Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris

by Graham Robb

Overview

The New York Times bestseller: the secrets of the City of Light, revealed in the lives of the great, the near-great, and the forgotten—by the author of the acclaimed The Discovery of France.

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 Bohème, 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393339734
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	04/11/2011
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	476
Sales rank:	584,872
Product dimensions:	8.02(w) x 5.48(h) x 0.92(d)

About the Author

Graham Robb is the author of three prize-winning biographies, each selected as New York Times Best Books. His books, including The Discovery of Middle Earth, Parisians, and The Discovery of France, have earned several awards. He lives on the Anglo-Scottish border.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Map xii

Departure 1

One Night at the Palais-Royal 9

The Man Who Saved Paris 25

Lost 43

Restoration 61

Files of the Sûreté 91

A Property in Bohemia 113

Marville 135

Regression 157

Madame Zola 175

Marcel in the Métro 199

The Notre-Dame Equation 217

A Little Tour of Paris 247

Occupation 269

Lovers of Saint-Germain-des-Prés 285

The Day of the Fox 315

Expanding the Domain of the Possible 347

Périphérique 381

Sarko, Bouna and Zyed 403

Terminus: The North Col 423

Chronology 437

Sources 447

Index of Paris and Conurbation 463

General Index 471

Acknowledgements 477

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Simon Vance narrates the history with an eloquent British-accented voice that leaves room for human moments and humor.... The strong sense of place in Robb's descriptions may make listeners feel like they're visiting the City of Lights." —-AudioFile

Editorial Reviews

"Robb’s stylish and stylized tale of the town turns you into a sightseer, visiting the past, uncovering what time has hidden and observing anew what’s there. It’s a tantalizing tour. Robb wanders but is never lost."

Newsday

"Ingenious...Marvelously entertaining, boundlessly energetic and original...This book is the sort of triumph that we have no right to expect to come from anyone in the steady way that Robb's masterly books come from him."

Daily Telegraph - Philip Hensher

"Robb, in employing the techniques of the novelist, animates his characters mainly for 'the pleasure of thinking about Paris.' That pleasure is also the reader's."

The New York Times Book Review - Brenda Wineapple

"[Robb] has proved himself to be one of the more unusual and appealing historians currently striding the planet. In a better world his books would be best sellers everywhere....His book—argumentative, gallant, parked athwart oncoming historical traffic, as if on a dare—is as Parisian and as bracing as a freshly mixed Pernod and water."

The New York Times - Dwight Garner

[Robb] is an encyclopedia of French history. But this is no ordinary history book. Although the form varies—one chapter, for example, is presented as a film script—the book is a series of character portraits in chronological order, evolving into a rich and layered history of one of the great mythological cities of the world…Charles Dickens once complained that an essay lacked "the elegant play of fancy." Robb could never be accused of this shortcoming. His fancy plays across Parisian history, darting down every alley and into the minds of kings, novelists and painters.
—The Washington Post

Michael Sims

Although Robb often narrates various sections from the point of view of his characters, inhabiting them and fudging, to a certain extent, the line between traditional history and make-believe, his characters don't sound alike, which can be a hazard when a historian affects the pose of a novelist. Robb claims he wrote with "a flavor of the time in mind," and insists he didn't insert anything artificial into his stories. That Parisians required as much research as his earlier, more conventionally structured book The Discovery of France is evident on every page. Yet if Parisians resembles Simon Schama's Dead Certainties, which is also about the limits of historical knowledge, Robb, in employing the techniques of the novelist, animates his characters mainly for "the pleasure of thinking about Paris." That pleasure is also the reader's.
—The New York Times Book Review

Brenda Wineapple

…a pointillist and defiantly nonlinear history of Paris from the dawn of the French Revolution through the 2005 riots in Clichy-sous-Bois, told from a variety of unlikely perspectives and focusing on lesser-known but reverberating moments in the city's history…Mr. Robb's prose is fleet and ingenious…His good humor is infectious.
—The New York Times

Dwight Garner

This audiobook version of Graham Robb's volume of strange-but-true Parisian narratives offers listeners a fascinating history that is frequently encumbered by heavy-handed, often overblown narration from Simon Vance. Robb offers a series of bizarre tales that touch on everything from the first sexual experience of Napoleon Bonaparte to the creation of the Catacombes de Paris, but Vance narrates as if all of Parisian history is weighing on him: his reading is too grand, overly inflated, and pompous, his French accent frequently fails to ring true, and it simply sounds as if he is trying too hard to narrate what should have been an intriguing and charming audiobook. A Norton hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 1). (May)

Publishers Weekly

"A superior historical guidebook for the unhurried traveler, and altogether a book to savor."

The Independent

"Graham Robb's new book is so richly pleasurable that you feel it might emit a warm glow if you left it in a dark room. Essentially it is a collection of true stories, culled from Robb's insatiable historical reading and lit by his imagination. He has the passion of a naturalist displaying a wall of rare butterflies or a cabinet of exotic corals, but his specimens are all human and walked the streets of Paris at some point between the French revolution and now...[A] generous and humane book."

"Book of the Week" - The Times [London] - John Carey

"Simon Vance narrates the history with an eloquent British-accented voice that leaves room for human moments and humor.... The strong sense of place in Robb's descriptions may make listeners feel like they're visiting the City of Lights." ---AudioFile

From the Publisher

To Whitbread Book Award-winning biographer Robb (Victor Hugo), Paris is clearly "a miraculous creation where even the quietest street is crowded with adventures." Serious Francophiles who share his point of view may enjoy this quirky journey through time and space. Part history, part travelog, part "Ripley's Believe It or Not!," this creative historical geography takes us on a tour of Paris via a series of chronologically arranged vignettes stretching from the eve of the Revolution of 1789 to the present. Through the use of rich imagery, masterly attention to detail, and basically good storytelling, the book records a series of moments and meetings when characters both obscure and famous interacted with key landmarks like the Palais Royal, Notre Dame, or Place de la Concorde. Robb artfully re-creates the drama and turmoil of key events like the bloody horrors of the Commune, De Gaulle's triumphant 1944 entry into Paris, or the tumultuous student demonstrations of May 1968. This is not history as such but a creative montage of how history, individuals, and geography intersected at key moments in Paris. The results may interest those who share "the pleasure of thinking about Paris." VERDICT For serious Francophiles or large, specialized collections in French history and culture.—Marie Marmo Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., N.J.

Library Journal

Graham Robb's "mini human comedy of Paris" takes the city from the French Revolution to recent times through the lives of its people. Simon Vance narrates the history with an eloquent British-accented voice that leaves room for human moments and humor. He gives a lively tone to stories such as Marie Antoinette's flight from Paris and the rise of Vidocq, the ex-con who headed the Sûreté. Elsewhere, he lingers reflectively over the description of an old photo and captures the poignancy of the experiences of Jewish Parisians during WWII. The strong sense of place in Robb's descriptions may make listeners feel like they're visiting the City of Lights. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

JULY 2010 - AudioFile