SHAMELESS! A Sensualist Experiences Paris

Friday, January 12
Paris lay hidden under clouds and I saw nothing till we bumped onto the runway of Charles de Gaulle Airport. On the ground, I was processed quickly. After a few minutes of uncertainty I was directed to the shuttle bus to the RER train terminal. My plan was to go to the Gare du Nord, then catch the Metro to the St. Michel stop. Two men sitting across from me informed me I didn’t have to change: the train went on to stop at St. Michel.
At St. Michel I was lucky enough to take the wrong exit. Turning around to get my bearings I got my first sight of Paris: Notre Dame Cathedral, the spiritual and geographical center of the city. I felt a stab of pure, unadulterated happiness. The cathedral was bigger than I’d expected, and much more beautiful. Blinking back tears (it was the most magnificent introduction to Paris imaginable and I’m an easy cry), I crossed the Quai St. Michel and walked the few steps to the Rue de la Huchette. This narrow street, running parallel to the Seine, is lined mostly with small eating establishments. It was only ten o’clock and nothing was open yet. The street was wet from a recent shower, but during my stay it neither rained nor snowed. I found the Hôtel du Mont Blanc near the end of the street, yards from the St. Michel stop.
I couldn’t check in till noon, but I knew exactly how to fill the time. Leaving my bags I returned to the Île de la Cité. The Place du Parvis stretches before Notre Dame. It is ground zero in Paris, the point from which all distances in France are measured. A huge equestrian statue of Charlemagne, who united Christian Europe, stands between the church and the river.
The interior of the church is equal to the grandeur of its façade, the central nave rising to a superlatively groined ceiling. The cathedral, the site of state funerals and coronations of the kings of France, is also where Napoleon, in a supreme act of amour-propre, crowned himself Emperor. Only a decade before that, Notre Dame had been stripped of its religious trappings by blood-crazed revolutionaries and re-dedicated as a “temple to reason.” It was unreasonable to expect that this would last long; the cathedral’s architecture is too potent an expression of religious faith.
Outside, I re-entered the church on its north side, climbing the 387 steps to the outside gallery running around the towers: the domain of the gargoyles. From this gallery I got my first sight of the Eiffel Tower, rising in the misty distance beyond the bend of the river, at the end of the Champs de Mars. An iron grill has been placed around the gargoyles’ gallery to prevent potential suicides from hurling themselves into eternity. They didn’t need to worry about me; I gingerly worked my way around the edge in great fear and trembling. This cathedral has stood for eight centuries, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t tumble to the ground at any moment. Within the south tower is the huge Emmanuel bell, supposedly the one Quasimodo rang with such joyous abandon. An attendant was perched on an eave beside the bell, reading a novel. She said the Emmanuel is now rung only a few times a year. Hunchbacks are apparently no longer employed; the bell is rung by machinery, activated by a churchman pushing a button.
Returning to terra firma, I went around to the rear of the cathedral to see the famous flying buttresses. The small park behind the cathedral, dedicated to Pope John XXIII, was my first introduction to the odd Parisian habit of squaring off trees by pruning their branches on tops and sides. Beyond the park gate, a small footbridge leads to the Île St. Louis.
This elegant little island, formerly the Île des Vaches (the island of cows) was my favorite part of the city — apart from the museums. I walked up the Rue St. Louis en l’Île looking into the shop windows. At Cacao et Chocolat I had my first food in Paris, a macarin chocolat framboise. Translation: chocolate raspberry macaroon. This leaden phrase barely does it justice. The two plump halves are stuck together like an oreo, but the crunchy crust is filled with soft chocolate delicately flavored with raspberry. I devoured it with all the gusto of a ravenous lion dispatching a zebra, with hardly a thought of caloric responsibility.
At the southeast end of the island is a park, the Square Barye, dedicated to a nineteenth century sculptor of animals. His monument is flanked by two burly naked youths, each embracing a small boy and with one foot on the head of an agonized beast. (I thought it best not to contemplate the psychological implications of that.) At this point I crossed the Pont de Sully back onto the Rive Gauche and up the Boulevard St. Germain toward my hotel.
I didn’t expect much of my room. I had reserved a single at the lowest rate, a mere $49 a night. But room 51 was a pleasant surprise, clean, modern and neat, w.c. and shower included. True, it was about as wide as my bathroom at home and only a couple of feet longer, but I would only be here to sleep.
Satisfying as the macarin chocolat framboise had been, hunger quickly reasserted itself. I wasn’t ready to sit down to a meal yet; I was too eager to start my first adventure, a once-over-lightly walk of the city — as much of it as I could cover. At an establishment on the corner, the Gargantua, I ordered a croque monsieur, ham and grated cheese melted on toast, rich and satisfying. With this I walked across Boulevard St. Michel and discovered one of the prettiest squares in Paris, the Place de St. Andre des Arts. I walked down Rue de St. Andre des Arts for some blocks and then turned toward the river and crossed the lacy iron Pont des Arts. The Louvre lay on the other side, a city in itself. Already footsore, I walked through the first courtyard and through an arch to I.M. Pei’s pyramid.
I’ve never liked this new structure in photos; its glass and steel starkness seems to work against the museum’s elegant Renaissance façade. But I changed my mind immediately; it looks perfectly right, almost inevitable. The plaza, the Cour Napoleon, was almost deserted, for the sky was leaden and a bone-chilling wind was blowing across the Tuileries. I’d planned to tour the Louvre later, so now I walked under the Arc du Carrousel into the Tuileries Gardens.
Trying to ignore the raw weather I walked the length of the park toward the Place de la Concorde. There were more people in the gardens than I expected: armies of children around the fountains, longing for the warm days when they could sail their toy boats; nursemaids; Ruandan students brandishing petitions. Through the formal gardens eighteen voluptuous female nudes by Maillol are spaced like bronze sentries, smiling and perky-nippled and impervious to the cold. Off to the side was a brightly lit carousel, the first of many I would see throughout the city.
