Playboy on the Town in Paris

Other cities are towns," Emperor Charles V proclaimed in the early 16th Century, "but Paris is a world."

The wondrous world of Paris, well into its third millennium of existence, today continues to cast as seductive a charm over the imaginations of men as it has in times past. Throughout the ages, the poet, the philosopher, and more recently, the tourist, have found it to be an exceptionally indulgent and knowledgeable city, most notably in all matters sensual and esthetic: its art and architecture, its food, its drink, and its women have always presented an unparalleled appeal. The passing centuries have simply stepped up Paris' tempo, without altering any of its inherent joie de vivre.

Located in northern France, the capital city of Paris lies in the Seine Valley, neatly halved by the Seine River into its celebrated Right and Left Banks. The municipality, shaped like a chunky kidney, is divvied up into 20 arrondissements housing some 2,850,000 souls, making it France's largest city. The last war and the persistent Algerian crises, always about to be resolved and omnipresent in the French press, have left few visible outward traces on Parisian life. The Paris of 1962 is more prosperous, sensuous and carefree a town than ever in its long history.

The faces of Paris are many and infinitely varied. It offers visitors pleasures from the physical to the cerebral, the sacred to the profane. It has the three-ring brassiness of the Place Pigalle, the aristocratic splendor of the Louvre, and the glittering elegance of Europe's finest restaurants and the world's most fashionable women. It has the simple charm of being, quite effortlessly, a beautiful city, a city where soft green infuses the double phalanx of trees along spacious avenues, where the fragrance of fresh flowers softens the air, where a bright sun in the April sky brings out young lovers along the Seine, the Champs-Élysées, the Rond Point, and the pond in the Luxembourg Gardens. It is a city where all life seems lyrical and intimate.

To partake of the delights of Paris in April, all a man needs is a week or so of leisure, a healthy supply of cash, and a style of his own to match the city's.

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Preparatory paper work is nil: your passport and the standard vaccination certificate suffice. Pack what you'd take for a trip to New York; the Paris climate is generally more temperate. If you're traveling by jet, you can broad directly in Los Angeles, Chicago or New York. If you can't wait to savor Gallic sounds and tastes, fly Air France; first-class passengers are served up a five-course meal featuring the distinguished cuisine of the French provinces, accompanied by a choice of 10 superb wines and liqueurs. As you sip a smooth Chassagne-Montrachet 1957 with your brochettes d'agneau aux herbes de Provence at 25,000 feet, you will quickly become, a firm believer in progress à la Française. Your round-trip tariff from New York runs about $939 first class and $525 economy. If time is of no consequence to you, you can, of course, boat it, via such luxury craft as the French Line's fine new liner, (text continued on page 56) France. For the average vacation-length sojourn, our vote goes to the jets, with arrival time selected to give you your first thrilling view of Paris by daylight (most cities of the world look much the same from the air at night). Your first view of Paris rooftops and the Eiffel Tower as you sweep in over the city is memorably worth the planning. And an afternoon arrival will give you just the right amount of time to check into your hotel and freshen up for an evening in Paris.

Arrival at Paris' Orly Field with its new handsome reception building and its streamlined hotel and restaurants is a fast, efficient operation, with customs clearance being largely a quick formality. If you want a car for your stay, one of a number of rental services right at the airport can turn almost any model -- French or U.S. -- directly over to you. Since Paris traffic and parking these days are two problems you can live without, and since taxis in town are abundant and reasonable, we'd suggest your passing up the car. If you want to go weekending in the environs of Paris, then a car is a must, and easily obtained in town, either at a daily or a weekly rate.

It is only a 20-minute run from Orly, down the Autoroute du Sud, and then, almost before you are aware of it, you are swinging around L'Étoile, where 12 grand boulevards form the spokes of the Arc de Triomphe's hubbubing hub. The cafés are lit, and the early-evening chestnut vendors are drifting through the sidewalk cafés as you cruise along the Champs-Élysées, past the Citroëns and the Mercedes casually stacked along the wide sidewalks of the avenue. You slip by Alexandre's, slowly enough to catch a glimpse of chic couples sipping aperitifs; then you are past the theaters, the aristocratic shop façades, and the glittering water fountains at Rond Point. With a sense of mingled discovery and pleasure, you begin to realize that the old cliché about the charm of April in Paris is not a myth at all, but a seductive and compelling reality.

The romantic mystique of Paris, however, should not cloud your thoughts in regard to the selection of your headquarters hotel. In making your choice, two emphatically practical criteria should be borne in mind: the appeal of your hotel's quartier or district, and the proximity of likely feminine companionship. Such considerations should lead you to choose a hotel in one of two places. The first is the territory around the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, Paris' mile-and-a-half-long main drag that runs gently uphill from the spacious 18th Century Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe. This neighborhood is the stronghold of most of the 485 registered French movie producers; not unnaturally, a goodly number of film-minded young lovelies frequent the district by day and by night. Since nearly all of Paris' celebrated high-fashion industry is also centered here, you will be near the influx of modish international mannequins as well.

