Summing up Rive Gauche grungy in style, it was hardly the Golden Globes yet made up for the lack of glamour by being unpredictable and thoroughly entertaining.

FORBES: Spotlight On Bernard Henri-L��vy's Le Prix Saint-Germain, Paris

When a real-life Frenchwoman moves into the neighborhood, Ms. Beaulieu sneaks over to inhale a bit of Paris through forbidden spritzes of Yves Saint Laurent's perfume Rive Gauche.

WSJ: Book Review: Diary of a Nose | The Perfume Lover

For the son of a shopkeeper executed by the Yugoslav Communists, getting to the rive gauche was a welcome escape from the gloom of the Balkans, and it guaranteed him a prestigious job as a professor of literature back home.

ECONOMIST: Charlemagne