It was early spring in Paris in 1950 when I arrived at Garde du Nord after a three month sojourn in England and Belgium. For reasons unknown to me even today, I felt immediately at home. The carefree informality of the people, the elegant dressed women, their urban sophistication, the tree-lined avenues and boulevards, the beautifully-lit historical and other heritage buildings, the artistic quality of the posters and billboards and, above all, the illumination of the city itself made an immediate impression upon my mind, an impression made deeper and richer in the days to come.