Letter from Paris
...travel...
-30 July-
Les Jardins Du Luxembourg
Today is sunny and a real break from what we’ve been having. There is a fine breeze under the long line of trees leading to the more populated areas of the park. It is relatively quiet and dark along this graveled avenue. Off to my left are twenty foot tall iron gates and an armored fence. The tops of the pickets are gilded spear points, but the gate seem to be open. Quite a change from Oxford.
To the right past the cool shadows of trees lies the Palace du Luxembourg-haven’t read its origin or history yet but it seems to be an art gallery.
As I sit on this cast-iron bench, the joggers go huffing by and, at a slower pace, the couples stroll. Perhaps like me, there were sent out of their apartments until the afternoon maid cleaned them.
I put in five hours walking already: it is three o’clock Sunday. The aviation books I bought in London mentioned cafes the aviators frequented on leave here-I thought it a good excuse to seek them out.
Pigalli is a street and turnabout four Metro stops north of where I am staying, due east of the rail terminal Gare du Nord.
Thought I might find the red light district, and that’s what it turns out to be. Montmartre has its sex clubs and oddly, a large number of guitar shops. I wandered the area and up toward the Basilica Sacred-Heart, climbing to the very top (heroic venture) to see the view.
Once up, I pulled out the guidebook and was surprised that the same street an neighborhood where our World War 1 aviator a favorite Mme. Helene’s, was a bar, the Café de la Nouvelle Athene on Pigalle not more than two blocks long, where Manet hung out with Degas. A scant three blocks away was the house where Toulouse-Latrec and Renoir had studios, 1880-1890, and in 1910. Nearby is the house where Degas died in 1917.
I was somewhat overwhelmed to be drawn irresistibly to that part of Paris immediately, when my sole information was that a fictional aviator in Elliot Springs book Contact! (~1930) talks about moving into a whorehouse on Pigalle where the Madam was kind to the boys.
This is how I discovered Paris.
After, took the Metro down a stop and tried to find the Paris Museum of History. Guidebook says they had furniture. And so hiked that district, too. Museum had a large series of Paris apartment interiors reassembled in the museum from about 1500-1800: gilded high-relief moldings: not really ,much of interest but all exceptionally ornate and workmanlike.
The only notable collections were some absolutely hilarious, sarcastic and irreverent sculptures of famous men by the sculptor Jean-Pierre Dantan (1800-1860s). The only serious sculpture not placed on the body of a housefly or blown horribly out of proportion was one of Chopin. We must find a book of photos of this man’s work.
It is good to have the time to unwind a little and catch up on sleep. Like Oxford, we ought to plan a few days in Paris-too much here to enjoy alone…