“Is it far?” I called out to the cabby over the noise of the hoofs and wheels.

“No, madame. Not far at all. Ten minutes.”

We left the noise and bustle of the station and immediately we were in a street more like the Paris I had dreamed of as a child. The street was lined with plane trees and on either side were light-yellow stone buildings, four and five stories high, decorated with wrought-iron balconies. Some of them had shops at street level, with bright awnings hanging over them, and there was a café on the corner with tables outside on the sidewalk. Nobody was sitting at the tables as it was still drizzling, but a man and woman walked arm in arm under his big umbrella—the woman holding the leash of a small poodle dog. On the corner was a flower seller standing beside her barrow of spring flowers. We turned into a treelined square with a lovely ornate gray stone church on one side. Two priests in flat black hats were standing on the steps and a bell was tolling. But right after the church we entered a smaller street and clearly a less salubrious area. There were bars and gaudy signs for cabarets mixed in with greengrocers and bookstores. There was even an occasional girl lounging against a wall trailing a feather boa. I’d seen enough of them in New York to recognize what she was, making it clear that this area might be more active when the sun went down.

I also saw that we were coming into the Paris of artists. We passed three of them, walking together, one of them carrying a canvas while his friends were in animated conversation, gesturing with their hands. We emerged into an open area with a fountain in the middle. A street sign announced it to be the Place Pigalle and I vaguely remembered having heard of it. Then I saw a windmill, illuminated with electric lights and knew why. This was the famed Moulin Rouge cabaret where the cancan was born and the girls wore next to nothing. The boulevard that led from Pigalle was wide and treelined but almost immediately we turned into a narrow side street that ascended a hill. There were shops and cafés close to Place Pigalle but as the street went up the hill it became more residential. The cab halted.

“Is this it?” I asked.

“Oui, madame. Rue des Martyrs.” He climbed down, took Liam from me, and assisted me. “I will bring the baggage,” he said, handing Liam back to me as the child started to cry.