Lifelong francophiles have a tendancy to employ a certain rhetoric when they express feeling perpetually beguiled by France. The key to this fascination is seduction. We find ourselves seduced by the way of life, the people, the architecture, the food and made powerless in its force. Is it any wonder that expats who tirelessly complain about red tape and bureaucratic nonsense muster the will to stay, often for their entire lives?

Seduction is at play, however, beyond a simple plate of macarons or cruise along the Seine. It’s anchored in French history and if anyone knows a thing or two about the role of seduction in France it is longtime Paris bureau chief of The New York Times, Elaine Sciolino. After decidedly serious, political tones to her first two books, Elaine sought to demystify the French mystique with the perfect marriage of fact and wit. It is through personal tales (e.g. encounters with former French President Jacques Chirac) and historical anecdotes of public figures in La Séduction that she offers us entertaining insight into French culture. Today, she shares some of her favorite aspects of expat life in France!

Describe what you love about France in three words.
Conversation without end. That’s what seduction is – an endless conversation, a “partage” or sharing. In the bedroom and the boardroom, at the dinner table and the negotiating table. There is a visual conversation on the streets, a verbal conversation in cafes, a olfactory conversation with perfume.

Most misconstrued notion about the French?
That they are always rude. Yes, they can be rude, really rude. They stare and don’t smile much. But we foreigners need to understand “le regard.” Le regard is the look, the electric charge between two people when their eyes lock and there is an immediate understanding that a bond has been created. The concept is a classic component of French seduction, rooted in antiquity and developed in the love poetry of the troubadours. Le regard is not done with an open, wide, American-style grin, but mysteriously and deeply, with the eyes. Not with a wink. “French women don’t wink,” one French woman told me. “It disfigures your face.”

Aside from being kissed on the hand by Jacques Chirac, other notable moments where you were seduced à la Française?
I was “seduced” by Inès de la Fressange, the former supermodel for Chanel. In a 2009 Internet poll, she was voted “La Parisienne,” the quintessential Parisian woman. It’s hard not to be attracted to a woman with the long limbs of a runner, the raspy voice of a cabaret singer, the impish look of a coquette, the sense of humor of a stand-up comic and the smile of Audrey Hepburn.

She told me that the subject of my book was so vast and so serious that I needed first-hand experience. “You have to be conscientious,” she said. “You can’t talk about seduction, fashion, politics, beauty without a French lover….”

Favorite way to spend a relaxing Sunday afternoon in Paris?

• Discovering a small museum – like the Musée des Années Trente in Boulogne-Billancourt
• Chatting with the shopkeepers on the rue des Martyrs in my neighborhood, which is closed off to traffic on Sundays – then peeking into the dépôts-ventes (secondhand shops) high up on the street.

Book or film you’d most recommend for die-hard Francophiles?
Any film by Eric Rohmer. Start with Chloe in the Afternoon.

Here are some of my favorite “seduction books”:
Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. This 18th century novel written in the twilight of the Enlightenment makes use of contemporary – and diabolical — techniques of seduction. The story of Valmont, the seducer; Madame de Merteuil, his partner in perversion and evil; and Madame de Tourvel, the target and ultimate victim; is a cautionary tale.

The Lovers by Alice Ferney. This powerful, troubling novel about infidelity translated from the French tells the love story of a beautiful, happily married, twenty- six-year-old mother who is expecting her second child. And a worldly, successful, forty- nine- year- old writer of made- for- TV movies whose marriage is ending. The most sensual passages in the novel are the phone conversations between them. They capture the power of the voice.

A Little Bit of Paris by Sempé. The cartoonist Sempé is a national treasure. With a delicate pen, he captures the Paris of our imagination, with enough truth to reel us in and make us smile. Women in hats and ruffled skirts sun themselves on park benches, balding men in overcoats and elegant scarves contemplate the Eiffel Tower. It is a world of cafes and street traffic in a city of Haussmanian buildings with mansard roofs and flowers on the wrought-iron balconies.

Le Divorce by Diane Johnson. A superb comedy of morals and manners about the American encounter with France and a helpful guide for American women on the mystique of their French counterparts. The scene in which young Isobel, fresh from California, is advised by her older, married French lover to perfume her juices by drinking an entire pot of orange and rosewater tisane is worth the price of the book.

Many thanks to Elaine for taking the time to participate in this series! If you are fascinated by more than just French landmarks, you must pick up a copy of La Séduction – all the pieces of the French puzzle come together thanks to Elaine’s spot-on analysis. Stay on top of her articles and appearances via her website and on Twitter @ElaineSciolino.

Click here to order a copy!

{Author photo by Gabriela Sciolino Plump; others by Lindsey Tramuta}

**Check out my Paris favorites feature on National Geographic!