Vannes Redux (what a difference 6 months make)

What do you do when it's gorgeous out, you know tomorrow is a teachers' strike and you only have about 10 days left in beautiful Brittany? Why you go to one of its most hopping ancient cities: VANNES! We were last there as a family on January 23 - exactly 6 months ago, so it was high time to go back. The thrill was not just in the return, but in seeing absolutely everything about the city transformed. When I think of how closed and quiet all of Brittany was when we got here, compared to how open and boisterous a place it is now, I start to understand more that seasons aren't just seasons around here, they are lifestyles. And as charming as we found the winter graced by the color of moss only, I suppose that most Bretons, having endured enough cold and wet winters, simply stay indoors. Because now, they are out! The parking lots are full, the streets are crowded, the fish market (above) is open... We had lots of things we were hoping to do, and my goodness we did them all, and added a bunch of distractions along the way. Seeing this beautiful fish market reminds me of the North Carolina coast so much - the smell of fresh seafood, the expert hands preparing the fish, the careful considerations of the customers (seafood is and always will be a huge, big deal, a treat to share), the echoing space (the smell has to go somewhere, eh?). It's glorious, and the kids were duly impressed by the enormous spider crabs and sea snails and various and sundry fishes whose second eyes had migrated to the first so they can swim flat.

So why love Vannes? This is why love Vannes:



That one can happen upon a scene like this one (on the first tiny "square" within the old city - the one where saint Vincent Ferrer lived while he preached in Vannes), makes this city a magical place for me. I love that climb up into it, that old safety of "intra muros" (within the walls), today made into a comforting meander. And the girls' immediate response was priceless.

And then, the discovery of a lifetime: the Museum of Archaeology of the Morbihan at Vannes!!!!
This was the first object that greeted us when we walked into the medieval section and I flipped out! This was one of Michael Camille's favorite pieces - it's in his marvelous book, The Medieval Art of Love - I remember looking at just the one panel reproduced of this marvelous "coffret" (a kind of treasure box for personal use) and teaching it. And then, there it was! The museum text adds that it was probably brought to Vannes from Spain (where it was made, but in what context in Spain, home of convivencia where Jews, Christians and Muslims all lived together?) on pilgrimage and left at the cathedral as an offering. It portrays scenes of chivalric romance: a woman and a troubadour, two knights (one almost completely behind a a huge shield), a tent and a horse, and this wonderfully strange scene of a woman talking with a monk while a horse waits nearby. A marriage gift? A knight's travel box? And what tales does it tell? We had some fun with the monk and the lady, but otherwise, I just couldn't take my eyes off of it: that it would survive from the 12th century, made of wood, travel to so far - it's enough to make you want a book of it (said she having just read People of the Book).

I looked up to see Oliver standing absolutely still over this book - turns out it was a breviary with illuminated initials in classic 13th century Gothic script. I looked at other things and looked over again and there he was in the exact same position. I went over to him and asked him what he thought, and he just looked up at me and said beseechingly, "I want to turn the pages." A bibliophile is born: this was pure desire, just to touch the book (and he knew it was parchment), to feel its pages (the smooth side, the hair side), to hear them move. I haven't seen that kind of open, honest desire for a book as object... maybe ever - Michael Camille and his love of manuscripts would come the closest. My dear Oliver actually wanted to hear what it was like at the Bibliothèque Nationale when I was able to handle manuscripts - my wild tales of adventure!


And then upstairs a very minimal and clean museum lay-out: these exquisite little cases and the cool lighting: it was all pre-history all the time up here with really pristine, beautiful examples of axe heads, stone tools, and (Iron Age!) metal objects.


All this with a little history lesson from Eleanor:



Continuing with the "eat your way through Brittany" endeavor, we ate out on a terrace near the port, foresaking the picnic we'd been thinking about.

But it was much cooler under those umbrellas, I tell you, and when a Croque Madame as gorgeous as this one comes your way, you're glad you're "en terrace." Both girls love the Croque Madame - some kind of culinary feminism, as they both really emphasize the "Madame" when they order it.