Of the Right Bank palaces, the George V on the avenue of the same name qualifies as the liveliest, with a house catering to South American millionaires and their interest-bearing daughters, big-wheel American execs, and what at times appears to be the entire movie industry, both foreign and domestic. It boasts a two-star restaurant, a tea lounge where elegant young women congregate after an afternoon's shopping, and a bar well worth a call at cocktail time. Comfortable, roomy, cream-colored singles run from $16 a day; suites from $20; all prices being topped by the ever present 25 percent service charge. Breakfast is extra, as is usually the custom in Paris.

On a less ostentatious but still opulent scale is the Hôtel Lancaster, discreetly located on Rue de Berri, also off the Champs-Elysées, whose fashionable suites, complete with functioning fireplaces, house many a high-powered celebrity with a desire for quiet. Prices range close to those at the George V.

A word of caution concerning the ornate palaces: with the possible exception of the George V, the big Paris hotels swing not. You eat like a roi, get fine service, and encounter tolerant, knowledgeable concierges who will fix you up with everything from a postage stamp to a lady for the night. But, by and large, these hotels are relatively moribund institutions.

Bearing this in mind, you'll find comfort and consideration whether you stay at the Royal Monceau, Avenue Hoche, a block and a half from the Arc de Triomphe; the walnut-garnished Raphael, on Avenue Kleber, a block away from the Arc in the opposite direction; or the Plaza-Athénée, off the Rond Point des Champs-Élysées on Avenue Montaigne between Christian Dior's and the Seine. Slightly farther away from the Right Bank center, but much closer to the Left Bank world of St.-Germaindes-Prés, is the Crillon on the Place de la Concorde. The Crillon has a fine ground-floor bar, mainly frequented by American and British diplomatic types -- the U.S. Embassy is across the street -- and Anglo-American press men. Farther along, toward the Opéra, is the famous Ritz on Place Vendôme. Although the days of Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald are long past, the hotel still offers superlative service, and, for those lucky enough to get a room on the Place, an extraordinary view. It is also excellently located, for some of the finest custom shops and art galleries are to be found along the Place Vendôme.

The other storied center of Paris is to be found in the heart of the Left Bank, which owes its reputation to two of its six arrondissements: the fifth and sixth, better known as the Latin Quarter. Here a freewheeling student atmosphere reigns day and night. Without question, as you'll quickly discover, the French étudiant is the most uninhibited bookman in the civilized world today.

All of which, over the years, has resulted in a built-in je m'en fou, anything-goes spirit that has become the trademark of the Latin Quarter. If you intend to make this anarchic center your base of operations, remember that there are no palatial hotels on the Left Bank, though there are abundant excellent ones, ranging from the small pension type to such charming hostels as the handsome white-fronted Hôtel Relais Bisson which faces the Seine, a block from Place Saint Michel. From your window -- be sure to ask for a room with a view -- you can see Notre-Dame to your right, and the sweep of the Äle de la cité to your left; the chore of arising in the morning can be made almost painless by the sight of the Seine and its slow, low barges glimpsed through a haze of white chestnut blossoms. River-view rooms with bath run about $10 a day, and the hotel has a two-star restaurant that specializes in seafood.

A brief word here regarding hotel tipping. There will be the 25 percent service charge added to your bill, so technically you're not expected to tip above or beyond that. But many people -- mostly Americans -- do. Naturally, to reward the porter who totes your bag and any individual who renders you a beyond-the-call-of-duty service will prove rewarding.

In all monetary transactions, incidentally, you should bear in mind the following franc facts: the current exchange rate is 4.95 new francs (or nouveaux francs) to the dollar; so, for simplified calculation, the franc-buck ratio is five NF per dollar.

It's our advice to steer clear of the black market money hucksters. Time was when these shady chaps could help a visitor with favorable rates, but now -- ethics aside -- there's no percentage in dealing with the profiteers. It is to your advantage, though, to remember that making purchases with traveler's checks in many shops (but not in hotels and restaurants) usually nets you a neat 20 percent discount. Credit cards, by the way, are widely accepted in Paris, and hundreds of eateries, hotels and shops bear the insignia of the Diners' Club and its ilk.

Alter you've established headquarters in the hostelry of your choice, you'll be set to swing out for a town-painting tour of the magnificent city of light. Since going solo in Paris is strictly for the birds, (continued on page 76) Paris (Continued from page 56) your thoughts will naturally revolve toward the possibility of striking up a liaison with a comely native. Here, fortunately, the possibility is entirely probable. But you should remember that despite hoary legends of French give-me-libertine-or-give-me-death accessibility, there still exists a high number of strait-laced lasses from protective families that would make the Apley clan seem wildly frivolous in the matter of mores. However, centuries of metropolitan, permissive sophistication have, in general, produced a people who are more tolerant and more worldly in regard to sex than any other group on earth. Respectable French matrons, for example, can be heard discussing in public clandestine amours that might well kindle a blush in Greenwich Village. In Paris, most of the time, all seems to be affaire in love and war.

It is a happy fact that in Paris during the postwar years the intellectual profeminist circles have been persuasively articulate in arguing that the jeune fille is entitled to the same degree of independence in her sexual adventures as her frisky frère. All of which means that in the intellectual fringe circles -- which covers a far greater territory than in the States -- the Pretty Parisienne is more often than not eager for an opportunity to prove her independence. This commendable quality in Frenchwomen is underscored in such diverse media as Roger Vadim's sensual films and Simone de Beauvoir's candid memoirs. It is most prettily illustrated in the frank and interested glance of the typical Parisian girl.

