Friday, June 15, 2012
Paris, France
Bonjour!
I devoted the day to a discovery of the literary and artistic lights that made their home in Paris at various times in history. Needless to say, it involved a whole lot of pavement-plodding; but I soldiered on till the end taking frequent rests everywhere the occasion presented itself. What was not fun was not finding a toilet anywhere. I realize that I often have to get back home just to use the facilities–which might not be a bad thing…or else, like the Energizer Bunny, I’d probably go on and on and on…
The weather is cloudy and overcast every single morning when I awake. London, I realize has the bad rap, but the Parisian weather so far (and this is summer, mind you) is worse than anything I can remember when I lived in the UK. Fortunately, clouds part by mid-morning and the afternoons tend to be brighter, if not actually sunny. Most of my photographs lack shadows precisely because there is no sun in any of them!
No wonder then I spent a lazy morning in bed catching up with email correspondence, editing, organizing and captioning my pictures and blog posting–my daily chores. After breakfast in bed–excellent coffee and Poilane toast with preserves, I finally dragged myself out to go and explore. But first: an errand. I trammed it to Porte d’Orleans to top up my Lebara SIM card balance so I could continue to make calls, then took the metro to the Church of St. Suplice and made it the start of my rambles.
Dan Brown’s Church of St. Suplice:
The Church of St. Suplice took 134 years to build and was designed by the Italian architect Giovanni Servandoni. It is very unusual for a church in that it has a double-tiered foundation on which rest two steeples both of which are different. Inside, the age of the church shows in grey walls and gloomy atmosphere.
St. Suplice is celebrated for two huge frescoes in one of the side chapels by Eugene Delacroix–it is the reason why he moved into the nearby Maison Delacroix that I had visited last week. One portrays a golden armored Heliodorus Being Driven from the Temple while the other shows Jacob Wrestling the Angel. Visitors pause here to pay their respects before moving into the interior towards the altar. The Chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the back, behind the altar, is striking for a fluffy cloudy interpretation of the Virgin in Heaven–if marble can be made to feel fluffy.
However, St. Suplice would have remained just another historic, Classical Parisian church were it not for Dan Brown’s controversial novel The Da Vinci Code which was published a few years ago. By bringing together an astounding number of allusions to religion, astrology, mathematics, architecture, etc. Brown takes his protagonists on a search for the Holy Grail through four countries–Italy, France, England and Scotland (you can imagine what a field day travel writers had following the novel’s publication–in fact, my tour comes from Fodor’s Guide to Da Vinci Code).
Knowing that the Church of St. Suplice featured in the novel, three years ago, I had dragged Llew out to the church to find the Rose Line–only to be sorely disappointed. I realize now that the Rose Line does not run through this church–what does is the thin Brass Line that originates from an Obelisk or Gnomon in a corner of the church. From it, emanates a white marble line indented with a thin brass line that climbs three steps of the main altar to pause at a large brass sphere in the floor. The Line then continues down the altar steps and on to the other side of the church to stop at a marble plaque. I learned from reading Fodor’s Guide that, twice a year, at the winter equinox (December 21) and spring Equinox (June 21–coming soon), the sun enters a small hole on the roof and falls exactly on the marble plaque at noon. (I have to wonder how they determined that as it is always raining in Paris in June!)
Following the brass line in the church as carefully as I did, I found it fascinating–not just that so much was known about astronomy in 1646 when construction of the church was begun but that Brown was able to take isolated bits and pieces of scientific history and make them coalesce with Christian theology and doctrine in order to create a page-turner that held the world spellbound. Is it worth going in search of Dan Brown’s Thin Brass Line? I certainly thought so. But then I am a flaneur in Paris and have all the time in the world.
Outside on the great square in front of St. Suplice around the marble Fountain of the Four Cardinals, there was a print fair in progress–from antique books to contemporary lithographs. It seems that every day a different sort of bazaar springs up on the square.