The Place de la Concorde, occupied on its southeast side by an enormous ferris wheel, is little more than a whirl of traffic around a central obelisk and two fountains. It’s hard to imagine this bland open space, this impersonal square, as the slaughterhouse of the French Revolution, where the guillotine parted up to 1,343 heads from 1,343 bodies (Figures vary, but whatever the final count, that’s a lot of blood to be spilled in one place). I dodged traffic to get across, then walked along the Quai des Tuileries to the Pont Alexandre III.
This bridge, bristling with nymphs and cherubs and river gods, is an exuberant expression of the Art Nouveau style, and is dedicated to the Russian czar who laid the foundation stone in 1896. The four postilions at each end are surmounted with heroic figures driving winged horses, brilliant with gilt. This is easily Paris’s most endearing bridge, the pleasure principle transmuted into stone and iron. In full sunlight it must be dazzling. Under gray skies it is still the most graceful bridge I’ve ever seen.
Back on the Left Bank, I walked up Rue St. Dominique toward the Eiffel Tower. At a tobacconist’s, I got change and found the telephone in back. I’d been given the name and number of Susan Day, a friend of my friend Martha Mayne. I called her at her office. The phone kept gobbling up my 2-franc coins, forcing me to keep redialing. We agreed to meet the following evening at one of the great Left Bank cafés, Les Deux Magots. I babbled a description of myself just as the phone ate my last coin and went dead.
All the way up the curving Rue St. Dominique I kept glimpsing the Eiffel Tower. At Place du General Gouraud I walked halfway across the Parc du Champs de Mars to view it properly. It looks much higher than its 1,046 feet, and more beautiful, more ethereal than I’d dared hope. I walked to the circular space directly beneath it, the wind whipping around me. This was an ideal spot to appreciate its strength and grace but it was insupportably cold. The Tower might as well have been a funnel, fiendishly designed to catch the wind off the North Sea and pump it into Paris. At the eastern foot I bought a ticket to ascend the lift. Because of repair work on the top one can only go to the second level, but it was probably just as well. My acrophobia was severe enough already. There are two elevators, piggybacked. Because it was mid-winter, there was only a short wait. We creaked our way to the second level and disembarked. The winds were stronger up here, and colder, but I mastered my nerves long enough to take a few pictures. Taking the elevator down to the first level café, I had a most welcome coffee and a creamy apple tartlet.
Back on earth I thought it might be best to take the Metro back to the Latin Quarter. Assuming (wrongly) that the Metro stop was in the direction of the river, I went down to the Seine embankment, here called the Quai Branly. The touring boats called the Bateaux Mouches were running; it seemed a better idea to take a boat back. Unfortunately, all the boats returned to this point without stopping but I decided to take a tour anyway. This was clearly the best way to see the river, of which Parisians are justifiably proud. Only in Venice is the major waterway so cherished a part of the city. The tour, all the way to the Île St. Louis and back, was enjoyable; the ride back was magical. Dusk was falling quickly and lights were coming on all over the city. When we returned to the Quai Branly, the Eiffel Tower was completely lit, a fretwork of gold lace against the royal blue sky. Additional sparkle came from a carousel at the foot of the tower. Another turned merrily on the Trocadero side of the bridge.
I reluctantly left the neighborhood, wending my way back slowly. At the Place du General Gouraud I turned around to get another look at the tower; it was crackling with sparklers. No still photo could capture this effect so I didn’t try.
The Rue St. Dominique is a great shopping street, and I walked back toward my hotel as slowly as I could. I fell in love with Rue Clerc, a street of outdoor fruit and vegetable markets and pastry shops. Crossing the Esplanade des Invalides, I was nearly freeze-dried, and once across, I kept losing my way back. It didn’t matter: Paris is a city in which it is an advantage to be lost, and I soon had my reward.
Just off the Boulevard St. Germain, I turned off onto Rue de l’Echaude, a street full of little restaurants, all highly competitive and all equally tempting. I strolled along comparing their chalked menu-boards, looking for a selection that pleased me. I had only one requirement: my restaurant of choice must offer tarte Tatin for dessert. Finally I found just what I was looking for.
La Citrouille is a simple, homely, countrified place with bare beams and soft lighting, as befitting its simple, homely country name: The Pumpkin. My first waiter in Paris was like all the others in one important respect: he was friendly and courteous and most important, endlessly tactful toward my uncertain attempts to order in French.
I began my meal the best way I knew how, with a plate of escargots bourgogne and a carafe of Côtes du Rhone. My snails were swimming in heavenly garlic-and-parsley butter, and I guiltily admit that after they had been eaten I sopped up the excess garlic butter with scraps of bread. The list of main courses was an attractive one, but I couldn’t resist the special of the day. After all, how often does one find kangaroo on a menu? It came in round slices, which I presumed to be sections of tail, served in a sauce au poivre. It was tasty enough, but I’m not burning to try it again.
Ah, but tarte Tatin! This is a kind of culinary miracle, achieving its effects with utter simplicity: nothing but apples, butter and sugar cooked down to a rich caramel, topped with pastry crust and inverted onto a platter. My generous slice was served with a dollop of creme fraîche, and it was celestial. After the meal I stepped outside and took a deep breath, thankful simply to have tastebuds, filled with bonhomie and gratitude to the gods who made Paris a paradise for diners.
And yet...
I blush to report that on the way back to the hotel I couldn’t resist stopping at one of the hundreds of little stands found all over Paris, serving crepes with savory and sweet fillings. I had a crepe au sucre, a thin crepe lightly buttered and sprinkled with sugar, folded over into sixths and served in a paper cone.
At ten o’clock I slid into bed. It was firm and warm and I was asleep in seconds.

