Quaismodo would be impressed were he to return now to the cathedral that he inhabited as Victor Hugo’s beloved and maligned hunchback. He would immediately feel at home within the stone walls and wooden frames of the towers of Notre-Dame. Yet the cathedral has also changed and brightened since he knew it as Hugo’s fictional bellringer in the 15th century. There are new elements and much has been restored over the centuries, including its most recent restoration from the fire of April 15, 2019. But I imagine that Quasimodo would be enthralled as we were as we climbed the southern tower, examined gargoyles and chimeras, took in the extraordinary view, stood before the great bells, and descended through the northern tower.

As you would expect, the 360-degree view of Paris is well worth the effort of climbing 424 steps, despite the chicken-wire enclosure from which we take it all in: the city’s rooftops and monuments, church towers and spires, river and bridges, and the spire of Notre-Dame itself rising right before us.

The view over the city isn’t all that makes this visit worthwhile. There’s more to the new climbing route than the grand view. Quasimodo would be in awe to stand face to face, as we did, with the cathedral’s two great bells or bourdons, though these aren’t the ones that he so loved to ring: the 6-ton bourdon Marie, cast in 2012, which sounds a do, and the 13-ton bourdon Emmanuel, cast in 1686, which sounds a fa. The latter is France’s second largest bourdon after the 18-tonner known as La Savoyarde at Sacré Coeur Basilica, the church that we see on the hill to the north.

In bringing the hunchback to life on the page in 1831, Hugo also called for new life to be breathed into the then-dilapidated cathedral. Over the ensuing decades, appointed architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc honored that call by leading a massive restoration while also reimagining missing or degraded elements, taking liberties here and there. The tower route gives a close-up view of several of the 54 animal and demon chimeras that he and an assistant designed. Those that were heavily damaged during the fire of 2019 have recently been replaced with copies, as has Viollet-le-Duc’s spire of 1859. Even if none of these were known to Quasimodo, we are tempted to do as he did and “spend whole hours crouched before one of the statues in solitary conversation with it.” But visitors today don’t have such luxury of such time when visiting the towers.

My own climbing group, comprised of journalists specialized in cultural heritage, had the enlightening pleasure of touring the towers in the company of Viollet-le-Duc’s current successor, Philippe Villeneuve, chief architect in charge of the restoration and reconstruction of Notre-Dame de Paris since the fire.

As we rose, he steered our eyes to various eras and elements of construction and major restoration. The current restoration work in response to the fire will likely continue through 2028, he said.

Even without Villeneuve’s insightful company, you’ll see along the way two major markers of his conceptual work. First, the massive oak spiral staircase, partially in double revolution, that Villeneuve designed for the passage from the second landing to the medieval stone staircase in the tower. Villeneuve’s staircase was shaped and puzzled together by an exceptional band of carpenters in Normandy. Throughout our visit, he sang praises to the dedicated, high-level artisans he’s worked with over the course of the restoration. As he points up to his work, a glimpse of the peak of the spire tatooed on his arm peeks out from beneath his sleeve.

Second, from the top of the south tower, you’ll look out to the real spire rising from the roof. It’s crowned by the flaming golden rooster—symbol of France and of the resurrected monument—that Villeneuve himself designed to replace the fallen, damaged rooster that has now been placed in one of the chapels inside the cathedral. On this national monument belong to the State, not the Church, the rooster crows above the Cross. View the full spire, accompanied by bells, on the 15-second video below.

On the way down, we glimpsed through windows “the forest” of oak beams, cut from throughout France, that form the roof beams. They replaced the medieval forest where the fire originated before consuming it into the night before the eyes of the world.

No more than 26 visitors are allowed to start the climb per 15-minute time slot. Contrast that with the lengthy queue down below leading to a shoulder-to-shoulder shuffle along the cathedral floor. Comparatively, a visit to the towers, culminating with the grand view (even if limited to 5 minutes), feels semi-private, nearly exclusive.

All that’s required is a timed ticket, to be reserved in advance, at a cost 16€ or free for under 18s and adults with the Paris Museum Paris or the Passion Monument pass. While you needn’t be a high-level athlete to climb the 424 steps to the top, do be aware of your own limitations before undertaking the endeavor. The winding staircases include some narrow passages less than 18-inches wide as well as low sections where someone over 5’10” or so is well advised to watch their head.

