Tucked away in the Latin Quarter of Paris is a medieval church that has stood watch over its neighborhood for hundreds of years. I visited Saint-Séverin during a research trip to Paris to explore the settings for my historical fiction series, When the Sea Was Still. I had already tentatively chosen it as one of the settings in my novel, but I wanted to see the church for myself before committing it to the page. After all, there are so very many beautiful and interesting churches in Paris to choose from.

From the outside, the Church of Saint-Séverin looks every bit its age, its weathered façade darkened by centuries of soot, pollution, and exposure to the elements. Nothing about its somber exterior prepares you for what waits beyond its heavy wooden doors.

Stepping inside, I found a stunning atmosphere of artistry and wonder. Colorful stained-glass windows rose above dramatic arches, while carved columns twisted upward like ribbons of stone. I had entered a peaceful sanctuary that felt in complete contrast to the hustle and bustle of the Latin Quarter outside.

Saint-Séverin is one of the oldest churches on Paris’s Left Bank. Construction on the Gothic church began in the thirteenth century, around 1230, when the area was becoming the center of university life in Paris. Much of the building was later destroyed during the Hundred Years’ War, leaving only the bell tower and the first three sections of the original nave intact.

Reconstruction began around 1450, just two years later, transforming Saint-Séverin into the Flamboyant Gothic church we see today. The church was widened from three aisles to five. Later, between 1489 and 1495, the distinctive cluster of columns was added, including the famous central pillar that fans out like a palm tree.

Saint-Séverin survived another perilous chapter during the French Revolution, when it was closed as a place of worship and used to store gunpowder, then animal feed and church bells. Countless bells across France were broken apart and melted down for metal, but Saint-Séverin’s bell, named Macée, was one that survived. Today it is the oldest bell in Paris, having been cast in 1412.

When I began searching from home for a church to use in my story, I had specific requirements in mind. It needed to be in the 5th arrondissement, near where my characters lived and it had to be old enough to have served generations of the same family. The church was important to me because it would become the setting for a powerful scene after the First World War changed their lives.

Saint-Séverin seemed to offer everything I needed. Its location in the heart of the Latin Quarter placed it very close to my character’s apartment, and the photographs I found online confirmed its beauty. Once stepping inside, the deal was sealed. None of the photos I’d seen had captured its true magnificence or the feelings it inspired, for only being there in person could.

Some places feel as though the story itself chose them rather than the author, and Saint-Séverin is one of them. In the novel, it has been part of my characters’ lives since childhood. They have gathered there for Sunday Mass, celebrated baptisms, confirmations, holidays, and weddings, and shared moments that bound their families together across generations.

When the First World War broke out, so much in Paris changed. So much was lost. Shops closed. Men left for the front. Daily life was suddenly transformed from joie de vivre to uncertainty and fear. Through it all, Saint-Séverin remained, one of the few constants. A beacon of hope. A place to pray. For my characters, the comfort and continuity it offered felt like a lifeline as they waited to hear news of their loved ones.

All of this settled over me as I sat quietly in the church. The centuries of history were present in its walls—the many lives that have passed through, the prayers whispered, the love celebrated, and the tears shed. Places like Saint-Séverin inspire me to tell stories about the people who walked these streets and sat beneath these arches long before us.

And maybe that is why I love Paris so much. To stand inside one of its centuries-old buildings is to stand inside a page in history. Across the city, the past remains woven into places that are still visited, loved, and used every day. When I walk through Paris, I see layers of history so captivating that I am compelled to write about them.

This week, we are going back in time to 1910 to an island in Paris. The Île de la Cité (Island of the City in English) is perhaps most well known as the home of the stunning religious landmarks like Sainte-Chapelle and Notre-Dame, monuments of soaring stone and brilliant stained glass that have inhabited this small piece of land for more than 800 years.

By 1910, the Île de la Cité was a remarkable mix of old and new. Notre-Dame had dominated the central plaza since the 14th century with medieval streets surrounding it. Along its northern bank sat the famous flower market, Marché aux Fleurs, which had been a staple since 1808. Yet much of the island had been transformed during the nineteenth century with massive government complexes like the Palais de Justice and the Préfecture de Police. Now a new underground Métro station was under construction, bringing another wave of modernization to the ancient island.

