This is a second, revised and updated edition of Ian Dunlop's essential guide, originally published under the title of The Companion Guide to the Ile de France. This guide is a labour of love. It is a key that will open many tiny, hidden, forsaken places, a ruined keep in a farmyard, the remains of an arch in a field, an escutcheon, forlorn and heralding nothing but desolation and an old Revolution, a triumphal entrance leading to emptiness, a stone stag in an autumnal forest that has heard the French horn for 200 years, and the infinite sadness of the Petit Trianon. SPECTATOR