In this study we propose a digital mapping method of places from French Bildungsroman such as Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le Noir, Balzac’s Illusions perdues and Flaubert’s L’Éducation sentimentale. The reasoned annotation of the places of the action of the plot, as well as of the places mentioned, makes it possible to have an analytical dataset for each single novel useful for displaying different and overlapping maps and for conducting a diachronic study on the importance of the Parisian urban space in the selected novels. The final result consists in laying the foundations for a real gazetteer of specific places in Paris (Entités Spatiales Nommées) which can be useful for studying other literary works involving the French capital.

The rules we followed for the complete mapping dataset are as follows:

1. The typology of the place is divided into “lived” – that is the place where the action is carried out – and into “cited” – that is, another place cited during the execution of the action.
2. The place is noted together with the indication of the chapter or part of the book in which the place is mentioned.
3. The place is noted, as well as with the address and arrondissement to which it belongs, also with the indication of the bank of the Seine. The Île de la Cité and the Île Saint-Louis are, by convention, among the places on the left bank.
4. The place is noted together with the characters present during the action in the cited place. Characters are placed in order of appearance or citation.
5. If other characters are added to follow in the same place, that place is mapped only once. If the action takes place in the same place between two chapters, the place must be noted again at the beginning of the new chapter.
6. A place where the action takes place is noted only once although the place is mentioned several times during the action itself during the same chapter.
7. The protagonist’s “return home” is noted if expressly mentioned in the novel.
8. For the streets of imaginary places indicated without a house number - for example in Illusions Perdues the house of Coralie in “rue de La Lune” – the georeferencing will show the datum of the midpoint of the same street. The place without a house number will be reported in the dataset as an “inaccurate” place as opposed to the place with a house number which will be reported as “accurate”.
9. The places whose addresses have changed their street name are shown with the original name of the street, or the address mentioned in the novel, together with the current name.
10. The georeferencing of places that can no longer be traced due to the works that have affected Paris, especially during the Second Empire, and which have decreed the disappearance of streets and squares, takes place through the superimposition of historical maps of Paris with the current plants.
11. Places must be distinguished between real places and imaginary places. By imaginary places we mean, for example, the homes or living rooms of the protagonists and characters of the novels.

The places where the action takes place for an indefinite time escape a precise mapping. Finally, places without any topographical indication escape because they are imaginary places to which the authors did not want to associate an address or any topographical indication.

The historical plans of Paris before 1860, both overall and in detail - Plan de Vasserot et Bellanger - can be found on the website of the Archives de Paris (www.archives.paris.fr). The addresses of the places cited, when not mentioned directly by the authors, were taken from the following texts: Miroir historique, politique et critique de l’ancien et du nouveau Paris et du département de la Seine, par L. Prudhomme, Paris, 1807; Almanach des Gourmands par un vieil amateur, Maradan, Paris, 1808; Almanach des commerçans de Paris et des départemens, par M. Cambon éditeur, Paris, 1835; Galignani,s new Paris guide, Galignani, Paris, 1839; Dictionnaire administrative et historique des Rues de Paris et de ses monuments, par Félix et Louis Lazare, Paris, 1844; Émile de Labédollière, Nouveau Paris, histoire de ses 20 arrondissements, Barba, Paris, 1860; Norah Stevenson, Paris dans la Comédie Humaine de Balzac, Courville, Paris, 1938; George B. Raser, Guide to Balzac’s Paris, Imprimerie de France, Choisy-le-Roi, 1964.