3 Sites to see in #Paris if you love #Georgian and #Regency #romance!

We authors of historical romances love to do our research in those locations that bring the period and the people to life. Most often for Regency or Georgian Romance authors and readers, we travel around England, Scotland or Ireland.

But Paris has much to offer too for someone who wants to soak up the atmosphere of the period when Prince of Wales was Regent and Britain was at war with Napoleon. What could those places be?

Entrance to Malmaison

Part of Josephine's toilette.

First, I offer up the delights of Josephine's home south of Paris in the current suburbs. Malmaison (available by the Metro) is a term that really derives from the terms meaning "bad house' from the period when the Vikings raided through here and destroyed all in their path. The house, built a few decades before the Bonapartes purchased it, is a jewel of perfection of this period. Surrounded by

The back of Josephine's salon.

Josephine's rose gardens and the rest of her beautifully landscaped lawns, the house is lovingingly maintained today by the State. Most of the decor and the furnishings are original to the period if not the house per se and the audio tour (which you must take!) describes the uses Josephine put to the house. The card room, for example, is a small—very small—room, almost a closet. But the empress loved it for its intimacy and warmth. The salon which still holds her harp and her pianoforte contains much of her private art collection as well as furniture. You can almost see the dignitaries conversing, drinking tea or wine, remarking on the politics of the day. Her bedroom where she died is quite stunning in its rich canopy. Most alluring is her toilette, small, the walls swathed in cotton and linens to increase the warmth. Often when she bathed and dressed, Josephine took three hours!

Napoleon's private bedchamber.

A visit to the Cathedral of Saint Denis on the northern tip of Paris (and available by the Metro) is a trip to acquaint you with the horrors of the French Revolution and the Terror, the counter influence on the British mindset during the wars of that period.  Saint Denis is the church in which most of the kings and queens of France and their children are buried.  I say most of them because many are indeed buried elsewhere. However, once you've entered and admired this church, the first gothic cathedral in France and its architecture, and once you've admired the enormous number of sarcophagi of various French monarchs and their families, a visit to the crypt is what you're really after. Here you will find the plaque on the wall which is all that remains of that noted monarch, Louis XIV. It is ironic to find his burial place in such a barren place. But walk further into the center of the crypt and here you see only a huge flat black granite stone covering a very deep pit. This is the marker for the burial plot of those aristocrats of the ancien regime who died by the guillotine during the Revolution and most numerously the Terror. Their bones were collected from various churchyards and from the Conciergerie (on the Isle de France) where they were interred after execution. This tragedy of their deaths by violent means is the very horror that outraged the British, many of whom were their relatives. This slaughter of the nobility is what the British sought to avoid for themselves. While they spent significant national treasure attempting to defeat the various regimes that succeeded the Bourbons, including the emperor Napoleon, they were attempting to ensure not only their own survival, the continuance of their economic system, but also their naval power around the world.

The dining room in Malmaison

Chantilly lies north of Compiegne, and to get here you must buy a train ticket for roughly $11.00 at Gare du Nord to travel beyond the Metro line. But you will adore the easy walk from the train station (1.5 miles) and the ambiance of the forest and the town. The first owners of the chateau were the Montmorency family of soldiers and diplomats. Rising to prominence during the reign of Francis I, Anne du Montmorency ( a man) made his name serving the king. Later, cousins to the Bourbon monarchs, the Princes Conde became owners of the chateau. With landscape designed by the famous gardener Andre Le Notre, the grounds are sumptuous in the Baroque manner. Even the stables are lavish in their appointments. What is notable here are the decor and furnishings much of which dates from the Bourbon Restoration of 1815 when the nephew of the newly restored Louis XVIII and his brother Charles X was granted the property. There his descendants remained until the 1880s when they could not longer pay the taxes and turned the building over to the government.

Louis XIV plaque in crypt of Saint Denis

Life size gisants of praying Louis XVI and his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette in chapel of Saint Denis

Chateau Chantilly: View of the stable block and riding academy.

Walter view of Chantilly

Salon with murals commemorating the Fronde led by the Grand Conde.

A portion of the music room with harp.

+N.B. All the photographs are mine.

Cerise went to #Paris and discovered all kings and queens of #France buried in Cathedral of Saint Denis!

Gothic Saint Denis undergoes restoration, hence
you see the scaffolding. Inside?
A must-see on your trip to Paris.
Do take the Metro!

Travel has become part of who I am personally and professionally. I always did adore seeing all those places I read about as a child, the Tower of London, the Acropolis, Ephesus, Paris, Verdun. But the joy has multiplied in the past ten years as I am able to visit places that bring much more gratification to me than a nod to a bucket list. Always intrigued by the details of incidents in history, I have found a way to travel that gives me a sense of depth and accuracy to the plots and characters in my novels.

Here are a few pictures that give me that little shiver up the spine. In October, when my husband and I went to Paris for two weeks, the very first place we went was the Basilica at Saint Denis.

This gorgeous Gothic church, the first of its type, sits in the northern outskirts of Paris. Yes, you can and should take the Metro to go. As you can see, they are doing major renovations by sandblasting the exterior to give it a "wash" of its soot. Inside, it is quite lovely and the items in there are breath-taking.

While I leave it to you to go read a history of the church and its innovative architecture, I will tell you what seeing this meant to me.

I loved the small exhibit to the side of the church, filled with ancient (we are talking 4-6th century stones from first construction) items. I was intrigued too by the manner in which this cathedral became the burial place for all French kings and many of their nuclear and extended families.

Louis XIV's crypt in wall.

Louis XIV is buried here, along with his ancestors and descendants. His crypt with inscription in the
stone wall seems a small but (forgive the word) egalitarian way to bury the man who was anything but an equalizer.  So many kings and queens are buried here, I could have spent the entire day and night and next one there.  But then, it is Paris and one must dine...and so you see that I do have a few priorities when I go hunting.

One absolutely exquisite stone crypt was that of Henry II and his queen Catherine de Medici. No picture of that here of mine, alas. Every time I thought I had a clear shot? BAM. Someone stepped in to admire it. And worthy of that, it is.

A long view of the floor of the cathedral gives
you a sample of the enormous number of royalty buried here.

I give you instead one just as grand, that of Francis I and his first wife, Claude of France. Supposedly, the representation of Francis is true to life. Let me just say that if this is true, Francis was a giant!  His feet alone give testament to that. The other arresting feature of this ensemble is the manner in which Claude has her head thrown back against her pillows as if she's in torment.  Francis certainly gave her a good run-around with all his affairs, personal and other. So perhaps this attitude of hers is representative of her throes in life! His own attitude is one that many art historians say is indicative of  sculpture imitating the dying Christ.

Francis I and his wife Claude of France in their crypt.

Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette.

The most poignant sculptures are the effigies of Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette praying. These two are in the main chapel, but their remains and those of any relatives salvageable after the Terror are in repose in the central crypt below the high altar. Here, beneath a huge black granite stone,  they lay.

My last picture for you is one of the outer ramparts. After seeing so many gothic churches in one trip, I am becoming a big fan of gargoyles.

Outer buttresses and gargoyles of Saint Denis.