Paris and Her Remarkable Women: A Guide

To visit a city is to wander through its stories and glimpse its ghosts. This book evokes Paris from the Middle Ages through the twentieth century through ten exceptional women whose lives intersected with Paris in remarkable ways and whose eventual fame depended on the city itself. The women profiled include: Mme. Roland, St. Genevieve, Marie Curie, Coco Chanel, Mme. de Sevigne, Heloise, Christine de Pizan, Catherine de Medici, Emilie du Chatelet, Francoise d'Aubigne, Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun, Eliza Felix, George Sand, Sarah Bernhardt, Colette, Simone de Beauvoir, and Camille Claudel. Their stories bring to life medieval culture, Enlightenment ideas, the court of Louis XIV, the chaos of the Revolution, the nineteenth-century art scene, and twentieth-century breakthroughs in science and fashion. Whenever possible, the author allows these women to speak for themselves. The sites associated with each women are located in the central parts of Paris that most visitors explore, and even those women whom most people thought they knew may prove surprising.