An apartment in Paris - sublime!

On our recent trip to Paris, Carl and I rented a tiny one-bedroom apartment from Louise, a charming 29-year-old comedienne, through Airbnb. It was located in Batignolles, the 17th arrondissement, which is near the métro stop Villiers. Our apartment was off a narrow one-way street, on an inside courtyard and up one flight of winding stairs. It was very quiet, and we settled right in to the neighborhood, finding a favorite café just three blocks away, and exploring the patisseries, cheese shops and vegetable stands in Rue deLévis,the pedestrian shopping street nearby. We bought croissants one day, delicious slices of quiche Lorraine another day, at La Maie des Anges, our neighborhood patisserie, and made coffee in Louise's French press for breakfast.

Our Paris apartment

Two books published in 2014 - A Paris Apartment by Michelle Gable and Paris Time Capsule by Ella Carey are based on the 2010 discovery, in Paris, of an apartment that no one had entered since the residents fled the Nazi occupation in World War II. Filled with paintings and furnishings that dated back to 19th century France, the apartment had originally belonged to Marthe de Florian, an actress and courtesan linked romantically with two Presidents and two Prime Ministers of France, among others. And this is not even the fictional part! The apartment was discovered when Marthe's mysterious granddaughter, who had paid the bills on the apartment all those years but never returned there, died at age 91.

News stories when the apartment was discovered included photographs of the apartment, revealing an opulent lifestyle that came to a sudden end for reasons that remain a mystery. An elaborate dressing table with an oval gilt-encrusted mirror, laden with bottles of perfume,a hand mirror with matching hairbrushes and toiletry items and cloaked in dust; an ostrich, preserved by taxidermy; delicately carved upholstered chairs; and paintings. Most notably, a stunningly romantic painting of Marthe de Florian in a rose-colored evening gown painted by Italian portraitist Giovanni Boldini; and love letters establishing their personal relationship.

With all of this material, the mystery remained - what happened to the apartment's occupants? Why did they never return? And why did the mysterious granddaughter continue to pay for an apartment she never visited for 70 years?

Each of the two novels spins its own fanciful and fascinating story about these mysteries. 
Paris Time Capsule is the story of an American photographer who suddenly inherits the estate of a Frenchwoman she doesn't know, including this extraordinary apartment. The premise is a little far-fetched, but Carey succeeds in using her premise to build a mystery around the woman's identity and her connection to the heroine, Cat Jordan.

A Paris Apartment features April Vogt, a Sotheby's furniture appraiser sent over to inventory and evaluate the apartment's contents. She discovers a trove of love letters that leads her to solve the mystery of the apartment, its occupants' mysterious disappearance, and why it stood vacant for so long.

Both books' heroines have left bad relationships behind in the States, and both (of course) meet intriguing Frenchmen who complicate their lives. Suffice to say that this is light romance, not literature - but highly entertaining, nonetheless.

Circling back to our own Paris apartment, I can enthusiastically recommend Airbnb. Open up to a map of Paris, and you'll see literally dozens of possibilities, in every price range and every arrondissement. Browsing through them, looking at photos you can imagine yourself there - with a view of the Eiffel Tower, a short walk to Notre Dame, or a stone's throw from the Moulin Rouge - whatever your heart desires.