Into A Paris Quartier

by Diane Johnson

  There are numberless books about Paris. Among the many I have profited from consulting, the following have been especially useful, and may be so to the reader, chief among them Jacques Hillairet’s Dictionnaire Historique des Rues de Paris, a compendious and heavy two volumes of history and architectural detail that exist also in a paperback abridgement, Connaissance du Vieux Paris, that makes an invaluable companion on any walk in any neighborhood of the city. The (green) Guide Michelin for Paris is helpful and well organized, and there are numerous books of Parisian walks to be enjoyed, all covering roughly the same historic places, each discovering one or two offbeat surprises that differ from others. And Brian N. Morton’s Americans in Paris is a fascinating door-to-door look at the Paris of our American forebears. I have used the Gutenberg project edition of Queen Margot’s memoirs in an 1813 translation, as well as her Memoires et Lettres (London, 1966). Other books are mentioned in the text, among them Leonard Pitt’s photos in Promenades dans le Paris disparu, Steven Barclay’s anthology A Place in the World Called Paris, Boris Vian’s Manual of St.-Germain-des-Prés, the various works of Zola and Dumas, Joseph Roth’s Report from a Parisian Paradise, Edmund White’s Le Flâneur, and many more. And above all, Emmanuel Schwartz’s La Chapelle de l’École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, the only book about the chapel, the origin of this essay.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I hardly know how to begin thanking the many people who have helped with this book; lots of friends have pitched in with ideas and anecdotes and have lent me books and photos. I’d like to mention in particular the French ones, for I’m sure it must have required extra patience on their part to fill in a backward American on all the things a French person already knows: Mme. Philippe Aghion, Annick Baudoin, Mr. M. N. Bodiansky, Marie-Claude de Brunhoff, M. and Mme. E. de Bresson, David and Marcel Fleiss, the Fourest family, Hélène Maury, the staff of the Bibliothèque Mazarine, that of the Tabac des Beaux-Arts, Maître Jean-Jacques Ploquin, Mme. V. Debieuvre; and then, American friends who know a lot about the neighborhood: Mary Blume, Leonard Pitt, Arthur Hall Smith, Sally Williams-Allen, Drusilla Walsh. From afar, Diana Ketcham. Members of my family: two architects—Amanda Johnson and her husband, architect Jean-François Blassel—and art historian Darcy Tell have clarified various architectural mysteries for me. John Murray has been a cheerful companion on neighborhood walks. I’ve mentioned in the text and afterward a number of books that have been invaluable. It goes without saying that mistakes are mine alone.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DIANE JOHNSON is a bestselling novelist, travel writer, and essayist. She holds a Ph.D. from UCLA and is the author of the National Book Award–nominated Lesser Lives and Le Divorce, as well as the acclaimed novels Le Mariage and L’Affaire. She currently divides her time between Paris and San Francisco.

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