Saturday, January 13
Today the sun was out and the sky above Paris was a bright sapphire blue. On Rue St. Andre des Arts I found a small patisserie about the size of my hotel room. A lovely young blonde girl served me a café noir and a warm croissant au Suisse, filled with melting chocolate chips. After this little gustatory orgy, I walked up the Rue de Seine to a pleasant pocket park in the shadow of the Institut de France. The tidy lawn was dominated by a bust of one of my early heroes, Voltaire. Someone, perhaps an enemy of Reason, had chipped off a substantial portion of his nose, giving the philosopher an odd resemblance to the actor Edmund Gwenn. Along the Quai Malaquais and the Quai Voltaire were dozens of antique shops and art galleries, but none were open yet. There were several art supply shops, too; this was the neighborhood of the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts. In the next block was my goal: the Musee d’Orsay.
A former train station, the museum is immense, a magnificent Belle Epoque pile of French gloire et luxe. The interior is so spacious and light it might have been designed expressly as a museum. The central hall is a long barrel vault displaying large pieces of 19th century sculpture. These pieces are the perfect expression of the academic French style, fusty and romantic and admirable -- but doomed. The style would soon be blasted to smithereens by the explosion whose fuse was lit by the Impressionists. At the far end of the hall was an enormous cutaway view of the Paris Opera House, the masterpiece of Charles Garnier. In front of this cutaway is a glass floor with an elaborate model of the Opera neighborhood below, blocks and blocks of the city. An adjacent exhibit shows models of recent sets, deliciously detailed miniatures throbbing with life. One almost expects to hear tiny voices pumping away at Verdi and Puccini and Gounod.
On the upper floor was a special exhibit on the life and work of Vaclav Nijinsky, whose greatest dancing roles were first seen in Paris. The exhibit begins with paintings and photos of his roles, programs and cartoons. And his original costumes. There are sculptures, too, including a superb nude by Maillol, depicting Nijinsky as very well set up indeed. In the photos his bizarre beauty and large, expressive eyes explain much of his attraction to a generation of balletomanes. He was a gorgeous wild animal, but in those eyes one can clearly see his coming madness.
The exhibit ends in a sad, final gallery. Here are the dancer’s drawings, made in his last decades in a Swiss sanitarium. These pathetic, crabbed crayon works, geometric exercises, circles within circles within squares, show the disintegration of his mind as it turns inward. A few faces emerge tentatively from the maze, as if reason were shyly attempting to assert itself. As it turned out, I entered here, thereby seeing the Nijinsky exhibit backwards. Seeing his life and work in reverse was almost like witnessing a free and ardent spirit breaking out of the shell of insanity.
In the next gallery were the two great book-end impressionists, Bonnard and Vuillard, who stand rather outside the movement because of their domestic focus. These two also share uncertain draftsmanship, achieving their effects almost entirely by vibrant experiments in color.
At the end of the second floor galleries I found the museum restaurant -- just as I was ready for lunch. I was seated beside a cool green palm. Gods, nymphs, and the doves of Venus fluttered overhead in a splendid neo-rococo frieze. I had a glass of pinot grigio and the buffet de l’Inver, a selection of cold salads, poached cold salmon and whitefish, and a generous chunk of pate de campagne. I lingered over this as long as I could, trying not to whimper with pleasure, and finished with three balls of ice cream in a silver bowl, chocolate, coffee and triple-cream.
The rest of the galleries on this level housed the academic French painters, earnest and perfectly competent but not very forward-looking. One can easily see why the Impressionists swept them all away. One remarkable canvas was Jean Delville’s “School of Plato.” In this startlingly homoerotic work a young, completely dressed Plato sits in the center, surrounded by languid young men, nude and paying only the most casual attention to the master. They appear to be more interested in each other than in the teachings of Socrates. An orgy might almost erupt at any moment.
The last two galleries on this level featured Art Nouveau furniture and furnishings. Simple, graceful pieces were set among some of such fantastic invention that the eye wearied. One suite of bedroom furniture might suggest a bower of lilies, the next a huge man-eating plant. One glassed cabinet was so outrageously over-the-top, with nude figures perched about like birds of prey, that I had to stifle the impulse to laugh. By the time I got to the end I was ready for the relative sobriety of Danish modern.
The entire upper floor of the museum holds the Impressionist collection, surely one of the greatest in the world. Of this small band of artists who changed the direction of painting forever, Renoir is far from my favorite. But his Dancing at the Moulin de la Gallette is one of those paintings I’m hopeless to resist: the dappled sunlight falling on diners at table, the exquisite women flirting, the swirl of dancing figures. It’s a complex study of light, shade, and movement and at the same time a delectable portrayal of Parisians at play. One wants not merely to look at the painting, but to be in it.
I appreciate all the Impressionists, but one titan stands alone: Monet. The pinnacle of his art is the brilliant series of thirty canvases of Rouen cathedral, painted at various stages of sunlight. These are scattered all over the world; Boston’s MFA has two superb examples, but the d’Orsay has five. No other paintings bring me to the emotional pitch that these unearthly canvases do. I could have walked up and down in front of them for the duration of my vacation.
It soon became clear that I should have taken less time at lunch. As I was finishing up this floor, closing time was announced, requiring me to give short shrift to a single hallway of Gauguins and Douanier Rousseau canvases, but ultimately I managed to see most of the museum’s collection.
It was almost dark when I emerged from the d’Orsay at 5:45. Dusk is the most magical time of day anywhere, but especially so in a great city. The French call this l’heure bleu, and tonight the phrase was enchantingly apropos; the sky was blue as a peacock’s breast. I walked slowly through St. Germain des Pres, enjoying the crowds strolling the Boulevard St. Germain, the shops, the cafés, the multiplicity of bookstores. I returned to the hotel briefly to brush my teeth, and strode off to Les Deux Magots to meet Susan.
On the whole trip I never drank a single glass of champagne, but it wasn’t necessary. Susan provided much the same effect. She’s a trim and attractive Englishwoman with a distinctly Parisian gloss. We established an instantaneous rapport. The management of Les Deux Magots was unable to seat us, but we did wiggle into a small corner table at the sidewalk bar (glassed in, thank heaven). Over a couple of glasses of Sancerre we got to know each other. Susan moved to Paris in 1968, shortly after the student riots. She works for the IFA, the French Architectural Institute.
