Second of the Last Two Days

Thursday, our actual last day in Paris (and France):

Nice day, as I remember; the rain was gone.  Another (as it turns out, the last) wonderful French breakfast, which we savored.  We set off in the same direction as yesterday but, we hoped, for a much shorter walk.  Our goal was the Ile de la Cite, one of the two islands in the Seine in the middle of Paris, containing, among other things, Sainte-Chapelle and the almost completely restored Notre Dame - La Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris.  We had been to both, during that wonderful five-week singing tour of Europe in 1980.  Of the two, Sainte-Capelle was the one we wanted to return to (and anyway, Notre Dame had been closed for five years since the fire, and wouldn't open until this December).  In addition, we wanted to explore the Concierge, right next to Sainte-Chapelle, about which more later.  The Ile was almost twice as far as yesterday's adventure - further than we wanted to walk - and so we were going to brave the Metro.

We had watched YouTube videos about getting around on the Paris Metro, and we had done all that could be done in advance with Google Maps.  Of course, we had the printed maps as well, which, in the end, proved the most useful resources (remember - phones in airplane mode 24/7).

We got to the Champs Elysée, turned right and came to a Metro station within a couple of blocks.  Somehow, we had missed this one - the shortest walk - while trying to untangle the Metro maps online.  We actually didn't know for sure that it was even a Metro station because IN TYPICAL FRENCH FASHION THERE WAS NO FLIPPIN' SIGN!  OK - let's try it, well go down and... oh, there's the sign, over there where HARDLY ANYONE CAN SEE IT!  Anyway, it was the Franklin D. Roosevelt station, and our next challenge was to buy and use tickets.  The ticket machines didn't work as advertised, even the English version, so Abbey stood on line and went to a ticket counter and, eventually, got us tickets to get on the train.

Noodle Soup

The next challenge, of course, was to get on the right train.  We knew which line we needed, and we knew what the names were of the very last station, in each direction, because that's how you know which direction to go in.  In our case, it was La Defense and Chateau de Vincennes, and we wanted to go toward the Chateau.

So far so good.  The line had a color and a number ("1", which was easy enough to remember), and we found our way to the platform.  A train was there.  No indication of which direction it was going.  We got on.  Then I asked, "Are we going in the right direction?"  We asked someone next to us, and, no, we were going toward Defense.  We got off at the next station, figured out how to get around to the other side, and got on the right train going in the right direction.  We got off at the right station, took one of the many exits, and had no idea where we were when we emerged.  This is a common occurrence when coming out of a subway - even in New York, where the streets are laid out logically, not like some other cities I could name - and this is where the paper maps did their thing.  And also, our phones were still able to pinpoint where we were.  Between the maps and our phones, we got oriented, started walking, and soon were on a bridge over the Seine headed to the Ile de la Cite.

For some reason, the security around Sainte-Chapelle was the tightest we had seen all trip.  A small squad of soldiers with lethal looking machine guns blocked the street we had come across the bridge on (Boulevard de Palais), letting only those of us with tickets to Sainte-Chapelle through.  And the security checkpoint at the entrance to the church compound was comprehensive and unpleasant.  But we finally got through, and out into the courtyard, and there it was.

The story of Sainte-Chapelle is, essentially, the story of French King Louis IX, later St. Louis (as in, for instance, Missouri), who ranks as one of the memorable Kings of France.  He was crowned King at the age of 12 (stop and imagine that for a moment), and a Regent - actually, Regentess, because she was a woman, but not just any woman; his mother ruled in his stead until he came of age*.  Are we getting any psychodynamic vibes here yet?  He was pious (some say obsessively so), a successful leader in war (except the Crusades, as we shall see), and a wise ruler, responsible for many reforms and improvements in French law, including the abolition of trial by ordeal*** and the institution of the presumption of innocence.  He also led two Crusades, both disasters.  The Seventh attempted to free the Holy Land by attacking Egypt; the Eighth by attacking Tunis.  This made sense at the time.  Louis was captured, and eventually ransomed, during the former, and died of dysentery during the latter.