Quo vadis, then, to find these entrancing declarers of independence? A profitable possibility is one of the countless cafés that line the boulevards and avenues. In Paris, it should first be noted, the ubiquitous cafés can set the pattern of your day. There is the morning cafè, near your hotel, where you sip potent coffee and munch hot croissants while leafing through the Paris edition of the Herald Tribune, taking note of forth-coming concerts, plays and festivals and scanning the latest comic confection of Art Buchwald, the happy pundit of the foible-minded. Here, too, you start the day right by according approval to feminist movements as they swing past on the troittoir.

You won't be out of line in such frank Francophile savorings -- it's the second oldest game in Paris. The women, in their finely cultivated, openly appealing way, expect it: the stately, self-possessed femmes in the Chanel and Cardin suits; the petitely pert starlets with piled honeycombs of BB hair and tiny waspwaists; the pale gamins with unlacquered lips and ventilated midriffs, rubbing the late-morning sleep from their wide doe eyes -- each is intensely alive and knowing, casually aware of her own charms and the admirers thereof.

If in the morning the quality of coffee and scenery are the main determinants in the selection of a café, other motives affect the café aficionado in his choice of setting at afternoon aperitif time: here one meets friends, conducts business, gloms the latest issue of the French weekly, L'Express, and, most apropos, seeks that entente cordiale that more than anything else can make a Parisian visit memorable.

Undoubtedly you will want to chart your own course in seeking out the cream of feminine café society; in any case, you'll be well advised to sample the following better-known haunts. On the Right Bank, the Café Le Paris, halfway down the Champs-Èlysées from L'Étoile and adjacent to the BOAC office, is one of the better getting-acquainted locales in town. Under its blazing blue awning every evening toward six you'll find a café klatch of extremely pretty young demoiselles, mostly in their late teens and early 20s, sitting by themselves or occasionally in pairs, languidly sipping a glass of Pschitt soda water, thoughtfully appraising the passing crowds. While these girls usually arrive by themselves, they rarely leave without an attentive escort. The waiters here will prove most helpful in striking up a conversation. The language barrier, which may have you worried, is actually not much of a problem. Your rusty school French will find sympathetic ears, and besides, most young girls in Paris speak a smattering of English -- and probably feel considerably less modest than you about practicing a foreign tongue on a stranger.

Another Right Bank standby is the Bar Silène on Rue François Premier, a place that's nondescript on the outside, but ultracozy and dark within. A few doors away on the corner of Rue Pierre-Charron is La Belle Ferronnière, a watering spot much frequented by Paris-Match photogs and reporters. Here, though, the pick-up prospectus gets a little tricky: some of the female habitués are semiprofessional free lancers. The field is more agreeably amateur at Fouquet's, the movie producers' mecca on the corner of the Champs-Élysées and Avenue George V; in the past few years this has become the most fashionable place to meet for drinks in the general Right Bank area. It also boasts a superior restaurant, which, at high noon, looks like the Franco-American Movie Producers' Club. Superior distaff company is also to be found at the Drug-store, next to the Arc de Triomphe. This is an engaging French version of our native product, combining newsstand, perfume counter, legit drug department, tabuc (tobacco being a government monopoly, you can only find your cigarettes in shops identified by a red carrotlike shape) and café-restaurant.

The most likely area for discovering a Paris match on the other bank is along the Boulevard de St.-Germain-des-Prés, celebrated during the immediate postwar years as the chief existentialist bangout. Its three principal cafés continue to draw intellectuals, students and an attractively varied crop of girls. The section takes its name from the 10th Century church of St.-Germain, which rises across the square from the Café des Deux Magots. The Deux Magots is the key café in the area -- Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, high priest and priestess of existentialism, can still be found now and again on the terrace nursing their after-dinner coffee. Across the street from the Magots is the Royal St.-Germain which gets the overflow trade; next to it is the popular Brasserie Lipp, a spot favored by serious beer drinkers.

Remember that while reconnoitering at one of these cafés you should never order a cocktail. You can spend a day and an evening lingering over a cup of coffee and a brandy, if you like, or you can switch from coffee in the morning to a mixed drink in the latter part of the day. Cocktails, though, are out. To the French a martini is a strange beast, and like as not if you order a dry martini you will wind up with a lukewarm drink that's half vermouth. If you must have a cold, clear, dry martini, then try the bars at the Ritz and the Crillon. Your ancestors were here in an earlier day, and a legion of foreign journalists, along with lost and not-so-lost generations of Americans, have influenced the bartenders to a degree that some still find amazing, in view of the Frenchman's traditional inclination to follow his own course and his stubborn resistance to any sort of foreign intervention. At nearly all cafés we recommend choosing among Scotch, Pernod, Danish and German beer, French brandy, wine and coffee.

