Paris Journal 2007

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Inside the chapel at St. Joseph des Carmes (above, and the next three photos below). The Carmes dome from the outside (above and below, photos taken on a much nicer day earlier in September). The top of the chapel of St. Joseph des Carmes.

Thursday, September 27 I got a good night’s sleep finally, due to the fact that the literary critic downstairs kept his TV volume under control last night. Elizabeth has spoken to him about this problem; she even gave him a bottle of melatonin to help him sleep better without the aid of TV noise. She said perhaps I should say something to him. But, being savvy about owner/renter situations, I think it would be better not to. It is to the literary critic’s best interest if his upstairs neighbor did not rent out their apartment short term, so why should he make things nice? In the other apartment, in the 15^th, we’ve made friends over the years with neighbors and the guardienne, and one way we’ve done so is by not being demanding or complaining. So they accept us as part of the neighborhood (after 10 summers!). I remember that one year when the owner of that place was on sabbatical, he rented that apartment for the school year (nine months) to an academic and his novelist wife. The novelist was a real pain in the rear for everyone because of her demands and complaints. Her presence there did not go over very well, and everyone was glad to see her go for good at the end of the nine months. They were also pleased to see us when we returned after that. The novelist, however, will never be welcomed back there. Of course, as property owners, we would much rather live in an owner-occupied neighborhood than in one that is predominantly renters, and long-term renters are preferred over short-term renters. This is only natural. This is also why we never advertise our rental house on Sanibel and we only rent it to people who know people in the neighborhood. We rent it by word of mouth. This ensures that the renters have some connection to the neighborhood and are not simply drifting through. The neighbors prefer this. It is only natural. Ah, back to our adventures. The weather is now cold (by our south Florida standards). We bundled up on Tuesday and walked up to the 4^th arrondissement to see the Hôtel de Sens, a true castle in Paris, built between 1475 and 1507. It fell into an incredible state of disrepair, then the city of Paris took ownership of it. Restoration work was started before World War II, paused during the war, resumed in the 1950s, and completed only just this year -- except they are still working on parts of the exterior. Now this fine medieval building is the home of Paris’s Bibliotheque Forney, the city’s decorative arts library. We walked through the reference reading room, which still has its beamed ceiling and carved stone steps and ballustrade leading to the mezzanine at one end. The carvings are unmistakably gothic and medieval – gargoyles, etc. The room has a very proper, old fashioned library reading room feeling. You must have a library card to be assigned a numbered seat at the long table in the middle of the room. The reference collection would be very useful, I think, especially to someone trying to identify or validate a painting or other work of art. The library is also known for its postcard collection. Currently, there is a temporary exhibition of posters by the noted illustrator Francisque Poulbot. His drawings of Paris street urchins became so emblematic that the children on Paris streets became known as les petits poulbots. After exploring this beautiful library (and the formal garden outside), we walked up to the Place des Vosges and had another good lunch at the Café Hugo. We were somewhat lucky with the weather. It rained while we were inside the library, and it rained while we were in the café. But it didn’t rain much while we were walking. Due to the bad weather, I of course did not have my camera with me, so there are no photos for Tuesday. There was a lively table of four women near us. They were having an intensive discussion about some issue, so they sat there for a long time. At they point when they were getting up to go, I smelled what I thought was a spilt bottle of disinfectant, coming up from the bottom of the stairs that led down to the toilets and extra dining room. But no, it turned out to be the perfume that one of these women was wearing. She needs to change perfumes! Tom ate a plate full of lamb chops and fries. He kept commenting on how much better these lamb chops were than other lamb chops for which he’d paid far more. I had a tasty couple of filets of broiled Mediterranean sea bass with olive oil, some puréed potatoes, and sautéed zucchini with mushrooms. Yesterday, we went out for a walk down the boulevard St. Germain, down the rue Monge, up the rue Mouffetard, then home via rue Descartes and rue des Écoles. We stopped in the medieval courtyard at the entrance of the Musée Cluny, which is almost as old as the Hôtel de Sens. I showed Tom the Bouillon Racine on rue Racine, and he’s now gung-ho about eating there, probably this evening. I became overly chilled on this walk, prompting me to finally turn on the heat when we were safely back in the apartment. So it was comfortably warm by the time Jim and Maddie of Sanibel arrived. They’ve just spent a month on a boat they bought (one third ownership, with two other couples who also own it), touring about in northeastern France. After their time share was up, they decided to spend a few days in Paris. So they came over, we drank a bottle of champagne and had foie gras on toast and fine blue cheese on cookies, and then walked up to l’Espadon Bleu for dinner. Tom, Maddie and I had a pasta salad with ham for an entrée, which really was not remarkable. Jim, wisely, ordered the bowl of assorted shellfish for his entrée. It looked great. Tom and I finally tried the joue de cochon (pig cheeks). It was excellent. The sauce, especially, was a spicy and rich surprise. Unfortunately, the server brought the wrong fish dish to Maddie, but she ate it anyway. Neither Jacques Cagna nor his nephew were present yesterday evening, so that might have had something to do with the couple of minor mistakes that were made. Faithful reader Cynthia wrote to say that I misidentified a flower on September 1^st’s entry. So check it out. That’s buddleia, or butterfly bush, not lavender, in the photo of the Eiffel Tower. Cynthia says this plant has been placed on Portland’s invasive list! May the gardeners of the Champ de Mars keep control over this wicked flower! ←Previous Next→

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