City of Tears: The Dark History of Paris

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.

E. C. Henderson is an encyclopedist and former publishing executive with a lifetime’s experience as an academic researcher, writer, and editor. Among the luminaries whose work she has edited over the years are Pulitzer Prize winners, Jack Rakove and David M. Kennedy, as well as the late Sir John Keegan, John S.D. Eisenhower, Stephen Ambrose, John Grigg, and Alan Palmer.

Henderson grew up in Brussels and has been a lifelong student of European history. She first traveled to Paris at age six and has returned countless times. She studied French history at the Université d’Aix-en-Provence before graduating from the University of Michigan with an Honor’s degree in history. She later joined the ranks of champions on the trivia game show “Jeopardy!” Today she lives in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, with her partner, the artist Wendy Allen.