Other promising sites for possible rapprochements are the quality movie houses. In Paris the cinema is an art form that attracts dedicated and knowledgeable devotees. There are ciné-clubs with their revivals of Chaplin and early Jean Gabin films; there is also a chain of 10 art movie houses that is constantly digging out the best films from the recent festival circuits. For the non-passé past, you can turn to the Museum of Modern Art and its stock of early surrealist films. But by far the most popular movie shrine is the Cinématheque Francaise, housed in the basement of the Pedagogical Museum, (Continued on page 115) Paris (Continued from page 76) 29 Rue d'Ulm, behind the Pantheon. This institution is subsidized by the French government, and shows a different movie three times a night, seven nights a week. All the new wave directors got their feet wet here, and even today if the Cinématheque is featuring a slightly avant-garde flick, you can expect to spot Truffaut, Godard and Chabrol in the audience.

The ambiance in these celluloid emporiums is remarkably conducive to quick friendships. The fact that famous directors do frequent the Cinématheque insures the presence of alert, attractive dolls bent on film careers, as well as lovely, earnest young intellectuals who want to be the first girl in the quartier to have seen the new masterpiece. They are all worthy of close-up attention.

If you have local connections, you should try to wangle an invitation to a turn-of-the-century tea dance, still a fairly active and fashionable Paris institution. These affairs are usually held at Ciro's, 6 Rue Daunou, across from the venerable Harry's New York Bar, of 1920s fame; at the Club des Champs-Élysées on Avenue Montaigne under the vast theater of the same name; and at Les îles Bleues, a spot tucked behind shrubbery between the Grand Palais and Place de la Concorde. The hours are always, scrupulously, 4:30-7 P.M., and the danseuses, as you might gather, are principally creatures of leisure.

Once you have found a scenic scene-making companion, your next concern will be to choose a suitable site for à deux dining. For the gourmet, amateur and expert, the sumptuous cuisines of Paris present an embarrassment of riches; in no locale within the accessible regions of the universe can a trencherman and his woman encounter such superb food, service and style. In fact, in Paris, as you'll discover, dining is a seriously beloved pastime, that can involve anywhere from two to three hours -- serving the fare with a graceful flair is deemed as important as the creation of the sorcerous sauce that accompanies your turbot and your 1955 white burgundy. The French, aware as always of the importance of form and style, have elevated the métiers of waiter, sommelier and maître de to professions of distinction and authority. The French have been the discerning overseers of the training and artistic standards of the world's greatest chefs; they have seen to it that nearly all of their important restaurants, from the incomparable Grand Véfour (on the Right Bank) to the petit Chez Allard on Rue St.-André-des-Arts (on the Left Bank), are supervised by masters of the taste-making trade.

Realizing that their country's honor and reputation are involved with their restaurants' tables of contents, the French, in a quasi-official way, have entrusted the Michelin tire people with the task of keeping a constant eye on the standards of Gallic restaurateurs. The result is the familiar red Guide Michelin, a pocket-sized directory to the choicest culinary delights in France. Michelin employs an untiring full-time staff of inspectors who travel about sampling myriad meals; frequently the editors remove a star or add one to a restaurant's name, depending upon the dinner and service its anonymous inspector is given.

Each Parisian restaurant is characterized by its own style and unique atmosphere, and practically all are noted for an extraspecial spécialité de la maison; wines at La Reine Pédauque and Lapérouse, pressed duck at the lush Tour d'Argent, filet of sole Ritz at the regal Ritz Hotel. In selecting a dining destination for yourself and your amiable amie you should first decide on the tone you want to impart to the evening: elegance or informality, haute cuisine or a happy casualness.

If formality is fitting, you can't top the grand Tour d'Argent, the justly renowned gourmet mecca that perches five stories above the corner of the Quai de la Tournelle overlooking the Seine and Notre-Dame (try to reserve in advance the choice table by the huge bay window). Under the direction of Claude Terrail, who is usually on hand to greet his guests, the restaurant offers a savory assortment of culinary wonders. The pressed duck is the most celebrated course here, and if you've indicated in advance that this is your dining desire, you'll find a card at your table giving the number of your bird (now approximately 520,000). The wine cellar is one of the best in Paris and rates a visit. The tab for two who have made the cook's Tour d'Argent will fall in the neighborhood of $18. A tipping tip is in order here: as in most cosmopolitan cities, gratuities are a deeply ingrained part of the philosophy of those who seek to serve you well. In most restaurants the service charge -- 12 to 15 percent -- is added to your check. (When in doubt, ask, Le service est compris?) In cases where it is compris, you don't have to leave a sou behind you on the table. Neither the headwaiter nor the captain rate a tip, but the sommelier does, since he is not cut in on your 15-percent dole; if he wines you as you dine, a bonus of one or two new francs is entirely adequate.

Maxim's of the Rue Royale is, of course, the showplace restaurant of Paris. The unabashedly romantic atmosphere of the Merry Widow era still persists, and the food is more than sufficient to make you forget the 40-franc-a-person tab. You should bear in mind that Friday night is dress night -- no one, outside of De Gaulle, gets in sans black tie or evening clothes.

Though it may seem at first thought to be a likely locale for tourists, the first landing of the Tour Eiffel contains an excellent restaurant that is frequented more by knowing Parisians than by visiting outlanders. The food is first chair, and as you sup you can relish an Eiffel eyeful of a panoramic view over the glittering city stretching to the far faubourgs.