In the early twentieth century, the island was alive with traditional family businesses and the prosperity of the Belle Époque was in full swing. Goldsmiths and jewelers had practiced their trades on the island for centuries, while newer businesses included legal robe-makers who crafted custom formal wear for the nearby high courts. It was a bustling place with a mix of merchants, craftsmen, government workers, and a growing number of tourists, all contributing to an economic boom that filled the Île de la Cité with an excess of goods and overflowing wealth.

But January of 1910 would see a different kind of excess. It began with weeks of incessant rain that saturated the ground and filled the tributaries feeding into the Seine. By mid-January, the river was creeping up the stone embankments until it finally spilled over into the streets of Paris. The rising river slowly transformed the Île de la Cité into a maze of wooden boardwalks and rescue boats as residents scrambled to combat the relentless water. The flood forced the closure of the newly opened stretch of Métro Line 4, which only days earlier had finally connected the northern and southern halves of Paris. And much of the island was plunged into weeks of darkness when electricity and gas lines were disrupted by the floodwaters.

The devastation was particularly severe along the Quai aux Fleurs and the narrow streets that branched from it, including Rue des Chantres and Rue des Ursins. This corner of the Île de la Cité sat at one of the island’s lowest elevations, directly beside the Seine. It had also escaped much of Baron Haussmann’s redevelopment of Paris in the nineteenth century, leaving its old, tightly packed streets and buildings largely intact. During the flood, that combination of geography and ancient architecture proved disastrous.

Even before the Seine spilled over the stone quays, the flood had begun beneath the streets. As the river rose, mounting pressure forced water and raw sewage backward through the island’s old network of drains, inundating cellars from below. For the merchants who worked on the Île de la Cité, these underground spaces were not simply used for storage. Jewelers, watchmakers, and bookbinders kept workshops there, along with tools, materials, furnaces, and valuable stock. Some cellars filled nearly to the ceiling with murky water. As the flood continued to rise, it crept through floorboards and into the ground-floor shops and showrooms, coating floors and furnishings in a thick layer of foul gray silt. Velvet display trays, glass cases, papers, and design records could all be ruined without the river ever having to crash through the front door.

This was the reality Étienne Moreau and his family had to contend with in my historical serial When the Sea Was Still. Their fictional jewelry atelier sits along the Quai aux Fleurs, placing Maison Moreau directly in the path of the rising water and the destruction that followed. (If you’d like to read the story, start with Episode 1 here.)

When the waters finally subsided after weeks of flooding, the ordeal was far from over. Cellars, workshops, and shops were left coated in layers of river mud and sewage, while walls, floors, and foundations remained saturated with contaminated water. The narrow streets filled with recovery efforts as residents hauled away destroyed belongings and attempted to disinfect buildings. The damp masonry took months to dry, and the smell of stagnant water and rot lingered long after the Seine had receded.

Restoring the flooded shops was painstaking too. Tools, furnaces, and other equipment had spent days submerged, while valuable goods were ruined and months of work lost. Workshops first had to be emptied of damaged materials, then scrubbed clean of the mud and sewage the river had left behind, and finally repaired before craftsmen could return to work. Then came the difficult process of sorting through what remained. Attempts were made to salvage stock, account books, correspondence, designs, and other records, separating anything that could be saved from what had been destroyed by water and silt.

Although the Seine began to recede at the end of January, additional rises followed in February and early March, and the river did not fully return to normal until mid-March. For the businesses along the Quai aux Fleurs, reopening was a slow process. Damp walls, damaged equipment, lost inventory, and interrupted orders would continue to be felt long after the floodwaters were gone. When their doors finally opened once again, returning to business was not business as usual.

Today, it is difficult to imagine the Île de la Cité as it appeared during those weeks in 1910. The Seine once again flows quietly past the stone quays, and the narrow streets around the Quai aux Fleurs give little indication of the destruction they endured. But traces of the flood remain if you know where to look. High-water markers hang from buildings throughout the island, recording just how far the Seine rose and preserving the memory of the winter when the historic heart of Paris nearly disappeared beneath the water.

The next time you walk these streets, look for those small reminders. They are easy to pass without noticing, but once you understand what they represent, it becomes much harder to look at the Seine, or the Île de la Cité, quite the same way again.

