He wouldn’t dare 
David A. Bell
- Blood in the City: Violence and Revelation in Paris 1789-1945 by Richard D.E. Burton
Of all the elements which go into making Paris such an exquisite object of desire, not the least is the memory of bloodshed. It adds a note of danger to the city’s frivolous pleasures, a sombre colour to an otherwise oppressively light palette. No other city’s history can offer such an extraordinary mixture of luxury and savagery, and the visitor who delights in the first also thrills, secretly, to the second.
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David A. Bell’s most recent book is The First Total War. He teaches French history at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.
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