Paris Souls: Unexpected Stories from the City of Light

“The wealth of facts and erudition bring magic to Dirk Velghe’s Paris. A place where even tragedy seems less sombre. Anyone who does not already love Paris will fall for it after reading this book. ‘Ich bin ein Pariser’, as Kennedy might have said.” — Herman Van Rompuy, former president of the European Council                        In this book, reality always trumps fiction, truth always trumps myth. Get ready for a personal encounter with police inspectors and filles à la cuisse légère, Impressionists and art thieves, collaborators and résistants, Cubists and anarchists, artists’ models and terrorists, criminals and executioners. In fascinating and often unknown stories, such as ‘The Chanel-Wertheimer Case’, ‘Lenin’s Yellow Jersey’ and ‘Selling the Eiffel Tower’, hundreds of Parisian souls are brought back to life behind the façades, in the passages, and along the avenues and boulevards of the City of Light. In Paris Souls, readers taste the idiosyncratic harvest of someone who, after many seasons in his favourite city, is still enraptured by its fruits. Dirk Velghe recounts facts and stories about the extraordinary people and events that coloured Paris, sometimes with paint, sometimes with blood. Histories as only a true Parisian can tell them. Light-hearted but always deeply reasoned, Velghe gives an entirely new twist to the history of Paris. His no-nonsense prose and narrative flair guarantee compelling reading.