The Boulevard Haussmann, in the VIIIth and IXth Arrondissements, stretches from the Rue du Faubourg St Honoré to the Opéra. It is very long and very dull, but it is perhaps the solidest street in the whole of Paris. Not the richest — the Avenue d’Iéna has that distinction — but rich people are not necessarily solid people and too many of the landlords and tenants in the Avenue d’Iéna have names ending in ‘escu,’ ‘ovitch,’ ‘ski,’ and ‘stein,’ and these are sometimes not the endings of respectable names. Moreover, the Avenue d’Iéna is almost entirely residential. The occasional discreet brass plate giving the name of a holding company in Liechtenstein or in the Bahamas or the Canton de Vaud in Switzerland are there for tax purposes only — the cover names for private family fortunes seeking a
