Had I known, during my childhood trips to Paris, that it was called the City of Love, I might have been less agog at all the kissing going on. Mon dieu! The USA was so much less romantically demonstrative. Equally memorable introductions to the pleasures of adult life were the grand Parisian department stores, temples of the acquisitive passions, Louvres of the material life. I’d lose myself in Galeries Lafayette, Printemps, and, of course, La Samaritaine, a Macy’s-like behemoth between the Quai du Louvre and Notre-Dame (well, if you can imagine, as Adam Gopnik put it, “Macy’s on the banks of the Seine, with a view of a Gothic cathedral”).
Hence my unbridled excitement about the new Cheval Blanc Paris hotel, from the French luxury conglomerate LVMH, which was announced…
