PARIS
We think of Paris as la ville lumière, and it is unthinkable that the word could be attached to London, Rome or even Athens.
—ROBERT PAYNE,
The Splendor of France
I thought everyone should see Paris, if just once. Paris galvanizes you, makes you think of better things, be a better person.
—DEIRDRE KELLY,
Paris Times Eight
On a corner the smell of fresh croissants wafts from a patisserie. Time to get dressed. In a greengrocer’s shop two men are arranging fruit and vegetables as if they were millinery. An uncle in a café is looking through a magnifying glass at the stock prices in the morning paper. He doesn’t have to ask for the cup of coffee which is brought to him. The last street is being washed. Where’s the towel, Maman? This strange question floats into the mind because the heart of Paris is like nothing so much as the unending interior of a house. Buildings become furniture, courtyards become carpets and arrases, the streets are like galleries, the boulevards conservatories. It is a house, one or two centuries old, rich, bourgeois, distinguished … Paris is a mansion. Its dreams are the most urban and the most furnished in the world.
—JOHN BERGER,
“Imagine Paris,”
Keeping a Rendezvous