Susan knew a terrific little bistro down the street, the Petit Saint Benoît. According to Susan and others, the classic Parisian bistro is a rapidly disappearing breed, but the Petit Saint Benoît seemed to be bursting with rude good health. It’s plain and neighborhoody, very crowded, with tables close together — and everyone talking animatedly. We had to wait for about ten minutes for a table but it was worth it.
The affable waitress (she introduced herself later as Vanessa) put down a fresh white paper cover for the table, and typically, I couldn’t resist the surface: I pulled out my pen and sketched a large mustachioed man fondly regarding a small glass of red wine — which sported wings and a halo. It drew the attention of a table of Americans to our left, two Frenchmen to our right — and our waitress, who asked if she could have it. She put down another paper cover so my drawing wouldn’t get spotted with food and after dinner I floridly inscribed it to her.
We ordered a bottle of red Bordeaux and two orders of what our neighboring Frenchmen were so clearly enjoying: boulus (sea-snails) served with great gobs of homemade mayonnaise. They were an adventure of discovery for me, even better than my escargots of the night before. For the main course we both ordered the hachis parmentier, a sort of shepherd’s pie — and eventually a second bottle of Bordeaux.
My drawing was a perfect icebreaker. The Americans were friendly but being a table of four they soon returned to their own company; the two Frenchmen unofficially joined us. The man sitting next to me was a ruggedly handsome man; I could tell that Susan thought so too. His companion was — or claimed to be — one of the Bourbons, with the face of an intelligent, amiable antelope. He complimented me on my drawing and said that I would do very well in Parisian cafés, but I would do even better if I learned to speak French well, for it was the best and quickest way to really get to know the French. Point well taken. We chatted in a friendly manner over our food, but presently the talk turned to politics and our Bourbon friend sailed into a long impassioned spiel while Susan listened. Every now and then she would look over at me with widened eyes, and shrug. As the evening pressed on her shrugs seemed to get more and more Gallic.
After we settled the bill, chatted with the waitress and gave her the drawing we said our goodbyes to the two Frenchmen and I accompanied Susan to the St. Germain Metro stop.
“They were nice — I never expected to actually meet my fellow diners. But he was really giving you a lecture. Why were you giving me those wide-eyed looks?”
“Oh yes, they were very pleasant, but the man I was talking to is a fascist.”
“A fascist! A real one?”
She explained that he’s one of these men who are unable to accept the idea of democracy. A member in good standing, you might say, of the ancien régime — in feeling if not in actual fact. Apparently they’re by no means rare in France, Jean-Pierre LePen being a very public example. She told me about a man she had once worked with who always wore black. When she asked him why, he solemnly intoned, “I am in mourning for my king.” Now lets see: the last Bourbon king abdicated in 1848, which means these people have had 153 years to get used to the idea of a republic. Surely there must be a French equivalent for “get a life.”
At the St. Germain station we said goodbye and agreed to meet for lunch on Monday. She gave me directions to her office, a short walk from my hotel. Ignoring the cold wind I walked back to the hotel slowly, feasting on the brightly-lit Paris night. In spite of my very ample meal, I felt the need for a sweet. Half a block from the hotel, I stopped at one of the little sidewalk creperies and got a crepe smeared liberally with Nutella, a little pocket of ecstasy. I wandered through the narrow, twisted streets of the Latin Quarter, window-shopping and revelling in my crepe’s chocolate-hazelnuttiness. Very near my hotel I found the 12th century church of St. Julien le Pauvre, one of the oldest in Paris. A board outside advertised several musical events; if my vacation had been longer I might have attended one. The church abuts onto a small, green park dedicated to Rene Viviani, a politician unfamiliar to me. A modern free-form fountain suggesting a chianti bottle dripping with candle wax bubbled quietly in the center.
Around the corner from the church is a Paris landmark, Shakespeare and Company. Late as it was, I couldn’t resist going in. This is not Sylvia Beach’s original bookstore where Joyce and Hemingway hung out, but it would do very nicely. The lower floor is stocked with new books, the upper one with second-hand. It smelled exactly like City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco: paper and ink and the spirit of the word, which to a book-lover is the headiest perfume in the world. Venerable cats slink about, coffee was on the boil somewhere in the depths of the shop, and all was well in the city. I didn’t buy anything, but merely revelled in its essence.

Sunday, January 14
I was running dangerously low on cash but an exchange was open just around the corner. Afterward, I walked across the Pont St. Michel to the Brasserie Les Deux Palais, on the Île de la Cité. I had a hearty breakfast and continued across the island to the Right Bank, to the Place du Châtelet, an attractive square with a magnificent column rising in the center. The Théâtre du Châtelet was presenting a production of Giselle and I considered getting a ticket. But the only performances I could have seen were on my last night — inadvisable — and that very afternoon, which would have cut short my visit to the Louvre.
At the Louvre I bought my ticket and pausing only briefly to admire the pyramid from below, made a beeline for the sculpture I most wanted to see. The Nike of Samothrace dominated the top of a long stairway, just as grand and as dramatic as I’d expected. Seen in the round, Nike is astonishing in its energy and beauty; even without head or arms it has more life, more feeling of movement than any other sculpture I know. An agreeable ghost was here with me: Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face, floating down the steps in red chiffon while Fred Astaire waits below with his camera.
Off to Nike’s left is the gallery of Italian Renaissance painting, a collection that rivals even that of the Uffizi in Florence. The big draw, of course, is the Mona Lisa. There are four Leonardos hanging in the long hall before you get to her gallery, and all four are superior to that admittedly fine portrait. But they attracted only a handful of people. I was told that the Mona Lisa is always obscured by throngs of people, but fewer people were here today and I had an unobstructed view. But every brushstroke is familiar to me so I quickly moved on.