For a more relaxed milieu, head for the charm-laden Broche-d'Or on Rue Bernard-Palissy, a tortuous, twisted street (half a block from the Café des Deux Magots) that has, in the last couple of years, become one of the most fashionable in Paris. In the Broche-d'Or you'll find 17th Century engravings, oaken tables and chairs, an open hearth where a white-smocked chef grills massive steaks and chops, and delectable young waitresses swathed in low-cut, belle-skirted adaptations of 17th Century serving-maid costumes, delightfully dispense cassis, superior wine and delicious hors d'oeuvre tidbits. While you're partaking of the baby artichokes and radishes, the chef brings for your inspection a tray of inviting cuts, including chicken, lamb chops, pork, veal and steak. Although technically the Broche-d'Or opens at seven, the smarter set doesn't start arriving till about nine. Dinner for two here will run around $20.

If you're in the mood for fun, you might try à la Grenouille on the Rue des Grands-Augustins, a raucous eatery that has been dubbed, not without cause, Roger's Madhouse. The tables are crowded, the din is unrelenting, and the menu is printed on a blackboard in a far corner of the room: binoculars are provided for those who can't make it out with the naked eye. You'll find the merry mood here surprisingly contagious.

In the St.-Germain-des-Prés district there's another convivial little eatery called Les Assassins. Tucked at the bottom of Rue St. Benoît, it consists of a tiny, cheerfully rowdy, ground-floor room where the patrons sit elbow to elbow, eating unpretentious food ($2.50 for dinner), guzzling red wine, and singing good-naturedly off-color French folk songs.

Another winning bet in Paris is the bistro, a type of restaurant popular to visitor and native alike. A bistro (the name comes from bistre, the off-yellow shade commonly found on the walls) is a noisy, bustling place with sawdusted floors and a bright nickel-covered bar. The fare is classic French family cooking: pot-au-feu and boeuf à la mode, the latter a tender piece of beef lovingly simmered in cognac and carrots. Chez Allard on Rue St.-André-des-Arts just off Place St. Michel is one of the finest Paris bistros extant. Largely frequented by showbiz types, it's a must on your itinerary. It's also imperative that you phone a couple of days in advance to reserve a table.

If you're in Montmartre and the hour is late, stop in at the informal restaurant known as Gabby and Haynes, a home away from home for wayfaring American jazz musicians. It's run by Leroy Haynes, who came over on the GI Bill many a year ago and stayed to cook -- notably fried chicken and barbecued spareribs.

Provided the spring weather is favorable, Paris offers a lionized share of out-of-door eating arenas. Sprinkled in the well-kept woodlands of the Bois de Boulogne on the west end of the city are a number of eminent restaurants -- the Pré Catelan, Orée du Bois, Pavillon Royal and Pavillon Dauphine -- where you can dine on a terrace under the stars, observing the sudden lighting of the Eiffel Tower and listening to the sylvan sounds of the Bois. All these intime oases feature small bands, so dinner can be combined with dancing. In town, the best alfresco eateries are the Lasserre rooftop restaurant on Avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Laurent or Le-doyen in the shrubbed park areas between Concorde and the Rond Point.

The variety to be found in the palaces of Parisian provender is vast, and one of the pleasures to be encountered in a sojourn here is that of discovering your own favorite dining spots. We include here a brief catalog of those that gratified our palate. There are many others of equal merit. On the Left Bank you can bank on Lapérouse (try the foie gras and médaillon de veau Orloff), Chez Perreard (dishes from the province of Savoy), La Bouteille d'Or (an inn for ins back in the 13th Century) and the Bellechasse (for fine, remarkably inexpensive food). In the vicinity of Champs-Élysées and the Place de la Concorde there are Fouquet's (the wild duck and flaming woodcock are eminently satisfactory), Relais du Plaza-Athénée (good for the late-late meal), the Berkeley (try the steak au poivre), and Taillevent (great wines and superb quenelles de brochet). Near the Opéra you'll find the Café Le Paris, Grand Véfour and Pharamond. In the region of Montmartre's beautiful butte are the atmospheric Cochon d'Or and Chez la Mère Catherine.

Paris also has an ethnic restaurant for every conceivable gastronomic desire, from Indonesian, Moroccan and Russian fare to that of Italy, the Near East and Serbia. If you're a fan of international cuisine, it should be noted that the San Francisco serves the finest Italian food in Paris; the Left Bank Le Catalan offers Basque and Spanish dishes; Chinatown boasts (not surprisingly) Chinese fare, the best in town; Le Hoggar is a haven for buffs of North African couscous; Chez Louis specializes in Czech and Viennese delicacies; and the Dinarzade has topflight Russian courses. In sum, picking your cuisine is a matter of epicurean taste -- and in Paris it's nearly impossible to go wrong.

After you and your jeune fille have finished dining, you'll be ready for the evening's pleasurable entertainments, be it boite-hopping in Montmartre, dancing, catching the current opera, or attending one of the girl-studded music-hall shows. A tried and true mode of launching the post-prandial festivities is to drop in at one of the smart bars in St.-Germain for a cognac and coffee.

