The reading public knows Maurice Druon primarily from the “Cursed Kings” saga, which revealed the dark secrets of the Middle Ages, and the novel “The Powers That Be,” which reveals the behind-the-scenes of modern Western society. This time we have a completely different Druon - a historian, writer, but also a man in love with a great city, who talks about his understanding of the Ancient World, about the origins of great civilizations. In the book “Paris from Caesar to Saint Louis” the main character is a city that preserves the memory of France; here the images of those who laid the foundation of the French capital come to life: Julius Caesar, Julian the Apostate, the warring queens Fredegonda and Brunnhilde; Charlemagne, Pierre Abelard, Saint Louis and many others. In the book “Sources and Shores,” Druon poetically and vividly talks about the Mediterranean Sea, on the shores of which the beginnings of human culture were born.