We first met in the Luxembourg Garden where I was sitting by the small Statue of Liberty after my morning class at the Alliance Française of Paris. It was the fall after graduating from Ohio State and I was now ready to make something of myself though I didn’t yet know what. My parents were pleased that I was continuing my education. I was studying French at the Alliance and pastry-making at the Ferrandi Paris cooking school.

I’d bought myself an exquisite chocolate éclair on the way to the park. After creating an Instagram post of a selfie in which I’m holding up the éclair like the statue her torch (Statue of Delicious #paris #thelife #frenchpastry), I sat down nearby to enjoy the pastry with the intent of then studying the passé composé of irregular verbs.

“Bonjour Mademoiselle,” he said. I looked up. He had lovely little brown eyes and smoothed-down brown hair, greying at the temples.

“Bonjour Monsieur,” I answered.

He lifted his palm toward the chair beside me and asked if it was occupied. Understanding his request more from his gesture than from his words, I removed my notebook and purse from the seat so that he could take the chair. Instead of moving it further away, he sat down beside me. He excused himself for remarking but said that he detected un petit accent.

“Je suis américaine,” I said.

“Amay-we-can,” he echoed with a scrunched smile without parting his thin pink lips, then, immediately switching to English, he added, “your accent is very char-ming. Do you know why we have a Statue of Liberty here?” he asked.

I did not.

He said, “But you should because you are Amay-we-can, so I will explain to you.” And so he did, as he would teach me much else, with intense, informative, endearing condescension, before concluding, “You have so much to learn.”

On our first date, the following evening, he took me to a wonderful little bistro, where a surly waiter served us a nice house red. When he told me again that I was charming, I felt myself blush. He called me his Mona Lisa because my name is Liz. I called him Bruno because that is his so adorably French name. When I told him that I would like to try the French onion soup, he said that was for tourists and he recommended instead the bone marrow, telling me that there was a sincerity to the presentation and sensuality to the texture. I marveled at the way used adjectives to describe food and accepted his suggestion. He ordered the pâté for himself, which he ate with thick chunks of sourdough bread. Then chicken supreme for me and andouillette for himself. We shared profiteroles for dessert. He wiped the chocolate from my lips with his napkin.

Afterwards, we walked along the Seine, where he lit a cigarette, and when it was finished, he flicked the butt into the river then turned and kissed me as the Eiffel Tower sparkled as though on cue. His breath tasted of a mix of cigarettes, coffee, wine, intestinal sausage, and a breath mint. It was a beautiful spring evening in Paris. I remembered the old song. He took my hand and we walked on, eventually reaching my chambre de bonne in the Latin Quarter.

I had only had sex with boys my age before, so this was different. He was 20 years older than me and knew not only what he wanted, as did the boys, but how to please. I was glad that I’d shaved that morning. After making passionate love, he opened the French window to smoke as I lay naked and mostly satisfied beneath the sheet. Leaning against the wrought iron railing, he blew rings out toward the zinc rooftop across the courtyard.

If you crane your neck to the right, I said, you can see the top of Sacré Coeur.

“Socray Core,” he repeated, mocking the way I pronounced it, then he stepped toward me and brushed his hand against my cheek and said that his Mona Lisa had a charming accent. He said that he would help me with my French, when it improved, but for now it was best to continue in English. He told me that since I was new in Paris it was natural to admire “Socray Core” from the window but that a real Parisian looks discreetly into the windows across the courtyard to watch people undress, and he pointed to a woman across the courtyard and one floor below who was removing her blouse.

He then told me that his wife and children were returning from vacation the following day, but he would be available on Wednesday afternoon.

“You’re married?” I ask, redundantly.

He waved away both the smoke and my question. He said that he and his wife were now old friends and stayed together only for the three children, so I shouldn’t worry my pretty little head about it. I ignored my mother’s voice in my head and thought, When in Paris…

Every Wednesday afternoon at about 5 o’clock (known here as 17 hour), he came up the stairs to my 7th-floor garret bearing gifts, either a pastry to die for or chocolates from what he said was the best chocolatier in Paris or a bottle of wine that he knew all about. Occasionally he would show up late, saying that he was stuck in court, and tell me that though he’d had a long, tiring day he couldn’t let a week go by without seeing his Mona Lisa. His Dior cologne arrived even more exhausted than he did, so several weeks into our relationship I asked him to shower on arrival. He said that despite man’s intelligence and ability to build great cities such as Paris, we are animals and should not fear our natural odors. I handed him a towel and reminded him that I was not born in the same den as he. He laughed and said that he would do anything to please this pretty lady.

He taught me many things. He taught me how to wear my hair and how to tilt my beret just so. He told me which exhibitions to see and how to appreciate movies without happy endings. He always left by 7:30—I should say 19:30. He called that a “reasonable hour for a lawyer.”

We rarely went out to dinner after that first time. He said that we had all we needed right here. The pastries and chocolates weren’t good for my diet but they were great for my Instagram.

We had plans to go to Deauville one weekend while his wife and children were visiting his mother-in-law in La Baule, but he texted me to say that his daughter was sick so we would do it another weekend. When I texted back to tell him that I was already waiting for him at the Gare Saint Lazare, adding an angry emoji, he texted back a reminder that he’d told me about his family responsibilities from the day we met and that he was the one with sick child, so I shouldn’t be a selfish about it.

The following Wednesday he brought me a gift as an apology. In a box bearing the name of a fancy shop on the rue Bonaparte in the Saint Germain Quarter there was a beautiful lavender scarf with a Galeries Lafayette label. He showed me different ways of wearing it, before lightly tying my wrists together with it while we made passionate love. He continued to teach me things, such as how to read the label of a bottle of wine and where I must go one day in Provence and when cherries are in season and why the Americans did not like the General de Gaulle.

In July, he told me that his wife and daughters had gone to Bormes les Mimosas for the summer and that he wouldn’t be joining them there until the end of the month, so we would have more time together over the next few weeks. “More time” ended up being two Mondays as well as the usual Wednesday. I suggested a weekend in Deauville but he said that there were too many lawyers in Deauville in summer. Instead, he said, it would be his pleasure to take me someplace nice for dinner on Wednesday. I’d been living in Paris for nine months by then so I knew right away that the bistro he’d selected in the Latin Quarter was unexceptional; it had only a 4.3 rating on Tripadvisor. But I was intent on enjoying myself. I’d checked out the menu online and asked AI what wine would go best with foie gras and pike quenelles, which I intended to order, and with whatever offal he might, and was told Pouilly Fuissé. So I proudly suggested that as we ordered. Instead, he asked the cute and efficient waiter for a bottle of a Sancerre red, telling me that I would understand the subtleties better with time. The young waiter nodded as he said, “Oui monsieur.” It took little time to discover that the Sancerre fell flat with my order. When I asked if he wanted to split an order of profiteroles for dessert, he said that I should profit from them (that was his profiterole joke) myself while he went outside for a smoke and to call his children. In his absence I chatted with the cute, young, efficient waiter, whose chestnut brown hair that fell adorably over his espresso eyes. He complimented me on my French and agreed that Pouilly Fuissé would have been the better choice. When he delivered the profiteroles, I asked him to take my picture with them. He sensed that Bruno and I were not married. He said that a man should not leave a charming young lady like me alone at the table. I agreed, and when he efficiently asked for my Instagram, I agreed to that and asked for his as well. His name is Pascal.

Pascal tells me that he adores me, and I feel the same. We’ve been together for three months now. He’s got me listening to rock from Brittany and using French slang, like kiffe for like and ouf for great, though we mostly speak in English. I’ve got him listening to Taylor Swift and wearing deodorant. We’re looking for a two-room flat to move into together. He supports my ambition of giving pastry tours to tourists while writing a book about how a girl from Ohio became a true Parisienne, illustrated with some of my Instagram photos, which he never fails to kiffe. When I tell him my dream of opening a donut, cupcake, cruffin and cake coffee shop that I would call Morning Liza, he says that would be ouf. I haven’t told him that my father runs the largest car dealership in Ohio, nor that I’ve been seeing my old lover on Wednesdays.

But I don’t have to think about the latter anymore because I told Bruno yesterday, after we made unimaginative love and while he was smoking by the window, that I wouldn’t be able to see him anymore because I was moving in with someone.

“A boy?” he asked, blowing smoke from the side of his mouth.

“A man,” I said.

He stubbed his cigarette in the flower box. He said that this—the two of us—hadn’t been working out for a while anyway because I was too much of a child and that I shouldn’t call him anymore, and anyway, he’d met someone more beautiful and mature, a real Parisienne. He then turned to look out the window, first to the right for brief glimpse at the top of Sacré Coeur then to the windows down below. It crossed my mind that I could push him over the railing then tell the police in perfect French, using the passé composé, that he jumped out when I told him it was over. But he’s taught me so much over the past year that I’m actually grateful to him. Anyway, I’d rather have the pleasure of watching him leave my apartment angry and forlorn, the way he likes movies to end. For myself, I still prefer a happy ending.

© 2026.

Cliché, a Paris Love Story by Lainey Harper. Lainey Harper is the pen name of a writer who’s leaving the dream.

The post Cliché, A Paris Love Story appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Soon after moving to Dordogne in early 2023, Ava Kabouchy found herself intrigued by the Gardens of Marqueyssac, first as a visitor in awe of the clifftop estate, then as a photographer wishing to capture the impressive array of topiaries, the subtle shades of green, the long alleys, the wandering peacocks, the chapel beyond the iris bush, the gardeners at precision work, the employees informing and entertaining visitors, and more. From February through April, then again in December, she returned four more times to examine the abundant and eye-pleasing life of the 54-acre park with its more than 3½ miles of pathways.

I, Gary, also had the pleasure of strolling along the paths of Marqueyssac this year, on a bright September morning, and though writing is my primary tool rather than photography, I couldn’t help but want to record with my phone the views that I took in.

This photo reportage leans on Ava’s photographs, supported by my contributions and several photos provided by Marqueyssac itself. I organized the images into the eight strolls and wrote the descriptions and captions.

Where is Marqueyssac?

Located five miles from the well-preserved old town of Sarlat, Marqueyssac occupies a promontory 425 feet over the Dordogne River. Even without its gardens, Marqueyssac would be a worthy destination for its panoramic views out to the villages, chateaux, walnut orchards and winding river that make this such an alluring region. Add the gardens themselves—along with a small chateau, a café overlooking the valley, and numerous activities proposed to visitors—and you get a singular sight. While especially famous for its more than 150,000 boxwoods, Marqueyssac’s attraction extends well beyond them. The site lends itself to a variety of strolls: romantic, contemplative, family, boxwood-botanical, and more. Though the organized activities here slow down during the short cold days of late autumn and winter, Marqueyssac, open every day of the year, is truly a year-round destination.

The Boxwood or Botanical Stroll

European boxwoods are the defining greenery of Marqueyssac. There are some 150,000 in all, either trimmed or otherwise tamed, destructured or left to grow naturally. Ava was the first visitor on the morning she took the photo above, but the work-day of gardener Christophe Kursac, glimpsed trimming a topiary upper right, was already well underway. Christophe, the head gardener, is one of the six full-time gardeners, who, along with four seasonal gardeners, ensure that the site’s unique presentation of topiaries—all trimmed by hand twice annually—and the overall park remain in tip-top shape for the more than 200,000 visitors that come each year.