We then plunged into the cool depths of the Aquarium, and it was here that both Mac and I realized that, yes, much had happened, had been happening these past six months. When did Eleanor start calling "Regardes!" out to her sister (Come see!)? When did they start naming sea life in French? When did Iris start photographing things for school projects? At some point, there was a change, another layer, and now here were the kids at home in Brittany, remembering every single thing about our first visit. It was some kind of return, some kind of revisit - but with this ability to see in between the two visits. Rare and wonderful: like the kids were seeing old friends, but now calling them all by their French names. Our favorite was "Madame la Crocodile" for the crocodile named Eleanor that had been found in the Paris sewer in 1984.

And ah, because in springtime, out come the carousels along with the crocuses, the kids rode the one at the port - Iris spinning in a hot air balloon basket, and Eleanor triumphant on an elephant. A good time was had by all!

Great Big Wonderful Day

In our last days here, I think that we're thinking, "If you can't take it with you (really? you can't take it with you?) maybe you can just eat everything." We'd both had productive mornings (among other things, annotated bibliography finished for Mac, conference paper abstract sent off for me - yipee!) so we easily let ourselves talk each other into going for galettes at the crêperie on the square. Here is one happy Mac (that's a bolée of cider in his hand). Today turned out to be a happy day for many, many reasons: we found out that we don't have to get the kids a DCEM (I don't even remember what that stands for) because we'll be staying in the Schengen territory until we go back to the US (yea!); we found out we're doing just fine financially (which, ever since many, many years ago Mac read the ominous phrase "destitute in Europe" in a guidebook has filled us with more than the usual relief); and we've mapped out a week of on-site research in France (we are now ready for Burgundy and WWI battlefields in mid-July). More gloriously than all that, we've learned that wonderful, smart, warm José emerged victorious from the grueling oral exams last week in Paris - this means many wondrous things (like "yes! good, kind people do indeed win brutal competitions"), including top choices and job security, but I would think the powerful accomplishment of making it through such an endeavor will be a sweet reward forever. We're just never challenged to marshal our stamina, smarts, and endurance like this in the States - yes, there are orals in dissertations, but you're competing against yourself. Here, there were two positions given out in a national competition. There's much to celebrate, and once we told the kids after school, they had some ideas... :-)

In the meantime, it was a galette-o-rama lunch: I had a complète with yummy extra mushrooms (it must be the butter), and Mac's rather intimidating galette comprises the boudin noir with its accompaniement of flambéed apples - I'll confess that as forbidding as it looks, it was delicious. (How is that even possible? And yet it was). We are definitely approaching that "unbearable lightness of being" stage of transitions - almost lightheaded in our delights, partly because of the excitement that awaits, and partly because of the complexity of emotions for what we are about to leave behind.

Nowhere do I see this more than in the children. They are starting to talk about missing their school, and we are realizing just how much of their "France life" happened here, just how many habits and comforts they've made over the past six months, and, as here, just how many friends. This is a great little guy with whom Oliver now trades Pokemon cards - so much so that now Oliver knows the Pokemon names both in French and English (and guess what? they're just as wacky in French!). I notice, now, how many kids Oliver is saying hello and good-bye, too - there are many tales yet to tell, I think.

Today was a Great Big Wonderful Day also because of (drumroll, please) the Ecole Suzanne Bourquin Circus performance!!!! All of the kids from CP on up (which includes Oliver's CE1/CE2 class) were putting on an hour-long show. The girls were beside themselves with excitement and my dear Oliver was cool as a cucumber. He refused to tell us what his act was so that, yes I'll confess it, I was beside myself, too! The most amazing thing, initially, was remembering that we'd been here at the Cultural Center for Tic Tac Magie only two weeks after arriving here. Aside from that time seeming impossibly long ago, it was also watching the girls, Iris especially, jump up and go greet their friends over and over again. They truly were part of this little world of Suzanne Bourquin School - and importantly, a world that Mac and I were only peripherally a part of. Tonight, in all those little hugs and bisous, I was catching a glimpse of the world the kids have been building for themselves. Bravo my little ones.

