Mary McAuliffe

Paris Discovered

Explorations in the City of Light

What did Paris look like nine centuries ago, when Peter Abelard was teaching rowdy students by day and making love to Héloïse by night?

Uncovering the Paris that charmed Thomas Jefferson in the 18th century and George Gershwin in the 20th, this guide — written by an historian and based on personal exploration, old maps, and documents — offers 50 walking destinations, many unfamiliar even to Parisians. Several excursions evoke the spirit of an age past by exploring the haunts of Héloïse and Abélard, Frédéric Chopin, the Impressionist painters, and the American expatriates of the 1920s. Images of the French Revolution are conjured by the neighborhoods of Les Misérables and the mystery of the lost dauphin. Other tours of the very earliest houses and churches — along with waterworks, medieval walls, and an underground river — provide a fascinating view into a thousand years of infrastructure.