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2Ghosts

Paris issufficientlycompact thatyoucancross itwithease, in a few hours, and it has no grid, forestallingmonotony.Itvirtuallydemandsthatyouwalkitslengthandbreadth;onceyouget started it’s hard to stop.Asyou stride along you are notmerely a pedestrian in acity—youareareadernegotiatingavast textspanningcenturies and the traces of a billion hands, and like anarrativeitpullsyoualong,continuallyluringyouwiththemysteryofthenextcorner.Paris contains some 3,195 streets, 330 passages (a

term that encompasses both arcades and alleys), 314avenues, 293 impasses, 189 villas (an enclosedmansion,or agroupingofhousesnotunlikeamews),142 cités (a contained development, sometimescarefullydesignedandsometimesaslum),139squares,108 boulevards, 64 courts, 52 quays, 30 bridges, 27ports, 22 galeries (arcades), 13 allées, 7 hameaux(literally “hamlets”), 7 lanes, 7 paths, 5 ways, 5peristyles, 5 roundabouts, 3 courses, three sentes

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(anothervariationon“path”or“way”),2chaussées(anancient termmore or less cognatewith “highway”), 2couloirs (literally“hallways”),1parvis(anopenspaceinfrontofachurch,inthiscaseNotre-Dame),1cheminderonde (araisedwalkwaybehindthebattlementofacastle), and11 small,undefinedpassageways.At leastthose were the figures in 1957; since then quite anumberofthesmallerentitieshavebeenobliteratedbyurban renewal, while others have been confected bythoseorothermeans.Acountmade in1992gives thetotalnumberofParisianthoroughfaresas5,414,whichis 133 more than there were twenty years earlier andnearly1,700morethanin1865,whenthecity’spresentlimitswerefixed.

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Thefrontispiece,byCélestinNanteuil,forLesruesdeParis(G.Kugelmann,1844)

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BoulevarddeMénilmontant,circa1910

Sometimes the histories of streets are inscribed intheir names: Rue des Petites-Écuries because it oncecontained small stables, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire(DaughtersofCalvary)afterareligiousorderthatoncewas cloistered there, Rue du Télégraphe marking theemplacement during the revolution of a long-distancecommunicationdevicethatfunctionedthroughrelaysofpoles with semaphore extensions. Sometimes streetsnamed by long-ago committees take on a certainswagger from their imposed labels: the once-lively,nowadaysflavorlessRuedePâli-Kaogivena touchofthe exotic (the name is that of a battle in the SecondOpium War, in 1860), the stark and drab (and onceextraordinarily bleak, owing to the presence ofenormous gas tanks)Rue de l’Évangile endowedwiththe gravity of the Gospels, the already ancient RueMaître-Albertmade to seem evenmore archaic in thenineteenthcenturybybeingrenamedafterthemedievalalchemistAlbertusMagnus,whooncelivednearby.

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RueCloche-Perce.PhotographbySuzanneBeaumé,circa1900

Among the oldest thoroughfares in Paris are thestreetsoftheGrandeandPetiteTruanderie,whichistosay the Big and Little Vagrancy Streets. There is theStreet of ThoseWhoAre Fasting (Rue des Jeûneurs),the Street of the Two Balls, the Street of the ThreeCrowns,theStreetoftheFourWinds,theStreetoftheFiveDiamonds,theStreetoftheWhiteCoats,theStreetofthePewterDish,theStreetoftheBrokenLoaf—oneof a whole complex of streets around Saint-Merrichurch (near theBeaubourg center nowadays) that arenamedaftervariousaspectsofthedistributionofbreadtothepoor.Manystreetnameswerecleanedupintheearly nineteenth century: Rue Tire-Boudin (literally“pull sausage” but really meaning “yank penis”)became Rue Marie-Stuart; Rue Trace-Putain (the“Whore’s Track”) became Trousse-Nonnain (Truss aNun), then Transnonain, which doesn’t really mean

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anything,andthenbecameRueBeaubourg.Manymorestreets disappeared altogether, then or a few decadeslater, during Haussmann’s mop-up: Shitty, Shitter,Shitlet, Big Ass, Small Ass, Scratch Ass, Cunt Hair.Some that were less earthy and more poetic alsodisappeared:StreetofBadWords,StreetofLostTime,AlleyofSighs,ImpasseoftheThreeFaces.TheStreetPaved with Chitterling Sausages (Rue Pavée-d’Andouilles) became Rue Séguier; the Street of theHeadlessWomanbecameRueleRegrattier.