And now, behold my Oliver attempting to walk on an enormous very round ball!!! He was so awesome! His act was the penultimate one, and I watched him sit patiently, smiling peacefully, chatting with the kids next to him. I'm a mess at events like these: the kids are so earnest, and there is so much love in the room (I often wonder if the professional performers don't think: "Uh oh, looks like we got a crier in row 2"), but I was only scolded "Don't weep!" once by Eleanor who really cannot abide my sentimentality. But watching her clap her hands in time with whatever music was playing and then shout out gleefully "OOOOLLLLLIVVVVEEEERRR!" set me off again. A lot of love.

And then, check this out, he came back again, this time with a brandishing element. The teacher held him as he got up, but then he was on his own balancing on that great big ball. Does the medievalist in me see an allegory about living abroad here? Absolutely! And let the brandishing be that victorious mastery of the rolls and movement of living in a new culture. Oliver's quiet concentration in this will inspire me for years to come. I love you, little man.


And so he and his partners ended their performance to wild applause, the same warm, wild applause that had greeted every kid's performance. It made me love this little town so much. Check out that stage presence on Oliver.


The girls were all over him like a rock star. And there were intense emotions at the end of it all: it's that lightness of being again. Everything is in high relief, perceived and felt large. It was home and to bed after the show - the really big show.

A Meal with a View

Every morning when we go to school, we cross the chef of the restaurant La Table d'O walking his daughter to school. The smells already coming from his kitchen at this early hour have always made us dreamy, they're so complex and delicious. Going there is super special: we went with my Mom, Alison and Mallory went on their last night in Josselin, Mac went with Steve and Gina (it's a go-when-the-kids-are-at-school kind of place) and it was a completely marvelous and different menu each time. Well this morning, we decided that it was high time that we celebrated our anniversary (which had come and gone on May 23, as it so often does in the midst of Eleanor's birthday events and other May mayhem, completely unnoticed) and so we booked a table on the terrace. The view is breath-taking, the cuisine is inspired, the experience is sublime. Here is a recapitulation.

I never take an appéritif, but when the waiter asked, it seemed like the most natural thing to do. Kir breton, of course, but with griottes instead of just cassis. Mac had his much beloved Ricard - thus the happy face. The little taster bowls have spreads of sardines, fresh fresh fresh cheese with cucumbers in it, and salmon - all to be eated on little delicate crostinis. Mmmm

Mac started with the Assiette de Saison: melon, with prosciutto, and white asparagus, drizzled with the juices of "tomates confits" (stewed in its own juices for a really long time). The tiny sprouts and arugula made all of the colors pop even more.



I went with "Filet de Raie aux Agrumes" - delicate cuts of stinray interspersed with beautiful, thin slices of kumquats and other citrus fruits, and an even sproutier decoration for accompaniment.



For his Plat de Resistance (indeed, who could resist?) Mac had a Filet de Dorade Rôti à l'Estragon à la Provençale (fillet of sea bass roasted with tarragon served with tomatoes and artichokes with herbs of southern France). Isn't it gorgeous? Inspired by the blogger who also loved La Bourse ou la Vie, I took photographs of every single part of our meal. It's funny, usually with photographs, I just snap the kids and try not to do too much of that "experience it from behind the camera" thing, but with food, with this gorgeous food, I found that framing the picture made me notice things more, even things the camera couldn't quite capture: the textures, the play of light, the shifting surfaces. The camera did a great job of capturing the colors, though - a true palette.

I went with the Blanquette de Morue, a beautiful cut of cod in an incredibly delicate shallot cream sauce on a bed of wild rice. Those tiny fragile carrots with sweet and almost creamy, and yes, those are the cutest, tiniest turnips you've ever seen right there above the tomatoes. Heavenly.




Happy happy happy.




Mac then finished with a Tiramusi aux Fruits Rouges - where you'd normally put coffee, there were wild berries - genius! I know that tuiles cookies are relatively easy to make (you wrap the dough around a rolling pin), but they amaze me every time - like lace these were.