Though the noble history of Marqueyssac begins with a landscaping project of 1692, the estate’s boxwood connection dates to the late 19th century. In 1861, Julien de Cerval (1818-1893), a magistrate of nearby Sarlat, inherited the property. His passion—obsession—for boxwoods was sparked by his travels in Italy, as were the cypress and umbrella pine and various shrubs encountered along the garden paths. Boxwoods (buxus sempervirens) are well suited to the limestone soil of Marqueyssac. Successive owners, without the funds or passion to maintain de Cerval’s work, eventually allowed the bushes and trees to grow untamed and the garden paths to all but disappear.

Enter Kleber Rossillon, the driving force behind the estate’s restoration. His parents had purchased the fortress castle of Castelnaud on the opposite side of the Dordogne River, visible in this shot between boxwoods and pines.

At age 30, Rossillon took the reins of Castelnaud, which he developed into a major tourist attraction with its family-friendly museum about war in the Middle Ages. In 1996, he purchased the estate of Marqueyssac and set about a major restoration of de Cerval’s garden along with contemporary additions that now fit seamlessly into the overall gardenscape. The gardens reopened to the public in 1997.

On the strength of those experiences in Dordogne, Kleber Rossillon’s company has expanded to become a significant private player in the management of historical sites open to the public in France, including the Montmartre Museum in Paris, the Castle of Langeais in the Loire Valley, and the Cosquer Cave in Marseille, among others. His daughter Geneviève Rossillon is now the company’s managing director.

These boxwood topiary “bricks” appear as blocks rolling down the hill towards the château. Plumb lines ensure precision of the rectangular shapes, but the main tools are sharp shears and elbow grease. Not all of Marqueyssac’s boxwoods are topiaries. Many are also left untamed, where they can reach heights of up to 30 feet.

The captivating variety of shades of green catch the photographer’s eye. Keep Marqueyssac in mind if you’re looking for a place to mark World Topiary Day, the Sunday that follows May 12.

If you’ve ever tried your hand at a topiary, you know that creating and maintaining even a single one for just a year requires commitment. Imagine, on your boxwood stroll, the devotion that goes into maintaining thousands of them. Each topiary is hand-trimmed twice per year. When not too crowded, don’t hesitate to use your best French to mention your appreciation to the gardeners for their work and even ask a question or two about it. They may be happy for the opportunity to stretch their aching backs and respond.

Most of the boxwoods at Marqueyssac take their roots from those originally planted towards the end of the 19th-century by then-owner Julien de Cerval.

The Valley-View Stroll

When I compared my photos with Ava’s, I found that hers studiously looked inward and down green pathways in search of the beauty and geometric nuances of the gardens, while mine occasionally turned outward to the Dordogne Valley. Perhaps, in the case of this photo, because I’d just pointed out to my strolling companion that I would next be headed there, to the riverside village of La Roque-Gageac.

I’m a point-and-shoot kind of guy, hoping to come away a telling or memorable image. And I can’t resist a gentle point-and-sweep, though I’m never sure where the sweep should end and sometimes just go around in a full circle. But in the short video below, a garden fairy suddenly appeared indicating that it was time to hit “stop” and stroll on. She’s Stéphanie Angleys, Marqueyssac’s communications officer and my guide through the gardens.

I’d more or less completed our project when Ava returned on a December morning then sent several more photos, including this.

Perhaps it was the dampness of the day that turned her eye away from the garden path, beyond the geometry of the boxwoods and the leaflessness trees to the sodden winter landscape with the grey river running through. Still, you notice that her focus remained in the garden, unwilling to let go and reaffirming that the gardens of Marqueyssac are a year-round destination.

The valley-view stroller—in fact any stroller who makes it to the far end—is rewarded with a 360° view from the highest part of the gardens. This Cross marks the spot. We leave it to you to discover on your own the view that goes with it.

The Romantic Stroll

While you and your loved one will quickly be drawn into the meticulousness of the topiaries, romance thrives on the less planned as well. Beyond the precise trimming, Marqueyssac is home to enough unfocused fantasy—albeit intentionally unfocused fantasy—and dreamy points of view to allow for an exquisite romantic stroll as well.

Arrive early enough in the day and you might even feel that you have the place to yourselves.

The romantic stroll proceeds at a gentle pace. And a stroll wouldn’t be romantic if it didn’t also include a romantic sit, or several, to prolong the pleasure. The bench above, overlooking the valley, is perfectly suited for a starry-eyed conversation (oh, the places we’ve been)… while the one below is an even sweeter spot for a sun-dappled snuggle stop.

If, after a while, you get into one of those tiffs that even the best of travelers find themselves in with a loved one, turning a corner to find a peacock, the mascot of Marqueyssac, perched on a ledge will be a sign to return to each other’s hand.

The fellow below isn’t shy about unfurling his seductive plumage in a mating ritual despite human presence—and presumably because there’s a peahen around—so you needn’t either. Within limits of course, and with less of a squawk if possible.

Peering through the evergreen oaks to the village of La Roque Gageac may feel like your private discovery, something that only you and your love share.

If your love was reading a travel guide in bed last night, then he may take this opportunity to inform you that Dordogne, the “department” or sub-region, in which Marqueyssac is located, more or less follows the borders of the historic province of Périgord. So while Périgord no longer officially exists, he’ll explain, the two names are often used interchangeably. Périgord (Dordogne) is unofficially divided into four color-coded landscape-defined sections: Green Périgord, White Périgord, Purple Périgord, Black Périgord. White refers to the limestone soil and the white buildings constructed with it in and around Dordogne’s capital Perigueux. Green refers to the vegetation to the north. Purple refers to the wine growing region in the west (Bergerac and surroundings). Black refers to the dark leaves and shadows of evergreen oaks (quercus ilex) to this southwest quadrant of Dordogne/Périgord. That’s where Marqueyssac lies. Black Périgord is the quadrant with the most tourist appeal (Sarlat, the Dordogne and Vézère Valleys, Marqueyssac, Castelnaud, etc.). That’s fascinating, honey, you’ll reply. Let’s not read in bed tonight.

The Contemplative Stroll

Come alone, walk with a thought-provoking friend, or temporarily lose your loved ones or friends along the way and those same romantic paths and views appear refreshingly contemplative. That snuggle bench above then becomes a seat for private reverie or to write a vignette … as long as you resist taking out your phone to check for messages and news.

Though visitors inevitably remember, photograph and return to the rounded or straight-edge topiaries, the overall park has a rich vegetation that lends itself to contemplation of this good and suffering Earth.

The vegetation on the southern side leans to the Mediterranean with cypresses, umbrella pines, evergreen oaks, and more. Its northern side leans more to the Atlantic with locust trees added to the mix.

Through Ava’s damp lens, the scene by the entrance, which looked so promising in the opening shot, now holds an eerie, contemplative fascination in the photo below.

The topiaries no longer appear as the achievement of creative landscapers and hard-laboring gardeners but seem to be caused by something boiling or furrowing underground. Are we safer here or in the disorderly landscape that lies beyond and below. Are the tile rooftops hints of refuge or danger?

Ava found a wistful contemplative moment from inside the chateau, between the parted curtains, looking out to the topiaries and the naked trees on a visitor-less late winter’s morning.

And she found it again with a feeling of quiet and peace beneath the dripping cascade in a shallow pond known as “the Zen.”

The limestone cliffs that surround Marqueyssac don’t contain any water source other than rain, and there is no spring within the gardens, so Kléber Rossillon added a silent pump to create the waterfall on a closed circuit. But no need to focus on the mechanics in that dreamy corner of the park.

Contemplation may not best describe one’s reaction to the creature below, but if nothing else, the sight of this 150-million-year-old skeleton of an allosaurus, visible from a garden path, will get you wondering what the heck it’s doing here.

This Jurassic-era dinosaur—about 75% original remnant, measuring 24.6 feet long by 8.2 feet high—was found in Wyoming and purchased by Kléber Rossillon in 2016.

The Cliffhanger’s Stroll

Not only do the gardeners and the boxwoods cling to the cliffs, but so can visitors on a climb-stroll above the greenery along the limestone walls of Marqueyssac.

The cliffside strollway, its Via Ferrata, is punctuated with metal steps and rings and fixed safety cables. Fitted with a harness, lanyard and helmet and attached to the course-long lifeline, visitors 8 years old and over and taller than 1.3 meters (a tad over 4-foot 3 inches) can securely take this 220-yard climb-stroll.

Ava came across this adventurous family as they prepared for final instruction before going on the Via Ferrata.

Cliff-strolling not your thing? You can nevertheless step into the trees on this elevated path beyond the creepy rock-head sculptures facing up from the ground.

The Family and/or Activities Stroll

Making the most of Marqueyssac doesn’t require joining on a planned tour or activity, especially for romantic or contemplative strollers, but for a family stroll or simply to punctuate your visit, check out the calendar of activities in advance. If interested in the cliff-stroll above, you should time your visit according. There are also nature workshops, a wood turner, yoga classes, and a playground for sliding and climbing.

You might begin with a guided explanation about the garden before venturing off on your own.

“Curious about nature” arts and crafts workshops, particularly aimed at children, are held spring to fall.

The Chateau Stroll

Though the gardens are the primary interest of Marqueyssac, a visit ends with a brief stroll through the chateau, a late-19th-century residence. A vast restoration of the chateau was completed in 2017. Though called a château, the main residence of the estate appears more as a manor house compared with the massive stone medieval and Renaissance chateaux (Castelnaud, Beynac, Les Milandes, etc.) that can be visited in the region. What’s most impressive about the chateau is its stone-tiled roof. Placed without mortar, the hand-cut limestone slabs (lauzes) have a combined weight of over 500 tons.

Several rooms can be visited inside.

The Candlelit Stroll

Thursday evenings in July and August, Marqueyssac’s Soirées aux Chandelles give the opportunity for visitors to take a candlelit stroll as the day recedes and sunset, twilight then night envelop the Dordogne Valley. The garden paths are lit by 2000 candles and hundreds of other elements of soft lighting, a pianist plays in one corner, there’s a brass quartet in another, perhaps an acoustic guitarist somewhere, and the occasional fairy winging by. The estate is open from 7PM to midnight on those special evenings, but if you don’t plan on spending more than two hours, then arrive at 8/8:30 in order to best experience a leisurely and enchantment stroll through sunset and twilight.

So what’ll it be, daytime or evening, romantic or contemplative or botanical? Will you find yourself more drawn to staring out across the valley or peering down a dimly lit alley? It’s up to you. Marqueyssac offers the opportunity for you to create your own remarkable stroll.

Marqueyssac, 24200 Vezac, Dordogne. See here for seasonal opening times and admission prices and here for the calendar of activities and events. Online reservation is required to attend a Candlelit Evening.

Photos, where indicated, © 2023 by Ava Kabouchy, first published on France Revisited.
Other photos, where indicated, video, and all text © 2023 by Gary Lee Kraut.
Additional photos, where indicated, © Laugery-Les Jardins de Marqueyssac-Dordogne.