Along the way, there are levels to pause on, where one can learn a few historical tidbits on information panels about the towers and the bells. There is no elevator. There is no WC. Families are discouraged from bringing children under 6.

Timed ticket to the towers of Notre-Dame should be reserved only through the official site managed by France’s Center for Historical Monuments. Even free tickets require reservations.

From great heights in architectural history to great heights in culinary history

Epilogue: From great heights in architectural history we crossed over the Seine to great heights in culinary history as we pursued our conversation with Philippe Villeneuve at one of Paris’s other celebrated tours, La Tour d’Argent (The Silver Tower). That’s the famous gastronomic institution with the stunning view of the Notre-Dame’s chevet, the portion of the cathedral that radiates in an eastern flourish. Even with the crane and scaffolding that remain on that side of the cathedral, the view from the upper-floor restaurant is a sight for well-heeled, well-fed eyes. We, however, settled into the bar on the ground floor, where we were entertained and informed by Villeneuve’s insightful, cutting, wit-laden accounts of these past seven years of restoration—the wonder, the toil and the beauty of the work on the one hand and the egos, the politics and the back-stabbing on the other. Listening to his vision of architectural and decorative triumphs and failures and to his expression of emotional zeniths and nadirs, the current guardian of the temple seemed to embody both Viollet-le-Duc and Quasimodo. His thirst was quenched with water brought not by Esmeralda, however, but by a polished server from the Tour d’Argent.

As a further treat, André Terrail, owner of the Tour d’Argent made a gracious appearance. While the restaurant is heir to a history that begins with the creation of an elegant inn on this site in 1582, Terrail is heir to the celebrated restaurant that his grandfather, also named André Terrail, purchased in 1911. It was then a ground-floor restaurant, raised to the top in 1936. The Tour d’Argent has now developed into something of a “village,” to use the current Terrail’s term, with its restaurant, its rooftop and ground-floor bars, its grocer next door, its bakery across the street, and beside that its rotisserie. There’s even an apartment with the fab view that can be rented for the night (1800€).

Despite the Tour d’Argent’s visual affinity for Notre-Dame, I’m not promoting it here as the natural extension of a visit to the towers, however many Michelin stars its restaurant may or may not receive in a given year (in 2026 it has 1). Nevertheless, one’s got to go somewhere after the extraordinary experience of climbing to the top of the cathedral, and it might as well be somewhere that’s also earned its place in Paris history and lore, someplace accessible, if not to Quasimode, then perhaps to the likes of Victor Hugo, Viollet-le-Duc, Philippe Villeneuve, and yourself.

© 2026 by Gary Lee Kraut

Also read Notre-Dame: An Interview with Witnesses to a Dazzling Restoration

The post The Quasimodo Climb: Visiting the Towers of Notre-Dame de Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Not that “obvious” had stopped her from buying a dozen Eiffel Tower keyrings from a Senegalese tchotchke seller at Trocadero. At least she then had something for everyone on the field hockey team. But she still needed gifts for her three best friends. Larger Eiffel Towers? That was my immediate suggestion. Her response was beyond “obvious.” She lifted her eyes, heavy as bowling balls, and rolled them my way to convey the message “How could you possibly understand my life?”

I understood her life well enough to know that well-timed pastry stops would keep the souvenir conundrum at bay for a time. It had been easy enough on day one to say that she’d surely find something in the next neighborhood we’d visit but first she just had to try a spectacular chocolate éclair. But the Latin Quarter, the Saint Germain Quarter, Montmartre, the gift shop at the Louvre, Rue Saint-Honoré, and the Champs-Elysées had all come and gone, and the sweet distraction of pastries, crepes, chocolates and macaroons now barely lasted beyond the final bite.

Here we were on day three, their last day in Paris, and the need to find the perfect Paris memento for her friends had reached fever pitch. She would never go anywhere with her mother again. If her mother had any friends of her own, she’d understand. Her mother, Paris, the entire world had all conspired to make her miserable. She spared me in her diatribe other than to sigh loudly every time I spoke.

The woman was doing everything in her power to stay calm, mixing reprimand with sighs of her own with ignoring the girl, and confiding in me that her daughter had had a “monthly visitor” the other day. A few times that morning we’d stepped into boutiques so that the mother could soothe herself by caressing the sleeves of high fashion, only to be pulled from her fantasy by the sound of her daughter declaring, “That’s ugly.”

