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Category Archives: Paris history
Eking out a living on the streets of Paris
Paris has a reputation as a city of glitz and glamour. But in the early 20th century, beneath the glamour, many barely survived from day to day. In London, journalist and reformer Henry Mayhew had written a multi-volume study, London … Continue reading
The scavengers
Major nineteenth-century cities such as Paris or London depended on complex ecosystems in which the showiest sometimes obscured underlying layers. Consider a city in which by 1900 it was said that as many as 300,000 cigars (perhaps the number included … Continue reading
Monsieur Rochefort and his surprising typewriters
When Martin, my typewriter collector friend, invited me to see “a little something from Paris,” I had never heard of the Dactyle typewriter. Nor did I realize I was about to learn the story of a French engineer/inventor who helped … Continue reading
The Paris Bridge That Never Was
It should have been the pride of Paris; a stunning suspension bridge leaping clear across the Seine. It should have been one of the crown jewels of both Paris and the career of Claude Navier, one of 19th-century France’s most … Continue reading
Paris Bridges: Mirrors of History
More than beautiful ornaments and a way to cross the Seine, Paris bridges are mirrors of history. They reflect impermanence, bad weather, political turbulence, and much more. The Pont au Change that exists today was built in 1858-1860. As the … Continue reading
Posted in Paris bridges, Paris history
Tagged Augustus Charles Pugin, Cécile Renaudin, Felix Thorigny, Les Grandes Catastrophes à Paris, Paris and its Environs, Paris de Pont en Pont, Pont au Change, Pont d'Austerlitz, Pont de la Concorde, Pont des Arts, Pont Louis XVI, Pont Neuf, Pont Royal, Saint-André-des-Arts, Serge Montens, Sophie-Marguerite
7 Comments
Pugin’s Picturesque Paris
For us, no trip to Paris is complete without time browsing through racks, boxes or bins of old engravings of Paris. We find them at antique fairs, flea markets, galleries, book stores and many other places. Quite a few were … Continue reading
Posted in Paris art, Paris history
Tagged Alexander Books, Andrea Quinlan, Augustus Charles Pugin, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, Canal de l’Ourcq, Charles Heath, Fontaine de l’éléphant, Gordon Russell, Henry IV, Jennings and Chaplin, Kate Murdoch, L.T. Ventouillac, Lead shot, Marie de Medici, Napoleon Bonaparte, Paris and its Environs, Place Vendôme, Pont Neuf, Robert Jennings, Taylor-Murdoch-Beatty bookbinders, Toronto International Antiquarian Book Fair, Tour St. Jacques, William Watts
11 Comments
Lutetia, viewed by a 19th-century historian
I have a weakness – no, a fondness – no, a passion for old maps of Paris. On a visit a year or so ago, I bought three old maps from an antiquarian bookseller. During our annual New Year’s tidy-up, … Continue reading
Posted in Paris history, Paris maps
Tagged Abbaye St-Germain, aqueducts, Arènes de Lutèce, Bièvre River, Bibliothèque Nationale, Carnavalet Museum, cippe antique, Clos de Lias, Cluny Museum, Cybèle, Gregory of Tours, Histoire physique civile et morale de Paris depuis les premiers temps historiques jusqu'à nos jours, Ile de la Cité, Ile Louviers, Jacques Antoine Dulaure, Jacques-Marie Hacq, Jean-Pierre Adam, jeu de mail, La Petite Seine, Lutèce, Lutetia, Mont Locutitius, Musée des monnaies médailles et antiques, Notre Dame Cathedral, Palais des Thermes, Philippe Velay, Place Tudella, Prison de Glaucin, Roman-era Paris, St Bacchus, St-Benoit-le-Bétourné, Tour de Marquefas, Victor Hugo
13 Comments
Remembering the Great Paris Flood of 1910
This blog is dedicated to my son Alex, his wife Dawn, and their two children who, on September 12, 2013, were evacuated from a home to which they can not return to escape the ravages of the Colorado flood. With … Continue reading


















