This is not strictly speaking a history of love in Paris, the subject would be too vast… It is the history of love with a small “a”, of easy, venal love, and even of prostitution. Embellished by the passage of time, all that can be odious in the exercise of the “Love profession” of which François Villon spoke, disappears. The Margots and the ribalds join the faithful lovers in history, and their farandole leads us from the ovens and “hutches” of the Middle Ages, to the Place des Vosges of the great courtesans, from the house of Gourdan, the illustrious place of pleasure where Mme. du Barry began her gallant life, to the Salpétrière where the ghost of Manon still floats, to the Palais-Royal, where Bonaparte sought adventure, and to the prison of Saint-Lazare, where Bruant’s daughters were locked up.