For me, a Mousse au Citron Vert - a lime mousse, with a coulis (thick sauce in which all of the seeds have been meticulously squeezed out) of wood berries - and a tuile! Oh but it was good. And you have to think, every bite with that view, and Mac and I having a long, meandering conversation (sports and social progress (civil rights and Title IX), WWI memorials, things Pétain said and did, the French soccer debacle) which repeatedly touched upon how great the food was, and how we're so happy for the kids that they've been so happy here (Oliver sighed a little sigh today and said that he's going to miss his school - better to have loved a school and left, I told him, than never have loved a school at all.) (He looked at me like I was nuts).

And the coffee, even the coffee is a beautifully orchestrated event. The cream on top, of course, and then arrangements of sweet little things. Everything so fresh (who is his produce guy?) We lingered, we did. And yes, we probably should have come here more often (all of that gorgeousness that I enjoyed, you should know, was the 15euro menu - you can't sneeze for that much in Paris, France!), but this was also wondrous and rare and will be treasured always always. And now the mystery of all of those delicious smells that would greet us walking the kids to school have been beautifully, delectably answered.

In the Footsteps of Prehistory (Malansac)

A welcomed sight, oui? Les vacances (to California no less) of monsieur le fromagier were wonderful, and now he has returned! Mac was the one to see home and bring home (starting with the triangular wedge in the bottom and going clockwise) a bit of Livarot, du Broucaou, de l'Etivaz, and a wonderful goat cheese. We've dismissed the sobering thought that we have but one more marché in Josselin and are focusing on which one of these is the stinkiest (uh, the Livarot, bien sûr).

So where does a recently reunited family go on a gorgeous Breton day? Why to the Prehistoric Park of Brittany, my friends! Here you see not only an awesome bunch of dinosaurs in a forest habitat, but you get to follow the evolution of humanity all the way to our beloved menhirs draggers, neolithic humans. Five lakes and an undulating forest floor around an abandoned slate quarry (what a cool reuse for the quarry!) made for a beautiful walk in the woods...

... with some pretty astounding surprises at times. Say what you will about enormous fiberglass sculptures in the forest, they create an entirely different sensation than dinosaurs in museums do. We've been to the Dinosphere at the Indianapolis Children's Museum a good bit, but I don't remember squealing quite so loudly there, or having Iris slam herself into my thighs quite so vigorously. This here is the brachiosorus, I believe (but the kids will have to check on me).

And I'll freely confess that one of the highlights was the presence of these delightful "Your Face Here" mounts. The idea of Practically Toothless Iris amongst so many teeth still cracks us up. The mount is careful to point out, of course, that this is all a joke and that humans and dinosaurs never (ever) co-existed. They were emphatic on this point throughout the park which makes me wonder about the presence of creationism or intelligent design ideas in France - which is where we get most of our temporally warped ideas about humanity and dinosaurs in the States. The intelligent design Wikipedia page is one of the most thorough I've ever seen, reminding me what a force this strain (and I use that word consciously) of thinking is. I won't launch into (oh, but I could) how disheartening I find the anti-scientific, anti-intellectual gusto of places like the Creation Museum - we've had conversations with science friends about trying to figure out at what point in American history discounting the complex work of science in favor of grander, simpler Christian narratives became ok. It's disheartening to me because it renews the discord between Christianity and science that was at its worst when the Catholic church doubted (ok, oppressed) Galileo. Maybe that's why you see much, much less (none) of that Creationist thinking here - the Church's anti-science stance against Galileo still rings wrong here.

Wrrrrreeek (sound of me pushing soap box away). This picture doesn't tell you much about our visit, but I thought it so lovely of Iris as she studied Oliver's "mark" which here he left on a piece of bark, but also on lots and lots of slate stones throughout the park - slate being what chalkboards (ardoises) are made out of, after all.

