeback of the Versaillais myth / Schoolbooks buttress the individual to erase 

the group / The City Museum before renovation (in 2016-2022)... / And after it /  

"To the victors / belong the spoils" /  Two historians fight back 

6.2.6. Fraternity that worked: Pariahs take charge of their lives / Leaders we 

wish we had / Victories of  La Commune / A rooted memory / "Friends of the Paris 

Commune"

Women meet during La Commune. 

6.2.7. An omen and a turning point:  A foretaste of genocide / Toward the 

20th century

VII.
A COMMUNARD BASTION,

THE OVERLOOKED 13TH DISTRICT

The long, wide, straight street was built after the insurrection of June 1848 so that 

troops move arrive quickly to quell a future revolt. It also draws the eye to a church,

which preached obedience in what was then the city's poorest district.

7.1. The fight for the hilltop: Frenzied combat / Communard fighters / A panel does

mention La Commune... / The Communard spirit continues

7.2. An epicenter of misery: "A lost district at the city's edge" / Disease, crime and revolt / Vanished industry / A third-world revolutionaries' training ground / A walk 

through an outskirt that used to be chilling

 

 VIII.

A PAST THAT IS FORGOTTEN YET INDELIBLE

Leftist posters at the Olympiades métro, 13th. 

 

8.1. In the footsteps of "demons:"  The church where the last battle was fought /

The passage by which survivors fled / City-run residences for seniors and the

handicapped / Sculptures. Bikes. Gyms. Gardens / More social services, gardens 

and local engagement / Electoral posters in a genuine (political) democracy

 8.2. Small businesses that Communards would have valued 

8.3. Lost industry's traces: Gardens replace a sugar refinery / A giant park on a 

gas-making site / Posters on park railings

8.4. A cluster of unstandardized arts: Giant murals announce the 13th / Messages cheer gray

winters / Arts that City Hall promotes / Arts discovered by chance

District web site

8.5. A district that leans left: Part of the Social-Democratic City /  Posters and signs / 

The May Day parade begins at the 13th's City Hall

Paris's May Day parade begins in front of the 13th's City Hall.

8.6. Paris's latest festival, "Treizième" (Thirteenth"): A banquet under the aerial

 métro / Asians launch the fête / The arts through new techniques / Silent movies in 

the park / Ethnic dancers from the neighborhood / Drumming, dancing, Brazilian music, 

British jugglers / Grand finale

     

8.7. More gifts from City Hall

8.8. A place to pitch your tent? 

  

IX.

WHAT HAPPENED? THE WAR DID

9.1. "Better Hitler than Blum" (the Socialist Prime Minister of the 1930's)

9.2. Conservatives who joined the Resistance

Plaque commemorating the site where a fighter for the Liberation of Paris was killed.

9.3. "The future springs up from behind."

# # #

EPILOGUE

"DON'T YOU HAVE AN AGENDA?"

"YOU'RE TEACHING COMMUNISM TO THE POLICE!"

"YOU'RE MISLED BUT YOU'RE NOT BOUGHT.

JOIN US!"

*    *    *

The sequel, History from fresh perspectives,

 shows how placing events in their economic contexts

can transform their meanings

and gives a reason for the omissions mentioned here.

*    *    *

*    *    *

Next,

I.

What makes France unique?