Elysian Editions, September 2006
ISBN: 0871272873
Cloth bound, 320 pages 6" x 9" - ebook
What did Paris look like nine centuries ago, when Peter Abelard was teaching rowdy students by day and making love to Helose by night? How had it changed by the time Jeanne of Arc trained her army's cannons on Paris' city walls? Where can you find the tomb of the little lost dauphin, the heir of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette? And which American princess became a foremost patron of the arts in Belle Epoque Paris?
McAuliffe answers these and many other questions in a delightful account of her Paris explorations, which have taken her from the top of Notre-Dame to the medieval aqueducts that still lie beneath the city's streets. With a keen awareness of place as well as history, she has walked in the footsteps of some of Paris' most celebrated visitors and residents, from Napoleon and Sarah Bernhardt to George Gershwin, Ernest Hemingway, and Gertrude Stein.
McAuliffe takes the reader with her as she discovers the sites along the Seine that inspired the first Impressionists, and finds the Paris that charmed Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams. She also admits the reader into some of Paris' secrets, such as a hidden medieval chapel, a long-lost river, and a stairway that leads downward into passageways from long ago.
Vividly written and generously illustrated, with a detailed orientation map, Paris Discovered will delight anyone wanting to learn more about Paris, whether armchair travelers, first-time visitors, or those already familiar with the City of Light.
“Mary goes where no American writer has gone before. With historical precision and boundless passion, she reveals a Paris we never knew existed.”
–Mark Eversman, publisher Paris Notes
Paris Discovered
Explorations in the City of Light
By Mary McAuliffe