The post 8 Remarkable Strolls in the Gardens of Marqueyssac (Dordogne) appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

In 1974, David Glass went to France to study art history but no sooner had he arrived than his interest forked off into the heart of modern French gastronomy. In place of an education at the Sorbonne and the Louvre, he entered into yearlong apprenticeships at two three-star Michelin restaurants that were leading the movement of Nouvelle Cuisine: first with Alain Senderens at l’Archestrate in Paris, then with Jean and Pierre Troisgros at Troisgros in Roanne, 56 miles northwest of Lyon. Upon his return to the United States, David started a catering business in Connecticut based on nouvelle cuisine, but it was a recipe for chocolate truffle cake that he had learned in France that would bring him culinary success as he morphed into a master of cakes and chocolates. He now lives in Vermont, where he operates David Glass Chocolates. Forty-five years removed from his culinary and cultural education in France, David pays tribute here to Jean and Pierre Troisgros. Jean passed away in 1983 and Pierre in 2020.

By David Glass

In September 1974, at the age of 26, several days after arriving in Paris to study art history at the Sorbonne, I ate a meal that changed my life. I had made a reservation at l’Archestrate on the recommendation of an acquaintance without knowing what to expect, and little did I know that my first exposure to French gastronomy would take place at a restaurant on the forefront of a type of cuisine that was on its way to conquering the world. Since I didn’t know anyone in Paris, I dined alone that evening. The meal began with a mussel soufflé, followed by sea bass with beurre rouge, tournedos Rossini, an ample selection of the ripest of cheeses, and an ethereal strawberry soufflé. The experience caused me to abandon art history and to devote myself to learning how to cook. I asked Alain Senderens, the chef and owner of l’Archestrate, if I could spend a few days in his kitchen. He said yes. I stayed for a year. (Senderens, who passed away in 2017, had earned his second star in the Michelin guide in 1974 and would receive his third in 1978.)

During my year in Paris, I seized the opportunity to take a road trip with friends to Roanne, a town northwest of Lyon, for a meal at Troisgros. The explosive flavors and exquisite lightness of that meal were the equal of my first encounter with high new gastronomy at l’Archestrate. Immediately I knew where I wanted to spend a second year of apprenticeship.

Thanks to Alain Senderens’ letter of recommendation, I was accepted as an apprentice at Troisgros in 1976. The French dining guide Gault & Millau had named Troisgros the best restaurant in the world in 1968, the same year that it received its third Michelin star. In 1973, the term “nouvelle cuisine” appeared Gault & Millau, referring to a type of cooking whose leaders were Jean and Pierre Troisgros, Alain Senderens, Paul Bocuse, and other chefs. The main tenets of their cooking were lighter sauces, fish that was barely cooked at its center, use of only the freshest ingredients, an emphasis on finding the very best method to cook each ingredient, and using fruits and vegetables that were sourced locally. After a year of developing skills and knowledge with Senderens, I was literally salivating at the prospect of pursuing my culinary education with the Troisgros brothers, while also expanding my sense of France by leaving the capital for a part of the country that few Americans had ever passed through other than those on a long drive toward the Riviera.

The uninformed visitor would never have suspected that a restaurant of Troisgros’s reputation would be found in Roanne. Unceremoniously described as “en face de la gare” (across the street from the train station) in the restaurant’s literature, Troisgros was housed in a building that was less than stunning. Yet I was immediately welcomed with warmth and friendliness as I arrived by train from Paris, and that feeling would remain with me until I left a year later.

I lived in the hotel above the restaurant, so even though I only worked the lunch shift, I was in the building from opening until closing. More than at l’Archestrate, I now had a sense of the full scope of the working day at a restaurant of such caliber. My work day started at 7AM and was over when the last lunch customers set aside their napkins and left, usually around 2PM. As busy and tiring as my own shift was, I could only imagine the extent of the mission of running a restaurant that aimed for 3-star perfection through two full shifts, day in, day out. When I eventually compiled a list of everything that had to get done each day, I felt the true weight of the task. From putting together veal bones, vegetables, herbs and other components of veal stock in the early morning to delivering the final dessert of the evening around 11 PM, the work was non-stop. There was actually no definitive end to the work day. Johnny Hallyday, France’s most famous rocker, dined with friends one evening and stayed until 4 AM.

Staff meals and the 3-star hamburger

Despite the pressure that we all felt to contribute to the Troisgros brothers’ (and Michelin’s) highest standards, there were some truly relaxing moments at the restaurant. Staff meals were a quiet moment between a busy morning of preparation and the hectic lunch or dinner service. For the most part we didn’t eat what was featured on the menu. Instead, I remember eating a lot of beef heart, gratin potatoes, green salads, chicken, less expensive cuts of veal and beef, seasonal vegetables, and occasional sweets. All of us, from the chefs to the apprentices, helped prepare these meals. Since the preparation of the gratin potatoes was part of my job, I would always watch the faces of my fellow cooks and the chefs to see if they liked them. If they didn’t, I was in trouble because this dish was also served to our customers. But they always loved the potatoes. On the other hand, the beef hearts, which were cheap, tough, and definitely not on the menu, were eaten with resigned silence.

We ate our staff meals at a large table in the kitchen, where Jean and Pierre were often joking about something. The rest of us were equally animated, probably as a way to release a final bit of tension before the customers arrived. Sometimes, one of the brothers would discuss the finer points of a particular menu item so that we would understand the reason for preparing a meat or fish a certain way, the combination of ingredients in the sauce, or why the various items on the plate were paired together. I remember a particular discussion about the poached bone marrow that accompanied the giant beef rib in bordelaise sauce and the reason it was included in this dish. We opined on the best way to eat it, with a piece of meat or on a slice of bread with fleur de sel. Since the marrow was served removed from its bone, customers would make the decisions for themselves. (I preferred it with a few grains of salt, letting it melt in my mouth so that it became coated with liquid fat.)

The kitchen staff that year consisted of cooks and apprentices from Holland, Japan, Switzerland, Germany and various regions of France. I was the sole representative of the United States. We took turns leading the preparation for staff meals. When it was their turn, the apprentices from France would typically prepare a dish from their region, thereby introducing us to a cuisine that others, particularly myself and the other foreigners, didn’t know. Everyone was respectful as they tried dishes. Though the French can be snobbish about their country’s or region’s cuisine, at Troisgros, in spite of its fame and notoriety, everybody, from the chefs to the apprentices, appeared interested and fully engaged when sampling a dish that was new to them.

Every once in a while, with no schedule or warning, Jean would issue a proclamation that it was International Day and one of the foreigners among the kitchen staff would be tasked with planning and preparing the staff meal based on his national or regional traditions. In view of all of the various traditions that were presented through the year, I was stumped when it came to planning an all-American meal. My colleagues gave some inappropriate suggestions: pancakes and maple syrup (but there was no Vermont maple syrup available, and who eats pancakes in the afternoon?); fried chicken (I didn’t know how to make fried chicken); hotdogs (NO!!); and a clambake (the ingredients were not available in Roanne). We settled on hamburgers, even though I never ate them and had never cooked one. As unusual as it may sound, the only bite of hamburger I’d ever had in the United States was so grey, so overcooked, and so vile that I spit it into my napkin and threw it away.

Jean had traveled to the United States to give cooking demonstrations, so he knew far more about our cuisine than I did, including about “le hamburger.” When I hesitated, Jean and Pierre immediately took the reins and gave suggestions. First, we were to gather all of the beef scraps. Troisgros’ beef scraps consisted of the “chain” of the filet, which was removed before it was cut into steaks, pieces of the rib steak, and ends of the entrecôte. These were not ordinary cuts that usually comprise a hamburger. Everything was hand-chopped using large knives. Because these were not the fatty cuts of beef normally used to make hamburgers, Pierre added a little kidney fat, and Jean added finely chopped shallots. The burgers were formed thick, so that they wouldn’t overcook. They were covered with cracked peppercorns, like a steak au poivre, and cooked rare. There were no buns, but there was one of the most delicious sauces I have ever tasted: Troisgros’ reduced veal stock, heavy cream and Port. At the first bite, the hamburger was spicy from the peppercorns. Then there was the taste of the rare ground beef, unlike anything ever served in the United States. Because of the high quality of the meat, the hamburger had the flavor of a perfectly cooked steak. The fact that it was ground resulted in more surfaces in the mouth than a slice of steak, and every ground bit exploded with flavor. In another part of the kitchen, one of the cooks made French fries, the French way: twice cooked so that they were crisp on the outside and meltingly soft inside. It was a perfect American meal, re-invented in a Michelin three-star kitchen by two of France’s most famous chefs.

The Apprentice System

The apprentice system in France required young cooks, many starting at the age of 15, to work in a kitchen for two years. They often worked for free or for very little payment, living at home, if they were local, or in a rented apartment or room. My situation was the exception as I was the only one who lived above the restaurant. I received no salary, but my room and board were free. At the end of their apprentice period, the other apprentices would take an exam called the C.A.P. (Certificat d’Aptitude Professionelle), which tested them on everything they learned in the kitchen. Passing this provided a degree that allowed them to advance, so that they could eventually become commis, chef de partie, chef saucier, and eventually chef de cuisine. The younger apprentices were tasked with some of the dirtiest jobs in the restaurant, such as scrubbing grease out the drains or plucking the feathers off huge bags full of frozen thrush. I never drew the worst jobs, probably because I was taller than everyone else and a few years older than the average apprentice.

There was always experimentation going on in the kitchen. Sometimes, the chefs and apprentices were encouraged to contribute ideas. One of my suggestions, a mixture of crumbled fresh goat cheese, finely chopped tomatoes and fresh thyme leaves, shaped into a small dome and presented in a miniature soufflé dish, was added to the amuses gueules (hors d’oeuvres) for a brief time. At the suggestion of a Japanese cook, cured salmon eggs were also adopted for a time. Previously, the eggs had always been discarded, and the Troisgros brothers seemed genuinely amazed when they learned the technique and tasted the cured eggs. My Japanese colleague also showed them how to make tempura batter with a fork instead of a whisk. Jean exclaimed, “Did you see how he made that with a fork?” (The French use a whisk for just about every kind of batter they make.) Novel ideas were always swirling around, and the brothers were always snatching them out of our brains.

Basketball

But all was not cuisine and work at Troisgros. Jean, with his impeccably trimmed grey beard adorning his classically handsome face, was quick to joke with clients. He was a tennis player and in superb condition, though he eventually died on the court at the age of 56, in 1983. Pierre sported a black, bristly mustache and was a bit more serious than Jean, though they could be equally raucous with friends. Pierre was also a bit rotund, although he moved just as quickly as Jean, both in the kitchen and on the basketball court.

One of my fondest memories was the weekly basketball game, which we played in a local gym, with Pierre, Jean, and anyone else who wanted to join. There was nothing so exciting as getting out of the kitchen after a stressful lunch service, changing into a tee shirt and shorts, and playing a no-holds barred game of basketball. I had the double advantage of being an American who grew up with the game and being the tallest member of the staff, an advantage that Pierre tried to deny me by unashamedly grabbing me from behind as I was attempting to make a layup. Meanwhile, Andre, the pastry chef and second tallest, was always waving his hands in my face. Rather than teach them some of the finer points of the game and convince Pierre not to cheat, I used my height and weight to knock into everyone on my way to the basket.

