ABSTRACT
Comparative history is fraught with difficulties. Conclusions in particular run the risk of being over-general and open to plenty of objections. This book originated in separate pieces of research I was doing in both Scottish and French history, while commuting between Paris and Edinburgh, where the bulk of sources are located. Gradually more general ideas about connections started to make some kind of sense, and the themes in the book were pursued to see where they would lead. Most of the chapters in the book are about connections rather than comparisons, although comparisons keep popping up, even when unbidden. And in this case, the comparisons might appear far-fetched and uneven. In the early twentieth century, Paris was at the height of its cultural supremacy, possibly reaching an unrepeatable high point. London and Vienna too had claims to be strong contenders in the Europe of 1900, but Paris’s wealth of cultural capital in the belle époque, whether in literature, art, music and thought, has usually been judged particularly glittering. It also had a side to it that I have scarcely discussed at all, but to which most books on the period devote a great deal of space: that of the entertainment world and alternative culture, the world of the Boulevard Rochechouart, where Le Chat Noir cabaret flourished, along the road from Pigalle, down the hill from Montmartre. The pleasures of Paris have been brilliantly captured and pictured so often that it seemed superfluous to repeat here a summary of other people’s work. 1
