The March equinox, aka the vernal or spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, occurred today. That’s the moment when the sun is directly in line with the equator; day and night are of about equal length.

For Earthlings, the March equinox means that spring has begin in the Northern Hemisphere and that autumn has begun in the Southern Hemisphere. For Christians following Western traditions and the Gregorian calendar, the March equinox is also related to Easter since Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon occurring on or after the March equinox.

That’s why some churches, such as Saint Sulpice in Paris, have central, internal sundials of sorts designed to indicate the day of the equinox.

I was touring Saint Sulpice with a group of journalists today when at precisely 1 p.m. (i.e. noon Greenwich Mean Time), we gathered around the altar railing to watch the a spot of sun, coming from a hole in the window of the southern transept (above left in this photo), reach a marker in front of the altar.

(Saint Sulpice, you may recall, is the church that was fictionalized by Dan Brown in the “Da Vinci Code.”)

Saint Sulpice has transparent windows since narrative stained glass was passé when the church was built in the 17th century. The angle of that photo makes it appear that it was a bright out today, but it was in fact mostly cloudy in the early afternoon, though with occasional bursts of sunlight. We could nevertheless make out the oval spot of sun moving across the marker.

The photo below was taken about two minutes after the magic moment. You can make out the spot of sun now just above the marker. The line to either side of the marker is a meridian line.

If our group hadn’t been there (and we didn’t know about the event until we arrived for the tour) I don’t know if anyone would have witnessed the passage of the equinox at this spot this year. An odd thought, but upon leaving the church I could see that there are far more popular things to do in the Saint Sulpice quarter early on a Saturday afternoon. One of them is to queue to go into the Pierre Hermé chocolate and pastry shop across the intersection.

Gospel’s got a special place in the soul of Europeans, who, generally speaking, hear it not as a call to praise the Lord but as the exotic voice of religion in America, a foreign, typically ethnic form of expression. For the French in particular, “Oh, Happy Day” is shorthand for religious life in America the way that for Americans “La vie en rose” is shorthand for romance in Paris. Two wonderful clichés. 

Yesterday I went to hear “Oh, Happy Day” and a dozen other African-American sacred songs at the American Church in Paris, performed by the Charleston Symphony Orchestra Gospel Choir. A Francophile correspondent in the choir had invited me.

Among the standing-room-only crowd there were a few of amen corners and raised hands, invariably Americans, along with an international mix of divinely beaming faces, but most simply let their appreciation be shown by thunderous applause and exit donations (entrance was free).

This was the third and final concert in Europe for the all-volunteer choir, under the direction of Sandra S. Barnhart, after performances at Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London and Bath Abbey in Bath.

The American Church in Paris is an interdenominational Protestant Christian church that claims to be the first American church established on foreign soil. Its first sanctuary was established in 1857, but its main period of growth came after WWI with the presence of American soldiers in France followed by the American tourist boom of the 1920s. The present church at 67 quai d’Orsay dates from 1929. It is home to two bilingual elementary schools, a variety of “twelve step” recovery groups, basketball leagues, other church and community-based services, and a free concert series.

My favorite little shop in Paris, Plaques & Pots, one of the last living vestiges of the historical belly of Paris that was the Les Halles Quarter, will be closing at the end of July.

Been a long time coming–rather, going. It isn’t easy making a living selling enamel plaques, enamel street numbers, butcher’s paper, and pottery handmade upstairs in an quarter otherwise devoted to cafés, clubs, restaurants, and mass fashion. Owner Josette Samuel, in photo, is now ready to move on.

If you live in Paris or will be visiting in July, take advantage of a last chance to visit this authentic remnant of Les Halles, even if only for a vision of the passing of time in the quarter as it pursues its drive to urban uniformity.

The wholesale and retail food industry left this area for modern installations in Rungis, south of Paris, in 1969, so Josette’s goods long ago lost their place at Les Halles. Still, I’ve to got applaud her stubborn gumption in taking over (five years ago) the shop formerly called Papeterie Moderne and trying to make a go of selling old-fashion practical-cum-decorative products in a space that’s probably smaller than your kitchen. For more about the shop, read the article I wrote soon after Josette purchased the shop.

While at Plaques & Pots, 12 rue de la Ferronerie (tel. 01 42 36 21 72), you might pick up an antique street number for yourself or for friends.

Or a street sign (left) or even some old butcher’s paper (right) that she inherited from the previous owners.

By the time you get here there may not be any clay pots left, such as this one (photo right). Knowing that I’ve always been a fan of this shop, even before she took it over, Josette gave me one of the last pots as a farewell-to-the-boutique gift. Handmade in the Les Halles Quarter.

Several other vestiges of Les Halles from its by-gone centuries as the center of the food trade in Paris continue to hold their own. Among them:
- E. Dehillerin, a family-operated store for kitchen and pastry utensils and cookware, 18-20 rue Coquillière.
- La Poule au Pot, a bistro with a décor dated 1935, serving traditional rustic fare including one of the best onion soup’s in Paris, 9 rue Vauvilliers.

- Julien Aurouze, a family-run pest exterminator that was trapping rats around Les Halles as early as 1872, 8 rue des Halles. Those are sewer rats caught in the quarter in 1925 hanging in the window on the right below.

The oldest and most lasting of the remnant of historical Les Halles is the Church of Saint Eustache, 1532-1640, which may well be the most under-visited, touristically speaking, of the major churches of Paris. It’s a Renaissance church within a Gothic body with great accoustics for its famous organ.

The enormous proportions of its interior are worth a look, but I’ve come here today to photograph one of the most endearing church sculptures in Paris, “Departure of the Fruits and Vegetables from the Heart of Paris 28 February 1969” by Raymond Mason.

“Departure” (completed in 1971) is so fitting at Saint-Eustache not only because the central food market that had existed since the Middle Ages was the raison d’être for the church but because this is a wonderful sculptural retelling of Paradise Lost, the departure from the Garden of Eden. (Having recently written an article about musicals in Paris, I note that it is also reminiscent of the departure from Anatevka in Fiddler on the Roof.) Or, as the sculptor has written of that departure 40 years ago, “It’s the man of the Middle Ages that’s leaving.”

Plaques & Pots, formerly Papeterie Moderne, now joins the procession in the departure of signs and numbers from the heart of Paris July 2009.

Wishing Josette all the best in her future endeavors.