After feasting my eyes on the great Italians, I dog-legged over to the gallery of large-scale French paintings, the magnificent Delacroix, David and Gericault canvases, the quintessence of the French romantic spirit. No reproduction of Delacroix’s Death of Sardanapalus can prepare you for its power. Delacroix is the one painter who can out-Rubens Rubens. The explosion of color, light and shade on this great canvas contains enough genius to supply a host of lesser painters.
After the sight of so much throbbing flesh I was ready to augment my own. I returned to the central hall. The sun shone in full splendor through the pyramid, which glittered like the world’s largest diamond. In the Richelieu wing on the second floor is a cafeteria. I loaded my tray: a walnut roll with chevre, a small bottle of merlot, a generous slice of apple tart, and lasagna. I’d wanted the poulet Basquaise, but they had run out. It was a lot of food, but walking through a great museum does deplete one’s resources.
Most of the tables were full. I sat down beside two lovely jeunes filles du New York, who were glad of someone new to chat with in English. They were in Paris on some work-study program, soaking up French civilization until the following Friday.
The Louvre cannot be seen in one day; a week would be inadequate. I made the best of the time I had left by seeking out the few Holbeins, deep within the Richelieu wing. While in the neighborhood I meandered through the apartments of Napoleon III, arid and grand. It was pointless to try to see more, but suddenly I wanted to see as much 19th century French painting as I could. I wandered through the vast wing, my map useless, feet screaming in protest, and I never found quite what I was looking for. I did stumble onto one happy surprise: a large collection of small canvases by Corot, wonderfully slapdash oil sketches recording his travels throughout Europe, primarily Italy.
To avoid art overload, I wrapped up my visit early and took the elevator to the below-ground floor, to the collection of Greek statuary. I couldn’t leave without seeing Venus de Milo, another of the undisputed celebrities of the collection and Mona Lisa’s only real rival for the public’s attention. She stood coolly above the crowd, silently accepting the tribute of camera flashes popping all around her.
Extending from the center of the Louvre is a measureless honeycomb of underground shopping galleries. I bought a double dip cone of black currant sorbet, then spent a full fifteen minutes trying to find the subway station to take my first ride on the Metro, a short ride to the Sully-Morland station.
On my boat ride up the Seine on Friday evening, my eye had been drawn to a long white tent snaking along the Quai Henri IV, an antiques fair. Since I’ve long been looking for an antique candelabrum, I was eager to come back. I had barely two hours to browse before closing, and didn’t find what I was looking for, but it was fun anyway. My only purchase was an antique print.
I’d worked up a pretty good hunger by now. Strolling along the Quai de Montebello I glanced over the menus of the smart little restaurants and was drawn to one in particular, La Bouteille D’Or. At the foot of the menu were the magic words: tarte Tatin. But a friend of a friend had recommended the Restaurant des Beaux-Arts as having good food and friendly waiters. I didn’t have an address for it so I stopped by the hotel to consult the phonebook. It was nearby, in St. Germain des Pres, so I set out with a hearty appetite and high expectations.
Here was the address, and here was the sign — but no restaurant. The spaces had been cleaned out, and an art gallery was being installed. This was disheartening (and I would have to break the news to Lira that a favorite restaurant was now defunct), but at least I had a backup: La Bouteille D’Or.
Since it was a Sunday evening I was seated immediately. The restaurant was visually soothing, dark walnut panelling, strawberry-ice-cream pink napery, and paintings of Paris in vibrant, carnival colors. The waiter was pleasant and helpful and supremely tactful regarding my fresh onslaught on the French language. And the meal was one of the highlights of the trip.
The waiter brought me a basket of good, rough country bread and I ordered a half bottle of a red Bordeaux: Domaine des Chappelles. My first course was salade de Poulpe, mixed greens with a generous serving of cold octopus in a faultless sauce vinaigrette. The main course was poulet hongroise, twin breasts from a chicken who had clearly been a pampered only child, fed only on butter. These were dusted with paprika and baked to an unbelievable tenderness, then served on a nest of buttered noodles. I lingered over each bite as if it might be my last.
Then came the tarte Tatin. I was already transported by pleasure, so my judgement may be clouded, but this seemed better than the one I’d had at La Citrouille: firm, tart apples over a feather-light crust, the caramelized syrup as thick as honey, served slightly warm.
My dinner at La Bouteille D’Or wasn’t a mere meal, it was a gift from the gods of cuisine. I almost floated back toward the hotel, cocooned in the warmth of my newly-forged Franco-American concorde. Stopping by Shakespeare and Company again, I climbed the steep and narrow stairway to the top. In this used books section everything is jumbled together in no order at all, and I wasn’t tempted to linger.

Monday, January 15
I turned on the television for background noise during my shower. Zizi Jeanmaire was being interviewed. At almost 77, she’s rather bent, and with a perfect scythe of a nose. That said, she’s still as irrepressibly gamine as when she appeared on Broadway 47 years ago in The Girl in Pink Tights. I assume she must be something of an institution in France, given the obvious infatuation of her three young interviewers.
Walking toward Montparnasse, I stopped at La Brioche Dorée for breakfast, two large cafés noirs and a flan coco — an enormous slab of coconut tart. I settled down at the sole available table, which was near the sidewalk and whipped by cold winds. I was grateful when the girl at the counter came over to direct me to tables upstairs.
In the block before the Luxembourg Gardens, I ducked into an antiquarian bookstore to look for a French Alice in Wonderland for my collection, but without success. Right around the corner was a square named for my favorite French composer, Francis Poulenc, a mean little space with only a few naked trees, a bike rack and a tattered newsstand. The Luxembourg Gardens were frostily beautiful even in winter, and I walked up the wide promenade enjoying what little sun glimmered through the clouds. A few runners were about, and a few elder Parisians (who always cheerily returned my bonjours), but largely I was left by myself. On the other side of the park I stopped at an apothecary’s for a couple of packets of Kleenex, then wandered through Montparnasse as far as the Closerie des Lilas, the cafe where Hemingway allegedly sat for hours nursing his coffee and writing The Sun Also Rises. It was on a very attractive corner, and when the lilacs are in bloom it must be beautiful; now it was just frigid and I was grateful for my Kleenex. Turning north again, I walked back through the Luxembourg Gardens, stopping to admire and photograph the Carpeaux sculpture above the Fontaine de l’Observatoire. I also discovered I’d lost yet another lens cap.
