IMAGINE A MOVIE PLACED IN THE GARDENS TODAY...

WITH AS ACTORS PEOPLE ONE MIGHT CROSS  

These young women would be visiting boutiques.

These students from Luxembourg would be Stendhal's Lucien de Rubempré and Julien Sorel, handsome young provincials who make their way in Paris.

A professor of philosophy could be in a scene with café discussions...

And actors would perform their shows.

At nightfall, émigrés who had secretly returned as spies or makers of false paper money, would knock at the discreet door of « n° 50 ».

It was a distinguished gambling den, for Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe, grand-niece of the Duke of Saint-Simon and member of the former court of Versailles, had created it to adapt to the Revolution and received the émigrés by paying off the police.   

Portrait of Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe by  L.C. Carmontelle, 1775 / Ces dames de Sainte-Amaranthe (click and scroll down for account in French).

So long as Danton protected her she was untouchable, but when he was guillotined so was she.

Les Libertines, plaisir et liberté à l'époque des Lumières

by Olivier Blanc, chapter 1, 1997

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The reality was often tragic. Besides that story, think of the priests awaiting gamblers' confessions.

But this movie would show a joyous place...

 

Dancing in the courtyard of editors and bookstores.

And have a happy ending.

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Next,

Moving on