Anyway.  Louis came back from his four Seventh Crusade years in the middle east**** with Christ's Crown of Thorns and about thirty other relics, which he bought from the Roman Emperor of Constantinople, who had pawned them to a bunch of Venetians (I'm not making this up).  Sainte-Chapelle was built to house these relics; the relics, and the ornate box created to house them, cost nearly eight times as much as the entire church.  

Anyway.  The church survives, and there it is, in front of us.  In addition to housing the relics, Sainte-Chapelle was the royal chapel, the King's church.  At the time of Louis IX's reign, it was surrounded by the royal palace, where French Kings of France had lived for six hundred years.  Now it sits in an unremarkable courtyard.  From the outside, the stained glass windows seem lifeless; there is very little evidence of the magnificence; you need to go inside for that, to see the light streaming in through the stained glass all around you.  From the outside, you notice how small it is, compared with all the other Gothic churches you've seen.  Most of them have been cathedrals - the seat of a bishop - and so the bigger the better.  This was "just" a King's chapel - one with some of the most breathtaking stained glass anywhere in the world.*****

Entering from the ground floor, we trace the path of the palace staff, who worshipped on this floor, without the benefit of much stained glass.  It's still a beautiful space, with gothic arches and gold fleur de lis on a deep blue background.  Now, the gift shop is there, a statue of St. Louis, and some other things that we didn't pay a lot of attention to because of the arches and colors in the ceiling.

There are stone spiral staircases in the two front (entryway) corners of the church.  Interesting to think about, since palace staff never entered the second floor, and the royal family, who entered the second floor through a covered passageway leading from surrounding palace, never came down to the first floor.  But that's the way we commoners were able to get up from the staff sanctuary to the field of light and color under a starry sky.

I think that I have been spending so much time on the history here is that I'm not sure I can describe this moment, of emerging into the King's Chapel, and taking in what we found there.  Lets try.

First of all, it was crowded.  Not noisy at all, but crowded.  The floor was empty, no pews or seats, although there were some seats along the side.  There were so many people that it would have been easy to get separated for longer than we wanted to.  So we took turns, sitting in the side benches and walking around, looking up.

More importantly, of course, the stained glass was everywhere.  Everywhere.  This is what people come to see.  These windows are 824 years old, and the colors are clear and vibrant.  I don't remember seeing a lot of color on the floor, from the sun streaming in the windows; honestly, there wasn't much floor in comparison with the acres of windows.  It was light and color that just existed in that long, narrow, luminous space.  Abbey remembers them looking like jewels.

There are 1,113 panels, in fifteen bays nearly fifty feet high. The rioting and vandalism of the French Revolution resulted in damage to all parts of the church - except the windows.  A lot of restoration has gone on, but all sources agree that what we see now is what greeted King Louis IX in 1248.  The chapel is tall and narrow, with no obvious buttresses; the weight of the roof is partially supported by, among other things, two chains which circle the building, running unnoticed through the window bays.

My turn to sit. Sitting there, I feel the history, see the King and his family, worship with them, hear the construction and the silence when it is empty.  But the place is also full of story:  the windows are not just pretty glass; they are the Scriptures, beginning to end, told in some detail, a huge number of stories that we've known all our lives, and have been told before us for two thousand years.  Everywhere I looked was a Bible story, most familiar, some not.  Instruction, inspiration, connection.  Real people struggling to understand God.  It is tragic that no one but the King's family and retinue saw these stories in the beginning, but in subsequent centuries the sanctuary has been open to more and more of us, until today great crowds of people can participate.  These experiences have been available in most other medieval churches and cathedrals, but where else can you stand in one spot and see so much?  Nowhere.

Like at Monet's lily pond, we sat and soaked it in for a while, and then it was time to leave.  After using the worst rest rooms (by far) of the trip, we went next door to the Concierge.

Ile de la Cite has been a home to humans since at least 5,000 BC.  When the Romans arrived, they found a Celtic tribe there called the Parisi, and so it's been called Paris for about two thousand years.  The west end of the Ile was the fortified home of the Roman governor, and after the Romans left, the capital of France (whose size and borders changed constantly, often becoming not much more than the Ile itself) from around 500 AD until the fourteenth century, when the capital (which was essentially where the King lived) moved to the Louvre. 