This was by far the most dramatic scene we saw: hunters chasing horses off a cliff. My dear, ever-optimistic Oliver said "Look! They're training the horses to jump." Mac muttered underneath his breath "to their death." Yikes! Some of the super dramatic scenes (giant cave bear attacking a hunter, men spearing an elephant that had fallen into a trap) were staged at a distance which actually gave them even more of an effect, the kids searching out details from afar.


But there were always the mounts to lighten the mood! This one has Oliver saying "Taste how good this marrow is!" and Iris's figure responding with an astute culinary opinion. Good times...


How's that for dramatic? We had just had boar saucisson sec for our picnic lunch and were thus, um, sympathetic to all involved.






Mac was using his best exasperated French guy face here while my little cutie pie kept working on her awesome neolithic boat.




The walk ends with neolithic man and his menhir endeavors and Oliver actually did say "done that" when he saw them dragging a huge standing stone. Granted we had a different technique entirely (smile), but hey, what a thing to have in common! It was pretty cool to think of neolithic humanity as the newbies (as opposed to our family's more common thinking of The Oldest Humanity Around). I really want to get straight in my head the whole Cro-Magnon, Neanderthal, Homo Erectus, Homo Sapiens Sapiens business/chronology. I'm fascinated by the idea that there were several different possibilities for human evolution, that lines of human species (Neanderthals are an example) died out. Friend and colleague Pedar Foss once made a comment that I still think over about the presence of monsters like Grendel in Beowulf being tales of an oral tradition whose long, long, long-ago origins are in the murky past when two different species of humans might have co-existed. Funny that, as one of the Beowulf movies takes exactly this stand (there are problems with the film, but Gerard Butler as Beowulf works for me every time).

P.S. here: there's a scholarly chapter left to be written, if it hasn't been already, on Tolkein (great (great) Beowulf scholar that he was) and Brittany - I was thinking this today as we passed by signs for Elven, and of course Rohan is not too far. I wonder if he ever studied Breton, he of phenomenal linguistic prowess. So many place names from the Lord of the Rings trilogy seem to come from the Breton landscape...

Because Brittany is a magical land, we were welcomed home by the sounds of the cornemuse and traditional Breton music! The Fête de la Musique continues throughout France tomorrow, but here in Josselin it was tonight. Actually, the web site for the Fête de la Musique will restore your faith in government - this is what the French Ministry of Culture is doing. Bravo bravo bravo!!

And so, dear friends, I am left with the last delicious picture of the week: all they had at the patisserie this morning by the time we stopped hugging and snuggling our reunion was tarte au citron - clearly, Oliver's dream come true!!!


P.S. There was a moment when I profoundly communed with the blog on my last day in Paris, and that was at the fantastic little restaurant La Bourse ou la Vie right across the street from the Bibliothèque Nationale on rue Vivienne. Having spent an entire morning poring over a didactic moral treatise about humility and restraint, I nonetheless felt compelled to order the gorgeous "steak pavé avec ses frites." It was the most glorious good-bye to Paris, France I've ever had after research and I relished every single bite. I very much wanted to write it up here, and share it with you - it was that good! So I was thrilled to discover that it clearly impressed this other blogger who had the good sense to take beautiful photographs of it all. Mmmm, steak-frites...

Vive la Resistance!

Perhaps it was reading the spy novel Assignment in Brittany, perhaps it was the visit to the Museum of the Breton Resistance, perhaps it's thinking about the moment of high rhetoric and historical significance, perhaps it's because when you see a sign that says "Light and Sound Show" in France you feel compelled to go - whatever the reasons, I had to be at the Invalides tonight for the 70th anniversary commemoration of the call De Gaulle made to the French from London via the BBC to resist, resist, resist. It was my great and good fortune (and fun) to be joined by Amira and Tristan, whom you see here rising to the occasion with aplomb and panache.

And well they might! For now that I look at the text of the Appel, it's really very interesting. It doesn't bring forth all of the high principles of France that are worth fighting for, instead it stresses France's connection with other countries that are still fighting. Here's the full text, but let me just translate one paragraph:

Because France is not alone! She is not alone! She is not alone! She has a vast Empire behind her. She can join forces with the British Empire which holds the sea and continuing to fight. She can, like England, use the immense industrial force of the United States without limit.

