Raana Haider explores the yesterday, today and tomorrow of the most beautiful city in the world. In the City of Lights, she is charmed by the Are de Triomphe, the Bois de Boulogne, the Champs-Elysees. However, she also covers art and auctions; baguettes and bistrots; cafes and Chanel; Diana and Duke and Duchess of Windsor; emigres and Egyptomania; mega-Louvre and mini-museums and the feather in the national cap - the World Cup 1998. The abundance of superlatives on Paris bears witness to the scores of its admirers through the ages Parisians who have crossed national boundaries - Parisians not by birth but by choice. Parisian Portraits is also the Paris of the American Art Buchwald, the English Charles Dickens, the Hungarian George Mikes, the Russian Andrei Makin6 and any number of other Parisians by inclination.