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RueTaille-Pain.PhotographbyPaulVouillemont,circa1900

Sometimesthestreetscomeassortedinthemes,suchas theQuartierde l’Europe,whichencircles theSaint-Lazare train station: Rues de Bucarest, Moscou,Édimbourg, Madrid, Rome, Athènes, and so on. Theexterior boulevards are called les boulevards desmaréchaux because they were all named after fieldmarshals in Napoléon’s army: Brune, Masséna,Poniatowski, Sérurier, Ney, Murat, Macdonald, etc.You’ll note that the American names—Avenue duPrésident-Wilson, Avenue du Président-Kennedy,AvenuedeNew-York,RueWashington—areclusteredin the high-hat Sixteenth Arrondissement or theadjacentwesternedgeoftheEighth.Namesassociatedwith the labor movement or left-wing motifs, on theotherhand, tendtoberestrictedtothenortheastof thecity: Avenue Jean-Jaurès, for example, after the greatSocialistleaderassassinatedin1914(andthereisnotasizeablecityorindustrialsuburbinFrancethatlacksathoroughfare named after him) or Place Léon-Blum,after the leader of the Popular Front in the 1930s, orPlace de Stalingrad (officially renamed Place de laBataille de Stalingrad in 1993, lest there be anyconfusion), or indeed Rue Marx-Dormoy, although itwasnamednot forKarlbut for theSocialistpoliticianRenéMarxDormoy,assassinatedin1941,whowasnorelation.

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PorteJean-Jaurès,leadingtoPantin,probably1914

Thereisseldomacorrespondencebetweenanominaltheme and one of ambiance or architecture, and thedisjunctioncanprovidea sortofcognitivedissonance,frequentlydisappointing.IfyouexpectawatertoweronRueduChâteau-d’Eau,forexample,orthinkyoumightspot a knoll, let alonequails, onRuede laButte-aux-Cailles, you aremore than a century too late. But thestreetsdodeveloptheirownthematictendencies,notallof them imposedbyarchitectsordevelopers.Someofthemhave accrued through occupational necessity (allthose large courtyards along the formerly artisan-intensiveRueSaint-Antoine)ortopography(suchasthetiered terraces that tumble down the hill inMénilmontant, definitively spoiled by urban-renewaldemolitionandconstructioninthe1960s,butshowntoadvantage inAlbertLamorisse’s lovely short filmTheRedBalloon,1956),orsometimestheywerefoundedinthe mists and are perpetuated by custom, such as theeternally carnivalesque Rue de la Gaîté. You see the

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wayathemewillestablishitselfalongagivenstreet—for example, theEgyptianmotif onRueduCaire (theexception that proves the rule) or the country villageambiance of Rue deMouzaïa or the august academicprocession of Rue d’Ulm—and then be contradicted,sometimes radically,with the simple turn of a corner.The city is not just a palimpsest—it is a mass ofintersecting and overlapping palimpsests. Even as itbecomes socially more homogeneous, many of itsstreets and houses continue to bear witness to formercircumstances. The tone of the Marais is stilldetermined bymedieval walls and Renaissance hôtelsparticuliers, and while today these are employed andintermittentlydecoratedbythefashionindustryanditsancillary commerce, if you look above the storefrontlevel you can here and there make out traces of thecenturies of misery that prevailed between the era oftheir construction and ours. You can admire thetenaciouswaytheCanalSaint-Martinstillassumestheexistenceofbargetraffic,RuedelaLuneseemstohavebeen designed for prostitution, or Rue Volta foldstogether about seven centuries, not necessarilyincludingthepresentone.Walter Benjamin wrote, “Couldn’t an exciting film

bemadefromthemapofParis?Fromthecompressionof a centuries-long movement of streets, boulevards,arcades,andsquaresintothespaceofhalfanhour?Anddoestheflâneurdoanythingdifferent?”Parisinventedthe flâneur and continues to press all leisurely andattentivewalkers into exercising that pursuit,which is

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anactiveandengagedformofinteractionwiththecity,one that sharpens concentration and enlargesimaginative empathy and overridesmere tourism. Thetrue flâneur takes in construction sites and dumps,exchanges greetings with bums and truck drivers andthe women washing their sidewalks in the morning,consumescoffees andgrosrouge at asmanybus stopcafés as terrace-bedecked boulevard establishments,studies trash and graffiti and sidewalk displays andgutters and rooftops, devotes asmuch attention to thearcadesfilledwithdentists’officesorIndianrestaurantsas to the ones lined with antique shops, spends moretimeinMonoprixthanattheLouvre.

