Besson FlorenceAmorEvaSteinlenClaire - Love Parisienne: The French Womans Guide to Love and Passion (Relationship Books for Women, Modern Love Books, Parisian Books)

First published in the United States of America in 2018 by Chronicle Books LLC.

First published in France in 2016 by ditions Michel Lafon.

Copyright 2016 by ditions Michel Lafon.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Besson, Florence, author. | Amor, Eva, author. | Steinlen, Claire, author.
Title: Love Parisienne : the French womans guide to love and passion / Florence Besson, Eva Amor, Claire Steinlen.
Other titles: Amour a la Parisienne. English
Description: San Francisco : Chronicle Books, 2018. | First published in France in 2016 by Michel Lafon.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016050311 | ISBN 9781452162782 (hc) | ISBN 9781452166155
(epub, mobi)
Subjects: LCSH: Man-woman relationships. | Sexual attraction. | Interpersonal attraction. | Interpersonal relations. | Single women.
Classification: LCC HQ801 .B492413 2018 | DDC 306.7dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016050311

Design concept by Le BDAG.

Illustrations by Sophie Griotto.

Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, California 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com

Why, oh, why do I love Paris?
Because my love is near.

COLE PORTER, AS SUNG BY ELLA FITZGERALD

O nce upon a time, fortune-tellers would haunt the trains of the Paris metro promising eternal love, good fortune, and a drivers license. Alas, we cannot promise eternal love. But still we are ambitious! We are Parisian women, after all! And what we adore is romance. Love that starts in springtime in Paris. Love that brings a racing heart and shining eyes, with no thought of tomorrow. We want to celebrate joy in these pages. Joy in living, in making love, in being in a couple. You will not find any exact formulas here. Just common sense! Real advice, tested and approved by scores of Parisian women, les Parisiennes.

Our book is divided into three partshaving fun (Fleeting Pleasures), meeting (Encore! Encore! Still Together!), and experiencing long-lasting love (Years of Happiness!)and it contains dozens of tips, time-tested advice, and reexamined clichs, plus addresses and lists to make your love affairs into a celebration with Paris as a backdrop. The sidebars sprinkled throughoutParisian Tips and Les Secrets dune Parisienneprovide inspiration for how to love like a Parisian woman, from places to kiss, to where to go for an impulsive romantic getaway. Whether you know Paris already or just have dreams of visiting it, let this book be your guide to romance.

Poor are the larks that make love only in the spring, said the seventeenth-century French freethinker Ninon de Lenclos. Not so for the Parisienne! For her there are no taboos and no morality. For la Parisienne, life is an adventure she lives to the fullest, freely, without ever missing a beat and with (among others) gorgeous Parisian men as partners in the game. Her elegance is her imagination. Her courtesy is her lightness of spirit. Her style comes from the fact that she is all women rolled into onedaring to embody every role from Marie Antoinette to Brigitte Bardot, ever ready for the next wild experience.

All of Paris and all Parisians know how to love. From the classic films bout de souffle to Last Tango in Paris, the city is a backdrop to amour. Every paving stone bears the memory of a racing pulse; every street is filled with memories of real or imagined affairs of the heart, a fling or a passion; and every bridge is a bridge of poets sighs. In Paris, wrote Baudelaire, it is always time to get drunk, for wine, for poetry, for virtue... and also for freedom and for kisses.

We love everything in Paris. Even our bad moods, even our indifference, evenand this is a problemour broken hearts. Suffering has its place in deepening our souls, but we believe in more joy! Our fervent hope is that this book will give you all you need to see la vie en rose!

Florence Besson

A fleeting pleasure is an evening on the banks of the Seine with a handsome Italian who whispers sweet nothings into your ear. Or three scorching summer days with a colleague on top of office photocopiers that have never seen anything like it; or a mad hour with an ex-partner in the middle of the afternoon; or a week with a man, as yet unknown, who makes your heart race, and the hope that it will go on and on and on.

When youre single in Paris, life becomes a blank page of possibilities, with adventure just around every corner: eroticism for a day or a night, a brief romance, a love story waiting to happen. But whatever the new experience, the important thing is that it makes you happy and that you immerse yourself in it as fully as Louis XVs famous mistress Madame de Pompadour: being romantic but street-smart, free and playful, headstrong and independent. In short, the way Parisians driveinsanely, perhaps, but with lots of style!

So how can you enjoy this very particular method of loving la Parisienne, whether its getting a stranger into your bed, sharing a first dinner, savoring the first successful night, or taking or not taking a call? These are the questions! Take a seat at a terrace caf, order a glass of Chablis or an apricot juice, and dip into this section as you would relish the beginnings of a love story. Life is beautifuland you are too!

W hen it comes to love, you sometimes feel as if you just dont know what youre doing. You may feel that finding a guyif only a decent oneis a bit like making slow-cooked lamb: too complicated! You find yourself wandering the streets feeling envy for the lovers kissing on benches while you hum a sad love song about heartbreak and loneliness. And yet, and yet... you dream of love, real love, true love, and of a hot guy.

So, here is the first rule of love: Listen to yourself. Ask yourself what you really want. Sometimes you just want to have funand thats absolutely fine! Enjoy yourself without guilt. Paris is also made for that.

And if you are dreaming of real love? Be careful: You need to be wise with your time and energy. So dont be under any illusions about him or about yourself: If what you like is bars packed with budding artists, dont waste your time with futile fantasies about socialites at a five-star Plaza Athne hotel!

GOLDEN RULE:
Know yourself! Stop comparing yourself to other people. Dare to be who you are, with your contradictions, your craziness, and your strange tastes. Look at your friends who are in relationships: Sometimes their choice of partner makes no sense to you. So forget the perfect man. What matters is your happiness!

Parisian Tip

THE JEAN-PAUL
SARTRE

Yes, were in Paris, so lets begin with a little philosophy! Sartre said something that is really pretty wise: Existence precedes essence. Very (very) roughly, that means: Look at yourself, observe what gives you pleasure, go where you feel happy, and you will know who you are (and who you like)! If that shocks people, blame Jean-Paul