I caught my first glimpse of Lake Geneva from a high-speed train as I traveled from Milan last year, a beautiful finale to an already spectacular journey through the Alps. But it wasn’t until I walked down to the waterfront that I truly appreciated the magic of this giant lake. Its calm waters stretch beneath the Swiss Alps and beyond the French border, giving it a vastness I hadn’t expected. Being there in the quiet of winter made it feel even more enchanting. The lake was devoid of tourist boats and summer crowds. All that was left to enjoy the peaceful atmosphere was me and the swans swimming serenely across the water.

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Playground for the Wealthy

More than a century before my visit, Lake Geneva was already one of Europe’s great vacation destinations. During the Belle Époque, from 1871 to 1914, wealthy American travelers came for the spectacular views as we do today, but they also chose Lake Geneva for its grand hotels, elegant steamers and the Swiss hospitality that dominated luxury travel at the time.

The grand hotels along the shores of Lake Geneva were much more than just places to sleep. They were at the heart of the social scene, and the social scene was everything. Wealthy travelers dined in extravagance and gathered in elegant salons, taking note of who else was there. Even the visitors’ book became part of the social experience. Guests could browse the names of the prominent guests who had stayed before them, while leaving their own name and social affiliations behind to impress travelers who followed. Being able to say you had stayed at one of Europe’s fashionable grand hotels carried a status all its own.

A Belle Époque vacation on Lake Geneva moved at a very different pace from European travel today. Wealthy visitors didn’t arrive at a grand hotel for two or three nights before hurrying on to the next city. Stays of several weeks, or even months, were common. With trunks of clothing unpacked into their rooms and their household staff accompanying them, a grand hotel became a temporary home for the season.

Affluent families arrived with an entourage, typically bringing two to four personal servants, including a lady’s maid and a nanny or tutor for the children, while some also traveled with a secretary, butler or chauffeur. Their servants stayed at the hotels too, although in decidedly less glamorous accommodations. At the Caux Palace above Montreux, guests occupied luxurious rooms overlooking Lake Geneva, while their servants slept in smaller rooms on the mountain-facing side of the same floors and used separate staircases.

Fresh Air and a Good Night’s Sleep

There was another reason Switzerland appealed to travelers of the period: people believed it was good for them. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, European physicians increasingly prescribed changes of climate, fresh air, rest and outdoor activity for a variety of ailments. Switzerland became particularly associated with this culture of restorative travel, with its mountain air, beautiful scenery and tranquil surroundings, all believed to help restore an overtaxed nervous system.

Switzerland provided Americans a sanctuary from the smog of rapidly industrializing cities like New York and Chicago. Doctors even prescribed climatic cures for people suffering from neurasthenia, a term used for burnout, anxiety and insomnia. Edwardian doctors genuinely believed that the unique microclimate where the Swiss Alps met Lake Geneva created a tranquil atmosphere that acted as an antidote.

As a result, the ritual of rest was taken seriously. At Swiss resorts, guests spent hours reclining outdoors on deep set hotel balconies, wrapped in expensive wool blankets while breathing the mountain air and starring at the glassy water to soothe their nerves. Around Lake Geneva, they could also visit spa towns for hydrotherapy and mineral-water treatments. Just across the lake in Évian-les-Bains, visitors came specifically to drink and bathe in the mineral water for which the town was already famous.

Then and Now

One of the things I love about Lake Geneva is how much of its Belle Époque world can still exists today. From preserved boats that transport visitors back in time to grand hotels that have been serving guests for well over a century, Lake Geneva is a time capsule of that elegant era.

Paddle Steamers

During the Belle Époque, paddle steamers were one of the most elegant ways to travel around the lake. The Compagnie Générale de Navigation (CGN), Lake Geneva’s passenger-boat company, carried visitors between Geneva and fashionable lakeside destinations such as Lausanne, Vevey, Montreux and Évian. By the early twentieth century, its finest vessels offered first-class salons designed to rival the grand hotels waiting on shore. Passengers walked across teak decks into richly decorated interiors filled with intricate wood marquetry, gilded details, plush carpets and comfortable upholstered seating. Outside, they could stroll the open decks and watch the Alps, vineyards, and grand hotels drift past as coal-fired engines powered the great paddle wheels beneath them. Crossing the lake wasn’t simply transportation. The journey itself was part of the luxury vacation.