Susan and I had agreed to meet at her office at 12:30. I found the French Architectural Institute and pushed the button as instructed. I entered a wide courtyard of a large, complex building, very old. A few dry leaves stirred around the bottom of a stairwell at the back. The stairwell seemed to lead nowhere, so I trotted off to the side of the courtyard. Here was another stairway. At the top were two ornate doors. I rung a bell and the door opened.
“Yais?” asked a tall woman in a long velvet skirt. She had a plump, bored face under a cloud of orange hair.
“Is this Susan Day’s office?”
“Suzanne Dai?”
“Isn’t this the French Architectural Institute? I’m looking for Susan Day.”
She tilted her head back and looked down her nose as if inspecting me for vermin. “This is a prrrivate residence, monsieur. The Frrrench Architectural Institute is acrrross the courtyard. Please be more careful in future.” And with that she closed the door. She was more glacial than unkind and I’m pleased to report that this was the closest thing to unfriendliness I encountered during my five days in Paris.
I went back down into the courtyard and having little choice, ran up the previous stairway. At the top was the IFA secretary who directed me to a building in back where Susan was working.
When I told Susan about my encounter with the woman she told me I had stumbled into the apartments of the Principessa di Rothschild, of the Italian branch of the family. That explained the richness of the furnishings I’d glimpsed. Susan thought I’d been greeted by the maid, or perhaps the children’s governess.
We walked down the block to the Palais du Luxembourg, then down the Rue di Medicis to a favorite place of Susan’s, the Café Rostand. We started with a glass of red Bordeaux. Susan had a simple omelet; I ordered a bowl of onion soup gratinée and a quiche lorraine. This was the best I may ever have had, a huge slice chock-full of large chunks of ham. Susan told me all about her life in Paris and her travails with her neighbors, a slovenly and volatile clan. I promised to send her a copy of this journal.
I could easily have spent the rest of the day chatting with Susan, but this was the middle of her work day, so I pressed on. Back at her office she gave me a mailing tube for my old print and left me some parting advice. I’d told her about my wish to find an ornate, many-branched candelabrum, and she advised me to go find one of the antiques markets, that it would certainly be worth my trouble. My friend Nancye had told me about the Marché aux Puces near the Porte de Clignancourt, which would entail another Metro ride. My guidebook said that it was open on Mondays too, so I ventured the ride.
The Porte de Clignancourt was the furthest I traveled outside the heart of the city, into a messy suburb to the north. It was cold and damp, but my spirit of adventure was undaunted. Past an outdoor market of old clothes and cheap African “tribal art” knockoffs was a warren of shops, most of which didn’t seem to carry antiques. I was pleased to note that the street alongside was the Rue Jean Henri Fabre, named for the French entomologist who wrote so passionately, so poetically of his work that he accidentally created literature.
I finally found the antique shops. Schlepping among them for the next two hours, I found a wilderness of candelabra. Alas, practically every one was part of a pair, and usually accompanied by a clock. I found one glorious exception, ornate enough to satisfy anyone, but at 2200 francs (around $350) it was somewhat trop cher so I reluctantly left it behind. The shops mostly carried junk of the most dismal type, but goodies glittered among the dreck in almost every one, so I had a thumping good time. By the time all the shops had shuttered, I was stiff with cold and ready to think about dinner.
The Metro brought me back into the center of the city, to the Les Halles stop. The city at dusk was enchanting (no surprise) and the nearby church of St. Eustache glowed dully against the purple sky. The old food market has been removed to an outer suburb, and the Les Halles marketplace is now the site of a multi-floored shopping complex, chic and soulless and so closely built along American lines one might just as well be in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia. I was, however, able to replace my lens cap.
It was just a short walk to one of the great Brasseries of Paris, cited by Nancye as one of the places one must not miss. Au Pied de Cochon shone in the night like a casket of jewels, a swirl of color and warm lighting. It’s touristy enough to suit your Aunt Gladys but at the same time exquisitely, authentically Parisian. I arrived just before the dinner crowd, and was shown to a corner table with a good view of the passing show. At the top of the menu were three offerings of cold seafood, and I chose the most spectacular of the three, accompanied by a half bottle of white Bordeaux.
The waiter brought me an iced platter as big as a bicycle wheel. Arranged artfully on top was a lavish profusion of clams, oysters, large pink shrimp, a scallop shell filled with tiny black snails, a generous scattering of sea snails (my new discovery, boulus), another scallop shell piled high with tiny shrimp in the shell, and in the center, reposing like a pasha in his harem, a steamed crab. It was all delicious, though I had a bit of trouble with a couple of items. The black snails had been prepared with clove, which seemed odd, and they were fiendishly difficult to extract from their shells. The tiny shrimp, no bigger than coughdrops, were hard to separate from their heads and legs. I finally took the path of least resistance and simply popped them into my mouth.
Halfway through my meal, two women sat down at an adjoining table and were brought the same iced platter. “Oh-la-la!” exclaimed the younger woman, something I would never have expected to hear off the stage, say from a saucy maid in a Feydeau farce. But she only expressed what I was thinking.
Despite all this glorious seafood, I must confess that this miserable sinner ended his meal with a moelleux de Chocolat. This fever-dream of a dessert was a plump chocolate brioche stuffed with chocolate-and-passionfruit mousse, covered with a cap of crisp hard chocolate. This was accompanied by a ball of strawberry ice cream and the whole assemblage swam in a pool of chocolate, passionfruit, and burnt caramel sauces. I now have a new yardstick by which to measure decadence.
