4 days in Paris, March 1, 2010
The weather forecast for the week was good so we took a fast train to Paris
Wijjie made a pot of pasta for us to eat on the train. August's buggy is behind her, but we only used it for the luggage
I promised him we would visit the Eiffel Tower, since he always sees it but never goes up it. It was windy so we could only go to the middle level.
Some funny translations here to add to my collection! You would think that the goods the pedlars sell around the tower - hundreds of African pedlars all waving gold towers at you - are bad because they are easy to imitate. What they mean is, "their goods are probably fakes"... The rest is the usual word-for-word translation which sounds impossibly archaic and flowery in our pragmatic, straightforward tongue. The idea of Eiffel tower models "showing dysfunctions which do not respond to the security standards" makes it sound as if the buyer were going to go up in his tiny tower rather than put it on his mantelpiece.
The elevator shaft coming down to the ground is especially impressive.
We went for lunch on the Ile Saint Louis...
...where there is a brasserie, combination beer-house and informal restaurant, where I used to eat as a student, 50 years ago
It hasn't changed since then, including the big beer tap at the counter. There was a stuffed stork though, which seems to have disappeared - flown away, I suppose...
The waiter was a babe in arms (I asked his age, 51) when I went there as a Sorbonne student. He is grinding the pepper for our steak tartare, the raw meat which you can see on the far right.
He fixes it the traditional way, by beating the eggs and oil and spices to get a frothy mayonnaise, to which the meat is then added.
Wijjie had the tartare and August had the choucroute - an Alsatian version of sauerkraut. I had some of both...
Wijjie buying chocolates at a store on the island. You can see the photographer's reflection in the window, ghost-like...
Looking downstream on the Seine, with the Conciergerie castle on the left. This great medieval fortress stands on the Ile de la Cité. Here, the revolutionary tribunal sentenced the King and Queen and thousands of others - nobles and peasants and then the revolutionaries themselves, during the Terreur - to the guillotine. You can see Marie-Antoinette's cell in the basement, where she spent her last days.
The huge hall of La Conciergerie was, in the 14th century, the largest room in Europe, a masterpiece of masonry and design. Tell me if any of today's star architects with their new materials can equal this for style and exuberance...
...and sheer stately elegance.
100 years ago the Seine flooded the city this high! People had to go to work on boats.
No, it's not Louis XVI taking leave of Marie-Antoinette, but another of August's touching photographs of his parents. My son always seems to catch that legendary "poetic moment".
One of the towers of the chateau, also a notorious dungeon throughout the ages, is called the Tour d'Argent, the Silver Tower, which gave its name to the famous restaurant upstream, on the Rive Gauche.
The "Silver Tower" is the second one on the right. The third one down is the Tour Bonbec, which means "The Singer's Tower", because it held the torture chambers where the prisoners were taken to "sing" or confess their crimes...
The real reason we went to the Conciergerie was to show August the guillotine which I saw there 20 years ago. Along with Lego toys, French head-choppers are his current mania. But we were disappointed to be told by the attendant there that the one I saw had long since been removed because of a law passed in 1981, with the abolition of the death penalty, forbidding all guillotines from being displayed in public for 30 years.
It was only taken out of storage and put back on show 20 years ago as a special exhibit because of the bicentennial of the Revolution. Tourism being supreme, the prohibition was suspended for a year to bring in the crowds, whether the widows of the last victims liked it or not. Talk about double standards!
Ironically, just after we returned from Paris a show was opened in the Musée d'Orsay called "Crime and Punishment" which features as its star exhibit... la guillotine! The young man at La Conciergerie box office wasn't as well informed as I thought. Now I am thinking of taking August back to Paris for a second try.
Here is the 1886 model on display at Musée d'Orsay, covered with a black veil, as it was during the Revolution, when standing idle in the middle of the Place de la Concorde (then Place de la Révolution). It was the mourning veil, apparently, that give the device its sinister nickname "La veuve", and not its widow-making capacities.