You can still experience these historic vessels today. Six vessels from the CGN fleet continue to carry passengers on Lake Geneva, including La Suisse, commissioned in 1910, and Savoie, commissioned in 1914. They offer scenic cruises, service between lakeside towns, and dinner cruises serving Swiss and regional dishes. Extensive restorations have preserved their elegant period appearance while also incorporating modern safety systems and technology beneath the surface. Despite the use of 21st-century technology, the Belle Époque aesthetic remains alive and you can still see the beautiful surroundings of Lake Geneva from the water much as travelers did more than one hundred years ago.

The Jet d’Eau

Geneva’s signature landmark has also existed since the opulent days of the Belle Époque. This unique spray of water that jets high up into the sky straight out of the lake is known as the Jet d’Eau (“jet of water”).

It originally appeared almost accidentally in 1886, when a hydraulic plant needed a way to release excess water pressure after the city’s workshops shut down for the evening. People loved the resulting plume of water so much that in 1891 Geneva created a new Jet d’Eau in the harbor, where it became a popular attraction.

Visitors today see a more dramatic version of what was seen then. As a result of a new pumping station installed in 1951, the height of the water increased from about 295 feet (90 meters) to a dramatic 460 feet (140 meters). The accidental burst of water that delighted Belle Époque visitors still delights travelers today and has become the iconic symbol of Geneva.

When the Sea Was Still Connection

Lake Geneva is the vacation destination for a wealthy couple in my serial novel When the Sea Was Still, which inspired me to dig deeper into what they would have experienced there in July 1914. I hope you’ve enjoyed traveling back with me to Lake Geneva during the elegant days of the Belle Époque!

If you’d like to learn more about When the Sea Was Still, you can read about it here.

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Welcome back to Tuesday’s newsletter! A few weeks ago I told you that going forward we would be exploring the real places and fascinating history behind the travels that inspire my writing. Although it’s taken a little longer than I intended, today I’m taking you straight to the heart of Paris. But we aren’t just traveling across the globe; we are traveling back in time, as far back as 1778, through the glittering Belle Époque of the early twentieth century, and back to present day.

The Hotel de Crillon

It’s easy to walk into one of the most luxurious hotels in Paris when you act like you belong there. At least, that’s what I told myself as I walked through the doors of the Hôtel de Crillon on a cold January day. I had looked into staying there for just one night, but since it would cost more than my flight from Phoenix, I opted to walk in like I owned the place instead.

The hotel was at the top of my list of sights to see during my research trip to Paris. So I walked in, tried not to look too much like someone who had no business being there, and started exploring.

From the moment I stepped inside, I felt as though I’d entered a palace of Parisian luxury: glittering chandeliers, marble floors, soaring ceilings, golden accents, and a series of rooms that kept getting more beautiful as I walked through them. This is the kind of place where you find yourself saying wow around every corner.

Marie Antoinette at the Crillon

Long before the Crillon was a hotel, it was a grand private residence of the family of the Count of Crillon. The building was designed in the exquisite Neoclassical style by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, one of the leading architects of his time. It is said that Marie Antoinette came here regularly for private piano lessons between October 1789 and August 1792. The royal family had been forced out of Versailles and moved into the nearby, comparatively run-down Tuileries Palace. The grand private mansion, located just a stone’s throw from Antoinette’s new residence, offered an elegant escape for her music lessons.

As the legend goes, the second-floor salon associated with those lessons was decorated with exquisite bronze-gilt details and was lit by massive, lead-crystal tier chandeliers holding dozens of beeswax candles. Marie Antoinette sat at a fortepiano looking through magnificent glass doors onto a columned terrace that gave her a direct view of the Place Louis XV, now Place de la Concorde—the very square where she would lose her life little more than a year later.

Today, the hotel has a Marie-Antoinette Suite adjoining the historic salon associated with those piano lessons. I stood in the suite named for the fallen queen looking out over the Place de la Concorde, having no idea about any of this. All I knew was that I was in an incredibly beautiful room whose door had been left open, and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be there or not. I snapped a few quick photos, took in the view, and got out.

From Palace to Hotel

When the Hôtel de Crillon opened its doors as a luxury hotel on March 12, 1909, it represented the absolute zenith of Belle Époque glamour. Its soaring reception salons preserved the grandeur of the eighteenth-century building while introducing the opulence expected of one of Paris’s newest luxury hotels. Crystal chandeliers glittered overhead, tapestries covered the walls, and enormous windows looked out over the Place de la Concorde.