It is absolutely fascinating to me that he doesn't call for the preservation of a French way of life, or "liberté, égalité, fraternité" or some such shared value system. Instead, this call to connect France with other European countries - and with its Empire. Let's use our Empire - we've never put it to good use before (actually, that's not true - there's the whole matter of using Empire troops there. Perhaps it's because I've been reading all of these fictional letters back and forth between the Grand Turc Mahumetes and various and sundry mythics (Amazons) and real (Venitiens) in which the assieged rulers always talk about freedom (I know, that surprised me, too) and protecting their homeland, being the exact opposite of tyranny. But how incredible that must have been for his audience, who I bet really did feel alone, very cut-off from the rest of the world - how incredible to hear this strong reassuring voice saying "We are not alone!" And indeed, the French answered the call - the Breton did so in droves.

I had a vision of what things might look like from the very involved website dedicated to this day (I mean, wow, look at those events), but truth be told, the gates were closed and so only invited guests and press were allowed inside the entrance; and then it was a kind of interminable series of Sousa songs and the occasional curve ball (theme from Bridge over River Kwai comes to mind). The sound didn't carry that far, so things looked more like this:

Which is still really lovely, but not the big De Gaulle face, and his voice ringing over the Esplanade. Plus it was cold and we were talking about the world and its universe and so we left after a while and didn't stick around to see which "personalité française" was going to do De Gaulle's voice (the sound system was very quiet anyway).

But hey, look kids - it's me holding up the Eiffel Tower all by myself!


I want to write a lot more - about the Resistance, about modern technology like the radio in wartime, about nations being isolated and being joined, about what it takes to mobilize people who are not in an army, about why WWI and the tremendous losses the French incurred there helps us understand the armistice with Hitler much better, about the valiant human spirits who went out in a blaze of glory, about the innocents who got caught up in the difficult vengeance games, about the complications in Brittany (fervent Resistance fighters, and fiercely nationalists Bretons were oft pitted against each other), about the controversy surrounding the Resistance (could the Allies have won without the Resistance? I'm going to say no, but there are those who consider the Resistance more symbolic than real, about the spirit of the Resistance and its long lasting inspiration. But it is once again super late, and so these musings must remain in my head. We turned back one last time and plunged into the Métro to re-emerge at Mabillon and have a drink in a very nice and warm café - a clean, well-lighted place if there ever was one.

And so it's 70 years later and there were people from all over the world at the Invalides and there is peace in Paris France, which still stands in its entierity, because of the complexity of Resistance and Armisitce mingling in a nation's history.

Paris je t'aime

Et oui, what else is there to say after a long, worried and then also wonderful day? The long goes without saying: once you start going in Paris you just keep going (especially if you miss your last Metro connection and wind up walking some ten Metro stops home, but oh the sweet turn of the key in your hotel room lock!). The worried had to do with my dad being in the hospital - he's resting comfortably now, and has been diagnosed with something between a heart attack and "severe chest pains." I'm just grateful he's comfortable at this point - he gets to go home tomorrow. Hard to be an ocean away for something like that, but Mom took care of everything. Merci, chérie. Merci beaucoup.

So that leaves wonderful. Which I will express mostly in pictures as it is later than any of us think. I discovered a lot of old (really old) friends. First, walking to the BN from where the bus stopped for no good reason (turns out there were protests down the street but more on that later), I bumped into Gaspard de Coligny, who was very prominent in our Henry IV obsession as he was the leader of the Huguenots. He met with a terrible end and, if I'm not mistaken, the Saint Bartholomew Day Massacre started at this end of the Louvre. It's quite a wonderful statue and I would love to know more about it (why built (it's 19th century, what was going on then that spurred a commemoration?), who commissioned, how received). It's a bit hidden from view now, as the vendors selling "I Love Paris" everything are in that arcade. But he still stopped me right in my tracks. Greetings, Gaspard.

