Barbara Joy Cooley's Paris Journal

Paris Journal 2014 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com

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We both finished working by early afternoon yesterday, so we went for one of our favorite Paris walks before we settled back in to watch the end of the Tour de France stage of the day.

This walk begins with a normal stroll down the rue du Commerce toward the picturesque old village church at the end, the church of Saint John the Baptist of Grenelle. It is the centerpiece of the Place Etienne Pernet.

The article about Etienne in Wikipedia has changed since I read it last. Now it reflects the real person a bit more, I think.

He came from a somewhat deprived, rural background, but felt the calling to become a priest. His mother did nothing to discourage him. His passion was helping the working poor. He met a woman named Antoinette Fage in about 1864, and with her and a couple of nurses, he began the process that would establish the order of the Little Sisters of the Assumption. The approval of this congregation came in 1897.

The working poor have tough lives. When someone in the family falls ill, the tough lives become almost impossible. The Little Sisters of the Assumption dedicated themselves to the nursing of these ill, poor people in their homes. They helped everyone, not just Roman Catholics, in the true Christian way.

Today, the order of the Little Sisters operates in a half dozen U.S. cities, including Worcester, Massachusetts, where they have established the Pernet Family Health Service. This non-profit provides family-centered health and social services, with a goal of strengthening families and communities.

Etienne would be pleased with that, I think.

In this walk, we turn left and proceed down the rue des Entrepreneurs toward the Square Saint-Lambert, a beautiful park on the grounds of a former ugly gas-works.

The point of the park where we enter is built up, because that’s the way the terrain of the gas-works was built. We take the leafy, sloping path up to the top of this rise, then we are in a curved allée of mature trees, overlooking the rest of the park, where there are glorious flowerbeds, green lawns for lounging in the sun, a fountain in a circular pool, a puppet theatre, a children’s playground, and a merry-go-round.

A large middle- and high-school faces the park on its north side. It is named for Camille Sée, a politician who promoted the French law that established schools for girls (1880). Simone de Beauvoir taught school here in 1939.

We always pause for a little while on one of the blue, wooden park benches in this park. This is a family-oriented park, not a touristic place at all.

We exit the park at the opposite point, on the rue Léon Seche, passing by a seafood restaurant that we always mean to try, L’Armandie. We cross the square intersection at a diagonal, and then we are at the corner of the Place Hubert Monmarche.

A somber memorial to the soldiers killed in World War I and the war in Indochina rests there. Yesterday evening, we noticed that the stone memorial has been cleaned. Even though it is whiter now, it is still somber.

When we pass the memorial, we are in the elegant, formal square in front of the dignified town hall of the 15^th arrondissement. Technically, this is the rue Peclet, but the street is not really apparent until you reach the far side of the square, where a bistro and a brasserie have their terrasses facing the town hall and the park named for Adolphe Cherioux.

We stopped to admire the statue in front of the town hall. The sculptor Emile Antoine Bourdelle made it, and it features his fellow sculptor, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, at work. (Bourdelle’s workshop was in the 15^th, and is now the Bourdelle museum.)

Walking through the length of the Place Adolphe Cherioux is an uphill trek. Here, we are actually beginning to climb the hill that is Montparnasse.

Mid-way through this formal Frenchy park is one of those graceful gazebo/bandstands. At the end of August, the police drum corps will perform here. We made a note to attend.

At the far end of this park, we exited and crossed the rue de Vaugirard. After walking a short distance to the left, we turned right and entered the private little street called the Square Vergennes.

At the end of this utterly charming lane was the former workshop/home of Louis Barillet, an artist whose medium was glass. The building itself is a work of modern art by Robert Mallet-Stevens (1932). We noticed that this year, the museum has changed; the family of the artist Maurice Mendjisky (1890-1951) has turned it into a museum dedicated to him and to the art of the two “Schools of Paris.”

The first School of Paris includes the work of mostly immigrants, principally from central Europe, who arrived in Paris at the beginning of the 20^th Century and who set up shop in the Montparnasse area. They include Modigliani, Chagall, Soutine, and others.

The second School of Paris occurs post-WWII, between 1945 and 1960, and includes artists like Gerard Pignon, Jean Bazaine, Maurice Esteve, and Alfred Manessier.

Maurice Mendjisky fell in love with Kiki (famous model in Montparnasse) in 1919, and lived with her for three years, until she left him. She’s the subject of the painting that’s on the poster for the museum’s current exhibition.

Walking back up to the rue Lecourbe, we detoured for a short distance down the rue Petel to take a look at a couple of old, village-y houses and an interesting bistro called Intuition Gourmande.

Rain began to drizzle, so we walked up along the rue Peclet to the rue Mademoiselle rather than through the dirt paths of the Square Saint Lambert.

That took us past the Cinema Chaplin, at the corner of rue Léon l’Hermitte. I’d say it is an artsy cinema, not a place showing the latest popular movies.

We opened the umbrellas and strolled along the rue Mademoiselle and rue Lakanal toward the rue du Commerce and home.

While we watched the end of the day’s Tour de France stage, the weather turned from warm and sunny to dark and rainy for the bicyclists. Tant pis.

I made a reservation for Bistro 121, because it was Sunday, and that bistro was open. The food is so dependably good at this Bistro, especially the sauces, and service is warm and friendly. The interior is spacious and comfortable, and it is a good, 20-minute walk from the apartment.

Bistro 121 did not disappoint. We shared a shrimp and duck salad. The cool crispy salad was a nice contrast to the warm, grilled shrimp. The thin, cool slices of duck breast tasted just like roast beef. Bits of mango were a nice, fruity touch.

Tom then had the onglet de jeune bovin, one of the better steaks he’s eaten in Paris. It is not big, but it is tender enough and very tasty. Best of all, it comes with one of Chef Eric’s yummy sauces, a reduction sauce that is savory and flavorful. The dauphinois potatoes are the perfect accompaniment.

I had the daily special, tuna in sauce vierge, with finely puréed potatoes – very good!

Dessert was a shared order of profiteroles. The chocolate sauce that this Bistro serves with their profiteroles is so dark and rich that it makes me purr. I can’t help it.

Back at home, Tom read the New York Times on his Samsung tablet, and I read one of those Bruno mystery novels by Martin Walker on my Kindle Fire.

Reading on these devices, we don’t need to turn on a reading light. So only the soft glow of the street lamps filtering in through the French doors and the sheer curtains, and the soft glow of our devices, gently lit the room. Romantic.

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