The first time Alistair Horne saw Paris, his impression was less than favorable. It was 1947, he was a British soldier on leave, and both the city and the natives were unwelcoming.
"It was physically cold, and it was suffering a terrible austerity after the war," he says. "And I found the people cold. I was terribly snubbed by an old girlfriend of my father's, which put me off Parisians."
Horne's disenchantment didn't last long. While a foreign correspondent for the London Daily Telegraph, he gave Paris a second chance. By 1970, he had fallen in love with Paris, even as it became apparent the city and Parisians were maddeningly unpredictable.
"You never get what you expect," he says. "If you expect to have a red carpet, you get kicked in the teeth, or something more painful. If you expect to be kicked in teeth, you get the most wonderful generosity and surprising warmth."
The history of Paris is similarly unanticipated, especially for those who view the city in its current, romantic state. Horne's "The Seven Ages of Paris" (Knopf, $35) tells the history of the French capital from the time it was a small isle in the middle of the Seine River to the late 1960s, when students rioted in the streets.
Horne, who also has written books on Algeria; Verdun, France; Austerlitz, Czech Republic; and Napoleon, illustrates the seaminess inherent in any major city that has survived for nearly 2,000 years. He unearths stories that surprise in their squalor — tales of disease, famine, war, political machinations, incestuous relationships among royalty, and religious intolerance.
Yet Horne finds much to like and admire. There are the builders:
There are the characters whose names still resonate with familiarity: Cardinal Richelieu, Louis XIV, the Sun King and, of course, Napoleon.
Most of all, there's a sense that Horne enjoyed the 25 years it took to write his book.
"Dr. (Samuel) Johnson said about London that anybody who was bored with London is bored with life itself," he says. "I think he would say that much more so about Paris. It's impossible to be bored by Paris. You can be infuriated by the Parisians, but in Paris, there's always something new."
What emerges from Horne's work is a portrait of a city that has endured through the years despite its vulnerability. Unlike London, Washington, D.C., or New York City, the history of Paris is inextricable from France. The city has always been vulnerable — threatened by Norsemen in the ninth century, from the "wicked English" in the early centuries of the second millennium, and from Spaniards in the time of Henri IV. Then there were the struggles with Germany — in 1870 and both world wars.
"I think this had an enormous effect on the Parisian mentality," he says, "where you've got, on the one hand, tremendous longing for authority, which brings certainty and security. On the other hand, there's very much a Latin spirit, a revolt against all authority."
Horne admits his seven ages are arbitrary, and he skips over the French Revolution, because, as he writes in the book's introduction, what is there that is new⢠He ends the book at 1969, because he feels the next age, the current one, is not yet finished.
What Horne does cover is related to readers in the style of a grandfather telling his grandchildren an old folk tale. He meanders and digresses but never fails to fascinate, whether he's writing about the glorious Belle Epoque of the late 19th century, the arrival of American expatriate Josephine Baker or the medieval scourges of the Black Death and the Hundreds Years War.
Although his native England and America are dear to him — he was brought up partly in Millbrook, N.Y., and owes his love of history to his education there — France is his nearest neighbor, and Paris its heart. Horne advises that one must travel to the City of Light to truly appreciate it.
"Life would be very tedious if all contact was cut off," he says. "I came back from America (to England) when I was 17 in 1943 and joined up. And that was a terrible time, because we were cut off from France. I think we all suffered from that deprivation."
| The book |
| Get to know Paris |
Perhaps no foreigner knows Paris better than Alistair Horne, who has spent uncountable hours exploring the French capital.
His advice for first-time — and repeat — visitors to the City of Light is to start off by getting in shape.
"First of all, go in good weather, with a good pair of shoes," he says. "Forget about taxis, and certainly don't take a car. Walk everywhere. It's a very small city, rather like Manhattan, where you can walk and cover enormous distances in a short time."
Horne advises starting at the city's east end, near Marais, "one of the most magical squares in Europe," built by Henri IV. From there, explore old Paris, the Jewish and Muslim quarters.
