Western Suburbs of Paris (Including Auteuil and Passy) in the
Eighteenth Century 4 Molière, Boileau, and Rousseau were but a
few of the famous authors, artists, and political figures who
made their homes in the elegant western suburbs of Paris during
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Both in Passy, in
daily working sessions with Jefferson and Franklin at the Hôtel
de Valentinois, and in Auteuil, where he resided reunited with
his family, John Adams finally escaped “the putrid streets of
Paris” and found his situation “the best I could wish for” (
Diary and Autobiography of John Adams , vol. 3:171 ). Abigail
Adams reiterated her husband's sentiment in a letter to her
sister Mary Cranch. “The house we have taken is large,
commodious, and agreeably situated, near the Woods of Bolign,
which belong to the King, and which Mr. Adams calls his park,
for he walks an hour or two every day in them” (5 September
1784, vol. 5). The vast Bois de Boulogne of approximately 2,200
acres is on the western border of Pass