Meals in the dining room

Because I wasn’t paid for my work at the restaurant, Jean and Pierre allowed me to eat free of charge several times in the dining room. Among them was a memorable meal with my friend Reiko, a Japanese student I’d met earlier in my stay in France when she was touring the country. She was charming, so I invited her to visit me in Roanne and have a meal at Troisgros.

Consulting with Pierre about the food and Jean about wine, and keeping in mind Reiko’s love of fish, I decided to have an all-fish dinner. Since Troisgros’ menu depended upon what was available at the market that day, or what a local fisherman showed up with, I requested the day’s arrivals: St. Pierre (no relation to Pierre Troisgros and called John Dory in English) and sea bass. We would forego silverware and eat the entire meal with chopsticks. For the wine, Jean suggested a Bienvenue Batard Montrachet, the best white Burgundy I have ever tasted.

There is nothing so exciting as discussing an upcoming meal at a Michelin 3-star restaurant with the chef himself. By this time, I had learned a lot about the finest cuisine in France, and I wanted to make sure that our meal was going to be memorable. Pierre took his time with me, as if he had nothing more important in the world to do, and gave his suggestions. The St. Pierre would be seasoned with salt and pepper and then grilled. The sea bass would be roasted and served with a classic beurre blanc. I mentioned that Reiko was a small girl and that she was used to eating light meals, as was the custom in Japan. A typical French dinner would probably fill her up before she got to the main course. He suggested that all of the other courses would be very small so that she would have no trouble finishing her dinner. I, on the other hand, was welcome to go into the kitchen and make myself a sandwich if I got hungry afterward. (I did eventually have my standard sandwich that night. It was one that I occasionally made at night while everyone but the night watchman was asleep: a few thick slices of ham, gruyere cheese, and slices of tomato on rustic French bread. All traces were cleaned up before I went to bed.)

Toward the end of my year-long apprenticeship, I was given permission to have a final meal in the dining room, free of charge. I ate alone that evening, but I felt as though I were dining with the entire kitchen and wait staff. Jean, Pierre, and I put together a menu of fish and meat with red and white wines to accompany each dish, and the reason I am not listing the courses is because all was rendered moot as I sat down at the table. The maitre d’hotel came over to say that the chef wanted to offer me a wild woodcock (bécasse), which a hunter had just delivered to the restaurant. He actually leaned in and whispered this to me because at that time it was illegal to serve woodcock, an endangered species, at a restaurant. Nevertheless, with its extra-long beak, the bird was readily identifiable to most people in that part of the country. I was instructed not to say anything to anyone, or exclaim how good it was in a loud voice, or suck the brains out of the head unless I was hiding its beak in my hand.

This wasn’t my first woodcock, but it was the best one I had ever tasted. It was cooked, as all game birds should be, à la goutte de sang (approximately medium rare). The flavor was gamy, the flesh was tender, and the internal organs were mashed up with foie gras and spread on a thin slice of baguette. I had a wickedly tasty red Burgundy, chosen for the occasion by Jean Troisgros, that not only complemented the woodcock but also helped make the meal into something greater than the sum of its parts. It doesn’t happen all the time, but every so often, a wine will perfectly complement a dish. So it was with this Burgundy, which tasted as though its tannin had just crossed over the border from astringent to deliciously round, and the game bird, with its array of flavors. They fit together with stunning results. I sat there savoring the dish until the maitre d’hotel reminded me that it was time for the next course.

Troisgros after hours

It was after this last meal that I started visiting the empty restaurant and kitchen at night after the diners and staff had left. I needed only walk from my bedroom above the restaurant and down a staircase to reach the foyer. I felt that I was watching the ghost of the evening service, complete with the cooks preparing the dinners, Gerard, the stolid maitre d’hotel, giving instructions to the waiters, Michel, the chef de cuisine, steady as a rock, sauteing and roasting diverse items as he was, at the same time, making the sauces, Pierre preparing cuts of beef with the precision of a sushi chef, Jean wandering through the dining room with his cedar box full of Cuban cigars, and the customers thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Some of my favorite memories of that year were of hanging out at the bar inside the restaurant with the brothers and some of the Roannais who did business with Troisgros: the cheese affineur, who had invited me into his cellar to show me how he aged each type of cheese, the chocolatier, who taught me his craft (which would eventually become part of my own), the hunter, whose deliveries depended upon which birds or what deer crossed his path, and others. None of them looked like the type of customer you would expect to see in a three-star restaurant. In fact, the bar itself seemed out of place. If you entered the front door of the restaurant and went to the bar, you would think that you had just entered a small, local dive. Customers there were dressed casually, none in suits or ties or fancy dresses. On the other hand, everyone felt welcome, no matter how they dressed, at the bar and in the restaurant. The warmth, compassion and willingness to share made the restaurant an even homier place.

Throughout that year, the brothers, the cooks and apprentices, the waiters, and all of the other employees of Troisgros made up a family of some of the warmest and kindest people in the food industry, a family that was united in making sure every single customer was warmly received, treated with kindness, and fed the best meal of his or her life. There was no snobbery at Troisgros. Everyone felt comfortable there. Upon entering, every customer felt the excitement of knowing that as long as they were at Troisgros, they would be treated as though they were family, too.

This was one of the most exciting years of my life. After two years of experience at two of the most creative restaurants in the world, I was ready to return home in 1977 to start my American career. Along with a wide range of culinary skills, what I especially learned from Jean and Pierre Troisgros was their talent for pleasing staff and customers. They served as my models in that respect as I returned to the U.S. with the ambition of creating my own business.

Jean, as noted earlier, died young, in 1983 at the age of 56. Pierre lived a long life and got to see his son Michel and grandsons take over the business and move Maison Troisgros, their gastronomic restaurant, to a beautiful new location in Ouches, a few miles outside of Roanne. Pierre died in 2020 at the age of 92.

RIP, Jean and Pierre Troisgros. Thank you for teaching me so much about French cuisine—and about so much more.

© 2021, David Glass. First published on France Revisited, francerevisited.com.

See David Glass Chocolates for more about the author.
See Maison Troisgros for more about Troisgros restaurants and lodging.

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In 1765, a young, peasant woman left a remote corner of rural France where her impoverished family had scraped a living for generations. She set out on a journey that would take her around the world from the South American jungles and Magellan Strait to the tropical islands of the Indo-Pacific.

Jeanne Barret (also Baret or Baré) was the first woman known to have circumnavigated the world. Abandoning her bonnet and apron for men’s trousers and coats, she disguised herself as a man and signed on as assistant to the naturalist, Philibert Commerson on one of the ships of Louis-Antoine de Bougainville’s expedition around the world.

During that voyage, Jeanne helped Commerson amass the largest individual natural history collection known at the time. Thousands of the plant specimens can still be found in the herbarium of the Paris natural history museum, although few bear Jeanne’s name.

Despite Jeanne’s singular achievement, she left no account of her journey or her life. She might have been entirely forgotten were it not for a dramatic revelation on a Tahitian beach in 1768.

Bougainville’s voyage famously promoted Tahiti as a utopian paradise of beautiful women and sexual freedom. But the Tahitian men were equally keen to meet European women and, despite her disguise, they swiftly identified Jeanne as one.

This revelation caused consternation on board and Bougainville was forced to intervene. He described Jeanne’s confession briefly in his best-selling narrative of the voyage. Having nothing but praise for her work, Bougainville ordered she be left alone to continue her work as a man.

Jeanne had done nothing wrong. French naval regulations did not forbid women from embarking, but there were penalties for men who brought a woman on board. Both Jeanne and Commerson insisted he was unaware of Jeanne’s ruse and that they did not know each other prior to the journey. As soon as the voyage reached French territory, the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, Jeanne and Commerson disembarked.

Jeanne’s adventure was soon retold in a book on celebrated women and in the philosopher Denis Diderot’s famous Supplement to the Bougainville voyage. She was ultimately awarded a French naval pension for her services.

The only known image of Jeanne appeared in a book of famous voyages, drawn long after her death. The image is probably allegorical. Loose sailor’s clothes represent her voyage, a bunch of flowers represents botany and the red cap presents her as Marianne, an iconic revolutionary symbol of liberty and the new French republic.

In reality, a servant and botanist like Jeanne would have worn gentleman’s clothes, carrying an assortment of pins, knives, bags, weapons and papers for collecting. Plants were pressed in the field in a portable plant press.

Despite such early renown, details of Jeanne’s life beyond her famous voyage were scarce. For many years, little was known about her past, what happened when she left the expedition in Mauritius in 1768, how she returned to France or what she did with the rest of her life.

Simplistic stereotypes

Writing the biography of a woman about whom we knew so little was always going to be challenging. I found myself searching for a pre-existing model to base Jeanne on — in fiction or in history. But in literature, as in reality, women, the poor, the illiterate, the nonconformists and those from other cultures and languages are poorly represented.

When they appear, they are simplistic stereotypes — supporting characters for a lead role reserved for a wealthy, white man. A woman like Jeanne could be a peasant or a servant, a wife or a fallen woman — there was no conventionally acceptable opportunity for her to be an adventurer or an independent woman of her own means. She had to create that opportunity for herself.

Initial accounts of Jeanne focused on her work, appearance and sexual conduct. She was described as being indefatigable, an expert botanist and a beast of burden who carried heavy provisions while plant collecting. Men noted she was neither attractive nor ugly, but she behaved with “scrupulous modesty”.

Commerson suffered from an incapacitating leg injury during his journey, which limited his mobility. Jeanne was probably responsible for collecting most of the South American plants, of which over a thousand are still found in herbariums today.

When museum scientists began posthumously publishing some of Commerson’s species descriptions, pioneering evolutionary biologist Jean Baptiste Lamarck was the only one who mentioned Jeanne’s contribution and courage. She was a servant, after all, so hardly warranted acknowledgement.

Commerson himself rarely mentioned Jeanne. It was not until after they left the voyage that he named a plant after her: Baretia bonafidia (now known as Turraea rutilans).

In his description of this plant, Commerson recognised her “thirst for knowledge” and that he was indebted to “her heroism, for so many plants never before harvested, all the industrious drying, so many collections of insects and shells”.

Nineteenth century accounts of Jeanne appeared as footnotes in the biographies of great men. Avoiding all impropriety, she was presented as Commerson’s “faithful servant”, like Crusoe’s Man Friday, or Phileas Fogg’s Jean Passepartout. An early biographer, Paul-Antoine Cap recounted a family story in which Jeanne loyally cared for Commerson on his deathbed in Mauritius and that she returned to live in his hometown in France.

“By way of remembrance and veneration for her former master, she left all she possessed to the natural heirs of the famous botanist,” he wrote. It was a story of boundless devotion much repeated in subsequent accounts.

Partial details

It has been left to female researchers to uncover the details of Jeanne’s life. Attention has shifted to Jeanne as an individual, rather than an addendum to Commerson’s or Bougainville’s story.