After dinner, I set out for the Théâtre de l’Opéra-Comique, which was presenting Offenbach’s La Perichole. I’m a pushover for Offenbach, but mostly I wanted to see the theatre itself, where Carmen and Tales of Hoffmann were first produced. I arrived as the first act was letting out; it wasn’t La Perichole but a musical called Macadam, Macadam. I attempted to get information from an old lady selling programs in the lobby, but her English was even more primitive than my French. A young man stepped up to help and introduced himself as Sebastién Nuss. The musical, he said, was not particularly good, and mostly noise (it’s a sort of street theatre for under-twenty-somethings). La Perichole had finished the previous week. When I told him I was from Boston he brightened — his cousin and her family live there. He gave me his card and said I must write to him.
I walked up the Boulevard des Italiens toward the Paris Opera. It is a mixed bag of a building, an agreeable melange of styles. It was getting colder now, and I forged on towards the Madeleine. By this point I was just trying to hit a few highlights. Walking through a great city at night can be intoxicating even if your nose is cold as a dachshund’s. At the Place de la Concorde, which appeared even bigger at night, I looked up the Champs Elysées toward the Arc de Triomph. It shimmered in the distance like a mirage, so I walked toward it, if only to prove it wasn’t an illusion. The closer I got, the more it resembled a diamond solitaire set in the midst of rubies and lesser gems, the lights along the Champs Elysées.
It took the better part of an hour to reach the arch, and when one is finally there, it’s bigger than you dare hope (in fact the largest of its kind in the world), as much the star attraction of Paris as the Eiffel Tower. I walked around admiring it from various angles, then descended into the Metro again. After I’d bought my ticket a pretty young blonde woman perceived that I wasn’t exactly sure which direction I was going. She gave me directions and disappeared.
Back at St. Michel, I resisted going to bed. Although footsore and weary, I wanted to wander the nighttime streets as long as I could without dropping from exhaustion. The night beckoned and I had no choice but to follow.
I sustained myself again at a sidewalk creperie, a heartier snack this time: grated cheese, turkey ham, and an egg, wrapped up as before and stuffed into a paper cone. I wandered through the little streets in this part of the Latin Quarter, looking at menus, watching people and munching contentedly on my crepe. Just as I felt in danger of falling asleep on my feet, I turned back toward the hotel. For a block or so I was accompanied by two beautiful women clasping each other affectionately. They sang drunkenly, haltingly, but with great concentration, “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.” It sounded partly like a Sapphic dirge, partly a solemn celebration, and altogether pleasing. They waved me good night at the corner of The Gargantua and I went on up to bed.

Tuesday, January 16
The first order of the day was to stop at the Metro station and find out how to get the train to the airport the next morning. Since this was to be my final day in Paris, I decided to save time by having breakfast on the go. At a little patisserie on the Île St. Louis I got (oh, shame!) a plump meringue and an apple turnover. I did a bit of shopping and returned my purchases to the hotel, then crossed over to the Right Bank by way of the Pont d’Arcole for a walking tour of the Marais.
In front of the Hotel de Ville a large skating rink had been set up, steps away from two more brightly lit carousels. Halfway up the Rue di Rivoli I stopped for another crepe with Nutella. At the end was the broad square where the Bastille formerly stood. The column commemorating the 1830 and 1848 revolutions is now just another frenzied traffic roundabout, and history lies far in the background. Now the square is dominated by the cold silver curves of the enormous Opéra de Paris Bastille. This opera house could almost contain the Garnier Opera, and in fact looks like the box something would come in.
From here I doubled back to see the Place de Vosges, home of kings and cardinals and royal favorites — and of Victor Hugo. This elegant Renaissance square is grand and yet truly human-scaled, perfectly proportioned architecturally. Neatly pruned trees stand in military ranks. Even in mid-winter, these trees attract visitors into the square to admire the equestrian statue of Louis XIII.
A few blocks on, I came across the Musée Carnavalet. After two perfect museum experiences, I hadn’t planned to visit another. But it looked managable, good for a short visit. And it was here. The information sheet suggested that the visitor should count on spending at least two hours. I stayed for four.
This was the best introduction to the city’s history, the one museum that no first-time visitor to Paris should miss. To see it at leisure is to witness the city’s growth through the ages, starting from a tiny pre-Roman settlement whose dead center appeared to be just about where my hotel is. In the first long hallway, old shop signs are hung, an appetizer for the bounties to come. The museum is arranged in a loose chronological order, and the paintings of the city create a continuum of its history. The top floor exhibit was harrowing, an exhaustive history of the French Revolution from the fall of the Bastille to the Terror. Here, the bloodthirstiness of the populace is made almost palpable.
My favorite gallery contained an entire Art Nouveau shop interior by Alphonse Mucha. But on the way out, I happened upon a small gallery lined with glass cases that delighted me as much as anything I saw in Paris. A 19th century sculptor named Dantan had created a sideline of small terracotta figures. These caricatures of his prominent contemporaries were merciless, inventive, irresistible. Here were Offenbach and Victor Hugo and Rossini, but even faces unfamiliar to me were entertaining.
Lunch was very late, and again, eaten on the run. I stopped at a small bakery at the corner of the Rue de Gilles and got a feuilleté du chevre, delicate puff pastry surrounding goat cheese with a hint of curry. I munched on it happily as I walked to the Chemin Vert Metro stop.
My goal was the Des Abbesses stop, one of the few remaining canopied Art Nouveau Metro entrances. These exquisite fantasias by Hector Guimard have dwindled to a handful, which is a shame. They should all be replaced or recreated, for they are the essence of the pleasure-lovers’ Paris. The Des Abbesses stop was the entryway to my last great unexplored neighborhood: Montmarte.