RuedesImmeubles-Industriels,WalterBenjamin’sfavoritestreet,circa1910

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AnillustrationbyJoséBelonforParisanecdote,byPrivatd’Anglemont,1885edition

ThehistoryofParis, the active andengagedhistoryof the streets, was written by flâneurs, and eachconscious step you take follows their traces andcontinues theirwalk intoacontinuouswalkacross thecenturies.Thegreat textof thestreetswasgivenvoiceby those relentless walkers who were also writers:Louis-Sébastien Mercier and Nicolas-Edmé Restif deLaBretonneintheeighteenthcentury;AlexandrePrivatd’Anglemont,VictorFournel,AlfredDelvau,Joris-KarlHuysmans, and Victor Hugo in the nineteenth; in thetwentieth,GeorgesCain,AndréWarnod,FrancisCarco,Léon-Paul Fargue, Walter Benjamin, Jacques Yonnet,Jean-PaulClébert,RobertGiraud,RichardCobb,LouisChevalier,andthemembersoftheLettristInternational,mostnotablyGuyDebordandIvanChtcheglov;thusfarat least ÉricHazan in the twenty-first.* This to nameonly the most significant and most committed—therehavebeenhundredsofothers.Ofcoursetherewerealsothose who expressed themselves by different means.

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These would include the artists Constantin Guys,CélestinNanteuil,HonoréDaumier,Gavarni, ÉdouardManet,GustaveCaillebotte,EdgarDegas,CamilleandLucien Pissarro, Jean-François Raffaëlli, GeorgesSeurat, Théophile Steinlen, Félix Vallotton, AndréDignimont, and the photographers Charles Marville,GabrielLoppé,EugèneAtget,Brassaï,GermaineKrull,EliLotar,AndréKertész,HenriCartier-Bresson,RobertDoisneau,WillyRonis,andEdvanderElsken,amongothers, including some of the seldom-credited pressphotographersofthepastandtheanonymousmakersofthe very local postcards that were produced in Parisbefore World War I. Even those whose habits areunknown touscanbeconsideredpartof thecompanyby virtue of the fact that they were observers whocaught things on the fly—they moved through thestreets, collected and preserved their impressions, andleftuswithvaluableinformationabouttimeandplace,inadditiontobeauty.

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Nicolas-EdméRestifdeLaBretonne

Baudelairemost famouslydefined the flâneur: “Thecrowdishisdomain,asairisthatofabird,aswateristhatofafish.Hispassionandhisprofessionistomarrythe crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionateobserver,it isanimmensepleasuretomakeahomeinthemultitude,intheflux,inthemotion,inthefleetingand infinite.” Richard Cobb, the British historian of

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France, specified further that the task requires going“into the streets, into the crowded restaurant, to thecentralcriminalcourts,tothecorrectionnelles…,tothemarket,tothecafébesidetheCanalSaint-Martin…,tothejumbleofmarshallingyardsbeyondtheBatignolles,totheback-yardsofthesemi-derelictworkshopsoftherue Saint-Charles, to the river ports of Bercy andCharenton…” It is imperative “to dawdle, to stop, tosee,tonoticesmallchangesandtohaveone’sattentioncaughtbyadrawnblind,byaclosedshutter,byashop-doorwithoutitshandle,bythesmallsquareofawhitenotice,Fermépourcausededécès [closedonaccountofdeath],or fermé jusqu’au1erseptembre, bya sign-painterpaintingoutafamiliarname,byachild’sfaceatawindow,byageraniuminflower.”