In the 1980s, a local historian from Burgundy, Henriette Dussourd, uncovered the parish record of Jeanne’s birth in 1740 to a poor peasant family in the town of La Comelle. She also found a declaration of pregnancy (obligatory under French law) signed by Jeanne when she was 24-years-old. When she was five months pregnant, Jeanne had fled to Paris with Commerson, travelling under a new surname, as his housekeeper.

The circumstances are suspicious. Jeanne had presumably been working as a servant for the recently widowed Commerson and they moved to Paris to escape a local scandal. Early Parisian parish records were destroyed in the Commune fires of 1871, but Dussourd suggests a son was born, left in the Foundling Home and died young.

Since then, I have found that Jeanne had a second son while in Paris, who appears to have died while she was away on her voyage.

More recently, a biography in English has attempted to fill in the gaps left in the archival record. Glynis Ridley’s popular biography has been criticised for scientific errors and speculation, but her version of Jeanne’s story has propagated widely across the internet.

Unlike the loyal servant trope of the 19th century, Ridley utilises a modern cautionary tale to fill out Jeanne’s story – the well-rehearsed narrative that adventurous women inevitably come to a sticky end.

Ridley’s biography seeks to give Jeanne an agency that she lacked in 18th and 19th century accounts. She argues Commerson sought Jeanne’s advice as an expert herbswoman. Was an unsigned list of medicinal plants among Commerson’s archives, she asks, actually Jeanne’s work?

Appealing though this idea is, Commerson was, however, renowned for his medicinal teas, and herbal remedies were a staple of medical treatment at the time.

Nor is there any evidence Jeanne was taught to read and write by her mother, as Ridley suggests. My archival research found her mother died when Jeanne was 15- months-old. It seems more likely Commerson taught her to write and trained her in botany.

More controversially, Ridley contends that the story of Jeanne’s revelation as a woman in Tahiti was a cover for a gang rape on New Ireland, off Papua New Guinea. And that Jeanne fell pregnant and gave birth to a son in Mauritius.

This story originates from a description by the doctor on board Jeanne’s ship, Francois Vivez. Vivez disliked Commerson and intended to publish a salacious account of his servant when he returned to France.

In his manuscripts, Vivez describes Jeanne being attacked by her crew mates and her gender exposed after her identification by the Tahitians. While Vivez greatly embroiders his accounts, there is enough confirmation from other journals to suggest they are based on facts. On balance, it seems likely that Jeanne was identified as a women in Tahiti and some of the crew decided to confirm this for themselves when they were next ashore.

But was there a rape? It is difficult to interpret these 18th century accounts, written in either French or Latin and laden with historical contexts and classical metaphors that have long since lost their associations for modern readers.

Bougainville had ordered that Jeanne was not to be harassed. Rape was punishable by death in the French navy. Could a naval commander tolerate such a serious crime and insubordination to go unrecorded and unpunished?

It seems unlikely. In his only comment on the subject, Commerson noted Jeanne “evaded ambush by wild animals and humans, not without risk to her life and virtue, unharmed and sound”.

In any case, there is no evidence that Jeanne, suffering from scurvy and malnutrition, conceived a child on the voyage, nor of the obligatory declaration of pregnancy, or a child born in Mauritius.

A woman of means

Jeanne’s life in Mauritius and her return to France were actually more interesting than dramatic denouements that fulfil conventional expectations. The adventurous woman did not come to a sticky end.

She was not the faithful servant, comforting Commerson on his death bed. She was not left “alone, homeless, penniless” after his death, waiting for a man to rescue her. She did not return to Commerson’s hometown or remember him in death.

The archives tell a different story. I found Jeanne was granted property in her own right in Mauritius. When Commerson died, Jeanne was running her own profitable business. She bought a license to run a lucrative bar near the port.

By the time she married Jean Dubernat, a soldier in a French colonial regiment, she was wealthy enough to require a pre-nuptial contract. Her husband brought 5000 livres to the marriage while Jeanne brought a house, slaves, furniture, clothes, jewellery and a small fortune of 19,500 livres – two thirds of which would remain in her control. She was a woman of means.

Further research by Sophie Miquel and Nicolle Maguet in Dordogne, where Jeanne lived out her life after her return to France in 1775, has revealed more details. She purchased various properties including a farm, which is still recognisable today.

Her husband signed another legal document acknowledging these properties were shared equally with his wife. Jeanne gathered her family around her, including her orphaned niece and nephew, and ran a successful business as a landowner and trader – a far cry from her illiterate, impoverished childhood in Burgundy.

If we need a conventional story arc for Jeanne’s life, it should be rags-to-riches, rather than the loyal servant or road-trip tragedy. But better, surely, to construct Jeanne’s story with an objective attention to the archival record.

Jeanne was full of contradictions. She was a devoted aunt, yet left her own children in Paris to an unknown fate. She struggled to escape the constraints of France’s rigid class system and patriarchy, but also owned slaves. Her life does not always fit a comfortable familiar narrative structure.

What we do know reveals Jeanne as a confident, capable, resilient woman — neither victim nor hero but a complex, inspiring and unconventional role model.

This article by Danielle Clode, Senior Research Fellow in Creative Writing, Flinders University (Adelaide, Australia), was first published on The Conversation France. It is republished here under the Creative Commons license with permission from the author and The Conversation. Read the original article.

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It’s nearly a shame to read Courtney Withrow’s article below on a screen since it concerns the pleasure of paper: seeing it made, touching it, reading on it and admiring artistic work made with or on it. But it’s a good read nonetheless.

The Moulin du Got is a functioning 500-year-old paper mill near the town of Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, 12 miles east of Limoges. (See part one of this 2-part series for more about the town.). Built at the end of the 15th century and operational since at least 1522, the mill functioned until 1954, when it was no longer commercially viable. After a nearly 50-year slumber, production was revived in 2003, though no longer with the mass market in mind. Instead, using historical processes, the mill, run by a non-profit association, creates a variety of types of paper from cotton, linen, hemp and other materials, particularly for use in graphic arts.

Open to visitors who can follow these processes from start to finish, the Moulin du Got is a wonderful example of a living historical site as it combines an artisanal papermaking factory, a print shop, an exhibition gallery and hands-on programming for all ages.

By Courtney Withrow

Situated two miles from the center of Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat at the confluence of the Tard and Vienne Rivers, surrounded by rolling fields on one side and unspoiled woods on another, the Moulin du Got’s idyllic location has remained unchanged since the mill was constructed here in the late fifteenth century.

This pastoral landscape accentuates the paper mill’s antiquated charm. Harkening back to a bygone era of artisanal and early industrial papermaking and printing, the mill now manufactures paper by hand as well as with nineteenth-century machinery. While the central mission of the Moulin du Got is historical, it presents living history since this is a fully functional papermill employing a team able to create a beautiful variety of artisanal paper for commercial clients and for visitors to the mill.

For all the slowness that the countryside and the methodical, deliberate process of papermaking represent (it can take hours, even days, for sheets of paper to dry), the Moulin du Got is bustling with life. While the paper-making and printing teams work, other artisans and printers act as tour guides. The Moulin du Got carries on its business even as tourists wander throughout its 500-year-old rooms.

History of the Moulin du Got

Moulin means mill, as in the Moulin Rouge, the Red Mill. And Got is a perversion of gué, meaning ford in French, as in the place where this mill was built. Operational on the Tard River in 1522, the Moulin du Got originally housed nine piles with wooden mallets, which would grind up bits of hemp and linen. Hemp and linen are still the primary papermaking materials used in the mill today, in addition to cotton. Got was one of 24 paper mills around Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat during the 18th-century heydays of paper production in the region.

As the demand for paper increased in the 19th century, the Moulin du Got transitioned from using hemp and linen to straw, a more abundant resource in Limousin. The mill also installed a Hollander beater, which allowed for the production of larger quantities of more refined paper, and a paper machine that mechanized the conversion of pulp into sheets of paper. These enabled the doubling of production. By the 1930s, the Moulin du Got was generating 100 tons of paper per year, but larger, more modern production sites were beginning to surpass it. In the mill’s final chapter before its mid-century closure, it manufactured reinforced cardboard, which was used for toys, masks and dolls. But then the arrival of plastic in the mid-20th century diminished its markets for reinforced cardboard.

The Moulin du Got Today

Despite its agility in the shifting paper industry for 400 years, the Moulin du Got closed in 1954. The building sat vacant until 1997, when a non-profit association was founded with the aim of bringing the paper mill and its traditional methods of paper manufacture back to life. Such associations in France typically seek subsidies from local and regional funds to help them achieve their historical-minded goals. In this case, the town of Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat stepped up to the plate to purchase the property, and through various local, regional and even European funding programs, along with perseverance on the part of the association, the Moulin du Got was rehabilitated. After five years of renovation and a training program for a young cohort of paper crafters and printers, the mill reopened in 2003.

Through the various processes used here, the mill now produces about 1.8 tons of paper each year. Electric motors power the paper mill rather than its original water wheels, however, the wheels have been restored and are used for demonstrations.

The Process of Paper Production

Stepping inside the Moulin du Got one sunny Saturday afternoon, I traded the quiet of the Limousin countryside for a flurry of activity. While visitors browsed through handcrafted items in the boutique adjacent to the welcome area, printers were hard at work in the print shop just beyond the boutique, handling cast-iron contraptions that pinged and clicked like slot machines.

The guided tour begins, however, in the heart of the mill where two enormous granite millstones resembling huge wheels of cheese stand atop a bed of ground-up hemp, linen and cotton. As they rotate, the millstones grind the grey, shredded cloth underneath until it looks like dryer lint.

Past the millstones stand large vats filled with pulp. A Hollander beater chops the pulp with metal blades in order to refine it, producing paper with thin fibers. Once the Hollander beater thins the pulp, the mixture is fed through the paper machine. Equipped with several spinning cylinders, the paper machine draws the pulp from its tub and pushes it across its cylinders, flattening it to make long sheets of paper.

The millstones, the Hollander beater and the paper machine represent only one papermaking process at the Moulin du Got. Pre-industrial, handmade techniques are also used. There, the paper crafter fills a rectangular wooden frame with pulp, presses it, then delicately removes the waterlogged sheet and lays it between two pieces of felt to dry. Liquid pulp, resembling watered-down milk, drips off the wooden frame as the crafter works. All of the pulp filling the two large tubs will be transformed into sheets of solid paper, either by hand or by machine.

Beyond Paper Production

While papermaking itself constitutes the most significant part of the Moulin du Got’s mission, a portion of the drying room serves as an exhibition gallery. This year’s exhibition concerns paper artwork inspired by Japanese culture.

The mill also houses a printing shop. Three typography machines from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries allow the printers to create graphic art, lithographs and engravings. The highlight of the printing shop is the enormous linotype machine, which casts lead fragments into typeset blocks of text for individual use. The huge linotype stands taller than an armoire and sits wider than an armchair. When operated it makes an immense racket. The machine uses hot metal typesetting. It contains a reservoir of molten lead, which it transforms into a block of letters when the typist enters a word on the keyboard. The linotype is sustainable, so when the printers are done with a block of text they can put it back into the reservoir of molten lead, melting it down again for reuse.

