Arrival in Paris

Abstract

This chapter describes the city of Paris encountered by Adrien-Joseph Colson when he first arrived there in the middle of the eighteenth century, underlining the great size of the city and the extraordinary diversity in wealth and living conditions among the various elements of the population that he encountered. It also describes his family background and education before his arrival in Paris to take up a career as lawyer and accountant to a noble family. It takes note of the strong contrast between his relatively humble background in an artisan family and his relatively prestigious career as a Parisian lawyer.