AnillustrationbyThéophileSteinlenforBarabbas:Parolesdanslavallée,byLucienDescaves,1914

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The flâneur is not a reporter. Reporters are in thebusiness of asking specific questions, to which theyrequire specific answers. The flâneur may entertainquestionsinthecourseofthings,butoverallheorsheisinthebusinessofnegativecapability.Theflâneurmustbe alive to the entire prospect, to the ephemeral andperishable as well as the immemorial, to things thatordinarily lie beneath notice, to minute changes andgradual shifts of fashion, to things that just disappearone day without anyone paying attention, tohappenstance and accident and incongruity, to textureandflavorandtheunnameable,toprevailingwindsandcountercurrents, toeverythingthatis toosubjectiveforprofessionalstocredit.Theflâneurmustpossessasixthsense,possiblyevenaseventhandaneighth,musthavean intuitive suss for things about to occur withoutwarningandthingsthataresubtlyabsentandthingsthataresilentlywavinggoodbye.Theflâneurmustbeableto read the entire text of the streets, including itsfootnotes,interleavings,andmarginalcommentary.Theflâneur must comprehend the city holistically, mustunderstanditasalivingbeing—ontheorderof,thoughinfinitelymorecomplexthan,thosemushroomcoloniesthat may cover hundreds of square miles whileremaining a single entity—and must constantly riskoveridentifyingwithhisorhersubject.

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“Whoopensthedoorofmydeathchamber?Isaidthatnooneshallenter.Whoeveryouare,goaway!”PlaquemarkingthehousewhereLautréamontdied,7RueduFaubourg-Montmartre

Amongtheintuitivestretchesrequiredoftheflâneuris a lively belief in ghosts that does not particularlyassumeabelief inthesupernatural.Thepast isalwayspresent,ifsometimesinthewayofthosemoviespiritswhocanbe seen in the roombutnot in themirror,orvice versa. All the tyrants and landowners andmonopolists invain set their shoulders tobulldoze thepast out of existence, but it stubbornly remains,sometimesinthemostindefinableandevanescentwayandsometimesasabadconscience.Ifyouareproperlyattuned you can feel it even in the middle of thePasserelle Simone de Beauvoir, the footbridge acrossthe Seine that links the Parc de Bercy with theBibliothèqueNationale,aplacefromwhichitisnearlyimpossible to see anything much more than twentyyears old—and yet in that formerly industrial locationcountlesspeoplelaboredandmanydied,fromaccidentsandfloodsandwars,inthecomplexofwinedepotson

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theonesideandthevastrailroadfreightterminalontheother.A bit farther down, nearRueWatt, on theLeftBankside,under residentialhigh-risesand theDiderotbranch of the University of Paris, is the site of themunicipal storehouses (Magasins Généraux), whichbeginning in November 1943 were employed as aninternmentcampforJews.The popular historian G. Lenotre, who arrived in

ParisfromLorraineasateenagerattheoutbreakoftheFranco-PrussianWar(andthen,overthenextsixty-fiveyears,wrotemorethanfiftyvolumesofpetitehistoire,primarilyaboutthecityduringtherevolution),recalledthatevenashewasdazzledbytheswarmoftrafficthathecouldseefromthewindowsofthemodesthotelonRueMontmartrewherehefirstlodged,aswellasbythemassesof tallhousesoneveryside,hecouldnothelpthinking about what those houses had witnessed andcontained over the decades. “Each of those casementsopened onto a room where how many comedies hadtranspired! And how many dramas, for that matter!Their shutters had been closed in times of mourning,they had been bedecked with bunting and hung withfairy lights on occasions of victory. For the first timetherecametomethevaguethoughtthathouseshaveasoul, composed of the joys and sorrows and labors ofthosetheyhavesheltered,andthatallhavetheirhistory:secret,romantic,orjoyful.”

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ThecornerofRuedelaParcheminerieandRuedelaHarpe,circa1910

The occult forces in the city are always at work,indifferent to rationality, scornful of politics, resentfulof urban planning, only intermittently sympathetic tothe wishes of the living. They operate with a glacialslowness that renders their processes imperceptible tothemortaleye,so that theresultsappearuncanny.Butmuch like theway stalagmites and stalactites grow incaves,suchforcesareactuallytheresultofvastlylongpassagesoftime,ofbuildupandwear-downsogradualthatno time-lapse camera could ever record them,butalso so incrementally powerful they could never be