Although printing wasn’t an original operation of the Moulin du Got, the traditional printing shop was a logical addition to the historical site. In the shop, the printers set their creativity free, fashioning unique bookmarks, notebooks, postcards and other items to sell in the mill’s boutique. Most of the paper and printing produced is sold on-site, however, the mill also fills special orders for artists, editors and other printers.

Using techniques from different eras, the team at Moulin du Got creates a variety of paper types. The thicker paper made by hand, with its denser fibers, is destined for watercolor painting or engravings. From the paper machine, artisans can produce long, fine sheets or ribbed, “smocked” paper. Most of the paper is stiff, with a slight yet noticeable texture. The thick, handmade paper comes out speckled, the denser pulp making for a grainier appearance.

Special Creations

In the years since its reopening, the Moulin du Got has received accolades for its commitment to historical craftsmanship and pthe reservation of cultural heritage. A schedule of programs that are open to the public at the mill include marionette shows, origami lessons and classes in postcard design and Japanese-style painting. In 2009, the site’s educational, cultural and artistic mission won the Moulin du Got a first-place prize in the national Rubans de Patrimoine competition, which gives financial awards to heritage-minded initiatives throughout France.

This is living heritage since the team continues to experiment with new initiatives and to fulfill specialized requests from clients. They’ll sometimes manufacture paper from unexpected materials such as vegetables or blue jeans. For one of their clients, a winegrower, the team created paper wine bottle labels made from grape stems. Moulin du Got paper has also been used in the design of artisanal lampshades. Visiting artists-in-residence pursue creative projects, such as the author who published his book entirely by hand, page by page, with the help of the mill’s artisans and printers.

The Moulin du Got may be well off the beaten path, but once arrived visitors are drawn into the craftsmanship and physicality of paper, printing and typography, and perhaps to the pleasure of holding and reading a book rather than a screen.

Le Moulin du Got, 87400 Saint-Léonard-du-Noblat. Tel. 05 55 57 18 74.

Photo: From the Moulin du Got boutique. The cover of the purple notepad is an example of “smocked” paper and the bookmark is fashioned from paper made by hand. Photo: Courtney Withrow

© 2020, Courtney Withrow for France Revisited

Courtney Withrow is a freelance writer living in Brussels, Belgium. During her nine-month stay in Limoges as a teaching assistant, she visited several small towns in Haute-Vienne, including Saint-Leonard-de-Noblat. She maintains a travel blog.

Visiting Preserved and Restored Mills Throughout France

Hundreds of preserved and restored mills of all kinds can be visited or viewed by travelers in France. Some have been restored to function in a way related to their original use, as at the Moulin du Got, while others live on as exhibition centers, restaurants or B&Bs. Travelers particularly interested in mills should check out the website of the FFAM, Fédération Française des Associations de sauvegarde des Moulins, the French Federation of Associations for the Preservations of Mills. The FFAM’s website provides links to the websites of non-profit associations throughout the country and a map indicating the location of hundreds of preserved mills, whether preserved for non-profit, for profit or private use. Some may be visited year-round and many more in summer and during school vacations. Special visits are organized at mills throughout France during Mill Days (Journées du Moulins), held over the fourth weekend of June.

– GLK

Return to part one of this 2-part series, Saint Leonard de Noblat: Pilgrims, prisoners, pastries, porcelain, papermill.

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Seventy-five years after the Liberation of France, a visit to the D-Day Landing Beaches and the WWII memorials, museums and cemeteries of Normandy remains high on the wish-list of Americans and other international travelers to France. Yet few are aware of the French role in the Liberation of Paris.

A new, free, highly informative museum, partially located in an air raid shelter used by the Resistance during the liberation of the capital, provides insights into the history of Paris and Parisians during the Second World War.

The Liberation of Paris

By mid-August 1944, as the Allies were breaking out from Normandy and simultaneously gaining a foothold in the south of France, General Charles de Gaulle, who had led the Free French in exile, disagreed with the Allies as to the urgency of liberating Paris. For the Americans and allies, Berlin was the prime objective in the effort to defeat Nazi Germany. Paris, of little strategic value, could be bypassed on route to the German capital. But for de Gaulle, liberating Paris was essential to the country’s future unification and independence, and that required securing military and political French control of the capital sooner rather than later.

The issue was soon forced. Strikes had formed on August 10, growing to a general strike on August 18, and the insurrection began the following day. Skirmishes broke out and barricades were set up as a scrappy, lightly-armed Resistance fighters, policemen and civilians emerged from the shadows in an attempt to take on some 20,000 German soldiers and 50 tanks. On August 22 General Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, gave permission to the French 2nd Armored Division, commanded by Free French General Leclerc, supported by the American 4th Infantry Division, to enter the city.

On the evening of August 24, Leclerc’s men entered Paris from the south and southwest, including along the road that would later be renamed Avenue du Général Leclerc. In the afternoon of August 25, German military governor General Dietrich von Choltitz, aware of the futility of fighting for control of the city in the face of advancing armies and unwilling to follow Hitler’s orders to leave the city in ruin, surrendered German forces in the Paris region. After four years of German occupation, the capital was free again.

De Gaulle entered Paris that afternoon. He proclaimed at City Hall the continuity of the French Republic and the restoration of Paris’s lost nobility with a phrase famous in the capital to this day: “Paris! Paris outragé! Paris brisé! Paris martyrisé! Mais Paris libéré!” (Paris! Paris outraged! Paris broken! Paris martyred! But Paris liberated!) He went on to say that Paris was “liberated by itself, liberated by its people with the help of the French armies, with the support and the assistance of all of France…” with little mention of Allied efforts other than to acknowledge “the help of our dear and admirable allies.”

Had Paris been strategically important to the Allies and the Germans, there would have been far greater material damage to the city in an effort to dislodge the occupying forces, so, thankfully, little direct help was necessary from those “dear and admirable allies.” The museum gives them more due, yet this is appropriately and above all a French affair, and as such it offers foreign visitors insights into the German occupation, the French Resistance (and collaboration), the liberation of the capital and several of the homegrown heroes of the war.

General Leclerc and Jean Moulin

Located in the 14th arrondissement, across the street from the entrance to the Catacombs at Place Denfert-Rochereau, the museum partially occupies an underground air raid shelter that was used by Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy in August 1944 as a command post to direct the Paris Resistance during its uprising. (The segment of avenue in front of the museum bears his name.) The command post presents period newsreels along with displays about its functioning during the uprising, including the critical role played by Rol-Tanguy’s wife Cécile.

The museum, actually three related museums in one—it’s full name is the Museum of the Liberation of Paris/ General Leclerc Museum / Jean Moulin Museum—highlights the roles of General Leclerc and resistance organizer Jean Moulin, two French heroes from very different backgrounds who helped liberate France from within and without.

When France fell to the Germans in June 1940, General Leclerc, a military officer from a Catholic aristocratic background, escaped the country and over the next three years helped assemble and lead Free French forces in Africa, North Africa and Europe. Born Philippe de Hauteclocque, he changed his name to Leclerc to protect his family in France from reprisals. He eventually assumed command of the 2nd Armored Division, integrated into Patton’s Third Army.

Jean Moulin, meanwhile, was a Socialist and a rising prewar civil servant, the youngest prefect in France at the time of his nomination. After the fall of France, Moulin refused to become a pawn for the German occupation and focused on coordinating General de Gaulle’s activities and those of various Resistance groups within France. His work required clandestine travel (including a hazardous nighttime parachute jump) during trips back from London to meet with de Gaulle. Under constant threat of detection by the Germans, he negotiated with and unified most groups of the French Resistance in a single structure, becoming the first president of the National Council of Resistance in the spring of 1943. In June, several weeks after the council’s first official meeting, Moulin was arrested. He was tortured by the Germans—notably by Klaus Barbie, the “Butcher of Lyon”—and died of his wounds on July 8.

Visiting the museum

While the museum exhibits are heavy on archival material (letters, government decrees, posters, etc.), there are poignant historical objects, such as Moulin’s matchbox for concealing microfilm, Leclerc’s desert uniforms and a graffiti fragment from a Jewish family deported from Paris’s Drancy transit camp.

The museum also offers a variety of multimedia exhibits and interactive maps which show the location of key buildings requisitioned by Germans during the Occupation, Resistance strongholds and sites of fighting during the Liberation. At Barbès metro station, for example, a Resistance commando team, led by Colonel Fabien (after whom another metro station on line 2 is named) assassinated a German soldier in the summer 1941. The Hotel Lutetia housed the Abwehr, the German counterintelligence service, during the Occupation and then at war’s end was a processing site for the few returning French who survived German concentration camps.

Sections of the museum are punctuated by short films (all with English subtitles) presenting visions of life in Paris during the war, from pro-German propaganda newsreels condemning Allied bombing raids to instructions for women how to paint their legs in the absence of silk stockings. The final sections include extensive footage of outgunned Paris Resistance fighters battling the German Army and of de Gaulle’s famous Liberation speech (“Paris outraged!…”).

Spartan grey walls and a realistic soundscape give the interior the sound and feel of a military bunker. The subterranean command post resounds with the clack of invisible typewriters, ringing telephones and the whine of an air raid siren. As the exhibits progress to the darkest period of the war for Paris, the visitor descends into the basement of the building, and later, after the Liberation story, one emerges into a sunlit atrium adorned with French flags and offering views of the neighborhood where Leclerc’s American M4 Sherman tanks rolled to the center.

Other wartime memories in Paris

The Liberation Museum adds an important voice to the city’s extensive historical narrative of World War II. Elsewhere in Paris, memories of the Second World War can be viewed from other angles at the Army Museum at Les Invalides (sections devoted to de Gaulle, to WWII, and to the Order of the Liberation); at the Shoah Memorial in the Marais; at the Deportation Memorial behind Notre-Dame; on plaques commemorating Resistance fighters and deported Jewish school children, and in the form of pockmarks from fighting during the Liberation of Paris.

Evidence of damage can be seen on the southeastern corner of Luxembourg Palace (the Senate building), on the southeastern corner of the Palais de Justice (the central courthouse on Ile de la Cité) and on the wall of the Tuileries next to the Place de la Concorde, as well as elsewhere.

The material damage in Paris was limited during the war, but the city’s liberation brought about the death of 1000 resistance fighters, 156 soldiers of the 2nd Armored Division, 588 civilians and 3200 Germans, along with thousands of wounded.

Since 1945 the Cross of the Liberation, an order created by General de Gaulle, has been a part of the arms of the City of Paris.

Post-museum R&R

The museum draws visitors into its subjects so well that the curious traveler could end up spending over an hour and a half here (while the rest of the family visits the Catacombs?) before emerging to contemporary café life in liberated Paris. Numerous cafés are right nearby, but consider heading away from the bustle to a stroll and a sit one block away on Rue Daguerre, the neighborhood’s wonderful pedestrian food market street.

Practical information

Museum of the Liberation of Paris/ General Leclerc Museum/ Jean Moulin Museum
Place Denfert-Rochereau, 75014 Paris. Metro Denfert-Rochereau.
Open Tuesday to Sunday, 10AM to 6PM. No entrance possible after 5:15PM.

Tickets are free for the permanent exhibition, where displays present texts in English as well as French. The free ticket gains entrance to the command post in the air raid shelter, however only a limited number of people are allowed into the post at any one time, so visitors should request a timed reservation (not available online) to visit it as soon as they enter the museum in the hopes that tickets remain for the following hour.