Finally, I said aloud what I’d been thinking all along. Actually, I’d already said it on day one, when neither mother nor daughter was ready to hear me then. When I’d said it again on day two, during our visit to Galeries Lafayette, the mother had paid attention and said, “Listen to Gary, he knows.” To that, the girl spat back, “He doesn’t know my friends.”

I was now about to give it one final try. I’d been biding my time for the past 30 minutes of misery until we were just several steps from the shop I had in mind. I consider good timing one of my best qualities as a guide and I was prepared put that to a test. We turned onto Rue Vieille du Temple. I stopped in front of the Labonal shop, positioning myself so that she would see the shop window. I steeled myself against an eventual rebuff. And I said it again, in a gentle, inquiring tone: “How about socks? French socks.”

“Everyone has socks,” she said. There were tears in her eyes.

“But not everyone has French socks,” I said. “I bet your friends don’t, and they’d love them. See all those chic women and girls walking around?” Good timing again, three cheerful young women were strolling past us on the sidewalk. “They’re all wearing French socks and tights.”

I pointed at a colorful pair in the window. “Look at those. They have a little French logo on them. You and your friends will be the only girls at school with French socks. It’ll be like your own private club.”

She actually looked. She wiped her tears. She raised her chin to a sock on display and said, “That one’s cute.”

We went in. We came out, bearing gifts, happy. I knew the perfect place nearby for ice cream.

10 French Sock Brands

Nothing says “I strolled through Paris” like tri-color socks (blue, white, red) or a discreet French logo above the ankle or on the toe, or much more that you’ll find in the ten Made-in-France brands that I’ve selected here.

While so much textile manufacturing has moved overseas in the past 40 years, France continues to produce a surprising amount fun, funky, chic, sports and workaday socks and hosiery.

I’ve selected a mix of well-known, lesser-known and little-known sock and hosiery brands that will add a hop to your step, or a loved one’s, when you get back home. Some of these brands also extend to underwear and other knitwear. Several have their own shops in Paris and elsewhere. Those and the more widely distributed brands can also be found in department stores and sock shops. Still others are largely only available through the brand’s website. Orders from overseas are likely to be cost-prohibitive, so order them to be delivered to you in Paris. In all cases, be sure to look for Made in France or Fabriqué en France on the label.

You’ll find your French socks and underpants vocabulary at the end of this list.

Labonal

The brand of the shop of my happy tale above makes good quality socks for men, women and children with a mix of lively designs and solid colors and a variety of fabrics. Labonal Pulse is their brand of sports socks while La Frenchie by Labonal is a lower quality range.

They have a number of branded boutiques and reseller displays throughout France. In Paris, the Labonal shop in the Marais is located at 11 rue Vieille du Temple. That shop also sells Garçon Francais briefs, described below, along with other French-made knitwear. Labonal is one of a handful of shops selling made-in-France products in the area. On the nearby street Rue du Bourg-Tibourg, L’Appartement Français sells sock brands Broussaud, Bonpied (1 pair purchase = 1 pair given to the homeless) and Royalties, along with other French textiles and footwear. Labonal, based in Alsace, celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2024. Their factory, which can be visited, is just off the picturesque Alsace Wine Route in Dambach-la-Ville, midway between Strasbourg and Colmar.

Bleuforêt

Bleuforêt is a major brand of French-made socks and tights made by Tricotage des Vosges on the opposite side of the Vosges Mountains from Labonal.

Though not luxury products, the Bleuforêt range includes some excellent quality socks using pure and blended fabrics, including cashmere, silk and alpaca, known for comfort rather than fantasy, with many solid colors. The Vosges area of northeast France is historic home for the knitwear industry that began to dry up in the 1970s before this and other companies rekindled the knitwear flame in the 1990s. The company also produces some underwear. The brand is sold in many stores including their own. Among their Paris locations, there’s a tiny shop at 20 rue des Francs Bourgeois in the Marais, and another at 101 rue de Rennes in the Saint Germain Quarter.

La Chaussette de France (LCF)

Troyes, the former hosiery capital of France, 95 miles southeast of Paris, once employed up to 25,000 people in the knitwear industry. The town’s Musée de la Maille, Mode et Industrie tells its rich hosiery history. Despite the decline of textile production throughout France, Troyes has managed to hold out with about 3,500 employed in the industry. (Troyes is also known for its factory outlets.) LCF is especially noteworthy for its sporting socks—running, hiking, skating, cycling and mountaineering, and most particularly skiing, with a variety of graphics and colors. LCF is the sock brand of the Manufacture Tismail group, which has been knitting in Troyes since 1961. Among other places, some LCF products can be found in Paris at Au Vieux Campeur, a mountain and hiking specialist with shops concentrated in the Latin Quarter.