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duplicated by technology or any other human intent.Over the course of time they have worn grooves likefingerprints in the fabric of the city, so that ghostlyimpressionscanremainevenofstreetsandcornersandculs-de-sac obliterated by bureaucrats, and they havecreated zones of affinity that are independent ofadministrativedivisionsandcannotalwaysbeexplainedbyordinarymeans.GuyDebordandhisbarflyfriendsintheearly1950s,

who came to constitute theLettrist International,werethefirsttoattempttochartwhattheycalled“ambienceunits”(unitésd’ambiance),eveniftheywerehardlythefirst to notice them. These units could be entireneighborhoods,couldbedescribedinafewwords(forexample, the Îlot Chalon, the first Chinese district inParis, a tiny cluster hard by the Gare de Lyon nowerased by urban renewal), could be determined byarchitecture(suchastheextraordinaryrotundabuiltbyClaude-NicolasLedoux in 1785 as part of thewall ofthe Farmers-General and which now sits by itself inPlacedeStalingrad,shadowedbytheMétrooverpass),could embody a forceful rebuke to their surroundings(suchastheLettrists’belovedandnowlong-goneRueSauvage, by all accounts an eerie blend of desolationand rus in urbe—“the most confounding nocturnallandscapeinthecapital,”accordingtotheirnewsletter,Potlatch—that plied a parallel course between theriverbank,edgedwithvacantlots,andthetracksleadingto the Gare d’Austerlitz). Or the units could befleetingly subjective, identifiable only by their

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familiars,aneffectoflightandshadoworanimbalanceof scale or a pattern of commerce. A map Debordannotated in 1957, covering just the first sixarrondissements, shows some seventy-five of thoseunits,afewnomorethanablocklong.Thatsameyear,he produced the exploded maps The Naked City andGuide psychogéographique de Paris, each of whichisolates kernels of blocks in the center of the city,according respectively to their function as plaquestournantes (“turntables,” in the railroad sense) and as“psychogeographic gradients,” with arrows of varyingthicknesses showing the involuntary tendencies ofpedestrians to err this way or that when pursuing thedetermined wandering that Debord called dérive, or“drift.”

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RueSaint-Julien-le-Pauvre,circa1910

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GuidepsychogéographiquedeParis,byGuyDebord,1957

RueMouffetard,circa1910

Home base for the Lettrists was the “Contrescarpecontinent,”avaguelyovalcomplexofblockscenteringon the Place de la Contrescarpe, just southeast of the

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PanthéonintheFifthArrondissement.Thisarea,averyold working-class district that shades into the LatinQuarter, was of interest to them not only for itsproximitybutbecauseofthewayitseemedtodirectthestepsofanyoneventuringin.Owingto the turningsofstreets and to theway edifices seem to abruptlyblockpassagewhileartfullyconcealingnarrowchannels thatwind around them, so that the pedestrian changescourse without really thinking about it, the districtpresents only one smooth route of entry (which isnevertheless mined with attractive digressions), fromthenorth,andonlyonereasonableexittrack,towardthesouth. This remains the case and can be verified byvisitors. As a consequence, the zone, according toDebord, “inclines toward atheism, oblivion, and thedisorientationofhabitualreflexes.”Ambience units are collective, anonymous works

achievedoverlongpassagesoftimethroughaccretion,accident,habit,juxtaposition,improvisation,endurance,andoneormoreinexplicableXfactors—asortofblendof theater and sculpture enacted upon the city andadaptedtothelonguedurée.Whoknowshowmanyofthem came andwent in the centuries before ours andespecially before Baron Haussmann’s depredations of1853–70?Inpartsofthecitywithoutinterferinglarge-scale landowners, where all building and alterationoccurred through small-scale labor, the crop ofambienceunitswasoncesodenseandprofoundthatitseems incongruous to call them that. It is easy toimagine that every corner had its own distinct flavor,

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thatsuchathingwouldhavebeentakenforgrantedtheway every face is different.Ambience units begins tosoundlikeanamegiveninanalienatedtimetothelastisolated examples of a phenomenon that was once sowidespreadthatitwastherule.Theywere habitats inwhichgenerations spent their

entireexistences,happilyornot.Peoplewholivedtherenaturally gravitated toward the local commerce, trade,orpracticetheplacewasknownfor—associationsowedtocircumstancesoftenlost inthemistsof time.Hencethe mystical phenomenon of unexplained recurrence.“There is always a certain public square or a certainintersection that, through mysterious and providentialforces, seems forever devoted to a single specialty,”wrote a mid-nineteenth-century chronicler. “I don’tknowwhatsecretinstinctimpelsthesameclassesorthesame professions always toward the same places.Thieves, pickpockets, beggars, streetwalkers, streetperformers have still not left the haunts they haveinhabitedsincetheMiddleAges.”HissubjectwasRuePierre-Lescot, which lay somewhere in the tangle ofstreets east of the Louvre, cleared by Haussmann adecade later. The name—that of the sixteenth-centuryarchitect responsible for the southwest wing of theLouvre and for the Fontaine des Innocents—was thenreapplied to thestreetmarkingtheeasternedgeofLesHalles, formerlyRueduCloîtreSaint-Jacques,so that,curiously, his observation applies today. The thieves,beggars, and streetwalkersmay no longer live nearby,but they certainly exercise their trade on the block;