The 100 steps down to the command post are steep, so a visit to that part of the museum could be difficult for visitors with small children or limited mobility. For those unable to access the command post, a virtual tour can be viewed on tablets available at the reception desk.

© 2019, France Revisited

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By Gerald Vinestock

Everyone knows that French drivers are the best in the world. Every French driver knows that English drivers in France travel rather more slowly than French escargots.

It is the duty, therefore, of every French driver to encourage the rosbifs by tailgating any English car so that the English driver, glancing in his mirror, is able to see the Frenchman throwing both arms in the air in Gallic exasperation. Eventual overtaking can be accompanied by suitable digital indication of friendliness.

The English driver can sympathize to some extent with his French counterpart, for there are clearly two major defects in French cars—both likely to detract from the desire to establish the driver’s role as the best in the world. The first of these is that it appears the roofs of many French cars are likely to blow off at speed. For this reason drivers have to open the car window and hold the roof in place. They let go only to point out interesting landmarks—or, of course incompetent English drivers—to their passengers. These gestures should not be confused with old-fashioned hand signals, indicating a desire to turn left, for instance.

Such gestures would be useful, for the second defect is that clearly the indicators on French cars stop working as the car leaves the showroom, so that cars swoop left or right apparently at will, leaving bewildered English drivers in their wake. And that’s to say nothing about priorité à droite that curious French system which allows vehicles to leave tiny lanes and driveways by hurtling onto major roads without warning, just so long as they are coming from the right. It may be French drivers’ confusion about this business of who has priority that enables them to drive with such confidence on twisting roads and hairpin curves.

The English driver usually arrives in France at Calais where he is greeted by a huge sign: Tenez la Droite, that is, Drive on the Right. Of course, the English driver knows that all properly organized nations drive on the left, but he concentrates and keeps repeating to himself, ‘Keep right!’ and after a couple of hours on the French freeway he is feeling quite confident about this strange habit. Then he arrives on minor roads in the mountains and finds that he must have misunderstood the instruction, for now French drivers drive round bends on the left. And the bigger the car the further to the left it goes. The English driver faced with imminent collision keeps further right, eyes closed, and tries not to think about the precipitous drop only inches away.

Not only are the French the best drivers, they are the best parkers. They are helped in this by use of the sidewalk. English people know that a sidewalk—though they prefer to call it a pavement—is for the use of pedestrians. French people assume that the sidewalk is separated from the road in order to provide parking places for cars. Pedestrians, mothers with strollers, children, the elderly are expected to struggle past in the road.

The best parkers can place their cars so close to the boulangerie door that French customers wanting to buy bread know the only way into the shop is through the back of the car. English people form a polite queue until the man emerges unapologetically and drives off.

Since French drivers are the best in the world, the failure to spot my car in the supermarket car park was obviously just a temporary blip. The subsequent collision was at such speed that the door could not be opened and had to be replaced. The French driver knew there was no point in discussing the matter, since the English don’t speak French and would not understand. So he drove off speedily, without signaling, round a bend on the wrong side of a road, clinging to his roof with one hand and pointing out the damage to my car with the other.

© 2018, Gerald Vinestock

Gerald Vinestock recently published a children’s novel, Crib and the Labours of Hercules.

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When I was growing up we had no rubbish-bin collection. Waste papers were burned, leftover food was transformed and re-served, empty bottles were a bit of a problem but almost everything else ended its life rotting on the compost heap at the bottom of our garden. We used the compost as fertilizer and used the worms from the compost as bait for fishing.

But in a Parisian apartment composting is impossible, so my raw fruit and vegetable peels just have to go in the bin.

But one day this summer, as I was walking through the park near my home, I noticed three large wooden boxes or chests. They’d obviously been put there recently, I could get that tarry smell of new wood coated with preservative. The hinges on the lids were shiny and new-looking too. Intrigued, I looked closer and saw that each chest was clearly labelled, the first one said “Currently in use,” number two said “For future use” and the last one, “Dry matter.” An explanation was provided in the form of a notice telling the world that this was to be the site of a project called “Organic Composting” giving the name of the park, and an email address for those who needed further information.

I sent off an email asking for information and, more importantly, if I could throw my organic waste in the “Organic Compost.” My request was answered immediately with an invitation to a meeting the following Saturday morning at eleven, in the park.

Saturday morning at eleven there was only me standing beside the three wooden compost chests, then two or three stragglers with cans of beer. Five minutes later a couple arrived, settled on a bench and started what looked like a serious discussion. After about twenty minutes other people started to arrive and to gather around the three wooden chests, mostly young couples with babies in strollers. We looked at each other, wondering if one of us might be the person who sent the invitation.

Finally, a young woman arrived, tall and with such an air of natural self-possession and authority that it was clear that she was the one, our leader, our lovely Compost Queen. She addressed the waiting crowd, about ten of us by now, the stragglers and the couple on the bench having understood this wasn’t for them. Certain things had to be made clear, she explained, the first being that this was a meeting of the Square L. compost and if you happened to come from another neighborhood, she mentioned another one, a single metro station away, then you had to use their compost.

The imposters slunk away.

She went on to explain that it was a participative compost project, that we’d all have to take turns manning it one Saturday a month and that we should put our names down now if we wanted to take part.

“But, there is a waiting list,” she said, “and places are limited.”

My heart sank as I imagined having to sit an exam, a sort of French concours, but before I could object there were mumblings from the other candidates too and so she assured us that those of us who were present would all be admitted. We smiled at each other, relieved to know that our tea bags and coffee dregs would be welcomed and could rot away comfortably.

She explained too that we mustn’t presume that it was easy, you don’t simply dump your organic waste into it, you have to stir it all up with a large wand-like instrument provided and held in the lid, and then you add some of the “dry matter” from wooden chest number three to soak up the liquefied rot. To give a demonstration of this the Compost Queen opened up the lid of the chest currently in use. We all leapt back and waited until the swarms of flies suddenly released had escaped, and then had a good look at what had already been put into the chest and was composting.

“Not good,” she said. “Look at those onions. Worms don’t like onions. And you should break up your eggshells before putting them in, you can’t expect the worms to climb over them. No citrus fruits, no shop-bought flowers, they are all bad for the worms.”

She then delicately picked out the few onions and the cut flowers visible on the top of the pile and threw them in the nearby waste-bin.

“What about newspapers?” someone dared ask.

“Yes, they’re allowed, but not if they come from your grandmother’s attic, the ink will have lead in it,” came the answer.

There were other questions and gradually the company relaxed a bit as we exchanged composting stories and experiences. One woman told me about how she had spent a year in London as an au-pair and that was when she discovered compost-heaps. She told me that when an English person shows you around their house, they will proudly take you to visit their compost-heap too. After a brief word about what compost duty entailed, we were each given a green bucket, the meeting broke up and we all went home.

I put myself down for compost duty a month or two later, picking the only date that wasn’t already taken. I was there at ten o’clock, it was lashing rain, not another soul in sight. I opened the compost chest marked “in current use.” Nothing alarming seemed to be happening so I closed it again. After a few minutes our beautiful Compost Queen came. We chatted. She told me about the work that running the compost group involved. She had volunteered to Paris City Hall when they were looking for people interested in starting one in their neighborhood and they gave her a one-day course in composting and planting. So I asked her where and when our compost would be used for planting. She lowered her eyelids as she told me with great sadness that in Paris City Hall, compost comes under “waste” and planting comes under “green spaces,” and “green spaces” doesn’t speak to “waste.”

We pondered this one for a minute or two under our umbrellas. Then we decided just to keep on composting and said goodbye.

Text and photos © 2017, Niamh Tixier

Niamh Tixier is Irish and has been living in Paris for several years.

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By Gary Lee Kraut and C. C. Bell

Partly sunny with a few dark clouds – that’s both the day’s weather and the mood of la flâneuse as she dresses for a day of idle wandering about the city. She’d like to get over to the Luxembourg Garden to see the tulips at some point in the afternoon, but she has no set schedule, no firm plans. She’ll do what she does, see what she sees.

Fresh from the shower she opens the top lingerie drawer of the dresser bought last fall at the neighborhood vide-grenier (garage sale). It’s a Made-in-France day, she thinks, a never-know-who-you’ll-find, never-know-who-you’ll-come-across day.

She smiles as she selects the comfortable Madame Aime (7 Fashion) mesh hipsters with lace trim, smiles as she recalls buying them as much for the look as for the name of the brand. Aime, pronounced like her first initial. This is Aime’s day, she thinks. She feels too nude in the matching bra so she chooses a simpler, blue Madame Aime triangle.

The flaneuse opens her Ikea closet. Feeling both insouciant and determined she takes out her new pair of Terre des Anges (Kiplay) jeans.

To break them in, she thinks. She crouches down, as though to get close to the tulips, to see how the jeans feel. Just fine.

Light pink cardigan, decides the flaneuse. She puts it on. Then, opening the window and putting her hand outside, she recalls the saying En avril ne te découvre pas d’un fil (in April be wary removing too much thread). She’ll hold off on the cardigan until a sunnier day, or until May, when you fais ce qu’il te plaît (do what pleases you). The grey and ivory Chasse Marée (Bonneterie Dupé) pullover will work well today. Work: she laughs at the thought of the word as she pulls the sweater over her head.

Looking in the mirror above the dresser she admires the way the grey and ivory pullover casually shows off her figure (enough, but not too much to be bothered). The sun the dissipates behind a cloud, stealing light from the room. I need some color, she thinks.

She tries on a scarf. No, replies the mirror, too winter. A beret? No, replies the mirror, too… intentional. Several umbrellas hang from the coat stand which she inherited the former renter. That’s it, she thinks, my fuchsia and navy blue striped Pierre Vaux umbrella, practical yet suave on a you-never-know walk-about day like today.

La flâneuse goes into the living room and stands back from the ornately framed mirror above the chimney (circa 1890). She holds the umbrella against her chest like a sword. Perfect. Ready to rumble, she thinks, or at least amble. Only then does she look down at her feet and laughs at herself for having left them undressed.

Is it too early in the season to wear her Mangalani sandals?, she thinks. Oh, but the butterfly leather reminds her of a palate of spring flowers. In April, be wary of removing too much thread, goes the saying, but removing a bit of leather, why not! She take her sandals from the bookcase in her hallway, and with it her Mangalani purse.

Fatimata Soumare, Parisian designer of the confidential line of Mangalani sandals, ballerinas and purses, is a solo entrepreneur. Unlike the others mentioned here she came to the field not by following in the footsteps of her parents but by departing from the footsteps of her fellow lawyers.

One last look in the mirror and la flâneuse is ready to stroll, to wander, to idle, and to follow her nose, her eyes, her intuition, with the vague notion that she will eventually reach the Luxembourg Garden, to see the tulips in bloom.

© 2017, Gary Lee Kraut / C.C. Bell

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By Herbert H. Hoffman

In our younger years, long before we met, we had both been to Paris. We had seen the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Champs Elysées, the Arc de Triomphe and other sights, most of them on the right bank of the Seine. We were now a couple, American tourists revisiting a city we had separately loved the first time. Friends had suggested that we might like the left bank this time.