Then I saw Molière on my way to lunch. This is for you, Mom, hoping that you can get a little respite from your long day at the hospital by thinking on our evening with Les Femmes Savantes. Molière seems pretty happy where he is - great neighborhood, probably the very streets he walked as he made up his fantastic couplets and plots.



There were some rhymed couplets further down the street but they were for a protest by the CGT, whom I understand to be the biggest union in France, but I don't know what they stand for - I mean the initials - the CGT itself today definitely stood (and marched) for retirement at the age of 60. This is a bigger blog post, but we must at some point discuss the "sacred" status of retirement at 60 in France. My meager math skills say that the numbers just don't add up (where there had been 8 working people for every retiree when the system was created there are now between 1 and 2), but of course I admire the fight for a good quality of life. To be continued...

Lunch was with my dear, wonderful, exciting and brilliant friend Lia who has made her life and her career as an architect here in France. You can see some of her exquisite work here - no really, take the time, it's just incredible. A web site is coming soon, but in the meantime, I'll just quietly keep wishing for my own sleeping niche (so so cool!). We met up at the Metro stop Saint Paul which is just packed with people and lots of noise all around and before I knew it, she had whisked me away to a beautiful little terraced restaurant behind the église Saint-Gervais. It's called L'ébouillanté and I had the rabbit, thank you very much (delicious!). We spoke of everything, as ever - it wouldn't be a visit to France without seeing Lia.

This is a gallery off of rue Vivienne (entrance of the Bibliothèque Nationale during the renovations projected to last until 2017) (I just like saying that - Oliver will be 15 years old by then! ready to do his own research there - ha ha!). Isn't it exquisite? Notice the flower petals strewn on the tables of the Salon de Thé. A good life. I welcomed the time to walk before dinner as I'm thinking through these astounding letters. I want to get into every detail with you, but seeing the hour, let me just point out two awesome things: there's an epistolary exchange between him and the men of Amazonia (Mahumetes wonders why they won't let him rule them considering they let themselves be ruled by women; the men of Amazonia reply that the women are brave and strong and they're proud of being ruled by them!); second thing: when Mahumetes wants to put an adversary down he says "you are but a louse on an elephant." Zing! More lucid explanations on why these letters are important/fascinating tomorrow.

Dinner was way up north at Porte de Clichy in the gorgeous apartment of another dear friend, Delphine. Her husband was in Dakkar on business (yes, they have amazing lives) and so it was me and their wonderful boys. This photograph is for Mac: very Caillebotte, yes? The building is from 1910 and everything (including the panels of glass!) is original.


The boys are so dear - they are 13 and 10 and full of ideas. We had a great meal, and then they put themselves to bed (yes, I hear that this will eventually happen) and then Delphine and I stayed up talking and talking. It had been 10 years since we'd had a good long talk just the two of us, and it was a homecoming. Bonne nuit!

Louise and Anne and Blanche and Judith and Esther

This is what beloved Josselin looks like at 6:15 in the morning - a pretty rare shot now that the main square is filled with people all day long. I smile to think that the sun used to rise only at 8:45 a.m. when we first arrived. Pretty radical difference, since it rises at around 5:45 a.m. now. Another cool Brittany development.

And this is what my favorite passage near the old Bibliothèque Nationale looks like now. By "old" BN, I mean the site between rue Richelieu and rue Vivienne in the 2nd arrondissment. That's where the entire BN used to be, but I don't know how they fit all of the books there. It's where I did my dissertation research in 1995-1996, and where Donna was on sabbatical the same year and thus everything was splendid all the time. We'd go looking for lunch places and one day found this passage which is filled with really cheap, kitschy stuff (knitted acrylic cozys for your Kleenex boxes sort of thing), but we loved it. I think that you can see that the ceiling is kind of patched together. Still, a passage is a wonderful thing.

