Today we're visiting the 7th arrondissement, and today's
walk is, at least at the end, a little longer than the earlier ones.
Begin on the beautiful quai Voltaire, just across the Seine from the Louvre.
There at the Hotel de Quai Voltaire, number 19, Willa
Cather stayed and worked for two months
in 1920.
Hotel
de Quai Voltaire
Turn left at the end of the Quai (just at the entrance
to the Musee d'Orsay) onto the rue du Bac. Then take the first left,
onto the rue de Lille. Richard Wright lived at number 9 in the apartment
of a friend when he first moved permanently to France in 1947.

And at number 19, Harry and Caresse Crosby, who ran the
Black Sun Press, one of the many small presses that published avant-garde
writing in the 1920s, owned an apartment which they rented to Archibald
MacLeish in 1927
19, rue de Lille
Turn back and return to the rue du Bac, turning left (away
from the Seine) and follow it to number 44. MacLeish also lived at
this address where he bought an apartment after having moved from that
of the Crosbys.
44, rue du Bac
Backtracking once more, return up the rue du Bac a block
or two until you come to the rue de l'Universite. Turn right onto
this long street. The Hotel Lenox is located at number 9. There
the twenty year old T.S.
Eliot moved in 1910, when it was a pension. He stayed
there for a year.

Go back up this street until you come to the rue de Bellechasse.
Turn left, follow it across the major street of St-Germain-des-Pres until
you reach the rue de Varenne. Turn left, walking past the Hotel Matignon
and many other government buildings, until you come to number 53.
Edith
Wharton lived here for ten years--from 1908 to 1918. Her stay
is commemorated with a plaque--the only one I found in both French and
English--which describes her (not entirely accurately) as the first American
writer to expatriate to France.


The last stop in the 7th arrondissement is some distance
away--back on the rue de l'Universite, but at the other end of an uncharacteristically
long street (at least for Paris). The walk is a pleasant one, though.
Walk back up the rue de Varenne till it ends. On your left is the
wonderful Musee Rodin with its peaceful garden full of Rodin's sculpture.
It's one of the real pleasures of Paris, especially when the weather is
nice. (If you want to cheat, there is a metro stop here which will
save some shoe leather.) If you feel like walking, turn right on
the boulevard des Invalides. On your left, you'll see the majestic
dome of the Hotel des Invalides, under which is the enormous tomb of Napoleon.
Continue up this street along (or, better, cutting across) the beautiful
esplanade leading away from the Invalides. Once more, you'll find
the rue de l'Universite. Turn left and follow it all the way to its
end. At number 169, there was once a house, which no longer exists,
where Mark Twain and his wife lived for six months beginning in November
1894. The closest metro stop is just to the right, across the Pont
de l'Alma--now perhaps a more important tourist attraction as it was in
the tunnel there that Princess Diana had her fatal car accident.
Just outside the metro stop is the torch that has become a memorial to
her.