This photo, borrowed from the official Conciergerie website, shows the four towers more clearly. From the left, the fortified Clock Tower (Tour de l'horloge) where a 16th century clock is imbedded just above street level, then the twin Tower of Caesar (Tour de César) and Silver Tower (Tour d'Argent) and finally the infamous Tour Bonbec. At the far right is the north end of the 19th century Palais de Justice, the French Supreme Court. The spire whose tip prods up to the right of the Clock Tower belongs to the Sainte Chapelle, the exquisite Gothic church now enclosed in the courthouse buildings, and home to the world's finest ensemble of stained glass windows. You can get a single ticket to visit both Conciergerie and Sainte Chapelle which is cheaper than buying separate ones.
The more prosaic world of the Parisian "banlieue" or outlying suburbs. My old friend Jean-Claude now lives in the eastern district of Ivry-sur-Seine, a curious and definitely non-touristic part of the city. Near his place is a repair shop specialized in British Austins, collectors' pieces all, as you can see from the line-up of antiques in the street. The garage is on the right, with the square panes.
Rue Saint-Just, where we stayed at Jean-Claude's flat way down on the left. Ivry is an old Communist stronghold and the streets are named for various revolutionaries. Saint-Just was the companion of Robespierre, and they died together on the guillotine.
He showed us this unusual statue of hunting dogs in a nearby park. The dog in the middle has lost the tip of his tail, and the way things go in Ivry it may never be replaced...
We saw this peculiar restaurant called Arc-en-Ciel, which, as you can see above, claims to serve "cuisine semi-gastronomique" - whatever that means! Arc-en-Ciel means "rainbow".
In another simple bistrot we stopped to eat "tête de veau", a French speciality, which is the meat taken from the calf's head. It is not as fatty as it looks, the head being mostly cartilage. Delicious!
Here is the "ardoise", or menu blackboard with the day's dishes. Jean-Claude had the Aile de Raie (skate in a tomato-y sauce). I had the next one down, in a sauce called "Ravigotte". The "calf head" is usually served in "sauce gribiche", famous in France because it is the favourite dish of ex-President Chirac. And I have to hand it to him, it is scrumptious.
For those who take an interst in the French language, there are spelling mistakes in the menu. Lionaise should be Lyonnaise, vinaigrete has 2 t's, Boudain is Boudin, pané should be feminine for échine, panée. We teased the waitress about it and she explained that the boss is Portuguese. Even if he can't spell he can cook, which is the main thing.
The train station for Ivry-sur-Seine is about the most charming building in the area
Wijjie found 100 euros on the sidewalk as she stepped out of the metro at Chatelet, and used it to buy August another Lego to add to his collection. This one is a fireman's boat. I was glad that someone else paid for it, for a change. This sort of thing only happens in Paris, although not often enough for my taste...
A long walk through the market area - Les Halles - at the center of Paris.
Down through the historical Marais, with its elegant manours and palaces.
August got tired, so he rode his camel for a stretch.
We passed the national pawn shop, where people get loans in exchange for their family heirlooms. Here they are lining up with their jewelry in their pockets.
Next, the old Jewish ghetto, known for its main street, La Rue des Rosiers. Goldenberg was a famous deli with restaurant until it closed some years ago and was taken over by yet another trendy clothing boutique.
Murciano is a popular bakery with delicious Middle Eastern type pastries.
August and I waited while Wijjie went inside to get some goodies
Then we went to this small restaurant to eat some of their falaffel and of course our pastries
Inside was a mezzanine with a prayer table and the Talmud on a lectern, with the curtains parted like a theatre stage
August was pooped...
...and conked out...
...so mummy put her arm around him, until the food arrived.
I took this picture over my shoulder so no one would notice...
The next morning we walked across the river from the Latin Quarter and crossed the Champs-Elysées. Here Wijjie poses in front of Winston Churchill. Clemenceau is at the other end of the palace.
The kids were getting hungry so he had a hot-dog and she had a gauffre (waffle).
This is our destination, La Chapelle Expiatoire. It is just north of Place de la Concorde, standing on the old graveyard of the Madeleine Church. After the royals, nobles and others were beheaded on the square, their remains were dumped in a lime-pit here. After the Bourbons were restored in 1815, Louis 18th (brother of Louis 16th) had the chapel built to "expiate" the crimes committed by the revolutionaries. It was placed on the very spot where according to eye-witnesses the monarchs' bodies were tossed.