Exploring yet Another–The Church of St. Germaine de Pres:
With St. Suplice so thoroughly examined, I was ready to hit the pavement again and take in the interior of St. Germaine de Pres, Paris’ oldest church. I tried to get on a bus but took the wrong one, got off it, traveled back in the opposite direction and finally ended up walking to the church–which turned out to be only a short block away! Sometimes the distances on maps can be so deceptive!
As always, St. Germaine was buzzing. Like me, there are always idlers with time on their hands to spend sitting on the cafe-trottoirs nursing a small espresso and watching the world go by. They keep the Cafe de Deux Maggots (not two maggots but Chinese traveling salesmen–the two in question are propped up on a wall inside) and the Cafe de Flore on the other block and the Brasserie Lipp in roaring business–for as in the days of Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Man Ray, the cafes are the places to see and be seen. I circumnavigated them before finding my way into the church.
St. Germaine also shows its age–far more vividly than does St. Suplice. The inside is smoky dark and very dimly lit with paintings that climb faintly up the pillars. Other than its age, there is nothing really to commend it–not Delacroix and certainly not Dan Brown. After pausing for a rest and to pray, I got on with my tour.
Marche de St. Germaine:
This time, I made my way along Blvd. St. Germaine de Pres, passing by the Cafe Mabillon that Dorie Greenspan in her blog post on Top Ten Things to Eat in Paris points readers to this place for the best Croque Monsieur in the city–a croque monsieur is essentially toasted white bread with a slice of ham and Gruyere cheese bathed in a rich cheesy Mornay sauce and popped under a grill. I make them at home all the time because I simply love them, but I have yet to taste the legendary one at Cafe Mabillon (and until I find some company, that is not going to happen).
The Marche is just around the corner. It is a huge colonnaded affair that was started a couple of centuries ago at least. It has been completely refurbished and its 20th century avatar is just like any other modern mall–deeply uninteresting to me. A quick sit down for a rest inside (a toilet would have been nice, mais il n’exist pas) and off I went again. I passed a store that was named Anne Elizabeth, the exact name of my aunt and darling godmother whom I lost many years ago. Memories came back sharply and I realize how much I still miss her (she passed away 8 years ago) and her sister, my mother (whom I lost only three months ago).
Literary Royalty On The Rue de L’Odeon:
I found my way to Rue de L’Odeon, a most nondescript street but rich, so rich, in literary history. At No. 14, Thomas Paine wrote The Rights of Man soon after the American Revolution and then, just next-door, at No. 12 was the original Shakespeare and Co, the bookshop owned by the American Sylvia Beach in the 1920s and 30s. She became a close friend of the fledgling American writers of the Lost Generation, Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and provided a cozy corner in her shop for the exchange of literary ideas. It was she who helped the struggling James Joyce in exile from his native Dublin, Ireland, and trying to make a living as a writer in Paris. She edited, typed and then published the book that changed literary history–Ulysses–in 1922. Although I was two days too early for the celebration of Bloomsday (June 16 in Dublin and around the world, named after Leopold Bloom, the novel’s protagonist whose life in a single day is closely delineated in the novel), I was, by coincidence, very close to the date, very close indeed. Sylvia Beach’s shop was shut down in 1942, in the middle of World War I by the Nazis because she refused to give her only copy of Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake to a German officer.
Wow! I stood outside the building almost reverentially and contemplated that entire string of events and had goosebumps.
At The Theatre National de L’Odeon:
The street leads directly to the Theatre National de l’Odeon where one of the plays I had studied in my undergraduate French minor days (Beaumarchais’ Le Mariage de Figaro–Mozart, of course, wrote the opera on the same theme) played for the first time in 1784. For centuries, the Comedie Francaise had its home here–it has now moved close to the complex of the Palais Royale. It is a neo-classical building, rather severe in its lack of exterior ornamentation. It is for this reason that the area around is known as the Rue de Comedie Ancienne and that was where I was headed next.
