title: Paris to the Past: Traveling through French History by Train
author:  Ina Caro 
description: It is hard to imagine a more enchanting or more brilliantly conceived book. With Ina Caro as your guide, you will fall in love with French history. Ancient castles and cathedrals come to life through her marvelous stories; biographical gems capture the lives of memorable kings and queens. But most of all, you will fall in love with Ina Caro herselfwith her infectious love of history, food and architecture, her husband and life itself.<br /> - <strong>Doris Kearns Goodwin</strong><br /><br />Ina Caro's <em>Paris to the Past</em> has convinced me that I must visit France again very soon, and this time I know who my guide will be. Even the most hardened Francophobe won't be able to resist Caro's charms and infectious enthusiasm for the great stories of French history. This is one of the most captivating and original travel books in years.<br /> - <strong>Gay Talese</strong><br /><br />With charming humor and easy erudition, Ina Caros <em>Paris to the Past</em> is an exuberant journey from the City of Light to the outlying monuments of its storied, glorious, peculiar, and even culinary past. Ushered from Romanesque church to Gothic cathedral, from gilded bronze doors to walled cities, from Joan of Arc to Marie de Rohan to Rochefoucauld, we travel with our companionable, piquant narrator into the vagaries and unexpected corners of time and place. This is a gem of a book-- part history, part travelogue, part love affairimpossible to put down, until that is, we pack it for Paris.<br /> - <strong>Brenda Wineapple, author of <i>Genet: A Life of Janet Flanner</i></strong><br /><br />This book is animated by love on every page: love of French history, love of ancient pageantry, palaces, and cathedrals, and love of the historian husband who accompanies her on her wanderings. <em>Paris to the Past</em> is guaranteed to enrich the experience of both newcomers to France and veteran travelers alike.<br /> - <strong>Ron Chernow, author of <i>Washington: A Life</i></strong><br /><br />Read Ina Caro's wonderful <em>Paris to the Past</em>, fall in love again with the most beautiful city in the world, and start packing your bags.<br /> - <strong>Robert Massie, author of <i>Nicholas and Alexandra</i></strong>
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  # A Start in Life
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Honore de Balzac
  
  
  ##### Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
  
  
  
      
  
  
  DEDICATION
  
  
  
  
  
  To Laure.
  
  
  
  
  
  Let the brilliant mind that gave me the subject of this Scene
  
  
  have the honor of it.
  
  
  
  
  
  Her brother,
  
  
  
  
  
  De Balzac
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER I. THAT WHICH WAS LACKING TO PIERROTIN'S HAPPINESS
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Railroads, in a future not far distant, must force certain industries
  
  
  to disappear forever, and modify several others, more especially those
  
  
  relating to the different modes of transportation in use around Paris.
  
  
  Therefore the persons and things which are the elements of this Scene
  
  
  will soon give to it the character of an archaeological work. Our
  
  
  nephews ought to be enchanted to learn the social material of an epoch
  
  
  which they will call the "olden time." The picturesque "coucous" which
  
  
  stood on the Place de la Concorde, encumbering the Cours-la-Reine,--
  
  
  coucous whic