Paris [antikvár]

Introduction Romantic . . . glamorous . . . when it comes to summing up Paris, there is no escaping the cUches. Can any city offer a more seductive range of experiences than seeing the towers of Notre-Dame etched against a winter sky; sitting in its gardens beneath the drifting cheny blossom m spring; strolling the riverside quais on a summer evening as dusk thickens under the trees; or climbing the legendary lanes and stairways of Montmartre. If glamour includes theatricality and a measure of deceit, of hiding what is shabby or commonplace under a veneer of luxury, no other city is better at putting on the style. Look at the great images of pomp and magnificence: the Louvre and the Champs-Élysées, the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, the Esplanade des Invalides and the church of the Madeleine, and the huge sweeping avenues that connect them. Look at the dazzling architecture of President Mitterrand's reign: the Louvre's glass pyramid, the Grande Arche de la Défense, La Villette. Look, indeed, at the manners and appearance of the people: their ineffable elegance and sexiness, and their attachment to fashion, which the Anglo-Saxon may prudishly dismiss as posing, but which to a Parisian is simply a matter of playing a part in the great game of keeping up appearances. All of which is only to be expected in the capital of a country that was for centuries the richest, most powerful and most populous state in Europe. It was also a highly centralised one, in which all the nation's wealth and talent was drawn to Paris. UiUike the EngUsh court, which liked to pretend it was at least half a country bumpkin, the French court was never in any doubt about its attachment to civUised, essentially urbane pleasures: art and intellect, food and sex, material comfort and fme furnishings. The city was designed to mirror this power, to be the physical embodiment of these values, and consequently had to develop the skills and trades to support their needs. In doing so it became a city of superlative craftsmen, establishing a tradition of quality and meticulous attention to detail that remains evident today - in luxury fashion goods, in the display and preparation of food, in fme