This is what I felt like today at the BN. After the requisite withering comment by an "acceuil" (welcome) person, who brilliantly had me apologizing within20 seconds of arrival because "je ne comprend rien à votre affaire" (I don't understand a thing about your situation) (which, I don't need to tell you, was totally ordinary, but the BN staff just has to get that withering comment in). Anyway, after the requisite wincing had been produced, it was as though the doors of paradise had opened. The BN is under a major restoration project and will be until (ready?) 2017. 17. I was expecting total non-functionality, but they have actually achieved some really amazing efficiency (maybe they should have major renovations all the time!). If there's one thing French bureaucracy is really good at doing, it's reinventing the wheel. The problem is that in France, each time the wheel is reinvented, it has something else added to it, another condition or contingency. Take even, for example, language. The French I was reading today was written in the 16th century and there are no accents (no accents!) and almost no capital letters. The ending of words vary and the spellings change, and guess what? I could still understand what was being written (in fact, I was stunned at some of the stuff that I read, but more on that in a second). When the Académie Française made it its appointed mission to standardize the French language, they also complicated it to a tremendous degree. French without accents - it would make all the difference, and you'd get your tense from the context, not just from the grammar. Oh well, a girl can dream.

But all this to say that I had four manuscripts I wanted to look at, and two of them were in Microfilm (no problem, I expected that) but the other two have never had a microfilm made. This means (drumroll) that I get to look at the original manuscripts tomorrow morning!!! (it's like getting a "pass" card in a board game!) - one is a description of the Holy Land owned by François Ier and the other is this wild collection of letters from a sultan written to various kings and republics and translated into French (and also owned by François Ier). The room you see here is where I'll be reading the original manuscripts (they've now put desks in there).

And this is what it used to look like! I spent the afternoon (from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.) working through the microfilms downstairs in the Salle Ovale (in yesterday's blog) and getting my eyes used to the script. It happened so much more quickly this time than in December 2008. And what I read was just amazing: one manuscript was an account of the funeral proceedings for Anne de Bretagne (among other things, I discovered that Louise did indeed know of Anne de Bretagne's monumental tomb for her parents - this will help my Prudence/self-fashioning argument tremendously!); and the other was a compilation of Acts and Actions of Blanche de Castille (a wonderful argument for female Regent Rule using everybody from Judith and Esther to make the point - also, a really, really weird mention of Turks being behind the Albigensian heresy - will have to follow up that most strange lead). I feel very ready for tomorrow morning - we'll see if the BN gods continue to smile upon me. In the meantime, some things never change: the toilets are in the courtyard (as they are in any renovation at the BN) and you still have those machines that will give you the best 35 cent espresso money (well, 35 cents) can buy there.

And here is the Pont des Arts on my walk back across the river from the BN. This was my dad's favorite bridge in Paris - he talked about walking and pausing on it many, many times during his stay here in 1948-49. I can barely imagine all that he was thinking through, emerging from WWII, going to Columbia on the G.I. bill, and then doing a Sweet Briar Junior Year Abroad (they came over by boat!!!). Today, tons of people hang out on the Pont des Arts and some even intertwine a lock within its metal frame and then, in a vow of forever love, throw away the key into the Seine. I've heard that the police come by in the night and break the locks off, but I'll choose to ignore that: there were plenty of locks there today. So the Pont des Arts is filled with love and street musicians and a sprinkling of hippies, Dad. It'll always be your bridge in my heart, though.

I was crossing the bridge to go meet Laura and Eleanor for dinner and hear all about their great Paris adventures. Hard to believe that they left Brittany two days ago (although not so hard when you see Eleanor's fantabulous new beret - three cheers for her for wanting one and for actually finding one in Paris!) (Sacré Coeur neighborhood apparently). We had a great dinner with lots of reminiscing and already some plotting about future trips together. They leave to return to the States in the morning - bon voyage!!!

And finally, I wanted to show you a couple of views from my wonderful little hotel room. I'm on the 7th floor of the Hotel Saint-Pierre on rue de l'Ecole de Medecine. To my right, there is the Eiffel Tower....



...and to my left, the Pantheon. Very lucky life, this.