Anyway - suffice it to say that there has been an extensive, grandiose compound of medieval buildings on the west end of the Ile for a very long time.  Sainte-Chapelle is one of them; the Concierge is another.  They have been demolished, replaced, added to, rebuilt, adapted, restored, and etc., all that time, so, with the exception of Saint-Chapelle, it's hard to say how old any particular building or section is - "which part?" is the important question.

Anyway.  The Concierge is a huge, imposing part of all this that runs along the Seine on the north shore of the Ile.  Parts of it, certainly, are a thousand years old.  It was part of the King's Palace until the kings moved to the Louvre, and then, for most of the rest of its life it was a prison and the home of the Parlement of Paris, among other things.

The Hall of Guards in the Concierge

Two interesting things about the Concierge (well, there are a lot of interesting things about the Concierge, but we're getting toward the end here, and I see you sneaking looks at your watch).  One was the tablet they gave visitors to learn about different parts of the huge building.  There were short, squat wooden pillars throughout the place, and if you held the tablet above one, you'd get an animated guide to whatever room, or part of a room, you were in.  They were a little buggy (you had to hold them just right) but kind of fun, a guide that would work on your own schedule and at your own speed.

The second interesting thing is that the Concierge was where most of the folks who lost their heads during the Reign of Terror were judged.  The Parlement of Paris (apparently, was disbanded by the Constituent Assembly, and replaced by the Revolutionary Tribunal, which met in a large hall above the prison cells (a hall soon re-named, in the French Revolution's best "1984" style, the Hall of Liberty).  The accused, who were being held in prisons all over France, would be transferred to the cells below the Hall of Liberty just before their trial.  Trials were swift, and most (interestingly, not all) were executed the day after.  Marie Antionette was one of these; her cell is reconstructed and the tablet provides virtual details.

So the Concierge was at the center, or one of the centers, of The Terror, and this part of the building felt unpleasant and frightening.  Many displays provided endless detail, and there was no attempt by the current French government to diminish or excuse the excesses of the French government of the late 18th century.

Did you see the opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics?  I am writing this the morning after, and although we did not see them, the images and video were all over the internet this morning.  I nearly choked on my Cheerios when I saw these images:

Masked torchbearer on the roofs of Paris.  
Concierge in foreground; Sainte-Chapelle behind.

It's the Concierge.  Here's a video of this part of festivities.  And yes, the headless woman is Marie Antionette.  The presentation seemed to promote decapitation and bloodletting, while celebrating the Reign of Terror.  I guess France is not sweeping it under the rug.  Apparently, 230 years or so is not too soon.  The band is Gojira, a French heavy metal band (previous name:  Godzilla).  Happy Olympics!

We spent a long time in the Concierge - there was a lot to learn - but finally found ourself truly "on our own" - no schedule, no list, no tickets, no timed entry.  We crossed back over the bridge to the mainland (view from the Pont Neuf, above, with Concierge on the left), and looked for a place to eat.

Nearly all restaurants we saw in Paris have outdoor dining, and a menu display on the sidewalk.  There were three restaurants on the square at the mainland end of the bridge, and we chose Le Flore en l’Île, right across the street from the Seine.  Le Flore en l'Ile means "the flora on the island," according to their website, which is interesting, since there is no flora and it's not on the island.

Can you see the Eiffel Tower?

We had a fantastic seat (right), with a view of the bridge we had just walked over, and the Concierge on the other side, with the spire of Sainte-Chapelle rising above the Hall of Justice.  We were right above the Seine, but couldn't see it, of course.  We could see the almost constant traffic (we waited a while to be able to take a pic without traffic) - cars, small trucks, buses, motorcycles, e-scooters, bikes, e-bikes, bikes and scooters with big delivery boxes on them, and so forth.  And lots of police and ambulances, which made sense when we discovered that we were next door to the Prefecture de Police.  I thought it was fascinating to watch so many people risk their lives every moment, or seem to.  It's a different kind of life.

The square itself, at the end of the bridge and just to the right of the pic, was fenced off, and work that had something to do with the Olympics was being done, involving brightly colored paint.