Over the years it attracted famous guests like Isadora Duncan, Igor Stravinsky, Charlie Chaplin, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Peggy Guggenheim. But for a cultured intellectual like Edith Wharton, it was the ultimate sanctuary. She booked a room the very spring the hotel opened to draft her novel The Custom of the Country, which was published in 1913. She deliberately chose the Crillon over the Ritz—which she detested for attracting the ostentatious, newly rich American crowd.

Wharton famously described her favorite top-floor suite as a “very nice apartment up in the sky, overlooking the whole of Paris.” From these lofty windows, a guest at that time could look out at the transition of a century: horse-drawn carriages sharing the asphalt with sleek early motorcars on the Place de la Concorde.

Edith Wharton continued to stay at the Hôtel de Crillon even after establishing a home of her own in Paris. At the end of July 1914, she took rooms there after a motorcar trip through Spain. She was due to depart on August 2, but became stranded at the hotel when France ordered general mobilization just days before entering WWI. In Fighting France, Wharton describes looking out from the terrace of the Crillon as taxis and private motorcars carried soldiers across the Place de la Concorde toward the railway stations. Groups of soldiers marched through the square carrying their bags.

Diplomacy at the Crillon

Before Marie Antoinette, Edith Wharton, and the other famous guests, the Crillon played a key role in America’s first alliance. In 1778, Benjamin Franklin and his fellow American commissioners met with French representatives in the hotel’s magnificent Salon des Aigles (Eagles Room) for the signing of two historic agreements. The Treaty of Alliance made France America’s first formal ally, while the Treaty of Amity and Commerce recognized the United States as an independent nation.

More than 140 years later, just 10 years after becoming a hotel, the Crillon was once again the setting for an important moment in international diplomacy. In 1919, after the devastation of the First World War, the covenant establishing the League of Nations was signed in the same Salon des Aigles. The League of Nations was an ambitious attempt to bring countries together to prevent another catastrophic war. Although it ultimately failed and was dissolved after WWII, its legacy helped shape the United Nations.

The Crillon Today

Over a century after the League of Nations covenant was signed in the Salon des Aigles, the Crillon still exists in the same kind of unapologetic luxury. Echoing the transformation that preceded its opening as a hotel in 1909, a four-year restoration completed in 2017 preserved the Crillon’s historic salons and eighteenth-century details while bringing it firmly into the twenty-first century. Some of the numbers are staggering: 250 artisans worked on the restoration, and 53 different types of marble were used throughout the hotel. I didn’t even know there were 53 kinds of marble I needed to covet, but after walking through the Crillon, I believe it.

The restored chandeliers and iconic views over the Place de la Concorde remain, along with the protected historic spaces of the Marie-Antoinette and Aigles salons, with ceilings dating back to 1775-76. The fashions and famous faces have changed since Wharton checked in during the Belle Époque. More recently, the hotel has welcomed guests like Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Roger Federer, Andy Warhol, and Taylor Swift. Today’s Crillon mixes all its fantastic history with modern Parisian luxury.

My Takeaway

My visit to the Hôtel de Crillon was part of a research trip I took to Paris to learn firsthand about the setting for the second half of my historical novel When the Sea Was Still. I walked into the hotel hoping to get a glimpse of the 1914 world I was writing. What I found was a hotel that was not only quintessentially Parisian but a place that had seen far more than I could ever imagine.

Marie Antoinette had walked through these rooms before the French Revolution changed France forever. Edith Wharton looked out over the Place de la Concorde as Europe was on the brink of WWI. During the glittering years of the Belle Époque, some of the most famous artists, writers, and travelers in the world passed through the Crillon’s doors. I was humbled to think I had walked through them too.

Of course, the hotel looks much different today than it did in 1914. But the bones are the same. I believe the elegance is the same. And for a few hours, I felt as though I had stepped into the Paris I had spent so much time writing about.

After walking through the grand lobby, up the ornate staircase, and into the Marie Antoinette suite, I made my way back downstairs and outside the hotel. Standing at the door I had freely walked through were three large guards. I said a confident “Bonjour” and left quickly.