Foremost among these are Les Nuages, a dark and decorative rendezvous that serves the best espresso coffee in the neighborhood; Le Village, a favorite of foreign journalists, American writers and local oeuftêtes; and Le Cercle de Rive Gauche, where show types drink, dine and dance. Over on Äle Saint Louis there's the casually sophisticated Franc-Pinot bar and restaurant, a popular hangout for BB and other chic chicks.

If your inclination leans toward a round of dancing, then check into one of the Parisian private clubs -- 10 new francs to the doorman will be sufficient portal pay to gain you prompt admittance. These swinging clubs, which corner nearly all the current hip from Françoise Sagan to Mlle. Bardot, provide an intimate setting and prime Scotch and vodka, and are in tune till four or five in the morning. According to the skittish dictates of the fashionable world, a club will be in one season and out the next, with old favorites unpredictably receiving new leases on popularity. The Epi in Montparnasse, which has an upstairs grocer's stand for the carrot-artichoke crowd, was swarming (as this issue went to press) with unattached fillies. The Club St. Hilaire off the Champs-Élysées, on the other hand, rarely hosts a soloing danseuse.

On the Left Bank you might try the Club-St.-Germain-des-Prés on Rue St. Benoît, the prosperous prototype of the cellar way of life. Here there's a lively band -- usually a competent jazz combo, generally French, occasionally American -- and a kinetic crop of cave men and women. Also worthy of a look-in in the same area are the Tabou, Chez Régine and Le Keur Samba; in the latter you can dine in dim amber lighting and catch a wild African floorshow. You'll note that most of these spots have a number of seemingly indefatigable couples always in action on the floor; they are the instruments through which the management lures others into dancing and, in general, maintains a high à la mode mood. The girls are called entraineuses; between hoofing bouts they nurse a Coke at a table and will gladly accept an invitation to dance with someone other than their partners. These lasses, usually in their late teens, earn a couple of bucks a night. If you're dateless, and if the appeal is mutual, they'll gladly spend the evening dancing and drinking with you. Whether or not one of them ends up as a peignoir pal is strictly up to you.

The best nighttime show in Paris is by all odds Le Crazy Horse Saloon, on Avenue George V, next door to the high-fashion maestro, Balenciaga. The director of this boite, Alain Bernardin, first imported le striptease to Paris a decade ago, and in so doing happily transformed the entertainment habits of the Continent. The striptease, as it is practiced by the coquettes of Le Crazy Horse, bears scant resemblance to its rowdily bumptious American antecedents. The belles peal with languorous elegance, doffing their raiment to the rhythms of cool jazz against gimmicky cinematic lighting arrangements. Bernardin, who has spent the last 10 years in the enviable, if tiring, pursuit of fresh talent, considers it a bumper year if he uncovers one or two new strippers among the 2000 he auditions. One of these, a 17-year-old altogether charmer named Poupée la Rose, is the show-stopper of the current passers in revue. During her vie en rose act, pert Poupée retains only black silk stockings and provocatively placed chains of black beads.

This dark, low-ceilinged cellar, fitted out in an imaginative Gallic impression of a Western saloon, packs in some 250 buff enthusiasts a night, seven nights a week. The service is first-rate, and there's no annoying nonsense of forcing champagne or too many drinks on the patrons of the art. The first drink comes to three dollars, including the uncover charge and entrance to the dancing and entertainment; all succeeding rounds are $1.50 per. Curiously enough, except for a reverent stag line at the bar, most of the clientele here is made up of couples and even families. With their usual fervent habit of converting everything to metaphysics or epistemology, the French take the phenomenon of stripping most seriously.

In Paris, nearly all night clubs with a floorshow feature one or more strip acts. The undraped bosom, of course, has long been the raison d'être of all shows intrinsically girlie, and the heartland of the belle poitrine set is to be found about the Place Pigalle -- or Pig Alley, as several generations of American servicemen have fondly dubbed it. Pigalle is a brassy, vulgar and gaudy area that caters primarily to the tourist, the French provincial and the sucker. When making the rounds here at night you'll encounter pulsing pink neon signs outlining voluptuous nudes, a midway show replete with small Ferris wheels and a merry-go-round set up on the broad sidewalk running down the center of the boulevard, and battalions of peddlers offering bargains in feelthy pictures, handwoven rugs, peanuts and women. The most notable no-nus-is-bad-news Pigalle fleshpots are Eve, Les Naturistes and Folies Pigalle; all front the Place Pigalle and contain a profuse amount of bra-less wonders. Champagne at $10 and $20 is slapped on your table without your bidding; between numbers the girls work the bars. There is also a multitude of seedier establishments, if you dig the infra dig dives, and many strolling fare ladies who'd appreciate a moment of your time and a look at your money clip.

