"To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again, as recent and unknown to me, books which I had read carefully a few years before . . . I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book . . . the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it." (Montaigne, Book II, Essay 10 (publ. 1580))

Sunday, January 15, 2006

The Making of Revolutionary Paris (David Garrioch, 2002)

Daily life details from 18th century Paris – influence of Enlightenment, Jansenism, shifts from corporate bodies to individual rights; opening boulevards and public spaces to permit air to circulate; adding house numbers; centralized authority; etc. Interesting and worth reading.

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