If there was an escalator somewhere at the Des Abbesses stop, I never found it. The only exit I saw led up a long spiral stairwell. Every surface, walls and overhead, had been decorated by Montmartre artists. Their collective imagination, as far as I could tell, hadn’t developed very far past Les Fauves, but their enthusiasm was unmistakable. I puffed my way to the top, bounding up the steps two at a time. Later I read that this Metro stop is the deepest in Paris. It felt like it.
The Place des Abbesses is an oddly shaped little square of little consequence; the graceful Guimard entryway gives the square its greatest distinction. I climbed up streets as steep as any in San Francisco, in the general direction of the Sacre Coeur. I paused to look back. The sky was aflame with deep rose fading to gold, and the bare winter trees snaked across the sky. Passing the former site of the Bateau Lavoir, where Modigliani starved and Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, I reached the rue St. Rustique and paused to catch my breath.
Suddenly a young man with a sketchpad stopped in front of me, eyes widening at this apparition before him: the perfect subject for a portrait! Oh, please, monsieur! Such a face! I protested that I had no wish to be drawn, but he persisted. The result was pathetically amateurish; it might just as easily have been a portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Elton John, or — given the mustache — Alice B. Toklas. It was certainly not me. He scribbled a price on the next sheet, which I snickered at. I offered to draw him in return, which would have given him by far the best of the bargain. It was a ludicrous scam and I left him there, marking his price down again and again, protesting that I was leaving a treasure behind. I wouldn’t have minded subsidizing a starving artist but he was no artist, and judging by the physical evidence, he was comfortably unfamiliar with starvation.
Around the corner was the Place du Tertre, a square ringed with artists showing their wares. I didn’t stop, having just seen an example of the local talent. Dusk was approaching and I wanted to see Paris from one of its highest points. Sacre Coeur was worth the climb, pristine white and faintly suggesting a mosque. The view of the city might have been spectacular but for the haze which enveloped everything — except the Eiffel Tower, which rose majestically in the distance.
The greater part of Montmarte lay at the foot of the hill. Rather than take the funicular rail line to the bottom, I pattered down the Rue Foyatier, the much-photographed street of steps. Montmartre, I have to conclude, is overrated. Dingy and crowded and the home to countless fabric shops, it bore little resemblance to the artists’ playground of popular folklore. It had terrific vitality, though, and buzzed with people.
On the map I found La Table d’Anvers, a restaurant that has garnered raves. It seemed like a good prospect for my last meal in Paris. But it was locked up tightly. So tightly, in fact, that it may have gone out of business.
I continued up Boulevard de Clichy, intending to at least see La Moulin Rouge. As I approached Pigalle the night acquired an unsavory air. The fabric shops were replaced by live sex shows, and one sidewalk flack after another tried to reel me in. I walked along, eyes ahead, muttering “non” every few feet. Eventually the hookers got into the act. One hollow-eyed wraith, dressed entirely in black, tailed me for half a block imploring me to sample her diseased charms. If I’d decelerated in the slightest, she would undoubtedly have attached herself to my leg like an apache dancer, and been dragged down the street. I finally managed to shake her. Another, who looked more like a Chestnut Hill matron than a whore, moved in to clinch her deal. I archly cocked an eyebrow and murmured, “Je suis homosexuel.” I’d found the key: the angels of the asphalt melted away like spring snow. They must have had some sort of primitive network going for them, like jungle drums.
Finally I reached La Moulin Rouge. It wasn’t a disappointment, except for its grubby surroundings. The posters outside suggested a Las Vegas-style extravaganza, all bare bosoms and glitter. I wasn’t tempted; sitting in a theatre wasn’t how I wanted to spend my last evening in Paris. All I wanted was to find a good restaurant and end my vacation with a first-rate meal. I tried to find a restaurant in one of the side streets but without success. Here were mostly smoky little bars, each one more louche than the one before. I headed to the Pigalle Metro stop. One last fille de joie who hadn’t gotten the official word ran her eyes up and down me as if I were a rich dessert, overplaying her hand outrageously. I bolted past her and disappeared into the Metro, grateful to leave Montmartre -- and her -- behind. Even my sensualism has its limits.
Instead of taking the train all the way to St. Michel I stopped at Châtelet so I could walk back across the Île de la Cité, dreamily beautiful at night. In the Metro a small combo, Les Musiciens de Lviv, had attracted a large crowd with their rich, soupy eastern European music. I stopped to listen and even bought a couple of their CDs. For a while I talked with a very attractive man, perhaps my age, a great devotee of street music. In excellent English, he told me that this music was in his blood. He is originally from Sarajevo, and has lived in Paris for twenty years.
For my last meal I chose the Brasserie de l’Île St. Louis, which I’d been attracted to on my first day. Here I had the most expensive and least satisfying meal of the trip, but the setting made up for any shortcomings. It was just what one expects of an Alsatian brasserie, gleaming brass and dark wood, waiters bustling by with schooners of beer, the air perfumed with sauerkraut. For once I was baffled by a menu. The waiter explained as well as his virtual lack of English — and mine of French — would allow. The gendarme fumé, for example, was not a smoked policeman, but smoked haddock. They were out so he brought me the saucisse aux tripes instead, which I should have sent back. It was more or less kielbasa, a fatty, garlicky mouthful, chewy as harness leather. But the main course was miraculous: coq au Riesling. Though cooked in white wine, it was much darker than a traditional coq au vin, and so tender it was falling off the bone. The flavor was intense, and came close to overpowering the bottle of tokay pinot grigio. I finished with a slice of tarte Tatin, which barely made an impression, then made for the hotel. A final stop at Shakespeare and Company was my last indulgence. Leaving a wake-up call at the desk, I went to bed at ten.

* * *

A flirtation is not a love affair. No one can truly know Paris in a scant five days. I had come to a sumptuous banquet and been allowed to eat one perfect appetizer before being gently dismissed from the table. On the following morning I saw the last of Paris through the grimed windows of the RER train to the airport. In wintertime the morning light comes late to Paris and there was little to see but the tatty northern suburbs whistling past.
But I was satisfied. I knew I’d be back.