CHRON OF OLD PARIS #: Exploring the Historic City of Light (Museyon Guides) - Softcover

Baxter, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0984633421 ISBN 13: 9780984633425

Verlag: MUSEYON INC, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

Discover one of the world’s most fascinating and beautiful cities through 30 dramatic true stories spanning the rich history of Paris. John Baxter takes readers through 2,000 years of French history with tales of the kings, queens, saints, and sinners who shaped the city. Essays explore the major historic events from the martyrdom of Saint Denis near today’s Abbesses Métro station to the epic romances of Heloise and Abelard, Josephine and Napoleon, and George Sand and Frédéric Chopin. Learn about the labyrinth of catacombs snaking under all of Paris and the artists who called the seedy Montmartre home in the 19th century. Then see it all for yourself with guided walking tours of each of Paris’s historic neighborhoods, illustrated with color photographs and period maps.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

John Baxter is an Australian writer, journalist, and filmmaker. He is the author of The Golden Moments of Paris, Immoveable Feast: A Paris Christmas, The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris, and We&;ll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light.

John Baxter is an Australian-born writer, journalist and filmmaker; he has called Paris home since 1989. He is the author of numerous books including the autobiographical Immoveable feast: A Paris Christmas, We'll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light and the blockbuster The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris.

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Chronicles of Old Paris

Exploring the Historic City of Light

By John Baxter

Museyon, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 John Baxter
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-9846334-2-5

Contents

CHAPTER 1. Losing Your Head. The Long Walk of Saint Denis, 
CHAPTER 2. Latin Lovers. Héloïse and Abelard, 
CHAPTER 3. Libertine. The Divine Marquis de Sade, 
CHAPTER 4. Let Them Eat Cake. The Misunderstood Marie Antoinette, 
CHAPTER 5. "Like A Breath On The Back of Your Neck" The Useful Invention of Dr. Guillotin, 
CHAPTER 6. The General and His Lady. Napoleon Bonaparte and Joséphine, 
CHAPTER 7. Passion's Playthings. George Sand and Frédéric Chopin, 
CHAPTER 8. A Novel In Stone. Notre Dame and Her Guardian, 
CHAPTER 9. A La Dame Aux Camélias. Marie Duplessis, 
CHAPTER 10. The Devine Creator. The Eccentric Career of Félix Nadar, 
CHAPTER 11. The Night They Ate Elephant. The Siege of Paris, 
CHAPTER 12. Arise, You Wretched of The Earth. The Paris Commune, 
CHAPTER 13. The Emperor of Chefs. Georges Auguste Escoffier, 
CHAPTER 14. The Opéra Garnier. One Man's Glittering Vision, 
CHAPTER 15. Man of Iron. The Tower of Gustave Eiffel, 
CHAPTER 16. Montmartre and Toulouse-Lautrec. Aristocrat Untamed, 
CHAPTER 17. A Touch of The Strange. Maurice Utrillo and the Painters of Montmartre, 
CHAPTER 18. Elle Est Partie! The Theft of The Mona Lisa, 
CHAPTER 19. The Cork-Lined Room. The Past Time of Marcel Proust, 
CHAPTER 20. "Lafayette, We Are Here!" America and France in World War I, 
CHAPTER 21. Shooting Into The Crowd. Surrealism, 
CHAPTER 22. Coco Chanel. Little Black Dressmaker, 
CHAPTER 23. The Importance of Being Ernest. Hemingway in Paris, 
CHAPTER 24. The Sadness of St. Louis. Django Reinhardt and Le Jazz Hot, 
CHAPTER 25. The Black Pearl. She Proved Black was Beautiful, 
CHAPTER 26. General of the Army of the Night. Jean Moulin and The World War II Resistance, 
CHAPTER 27. The Gone World. Paris and The Beat Generation, 
CHAPTER 28. The New Wave. Truth 24 Times a Second, 
CHAPTER 29. Beauty is in the Streets. The Student Revolution of 1968, 
WALKING TOURS, 
Opéra and Grands Boulevards, 
Pigalle, 
Montmartre, 
Latin Quarter & Notre Dame, 
Saint-Germain-Des-Prés & Odéon, 
The Luxembourg Gardens, 
Montparnasse, 
Eiffel Tower, Napoleon's Tomb and Rodin Museum, 
INDEX, 

CHAPTER 1

LOSING YOUR HEAD

THE LONG WALK OF SAINT DENIS

On the front of Notre-Dame de Paris, to the left of the main door, stands the statue of a man holding his own severed head. A halo behind his neck indicates where the head used to sit. He is Saint Denis (pronounced Der-ny), the patron saint of France. His expression is as relaxed as one would expect from someone who, after decapitation, walked four miles holding his head while it delivered a sermon.