We enjoyed our waiter, took our time, and enjoyed being on the streets of Paris.  I had another omelette, and Abbey had duck leg; I was very happy with mine, and Abbey says she remembers being a little disappointed.  But the most fun, and not disappointing at all, was the escargot.  We had escargot!  Did I ever think that I would eat snails?  No, I did not.  But I did.  We both did, using the little tools that look like they come from a torture dungeon but are perfectly designed to get the snail out of the shell.  And they were good!  Very good.  We would both have them again, without question.  A Paris cafe, the Seine, and escargot!  And that big steel tower in the distance.  Life is good.

And here's another internet oddity:  A few days ago (mid-July), Abbey was reading an article on CNN about how the world bonjour is used, and about how Olympic visitors can fit in to French culture.  The section on "cafe culture" (interesting and worth a read) had an accompanying photo:

That's Le Flore en l’Île,  That's where we ate the snails.  We were sitting at the table where the women in black and white are sitting.  Small world.

Time to head back to the hotel.  We found the Metro stairs we had come up earlier in the day, without much difficulty, but... you needed a ticket to get in!  No ticket booth or ticket machines.  Not only did you need to have a ticket handy about your person, but you needed to know that this was an station without ticket access.  And signs...?  Ha!

A distinguished French gentleman with some English asked if he could help.  He confirmed that you need a ticket to get in, and there's nowhere to get a ticket.  He suggested that there would be a station with more services down... that way.  East, as it turned out, away from the direction we wanted to go.  

Off we went, past the Tour (Tower) Saint-Jacques, all that is left of a Gothic church.  We walked and walked.  I was pretty sure that the 1 line went under the street we were on - the Rue de Rivoli - at least for a while.  We walked on, and finally came to a flight of stairs, descending.  They had tickets.  We got on the right train.  We rode back to FDR Station.

Once again, collapse on bed in hotel.  But Abbey wanted a pastry, one really good pastry before we left France, so I got on the Google and looked.  Apparently, we were in a pastry desert.  Apparently, really stylish people don't frequent patisseries.  

So, we went to the cafe diagonally across the intersection from our hotel entrance, looked at the menu, and decided that it would do.  We were asked to sit in a different section, I think because we were not going to have a meal.  Or something.  We sat, and watched Paris go by.  Abbey had some disgusting chocolate goopy torty something, and raspberry sherbet, and I had lemon sherbet and red wine.  This is our version of indulgence.  We watched the traffic go by.  We watched a couple on the fifth floor balcony, probably home from work, share a glass of wine and talk.  We saw stylish and not-so-stylish people walk by in the hundreds.  We decided that shopping bags from upscale boutiques (a block away on the Champs Elysée) were not just (and maybe in some cases not at all) containers; they were fashion statements all by themselves, and were chosen for size, shape, and color, and were carried just so (always on the shoulder; never dangling from the fingertips). We talked about Baron Haussmann.  We savored.

Then we went to bed, and the next thing we knew, practically, we were hugging Lily and getting into the Tesla at Logan, and we were back in the land of no medieval towns, no croissants to speak of, and cities that were hodge-podge and ugly.  But soon, there was Randall and Gwen, and Lily again.  We would make the best of it.

NOTES:

* - His mother, Blanche of Castille, while she was Regentess,** continued the Albgensian Crusade (remember that one?).  She was also (pay attention, now, this gets complicated), in addition to being the Queen of France while her husband, Louis VIII was alive, she was also the daughter of Eleanor of England and Alfonso VIII of Castile (this was before a united Spain was a thing).  Her mother Eleanor was daughter of another Eleanor, who we have met, Eleanor of Aquitaine, which means that Blanche's grandfather was King Henry II of England, and Richard the Lionheart and John the Really Unliked were her uncles.  So:  Henry IX's mother, Blanche, was mother, widow, daughter, granddaughter or niece of six kings of three countries.  What a life she must have had!

** - I made this word up.

*** - Could we bring this back, for just one moment, for one guy only, and let God decide?

**** - Guess who ruled France while he was gone?  Yup.

***** - This masterpiece was built in just six years, which is staggering when you think about the centuries it took to build many medieval churches (most of which were bigger, granted, but not that much bigger).  It helps, I guess, to have the full resources of a King and his country at your disposal.