I only discovered the chapel's existence recently, and to my amazement since most monuments to the royalty were destroyed with the revolution. However, after the Bourbons once more departed and different forms of democratic and non-democratic government took over, the chapel was somehow spared, in spite of a lot of angry sentiment in favour of having it torn down or turned into something else. Here is the Camposanto, the ossuaries where all the remains found in the pit were stacked - almost 3,000 people were buried there. It is curious to think that the bones of Robespierre are certainly among them, side by side with the blue-bloods!
The chapel was built in the Neo-Classical style and is greatly admired for its airy elegance and fine proportions. It is also quite small which makes it a much more pleasant church than the Pantheon, for example, which was built by Louis 15th 70 years earlier, before becoming the mausoleum of France's great men (revolutionary men, of course).
A beautiful marble floor
There are portraits of the royals, painted just before their executions. Here is Marie-Antoinette, a magnificent likeness of her in her final hour that speaks for itself. It should be said that although the royalty was cruel and detestable in every respect, these two people were no worse than many of their fellows. She certainly did not deserve the scabrous calumnies invented about her private life, that did so much to trigger the Revolution.
A more fanciful portrait of Louis 16th, getting ready to meet the Creator
Another striking psychological portrait, this time of the King's sister, Madame Elisabeth, a model of fortitude and piety who was the last of the three to go to the guillotine. Before photography was invented, painters had to know how to paint, didn't they?
In these sad pictures we see the members of the royal family awaiting the execution first of the King, and some months later of the Queen.
This fine painting hangs on the wall of the same chapel it depicts, showing a Mass celebrated during the Restoration. The temple became a place of pilgrimage for the survivors of the people buried there, and for all of France's many royalists. We often imagine that the Revolution put an end to an epoch, but it took until the end of the 19th century for the French to finally accept the new, egalitarian state. There were many attempts to impose a constitutional monarchy like the one in England, but they all failed.
These romantic statues show the King and the Queen being received into Heaven.
In the crypt is a marble altar placed on the very spot where the remains were found. Eye witnesses recalled where they had been placed, in the pit, and her skeleton could be distinguished because of the remains of clothing. All others were buried naked with their heads between their legs, but for some reason Marie-Antoinette's body wasn't stripped. The bones were placed in the crypt at Saint Denis cathedral in northern Paris, the traditional burial place for French royalty.
What remains of wreathes placed by the altar on behalf of the Catholics of various cities of France. Being Royalist and being Catholic were essentially the same thing, when it came to confronting the Revolution.
The next day Jean-Claude went for a walk with us along the Rue Saint-Jacques. In the background, the church of Saint-Severin.
We passed the Collège de France, a venerable "open university" where anyone can attend lectures by distinguished professors.
We peeked into the courtyard
Up the hill to the Pantheon...
...and the fascinating church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, which stands atop the hill, next to the Pantheon. It is the burial place of Pascal and Racine, built in the florid Louis 13th style. The bridge crossing the nave is a rood screen, in French "jubé", where the priest could stand when he preached to his flock. These bridge-like pulpits were once common, but in Paris they have all disappeared except this one.
In the cloister are very fine stained-glass windows showing Noah's Ark and other Biblical scenes...
... as well as this one in the nave, depicting the front of the church itself (middle pane) with on the left (far background) the now disappeared medieval Collège de Navarre, and on the right the old Abbey of Saint Genevieve. This last church was demolished at the Revolution, but its bell tower survives, standing alone in the courtyard of the Henri IV high school...
...as we can see here - Saint-Etienne-du-Mont in the center, with the Henri IV school and the medieval bell tower minus its hooded roof on the right. It is known as the "Tower of Clovis", because the first king of France, Clovis (old form of the name Louis) was buried there.
A nearby plaque explains how the various churches were built, and then survived or disappeared.
This plaque can be seen on the front of the hotel - around the corner from the Pantheon - where the poet Paul Verlaine died in alcoholic poverty, long after Rimbaud left him to meet his own fate in Africa
The hotel is on the Rue Descartes, which must have looked like this when Verlaine lived there (an old postcard).
August was starving and we dined in a Chinese restaurant in the Latin Quarter.
After eating he cheered up, and put on Jean-Claude's safari hat...