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shopping mall, fast food, fake Irish pubs, and cheapteenage clothing outlets have drawn their own suckertraffic.

Thedogpound.IllustrationbyJ.J.Grandville,fromScènesdelaviepubliqueetprivéedesanimaux,1842

In the 1950s the historian and redoubtable flâneurLouisChevalier noticed a local anomaly aroundPlacedelaBastille,whichwasnever“aparticularlycriminaldistrict and…not evenaplaceofprostitution, exceptfor one side street, Rue Jean-Beausire, whereprostitution thrives.” There was no reasonableexplanation, nomatter of lightingor building stockor

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layoutthatcouldaccountforthisstreetbeingsetasidefrom all the others around it. Therefore, “from all theavailable evidence, circumstances beyond those of thepresent must be exercising an influence,” since thematerialrealityofthecurrenteraisshapedbythepast—by “the force of interests, habits, and beliefs,particularly if those habits and beliefs are negative,which … are more ineradicable than their positivecounterparts.”Andindeed,thestreethadbeenthesite,longago,ofacourdesmiracles,whichwas thenamegivenintheMiddleAgestoanencampmentofbeggars,whores,andthieves.

AcourdesmiraclesintheMiddleAges

Today it is clean,neutral, and impersonal.Butevennow there remain streets and vicinities that drawprostitutesandtheirclientsastheyhaveforgenerationsifnotcenturies.RueSaint-Deniswasuntilveryrecentlythe main stem, a virtually unbroken line of filles

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publiques on display at all hours, from Place duChâtelet toPorteSaint-Denis.*Thishadbeen thecasesince sometime during the Middle Ages, perhapsbefore. Rue Saint-Denis is one of the city’s oldeststreets, going back toRoman rule in the first century.UntiltheroyalpalacemovedtoVersaillesunderLouisXIV—arguably the pioneering instance of suburbanflight—itwas the custom for newly crowned kings todescenditslengthastheyofficiallyproceededfromthebasilicaofSaint-Denis,northofParis,totheirresidenceattheLouvre(andtheydepartedinthereversedirectionafter death). Perhaps the royal procession and theprocessionofharlotsarenotunlinked.For thatmatter,excavations for the Métro in 1903 uncovered theskeletonofawoollymammoth,leadingtothediscoveryofthepachyderms’habitualpathfromtheirdwellingontheheightsofBellevilledowntotherivertodrinkandbathe—their course descended obliquely via what isnow Rue de la Grange-aux-Belles, then joined thefutureRueSaint-Denisatabouttheheightoftheporte,whichistosaythetopofthestreet’smiraclemile.RueSaint-Denis remains to this day an unprepossessing,surprisingly narrow thoroughfare, but it was clearlyconsecratedtothepageantryofhorizontalmotion.

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PorteSaint-Denis,circa1910

The city’s principal constituent matter is accruedtime.Theplaceislousywithit.Noteveryoneishappyabout this, since the past is burdensome andungovernable and never accords with totalizingideologies or unified design theories or schemes formaximizing profit. The faceless residential andcommercial units that conceal large parts of working-classnortheasternandsoutheasternPariswereimposedover the past half century for reasons that include thewishtoextinguishanunrulypast.Historyisalwaysinthe gun sights of planners and developers, and ofreactionaries,who in the absenceof a convenient pastarecontenttoinventone,windingtheirfantasiesaroundsome factual nugget suitably distant and fogged bylegend. Official appropriations of history, howeverostensibly benevolent in intent and graced withaccredited consultants, will always be chary of theactualmessandstinkofthepast,andasaconsequencetheyalwaysgravitatetowardtheconditionofthethemepark. Those paddle-shaped markers planted here and

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there throughout Paris are very nice, but they are likehistorical multivitamins, meant to be ingested andimmediately forgotten. They are nagging footnotes toyourshoppinganddiningexperience,goodforyoubutstarchilydutiful,sothatyoutendtoavoidthemandfeelobscurelyguiltyaboutit.Andofcoursetheyarefarlessevocativeof lived time than themostderelictbuildinginanychosenneighborhood.

