Paris, 1889

A city in political, cultural, and artistic ferment at the dawn of the Belle Époque

A lot can change in a hundred years.

In 1789, Paris was the center of world attention as its citizens rose up against the ancien regime. Anger over food shortages — a regular feature of life in Europe for centuries — combined with the government’s mismanagement of its finances and new ideas about equality to rupture French, and European, history. The ev…