Evidence of this story is understandably flimsy. A Denys or Dionysius did arrive in Lutèce or Lutetia, the site that would become Paris, around the year 250. He had been sent from Rome by Pope Fabian on a mission to convert the pagans of what was then Gaul. Rome still ruled northern Europe, and Lutèce was an important outpost. Nervous about rival belief systems, the emperor Decius was determined to stamp out Christianity in the provinces. His local representative, governor Sisinnius Fesceninus, watched uneasily as Denis installed himself on the Île de Saint-Louis, near the present site of Notre Dame, declared himself bishop and began to offer masses.

A charismatic speaker, Denis soon had a large and lively congregation, which he encouraged to smash the shrines of Rome's official gods. Local priests demanded action from Sisinnius, who summoned Denis and his two lieutenants, Rusticus and Eleutherius, and ordered them to recant in the approved fashion: by making a sacrifice to the pagan deities. They refused, even after being elaborately tortured. Accounts claim they were scourged, racked, thrown to wild beasts and burned at the stake.

Sisinnius then ordered them beheaded before the temple to Mercury, on the highest point in the city. The soldiers charged with the task decided to save themselves the climb and kill Denis and his men at the foot of the hill, known forever after as Montmartre – the hill of the martyr. Denis, however, was as stubborn in death as in life. After the swordsman severed his head, it's said he picked it up and walked towards the summit of the hill, pausing only to wash the blood from his head at a spring. As he did so, the severed head preached a sermon on love and forgiveness. Still preaching, he strolled another four miles to the village of Catolacus. Arriving at the home of a parishioner, a wealthy woman named Catulla, he handed her his head and died at her feet. She buried him on the spot. Wheat and other plants sprouted miraculously from the grave – proof, claimed his followers, of his divine powers.

There are enough authentic details in this story to suggest it's based, however remotely, on fact. Some accounts suggest the swordsman missed his mark and sliced off only the top of his skull – by no means rare; executioners were notoriously inept. Such slipshod work may explain why he didn't die immediately, since not all such head wounds are immediately fatal. As for wheat growing on the grave, grasses and flowers often sprout from freshly dug earth as buried seeds germinate.

As Rome's influence waned and Christianity spread through the Frankish kingdom that replaced it, the former bishop became venerated throughout Christendom. His death was a popular subject for artists. Sculptors filled the vacant space above his neck with vines, signifying the plants that grew on his grave. Painters preferred to show him decapitated on the steps of a temple more lavish than anything found in a provincial backwater like Lutèce.

By the outbreak of bubonic plague known as the Black Death in the 14th century, Saint Denis had became one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers – saints known for their influence in curing sickness. It was widely believed that a prayer to Denis would fix a headache, since he'd been beheaded. Because of his calm in the face of death, he was also credited with subduing the frenzy of rabies and even calming demonic possession.

In about 475, Saint Genevieve erected a church on the spot where Denis finally died at Catolacus. Over the next four centuries, it metamorphosed into a Gothic cathedral – Europe's first. The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Denis became the traditional site for the coronation of France's queens and the burial place of royalty – an ironic development, since the town of Saint-Denis, which grew up around the basilica, developed into a center of left-wing political activity. In modern times, it has become a bastion of the Communist Party, an important element of the "red belt" around Paris.

In Paris, Catulla built a modest shrine on the site of Denis's decapitation. Dagobert I, king of the Franks from 628 to 637, turned it into an abbey, which incorporated a Sanctum Martyrium or Martyr's Chapel. Before interring the remains of Denis and his disciples in the crypt under the Sanctum Martyrium, Dagobert placed them in miniature silver coffins. It was the start of a troubled history for the bones; some time in the 12 century, the coffins disappeared. Soon, many churches claimed to possess Denis's skull, or the top of it, a relic they believed had...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: MUSEYON INC
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2007
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0984633421
• ISBN 13: 9780984633425
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
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