We took their advice. We rented an apartment on rue du Bac, a street we didn’t know. “Our” house was at no. 40. The third floor leaned a little and the floor boards creaked at every step, making us walk as if we were at sea. It was the romantic milieu we had sought.

Rue de Bac is an old street, a former cattle-driving path leading to the ferry (le bac) across the Seine to what is now the western end of the Louvre. There is a bridge now, the Pont Royale, completed in 1689.

On our first evening in Paris we had dinner near the bridge at Le Terminus at no. 5 rue du Bac. The name of the restaurant refers to the nearby railroad station that was eventually transformed into the Orsay Museum. About 400 years ago, Charles d’Artagnan, the dashing captain of the King’s Mousquetaires, once rented rooms at no. 1 rue du Bac. The fusion of dates in a single location let us know that that certain parts of Paris run on a time table that differs from what we are used to at home in Southern California. It was just the beginning of our realization that Parisians store the memories of their notables on streets throughout the city, including a good many on rue du Bac.

The following day we discovered that at no. 44 we had another illustrious neighbor, so to speak, a ghost of more modern times, André Malraux whom people of our age group remember as DeGaulle’s minister of cultural affairs. Some of us know him for his novel La Condition Humaine, Prix Goncourt, 1933. He finished that book in a room just one door south from where we were billeted. He was a difficult neighbor, it seems, and some wit once said that he was one third genius, one third hard to follow and one third totally incomprehensible. He died in 1976 and is buried in the crypt of the Pantheon.

Another of De Gaulle’s ministers also once resided at no. 44. He was Maurice Couve de Murville. His portrait appeared on the cover of Time for February 1964 because he had important dealings with the United States. As France’s foreign minister, he had the unpleasant task of informing President Lyndon Johnson that the French government, convinced that America’s policies would lead to failure, could not lend support to the Vietnam enterprise. Unfortunately he was right, and we now had a glimpse of the ghost of Vietnam to add to our list. The poet Charles Baudelaire had set the scene for us when he wrote about the cité pleine de rêves, où le spectre, en plein jour, raccroche le passant, where ghosts by daylight tug the passer’s sleeves.

Our sleeves were tugged again a day later. Branching off rue du Bac across the street from our building is the short rue Montalembert, named for a writer and publicist of the 1830s who, incidentally, also once resided at our own address, no. 40 rue du Bac. As we followed this little street we came to rue Jacob where we stopped at no. 56, in front of a most important monument for a visitor with an interest in American history. It was here that Benjamin Franklin, John Jay and John Adams negotiated and, in 1783, signed the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War and officially recognized the United States of America as an independent country. The building itself is not the original one but the site—am I too sentimental to say this?—remains the birthplace of the USA.

No Frenchman has been more celebrated in America than the Marquis de Lafayette, friend and trusted ally of General George Washington. There are at least twelve cities in the United States called Fayetteville. There are also three Lafayette townships, two Lafayette counties and one Lafayette parish. One of the Marquis’ homes was at no. 183 rue de Bourbon, several blocks around the corner from rue Jacob. It is a lieu de memoires that invited us to speculate what might have become of the American Colonies had France not been on our side. The French-American admiration goes both ways. We were happy to learn, for example, that the Marquis named his eldest son George Washington de Lafayette.

Americans have many friends whose spirits still hover over or near rue du Bac. We promptly located another: the writer Romain Gary, who resided at no. 108. He won the Prix Goncourt, a prestigious literary prize, twice, for The Roots of Heaven and The Life Before Us, respectively. Apart from being an essayist, soldier, politician, diplomat, pilot and secretary of the French delegation to the United Nations, he was also a friend, almost an American himself, working as a screenwriter in Hollywood and later as consul of France in Los Angeles. He died in 1980. His ashes float in the Mediterranean.

The American artist James Whistler lived at no. 110 from 1892 to 1901. He died in London in 1903 and is buried across the channel, but his mother—at least her stern portrait officially titled “Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1” (1871)—remains in Paris and is now a stone’s throw from rue du Bac, in the Orsay Museum.

The writer François René de Chateaubriand was still a very young man in Franklin’s day. He was astute enough, however, to have observed that in the days before the French Revolution turned ugly the ordinary people of Paris were enthusiastic about the Americans’ struggle for independence (from the King of England, that is). In the street, if not in the royal palace, “le suprême bon ton était d’être américain“, the coolest thing was to be American, Chateaubriand wrote in his memoires. He traveled to America and met General Washington. He describes this visit in great detail, finishing his account by calling Washington “le soldat citoyen, libérateur d’un monde,” citizen soldier and liberator of a world. He confessed in his memoires how happy he was that the General received him and that he has felt a certain excitement about the encounter all his life: “je m’en suis senti échauffé le reste de ma vie“. Chateaubriand remained a lifelong friend of America and years later remarked with satisfaction that “la république de Washington subsiste; l’empire de Bonaparte est détruit,” Washington’s republic lives; Napoleon’s empire is dead. We were truly surprised to find such a good friend at no. 120 rue du Bac. Across the street in a little park there’s a sculpture, a bust really, of this remarkable man. His remains are not in the Pantheon. They are in St. Malo where this stubborn writer and diplomat from Brittany had wished to be buried.

As an aside it’s worth noting that Chateaubriand’s longtime friend Madame Récamier was with him when he died. That was in 1848. She died a year later. She is known to many of us because Jacques-Louis David portrayed her in a thin white something reclining on a two-headed couch. We now call that sort of sofa a Récamier. The picture hangs in the Louvre.

One of the cross streets of rue du Bac is rue de Varenne. There, at no. 50, stands the Hôtel Galliffet, where, in 1797, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand was installed as foreign minister during the Directoire period of the new French Republic. (It is now the Italian Cultural Institute.) It is no exaggeration to say that Talleyrand was the most ingenious politician and statesman of the French revolutionary period and beyond. It is said that First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte was a guest here at one of his parties. By 1803 Talleyrand was Napoleon’s adviser, an appointment that had incalculable consequences for the new United States. Napoleon had plans to expand French possessions in the Americas. President Jefferson was aware of these plans and feared that the United States, then a small country, might lose docking privileges in the formerly Spanish, now French harbor of New Orleans. He sent envoys to negotiate lease terms. Napoleon’s plans had changed, however, and Talleyrand, his negotiator, suggested that the President just buy New Orleans outright, and the rest of Louisiana as well. All American school children know about the Louisiana Purchase which doubled the territory of the United States. It was news to us that we have to thank Monsieur de Talleyrand for that.

Another important person was at that party in 1797, Madame de Staël. She was a champion of liberty, freedom of speech and democracy, a prolific writer, critic and mover of ideas. She met or corresponded with everybody who was anybody, anywhere, from Auguste Comte, Lafayette and Lord Byron to Emerson, Goethe and Pushkin. Politically she was opposed to Napoleon I, Emperor of the French. He exiled her because the dislike was mutual. By 1815 Napoleon was out, however, but Madame was not. She had good judgement and saw the world clearly. Some wit suggested that with Napoleon now gone there were only three powers left to save Europe: England, Russia and Mme de Staël. Such was the woman who had her salon at no. 94 rue du Bac, an influential woman who had nothing but good to say about America. “You are the advanced guard of the human race,” she is reported to have said. “You have the fortune of the world.”

At the Seine end of rue du Bac the river road was once called quai des Théatines, now quai Voltaire. There, at no. 27, another illustrious man of letters, Jean Arouet, dit Voltaire, died in the home of his friend, the Marquis de Villette. He did not live to witness the signing of the Treaty of Paris, but he knew Franklin and apparently liked him enough because it is said that he referred to the struggling colonies as “Franklin’s New World.” Voltaire, incidentally, once suggested that it was the duty of all men to examine their hearts and ask if religion should not be charitable rather than barbaric. The question is still open.

Before the great renovation projects of Baron Haussmann in the 1850s and 1860s, rue du Bac was connected to rue St. Dominique. Alexis de Tocqueville was born in 1805 at no. 77 rue St. Dominique, above what is now an Irish pub. In 1831 the United States was still somewhat of a mystery. The French government was eager to learn how things were done in this new republic. They sent a young de Tocqueville to find out. His two-volume report became a classic, known to us as “Democracy in America.”

The spirit of Charles Louis, Baron de Montesquieu caught up with us on rue St. Dominique, mainly because my book discussion group had recently studied his De l’esprit des lois. He is another important Frenchman for Americans because his ideas were widely read in the second half of the 18th century and were in part responsible for the way the Constitution of the United States was conceived. He did not live to see what he had helped create. He died in 1755 on a visit to Paris, probably at a friend’s house at no. 16 rue St. Dominique.

Antoine-Nicholas de Condorcet lived at no. 6 rue St. Dominique. He had much to say about the American Revolution. Shortly before his death in 1794 he wrote a treatise outlining how its development could ultimately benefit the world. His particular concern was an extensive bill of rights that would go farther than the Constitution did at that time. He foresaw the need to abolish slavery, for example. Our forefathers should have listened to him. Without his encouragement it took us another seventy years to accomplish that. Tragically, he did not survive the French Revolution.

America has still another friend whose memory lives on in Paris, the poet Charles Baudelaire. While it is difficult to say where in Paris Baudelaire lived—he lived in many different places—it appears certain that he once lived at no. 21 rue du Bac, in a house that is still there, a house with a huge stone portico spanning an extra wide wooden portal. “J’ai longtemps habité sous de vastes portiques...” he wrote in La Vie Anterieure, which increases the probability that it was this house.

A decade or so after de Tocqueville’s voyage, an American poet burst upon the Parisian scene, Edgar Allan Poe. Some say that there is a melancholic string in the French soul and that Poe’s somber moods made that string vibrate. Baudelaire and Poe never met but they were kindred spirits. Here is a stanza from Baudelaire’s poem Spleen, translated by Kenneth O. Hanson:

When the low heavy sky weighs like a lid
Upon the spirit aching for the light
And all the wide horizon’s hid
By a black day sadder than any night…

“…un jour noir plus triste que les nuits” – a black day sadder than any night? Well then, how about “Once upon a midnight dreary”?

If the French understood Baudelaire, how could they not love Poe? It is not hard to see why Baudelaire felt compelled to translate The Raven, and everything else Poe wrote, into French. To this day, it is said, Poe is better known in France than in America. How comforting to know that we have cultural as well as political ties across the ocean. And the story does not end here. Messrs. Harper Brothers, Poe’s publishers, commissioned the well-known French painter Gustave Doré to illustrate The Raven, the original English language edition, with twenty-five engravings. Over the years these illustrations have become almost as important and as gripping as Poe’s words. And the work has endured. Doré, it turned out, is another spirit floating over the neighborhood. The house where he lived with his mother was no. 73 rue St.Dominique, across the street from the Tocquevilles’.

Who would have thought that America has so many friends among the ghosts of this old neighborhood?

© 2016

Herb Hoffman and Joan Preston visit France from their home in Southern California as often as possible. They enjoy walking the streets and stumbling upon places that hint at a story which Herb then puts into words.

The post Street Talk: The Ghosts of Rue du Bac appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.