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Paris Quiz: How Well Do You Know Paris?
Dominique Lesbros
By
Published: Oct 15, 2009
Category:
Travel
Dominique Lesbros annoys me.
I’ve been to Paris a gazillion times, lived there for months, get around without a map. I not only have favorite restaurants, I have favorite dishes at them. I’m looking right now at a concert stub from a top-ten-ever Bruce Springsteen concert at the Bercy Arena. And, for an English major, I have read a shelf of French history and fiction.
I like to think I could get a C on a quiz about Paris.
Now comes Ms. Lesbros with Paris Quiz, 400 “provocative, curious and humor questions [about Paris] to enlighten and entertain”.
Her pitch:
Let’s forget for a moment the arduous Paris, the everyday Paris, and look at the capital in a new light. What if Paris were nothing but a giant playing field? What if the roads, the monuments, the statues and the history of the capital were the pretext for a thousand questions?
Okay, a history and culture quiz. I can handle that. But only on a level playing field. Which this is not:
The questions that follow are each provided with three possible answers, one true, the other two far-fetched, deceptive, treacherous at times. But be careful! In exceptional cases, more than one answer may be correct. Will you be able to recognize them?
Will I? More to the point, can you?
Let’s take the book out for a spin, shall we? Here are 10 questions, not chosen for excessive difficulty.
In 1870 the Prussians were at the gates of the capital. How were the Parisians able to prevent the statue of Napoleon I (which is today located in the cour des Invalides) from falling into the hands of the traditional enemies of the Empire?
a. They covered it in plaster to disguise it as a Roman goddess.
b. They submerged it in the Seine.
c. They hoisted it into a tree, hiding it in the foliage.
The Eiffel Tower, constructed for the World’s Fair of 1889, was supposed to be demolished shortly thereafter. What saved it, in 1909?
a. Its aesthetic qualities, praised by three hundred artists in a petition
b. Its technical, scientific and military usefulness
c. The greed of a private company, which had already glimpsed a juicy profit in it
Another about the Eiffel Tower: How long did it take to pay off the loan that financed its construction?
a. 1 month
b. 1 year
c. 10 years
What kind of prisoner was housed in the Bastille?
a. Highwaymen and pickpockets
b. Deserting soldiers
c. Aristocrats and men of letters
How long did it take to transport the obelisk in the 1st arrondissement presented to France by Egypt in 1830?
a. 5.5 months
b. One year, one month and one day
c. two years and 24 days
Who is the only woman entombed alongside 60 great French men under the dome of the Pantheon?
a. Marie Curie
b. Simone de Beauvoir
c. Flora Tristan
Who is Rodin’s “Thinker” and what is he thinking about?
a. Dante, thinking about his “Inferno&rdquo
b. Balzac, thinking about a novel
c. Apollo, thinking about seducing the nymph Coronis
How often is the Unknown Soldier’s flame lit to the sound of a bugle?
a. every evening
b. every Sunday morning
c. every November 11
What landed on the roof of Galeries Lafayette on 1/19/1919?
a. Storks
b. A hot air balloon
c. An airplane
Why is the stone of the Sacre-Coeur Basilica so white?
a. Because it’s cleaned every week
b. Because it’s high on a hill, above fumes and pollution
c. Because it’s made from limestone that whitens with even the slightest rain
Answers? You can get them a few ways. One is to Google, which will take some initiative on your part. Another is to buy the book.
