A Hungarian prince in Paris marries a beautiful young woman with a past he learns about from an anonymous letter on the wedding day. Claretie reported the Franco-Prussian War and directed the Comédie-Française for twenty-eight years; the Paris here — the boxes at the opera, the Tzigane orchestra, the duelling ground at dawn — is drawn by a man who had a reserved seat at all of it. Fifty-two plates by Renoir, Manet, Degas and their circle bring the opera boxes, boulevards and drawing rooms of Claretie's Paris to life alongside the text.
