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FELIX G. ROHATYN professes not to miss any of the accouterments of an ambassador, not the palatial residence in Paris, not the servants and staff, and most of all, not the security detail.

"We went to the movies very little in Paris because of our security and because we always went to the head of the line," Mr. Rohatyn said. Now, he and his wife, Elizabeth, are back to waiting in line for movies and enjoying a simpler life — simple for a wealthy financier who just spent four years as United States ambassador to France.

Mr. Rohatyn never was too comfortable with the trappings of power he had in Paris, he said, sitting in a modest office in his Fifth Avenue apartment. "I'm not sure it's a great idea to live like a colonial governor when you're representing the United States."

He and his wife share their apartment with a pair of Labrador retrievers, Noodles and Nobu, the latter named for one of their favorite restaurants in Manhattan. A plastic scoop near the elevator door reminds visitors that even the rich and famous have to clean up after their pets. (Of course, the apartment does overlook Central Park.)

"Coming back here and coming back to a lifestyle that is more basic is, in a way, kind of a liberating thing," he said, appearing casual in faded blue jeans and a pullover sweater. "I'm beginning to try to see what kind of a life I want to lead."

As an ambassador, he said, "there was a complete loss of privacy and a loss, although I battled it every day, of the control of my calendar."

For the first time in decades, Mr. Rohatyn, 72, is representing only himself. He does not intend to return to Wall Street by rejoining the Lazard investment bank, whose New York operations he managed before President Clinton chose him for an ambassadorship.

Instead, he is considering forming a small firm with a few associates to advise corporations on finance and strategy. He plans to serve as a director of the Comcast Corporation and a few other companies, and to work on some pet projects, including setting up a company to develop cancer-fighting drugs. In between, he will write for the Council on Foreign Relations and The New York Review of Books and will try to get his life story down on paper.

He says writing his memoirs "is a difficult thing to do." Friends have advised him to start each day by filling three or four pages. He is obviously daunted by the challenge of recounting all he has done and seen in 40 years as an adviser to corporate executives, and as chairman of New York's Municipal Assistance Corporation during the city's financial crisis in the 1970's.

Mr. Rohatyn said his original entry into the world of finance was serendipitous. In 1949, after studying physics at Middlebury College in Vermont, he needed a summer job. He landed one at Lazard, where his duties included adding up the value of rich, elderly ladies' accounts. After serving in the Army during the Korean War, he returned to Lazard and stayed for four decades.

"I entered this business because I wasn't good enough to be a physicist," he recalled.

To write a "good book about what I have seen in my life" is one of his few unfulfilled ambitions, he said.

MR. ROHATYN is secretive about the rest of his plans. He would not say which other corporate boards he planned to join, nor would he divulge the identity of the scientists involved in the drug-development venture.

He is happy to talk about his hope that he will have time to assist Teaching Matters, a nonprofit organization his wife founded to train New York public school teachers. The Rohatyns' charitable foundation provides funding for Teaching Matters.

Mr. Rohatyn is less sanguine about what he sees as a troubling trend on Wall Street, the triumph of analysts who are willing to broadcast overly positive views on companies' stocks in hopes of landing financing business for their firms. From a distance, he said, he was appalled by the frenzied rush to market with the stocks of unprofitable dot-com companies.

After seeing that bubble inflate and burst, he said, "I kind of thought that maybe it was time for me to step aside. I have no interest at this stage of my life of looking for clients or chasing after business."

He did not rule out the possibility that he might serve as a sort of freelance adviser to corporate leaders. "I do believe there will always be a need for independent advice by serious people," he said.

So when he met with President Clinton recently, he offered some: Run for mayor of New York. What better role for Mr. Clinton, he said, than chief executive of "the capital of the world."

Mr. Rohatyn said that Mr. Clinton laughed off the suggestion, saying it was too soon for him to think about his next move. But Mr. Rohatyn was not joking. Cities are on the rise, he said, gaining power and influence as hubs of global commerce.

"If you take the position that New York is a global community, then what you need is somebody who is a global leader. It seems to be that Bill Clinton is a perfectly obvious choice," he said.