CONTENTS

EACH PAGE MAKES A SEPARATE POINT, SHOWN BRISKLY BY HEADLINES AND PICTURES 

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Harald Wolff

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I.
What makes France distinct?

1.1. Setting the scene

1.2. The players, legendary or largely unacknowledged

II.
Beyond the expected city

2.1. The logic of the legendary core

   2.1.1. A spectral rampart

   2.1.2. Saint-Germain-des-Prés, rampart heir

   2.1.3. Lords step out from the shadows 

   2.1.4. Return to the rampart

   2.1.5. Palaces: glory and demise

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

2.2. Brands dominate the center 

   2.2.1. Palais-Royal now

   2.2.2. A left-bank oasis that evokes the recent past

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

2.3. Vitality on the other side of the tracks 

   2.3.1. Europe's "Chinatown"

   2.3.2. The east, where new worlds emerge

  2.3.3. Rue Saint-Denis, the royal route

     2.3.3.a. Medieval spirits linger

     2.3.3.b. The street that asserted royal power

     2.3.3.c. Rebel areas' sudden mutation

     2.3.3.d. A hinterland for criminals, nobles and garment district

     2.3.3.e. Louis XIV's arc looms over the route

     2.3.3.f. Toward the horizon

     2.3.3.g. Immigrants vitalize tradition

 

   2.3.4. « Barbès don't panic »

   2.3.5. The unhailed energies of La Goutte d'Or 

      2.3.5.a. A traditional setting 

      2.3;5.b. Arts known mainly to neighbors

      2.3.5.c. A couturier for Kenzo and Paco Rabanne

      2.3.5.d. First steps in another land

      2.3.5.e. "Looks," a sociable art

      2.3.5.f. Textiles and tailors

      2.3.5.g. Gentrification with brakes

      2.3.5.h. The neighborhood keeps it soul

      2.3.5. i. "The emerging design hub of Paris"

      2.3.5.j. A changed context: suddenly visible Blacks 

      2.3.5.k. Tomorrow's destination?

      2.3.5.l. A neighborhood Gertrude Stein would have appreciated

Making oneself a composition: An art that immigrants invent.

2.4.
Family visits

2.4.1. Kids follow signs and pictures

2.4.2. A wood where children play

2.4.3. New horizons

2.4.4. The Louvre with kids (or without them)

Finding the key to this iconic painting encourages observation.

2.5. Nobles, gods and heros

2.5.1. Mythology: nobles resist capitalists' challenge

2.5.2. Histoire, by anecdotes or economies?

2.5.3. The modernity of the gods

III. 
Why is a city without natural beauty so grand?

III.1. Majesty on a human scale, forgotten gift of kings

   3.1.1. A parade route changes course 

   3.1.2  The milestones and their meanings

   3.1.3. A design inconceivable elsewhere
   3.1.4. The royal imprint blossoms

   3.1.5.The curtain falls on feudal kingship

III.2. A modern royal city

III.3. Have the kings become subversive?

IV. 

A city of revolt and massacre

How fear of insurrection broadened the beauty the kings began

A passage that let the army invade working-class territory

4.1. "Objective history sticks to the facts:" Which facts ?

   4.1.1. 1830, the peopled fooled

   4.1.2. 1848, the people fooled again

   4.1.3. Workers' first conscious revolt and modern Europe's first massacre 

   4.1.4. The City Museum and the insurrections

4.2. Fear, unlikely promoter of urban grandeur

        4.2.a. The metamorphosis seen up close
        4.2. b. Gifts of the repression

4.3. The changes turn out to be useless: La Commune

A watershed that is skipped as much as possible

   4.3.1. Egalitarianism breaks through

       4.3.1.a. A most unlikely revolution

       4.3.1.b. Not an insurrection — an implosion

       4.3.1.c. Civil war and carnage

       4.3.1.d. Ruins, revenge and evolution

       4.3.1.e. Mystification

       4.3.1.f.  An omen and a turning point

4.3.2. Fraternity that worked

Women meet during La Commune

IV.4.
A Communard bastion erased and transformed: the overlooked 13th district

Why is this street long, wide and straight? Why does it lead to a church?

4.4.1. Streets where the past is deleted

4.4.2. An epicenter of misery

4.4.3. A past that is forgotten yet indelible

4.4.4. What happened? The war did

4.4.5. The obscure 13th, home base for a stay?

V. 
When observation and the usual story clash

V.1. What Opéra tours won't say

   5.1.1. A palace for a new elite

   5.2.1. Backers, sex and money

   5.3.1. Blackout

This ceiling of backers' private salon is decorated by an orgy. Few notice.

V.2. From nymphs to Nazis: How the Opéra saved the City of Love

VI.
"Don't you have an agenda?" 

VII.

"You're teaching Communism to the police!"

*    *    *

The sequel, History from fresh perspectives,

 shows how placing events in their economic contexts

can transform their meanings. 

Harald Wolff

Now, how tangible factors help you

 find your way in Paris.

*     *     *

Next,

I.

Setting the scene