Back over on the Right Bank, inside the Palais Royal, I found a welcome solitude among the rows of trees pruned into perfect squares. I loved the Technicolor flowerbeds during late summer and how the rosebushes miraculously bloomed in winter, the buds like drops of blood against the white snow. And in the spring, the green fields and gold dome of Les Invalides opening before me when I zipped across the Pont Alexandre III to the Left Bank never failed to make me sigh.