KlaK 

KlaK used to be call Sorry or Not Sorry, which derived that playful name from its message socks with half of the text above the heel to the left and the other half to the right. The messaging, mostly in English, continues under the catchier brand name KlaK. For example, Just + Married (perfect for the Paris honeymooner), Girl + Power, I ♥ + Apéro (for those who celebrate wine o’clock), Best + Friend, Need + Love, Sexy + Runner, Champagne + Please and Need + Coffee, among others. Founder Alice de Guyenro says that she launched her products in 2019 in her own image, as a shy gal daring to draw attention to herself, or at least her feet. Her products are most in black and white. The full range of KlaK socks can be read and purchased on her online shop, which also indicates the locations of physical shops that carry KlaK.

Label Chaussettes

Xavier Sauzay and Guillaume Deniau date their interest in entering into the sock trade to a semester abroad in Asia, where they discovered the popularity of socks as fashion in Shanghai, Seoul and Taipei. Returning to France, they also noticed that the Made in France textile trend was then underway. At the age of 26, they launched Label Chaussettes in 2019. Their brand has two major elements: on the one foot, cheery and colorful socks designed by artists, and on the other, logo socks for which they partner with such brands as La Vache Qui Rit (Laughing Cow processed cheese), France Rugby, Asterisk, Monsieur Madame (Mr. Men), and the French Navy. Their socks are made in the Limousin region of France, specifically in the factories of Broussard Textiles, a major player in Made-in-France socks. Broussard also produces for Slip Français and Klak, among others, including their own namesake brand.

Garçon Français

Garçon Français means French boy, so this is a brand for the boy or man in your life, or, guys, for yourself.

Socks represent a small portion of the brand, but here you can match your briefs for those special occasions when showing a bit of ankle is just the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Impress and attract Francophile friends in the locker room with Garçon Français written above your ankle, at the base of your foot and on your waist band. Founded by (Mr.) Vicky Caffet, the brand is headquartered in Troyes and knitted 20 miles northwest in Romilly-sur-Seine, a town whose sock manufacturing stretches back to the 19th century. As many on this list, a visitor will primarily find the socks through their direct internet shops, though French resellers, indicated on their website, can also be found throughout France. In Paris, Garçon Français briefs and socks are both available in the Marais at Les Dessous d’Apollon (Apollo’s Underwear), 8 rue de Moussy. The brand’s briefs (not socks) are currently sold in the Labonal shop noted above.

Berthe aux Grands Pieds

If you’ve ever strolled in the Luxembourg Garden in Paris and admired the statues of Queens of France and Illustrious Women on the terrace above the central basin, you may have noticed among them a certain 8th-century Frankish Queen Berthe (Bertha or Bertada in English). She was the wife of Pepin the Short and mother of Charlemagne. More importantly for this brand, she is said to have had one foot larger than the other (or perhaps a clubfoot), earning her the nickname Berthe au Grand Pied (Bertha with the Big Foot or Bertha Broadfoot).

Someone was bound to use that for a brand of socks, and that someone is Régis Gautreau. His company makes playfully sexy and chic socks, tights and tabis. While primarily a women’s brand, Berthe aux Grands Pieds also has attractive collections for men and children. Here’s an idea for a single souvenir from a London-Paris trip: BAGP’s men’s or women’s “God Save Berthe” Union Jack/The French Queen socks. BAGP has its own shop in Nantes, a tiny boutique in Passage Pommeraye. Additionally, the BAGP website indicates the addresses of resellers in Paris and throughout France, including at shops operated by Manufacture Perrin. Manufacture Perrin, located in southern Burgundy, is the producer of BAGP socks. Founded in 1924, Perrin also knits for La Chaussette Française and Le Slip Français, among others. The factory can be visited.

Missegle

Rather than coming from the world of finance or fashion, as some of those noted above, Myriam Joly, this company’s founder, comes from a rural farming background. She raised a troop of angora goats for their mohair for a decade before turning to producing high-comfort textiles with natural fabrics—mohair, merino, yak hair, camel hair, organic cotton, silk, mercerized cotton—for socks (nearly half of sales), as well as sweaters, scarves, gloves and bonnets.

