En route to Paris, I had luckily spotted that the Sciences Po is right next door to the Maison de Verre and that, since it was bought in 2006 by an American commodities-trader, it has generally been open on Thursday afternoon. So, at five o’clock precisely, I was granted temporary admittance to the courtyard which contains Pierre Chareau and Bernard Bijvoet’s glass facade, erected between 1928 and 1932 for Dr. Dalsace, a gynecologist, who had his offices on the ground floor. Although Dalsace was a medical practitioner, he also knew intellectuals, so I liked to imagine Walter Benjamin standing where I stood in 1934:-