Goodies on The Rue de Comedie Ancienne:
Just as I was entering the street, I saw a very attractive shop selling bonbons and since I hadn’t yet tasted Paris’ famed caramels, I decided to buy a few. So in I went and what a nice time I had selecting my sweets–each wrapped individually in cellophane paper–caramels with chocolate, coffee, orange, figs, salt. After paying for my little packet of goodies, I walked out again to greet the street as I chewed on a caramel. Deelish!
This street is best-known for Le Procope which is supposedly Paris’ oldest coffee shop, having opened its doors in 1686. Today, it is a very swanky restaurant although it does announce a menu complet for just 19.90 euros–an entree, plat and desert. I popped inside the ornate vestibule and was enchanted by the decor–tres classique, and there was a striking flower arrangement filled with fragrant white lillies.
At the end of that street, I finally found Eric Kayser, Boulanger–perhaps one of Paris’ best-reputed bakeries. His bread is supposedly so good that Parisians want a shop on every corner. Good job I needed to replenish my weekly bread supply. I ended up buying a baguette, pain noisette, brioche, croissant and pain au chocolate. I could not wait to try my haul of carbs! And since it was almost 2. 30 and I hadn’t carried one of my homemade sandwiches and was ready for a nibble, I ordered a jambon-chevre (ham and goat cheese sandwich) and a sparkling Pellegrino and sat at the counter to eat. It was a Club Sandwich and it was horridly dry and tasteless because, for one thing, there was not even a lick of butter or mayonnaise on the bread. I have to say I have never been more disappointed. This is probably what happens when something gets hyped up so much–you expect manna from the Heavens!
Covered Arcade:
It had started to drizzle (but then what’s new?), so I was happy to pop under a covered arcade on the Rue de Grand Arras (Big Curtain? Also a reference to the Comedie Francaise peut-etre?) where the back of Le Procope came into view. This tiny covered alley was very reminiscent of Dickens’ London and took me back sharply to my favorite city in the world.
From there, I made a quick left and found myself on Rue des Grands Augustins which actually runs straight down to the Seine. At the corner was another famous Parisian gourmet store–Mariage Freres–a Temple to Tea. The store also includes a Salon de The on the top floor where “Lunch Tea” was in progress when I nipped inside. I wandered around the shop a bit to take it the elegant ambience of tins of tea laid out in rows with so many testers. Tea, like perfume, deserves to be sniffed with a sensitive nose and I had a good time. No, I did not buy anything as I still need to finish my Laduree Melange de Maison. Perhaps when I finish that, I shall turn to Mariage’s Marco Polo…
Picasso’s Studio On The Rue de Grands Augustins:
Then, just a few steps down, I found it: No. 22–the hotel particulier (private mansion) in which Picasso had rented a studio between 1936 and 1955. In the 19 years he lived here, he completed one of his best-known masterpieces–Guernica, his response to the tragedy of the killing of hundreds of civilians in a small village during the Spanish Civil War (now hanging in the Museo Reina Sophia in Madrid, Spain, where Llew and I had seen it a few years ago). Of course, knowing how prolific Picasso was during his lifetime, I bet he did hundreds of other paintings here that are now all over the world. I paused to take a picture of the plaque on the wall and discovered that exactly a hundred years before Picasso occupied the space, the French writer Balzac had written Le Chef D’Oeuvre Inconnu (The Unknown Masterpiece) in this same building! So much artistic and literary history in such a small footprint of space–it really was too much to take in.
Bus back home:
It was time to find a bus to take me home as I was simply too tired to find a metro station. Just a block away, I saw one sail by and its stop happened to be right at the entrance of the ornate Paris Mint–Le Monnaie de Paris. In a few minutes, I hopped on to one and rode to Porte d’Orleans where I bought my groceries for the week from the local Franprix. Laden with food, I caught the tram and got back home at 6.30, by which time I was ready to collapse.
Tomorrow, I intend to go out and find Dan Brown’s Rose Line at the Palais Royal–but first I want to see the Petit Palais.
A demain!