Book excerpt: If you were standing on the very spot where Joan of Arc was wounded by an arrow, wouldn’t you want to know? Beneath the brilliance and the grandeur of Paris is a city that few people know. It lingers in the dark shadows of the past, if only you knew where to look. For 21 centuries, Paris has been the epicenter of countless invasions, occupations, civil wars, sieges, rebellions, assassinations, coups, massacres, executions, epidemics – and, of course, a world-shattering revolution. In 40 brief stories, City of Tears will guide you through Paris’s astonishingly turbulent history – from the Roman conquest to World War I – and point you to the very sites where momentous events occurred. Along the way, you will meet a parade of personalities: Ragnar Lodbrok, the Templars, Joan of Arc, Catherine de’ Medici, the Sun King, Marie Antoinette, Louis XVII, the two Napoleons, Alfred Dreyfus, and dozens of other fascinating characters who shaped the history of the beautiful city we know today.