Regarding the pros and cons of these conning pros, it should be mentioned here that the houses of ill repute, once so numerous and so fondly remembered in the reminiscences of returning dough-boys, are now illegal. They were shuttered shortly after World War II, mainly through the efforts of female deputy Marthe Richard, who has since been heard voicing regret concerning her intervention. The fact is that most of the girls left the houses and the confines of hygienic control to play the old bawd game on Parisian sidewalks. Most of the attractive play-for-pay practitioners have moved with the times; rather than garbing themselves in the familiar uniform of old -- long hair, short puffy fur jacket and ankle-strap spike heels -- many now clothe themselves in fashionable Chanel suits or suede jackets, and have shifted their beats from the poorer sections of town to smarter hunting grounds. You can find them after 10 in the evening patrolling the Madeleine and the upper end of the Champs-Élysées; they approach you discreetly and murmur "Tu viens, cheri?" (Literally: "You coming, honey?") If your answer is affirmative, they take you to a nearby hotel for a half hour or so. Most of the files de la nuit who peddle their talent in the prosperous quarters speak a fluent if picaresque brand of GI English; nearly all are in their early 20s and endowed with an exceptional prettiness. The rates for these amour-the-merrier salesladies run from $10 to $20.

As in most European capitals, call-girls also ply their person-to-person trade in Paris, although the means of access to this friendly elite is not always readily apparent. Your concierge should prove as competent in this area as he is in others. The standard fee, payable in advance, is $100, which entitles you to a night's companionship.

If you're in an extravaganza mood, you should sample either the Lido or the Folies-Bergère, Paris' two most celebrated entertainment palaces. The Lido, located in huge basement quarters just under the center of the Champs-Élysées, offers an excellent dinner at 9:30, followed at 11 by the best cabaret show in town, a professional package that includes the ring-a-ding Bluebell Girls and some of the most fetching nudes in France. Though many of the acts are American and detract from the Frenchness of it all, the show itself is a fastpaced affair that can hold its own with any in Las Vegas. An evening's outing with dinner can run to $30 for two; halve it for just drinks and the show.

The Folies-Bergère on Rue Richer is an institution dating from the Eighties that today continues to entice SRO crowds to its close-to-four-hour shows. Its successful formula has changed very little over the decades: lavish costumes; extravagant dance numbers; a soupcon of audience participation; Gallic chorines of delightful parts who strut onto the runway wearing little besides their outlandish hats; jugglers; acrobats; and a couple of sudsy operetta vignettes. A current addition is the live-wire American star, Sherry Young, who appears to be well on her way to replacing Josephine Baker as our choicest export to the life of Folie. A seat in the plush orchestra armchairs will cost you eight dollars, and can be obtained most easily through your hotel.

For unabashedly romantic drinking and dancing, head for the night club Monseigneur, near Pigalle, where a weepy squadron of 30 violinists is apt to swoop about your table to serenade you and your girl with a passionate gypsy medley. In the same spirit and neighborhood is Shéhérazade, a gypsy joint featuring gold-encrusted ceilings and dashing waiters wielding flaming shashlik swords.

If, on the other hand, you're looking for a cool spot for jazz listening, your best bets are the Blue Note and the Mars Club, both close to the Champs-Élysées, Though in general Paris jazz fare is not especially hip -- they venerate New Orleans style, and haven't as yet moved with the times -- the music in these clubs is excellent, and usually provided by American regulars and distinguished transients like the Modern Jazz Quartet. Top jazz, albeit on discs, is also to be dug along the Rue de la Huchette near Notre-Dame; the street is alive with cellars and discothèques bearing hallowed names like Storyville and St. James Blues.

The same street also houses a dandy belly-dancing parlor, El Diazair, which features four fine navel swingers. You sit on low cushioned seats lining the wall, and sip mint tea or whiskey at huge brass handworked tables. The spirit is high Casbah, and the clientele often includes a number of genuine Saudi Arabian princes complete with retinues.

The most chic place on Rue St.-Séverin is the Grande Séverine, which belongs to Maurice Girodias, owner and publisher of the Olympia Press. Tucked in a 12th Century cellar, it offers its guests five different, but equally elegant, dining rooms and two alternating orchestras -- one jazz and one Latin American.

Two other modes of entertainment rate a brief word. The first, called a chansonniére, has for its chief ingredient political satire. This Sahlitaire can be great irreverent fun, but only if you have a fluent command of the lingo. The second is the music hall, such as the Alhambra and the Olympia, which puts on variety shows headlined by the likes of Edith Piaf, Yves Montand, Georges Brassens and Charles Aznavour. You have to sit through a potpourri of acrobats, jugglers and comedy acts before the main dish is served, but it's generally worth the wait.

For a late nightcap, we warmly endorse dropping in at Gordon Heath's candlelit L'Abbaye, a small bar across the way from the old St.-Germain church where Heath sings French and American folk songs. Commencing at midnight, requests are sung, and a candle is snuffed after each until the room is dark.

The traditional capper to a festive night on the town in Paris is a visit to Les Halles for a great heaping bowl of onion soup. Since its inception in 1183 as a public market, the area of Les Halles has been, in the graphic phrase of Émile Zola, the "belly of Paris." Here, at three and four in the morning, while most of the city sleeps, the mile-square section rocks with the organized chaos of trucks, wagons and carts zeroing in from the provinces with the next day's providential provender. In this confused and raucous scene you'll see rugged bloodstained butchers hefting entire quarters of beef upon their shoulders; these beefy types have equally robust appetites, and it is because of them that so many solid restaurants have flourished in the neighborhood.