ThepeopleofLesHalles,1906

What the flâneur sees while walking around is atremendous expanse of time in compressed andvestigialform.Theflâneurisinsympathywithtimenotfromnostalgiabutfromanobligationtotruth.Thepastis hardly a single era, after all, but the combined,composted layers of a thousand eras, and any givenmomentincludessomeproportionateblendofallthose

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eras.Thefuture isa threatorasalespitch, thepresentflies around you like the landscape as seen from amoving car, but the past is what you stand on, leanagainst, breathe in. The very spark of the new thatdistinguishes an era will be fully visible only inretrospect. Each epoch may dream the next, in JulesMichelet’sformulation,butthatdreamwillcomewhileitisdigestingitspredecessor.Thepastisalwaysinflux,survivingnotinicilydust-freefaçaderestorationsbutasadynamicundercurrent—intheslopeofhills,shapesofstreets, breadth of squares; in lintels, shutters,courtyards; in habits and associations and prejudices;amongworking people and recent immigrants and theaged and a lot of youths who didn’t go through thecareer door; among what remain of vagrants andeccentrics and clochards; among a great many peoplelyinglowwhorememberthings.

LesHallesandSaint-Eustache,latenineteenthcentury

ToexperienceParisasanorganicentityistoabsorb

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thatgreatundulatingpanoramadownbelowandforgetwhat year it is, likeFrancisCarco looking south fromtheheightsofMontmartre:

He bore to the right to get to Rue Lamarck andsuddenly,under thevastsky,heavywithrain, thewhole of Paris appeared. He took in its recedingimmensity. Smoke coming from different pointswove together and fluttered in sharp chorus. Thewind blew through the acacias, their jumble offoliage blending with the fog. In the distance,thousandsoffiresflickered.Blackholesindicatedneighborhoods hidden below, fromwhich crowdsof shadows emerged:Grenelle andMontrouge.AnecklaceofstarsmarkedtheGreatWheel.Thingsgradually revealed themselves. Diffuse glimmersshone and then dimmed. Successive strings oflights rose tier upon tier, followed by an opaqueand swelling wave of clouds. The belfries ofNotre-Dame looked as big as thimbles, but youcouldmakethemout,andyoucouldalsomakeoutthefluidcoiloftheriverthatsnakedbehindthemand stretched out toward the red glimmer of thetrain stations.What aworld! Itwasn’t a city, butanoceanofswellsandeddies.Itwasalivingmass.It quivered, fluctuating like the sea, a rough grayseabarelyheavedbythelightwind,andheheardtheacaciasgrindingdrilyabovelikerigging.

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*Idon’thavetotellyouthattheabsenceofwomenfromthislististhesadlysimpleresultofsocialconditions—untilveryrecentlyitwasimpossibleforwomentowalkaroundbythemselvesunobserved,andit iscrucialfortheflâneurtobefunctionallyinvisible.Amongthenumerouswomenofthepastwhomighthavebeenflâneurshadtheyhadtheopportunity,perhapsthemoststrikingisMaried’Agoult,thenovelistandrepublicanwhowrotethemostobservantanddetailedchronicleoftherevolutionof1848;itandallherotherworkappearedunderthebyline“DanielStern.”

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*In2003,Francepassedaninternalsecuritylaw,putthroughbyNicolasSarkozy,whothenheldastringofcabinetpositions,includingthecharminglynamedpair“internalsecurityandlocalfreedom.”Solicitationwastargeted,alongwithbeggingandvagrancy,andthehithertoundisguiseddisplaysuddenlydisappeared—althoughthatdoesn’tmeanthegirlsaren’tstilloutandabout.

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Title PageCopyright NoticeDedicationEpigraphMap1. Capital2. Ghosts3. Pantruche4. Zone5. La Canaille6. Archipelago7. Le Business8. Saint Monday9. Show People10. Mort aux Vaches11. Insurgents12. The GameNotesAcknowledgmentsIndexA Note About the AuthorAlso by Luc SanteCopyright