For morning fare at its best, try the Au Pied de Cochon, on Rue Coquillière. Pass up the more expensive topside restaurant for the brassy brasserie below: here you can savor pigs' feet -- grilled, broiled, pan-fried, smoked or boiled -- or order a sturdy white china bowlful of onion soup topped by an oven-browned crust of cheese, while watching the butchers drop by the zinc bar for vin rouge and a moment's conversation with ultrachic Parisiennes.

During the daylight hours of your succeeding days in Paris you will, of course, want to make the touristic tours of the buildings, parks and monuments that together impart to the city its historic texture and unique sense of timeless beauty. Foremost in any site-seeing itinerary should be the Louvre, an ex-royal palace (built by Francois I) that is today the premier art museum of the world. Don't try to tramp through all the galleries in one day (there are 16 miles of them); for maximum enjoyment, ration your visits to an hour or so at a time. By all means, see the chef-d'oeuvres that are on display: the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory, but don't fail to consult the museum's catalogs for less conventional esthetic treats of art and archeology. And obviously, if you have more than a passing interest in the arts, save time for the city's other museums, and its myriad art galleries, unique in excellence in the Western world.

Other magnificent buildings that require an appreciative pilgrimage are the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, the most famed of all medieval works of art; the Hotel des Invalides, a resting place not for the sick but for deceased French military heroes, including Napoleon; the church of Sacré Coeur atop Montmartre, a gleaming white structure built in Byzantine style where a spectacular view of the city may be enjoyed (at its best when you arrive for a breath of air at dawn): La Sainte Chapelle, a 13th Century Gothic masterwork on the lie de la Cité; the Pantheon, the domed burial place of such French notables as Jean Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire and Victor Hugo; and the Opéra, the ornate architectural climax to the Second Empire.

You should also pay a visit to the grand grounds of the Tuileries, the Luxembourg Gardens and the Bois de Boulogne. Lying between the Place de la Concorde and the Louvre, the gardens of the Tuileries comprise a gracious stretch of real estate that still retains its elegant 17th Century floral symmetry; set in a slightly more relaxed milieu, the Left Bank Luxembourg Gardens are a tranquil haven for lovers, sailboat-sailing kids and their mademoiselles, and people who just want to laze in the sun. The big and unboisterous Bois is a park on the western fringe of the city that is liberally sprinkled with ponds and lakes, and peaceful byways that draw much of the Paris citizenry on balmy Sunday afternoons. There are also two superlative race tracks here: steeplechasing Auteuil, and Longchamp, where top stake runnings are held each spring.

As is the case in most cities, perhaps the best way to capture Paris' intangible and spritely spirit is by wandering at random along the avenues and rues. It's a mistake to overorganize these promenades, for a routined route is not conducive to the spontaneous kicks that seem to accompany an adlib jaunt. We do advise, however, that you trek at least once along the Place Vendôme, the Rue du Faubourg-St.-Honoré, Rue St.-Honoré, Rue de la Paix, Avenue Matignon and the Avenue de I'Opéra -- prime à pied areas for those who enjoy window-brows- ing past the world's most superlative shops. And you might reserve one Sunday morning for a perambulation through the Flea Market (or Marché aux Puces, as the locals call it), where you'll encounter convoluted acres of gimcrackery. Everything under the soleil is sold here, and occasionally you can pick up a prize antique at bargain rates.

Should you desire to take off on a one-day spin to Paris' rural environs, there are a number of choice choices open to you and your traveling companion. (Renting a car poses no problem; we lean toward either a Floride or a smooth-riding DS convertible.) One popular destination is Versailles, the palatial diggings of Louis XIV which loom some 13 miles out of town. Flanked by magnificent gardens and parks, this massive palace is shot through with historic rooms, ranging from the boudoir of Marie Antoinette to the Hall of Mirrors where World Was I's peace treaty was signed. Thirty-seven miles to the south lies Fontainebleau, a regal retreat where Francois I and his successors indulged a double passion: love of hunting and love of women. Here a 57,000-acre forest sides the lavish palace that Napoleon and Josephine, among others, utilized for many a pleasant interlude. Churchgoers and conoisseurs of religious art and architecture will find the great cathedrals of Reims (96 miles out) and Chartres (63 miles) within easy motoring distance of Paris.

If you and your femmelin are amenable to the quiet of a rustic weekend, you can't do better than to make tire tracks to the ancient village of Montfort-l'-Amaury, 45 minutes out of town. Head for the Auberge de la Moutière, an inn that prospers under the astute direction of Maxim's M. Carrère. This Edenesque spot offers eight rooms superbly suited to double-entendres, a top cuisine and wine cellar, and flawless service.

Almost as bucolic and equally pleasurable, are leisurely drives in an open carriage through the parks or along the Seine, and boat trips on the river itself, either around the lie de la Cité or out as far as St. Cloud and back.

Whatever side excursions you choose to make, you'll assuredly want to spend the concluding carefree days of your visit back in Paris, that persuasive and fortuitous fusion of the sensuous and the spiritual, the joyous and the nostalgic, the earthy and the sublime. Returning to the welcome confines of its unique arrondissements, you'll realize with fresh perception that Paris is, above all, a state of mind, a stylized approach to life as it should be lived. Breathing its heady spring air, you'll come to understand -- and will never forget -- the elusively seductive raison d'être that has won for it the name of incomparable city of light.