Durability, sustainability and comfort are Missegle’s watchwords rather than high design. Myriam created the company in 1983, at the age of 26, and is still at it, though her son Gaëtan now oversees the operation. In 2007 she bought a knitwear workshop in Burlats, 50 miles east of Toulouse, deep in the rural department of Tarn. Missegle is one of only several workshops in France to loop-stitch by hand to create seamless socks for happy feet. Though not all of the natural fabrics come from the region (e.g. yak hair from Mongolia), Missegle production is firmly planted in the region, with the dyer and spinner workshops within 12 miles of the knitwear workshop. Other than a shop at the workshop site, Missegle products are only available online.

Le Slip Français

“Slip” means briefs and “français” means French, so underpants in French flag colors are naturally the flagship products of Le Slip Français, a Paris-based brand founded in 2011 by Guillaume Guibault. While primarily an underwear brand, the company also produces sock. Le Slip Français products are widely distributed, with over 150 resellers throughout France. It has branded boutiques in Paris, Nantes and Toulouse. The Paris boutique is located in the Marais at 137 rue Vieille du Temple.

Kindy

Kindy is an old brand for rather basic cotton socks that has been in and out of bankruptcy over the past decade but continue to sell French-made socks with little French flags above the ankle. The company is headquartered in the village of Moliens, between Amiens and Rouen in northern France. While the French-flag socks are made in France, not all Kindy products are. Be sure to check the label.

Your French socks and underpants vocabulary

Socks = chaussettes
Ankle socks = socquettes
Tabi socks = chaussettes tabi
Knee socks = chaussettes hautes
Stockings = bas, collant
Tights = collant
Underwear = Sous-vêtements (for all); lingerie (for women)
Briefs = slip (typically designating underwear for males)
Panties = culotte (typically designating underwear for females)
Boxer shorts = caleçon
Long johns = caleçon long

© 2025, Gary Lee Kraut

As mother told daughter, “Listen to Gary, he knows.” Planning to travel with your beloved teen? See here.

The post Made in France: Socks, the Gift That Saved Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

When asked to create a Paris itinerary and touring plans for individual travelers, I respond with questions:

What are your interests, hobbies and ages? Have you been to Paris before? Where are you staying? Are you in decent walking shape or have any mobility issues? Do you speak much French? Do you have any dietary restrictions? Do you drink wine? Will you want for shopping (for anything in particular?) or simply stop into boutiques if anything strikes your fancy along the way? Do you have a sense of how much guided time you’d like? What are you looking to get out of your stay in Paris?

Altogether, the answers provide me with information that ensures not only that that my clients won’t be over-walked or over-museumed, under-shopped and under-wined. They also allow me to imagine creative ways to enable them to visit sights, explore neighborhoods, understand history, experience culture, and satisfy their hunger and thirst in ways that are meaningful, rewarding and enjoyable to them.

Many clients will give cursory responses to my questions then cut to the chase, saying:
– We’re not museum people but want to see highlights (definitely Notre-Dame and the Eiffel Tower), or
– We like learning history and seeing different monuments and architecture (and we want good pastries, of course) but want to keep it relaxed, or
– Here’s the list of what my 18-year-old daughter/granddaughter wants to do.

The most common response, however, goes something like this:

We want to visit the main sights without having to wait in line. We don’t mind touring on our own but would like some guidance. We like walking but also want to take breaks. We want local food experiences but don’t need anything fancy. We want to try great pastries, and we are wine drinkers, in moderation. Can you help us?

I certainly can!

If you identify with that request, here’s my nearly personalized itinerary for you, including a selection of major sights, varied neighborhoods, easy-going bistros and brasseries and bars, and GPS-guided audio tours to steer you as you go.

Day 1: Feel the Pulse of the Historical Heart of the City then Stroll Along the Champs-Elysées

Morning
Arrive at Notre-Dame Cathedral by 9:30am (or in any case no later than 10am) to enter with little wait (entrance is free, and stop panicking about a timed reservation!) then walk the length of the City Island on which it stands, past the former royal palace, through charming Place Dauphine, and to the sublime river views as you cross the Pont Neuf (the New Bridge). Next bridge upstream, set out on an essential visit of the central Right Bank with my VoiceMap audio tour Exploring Paris of Dreams and Nightmares: The Dark Side of the City of Light.

Lunch
As you follow that audio tour, sample Paris from any of the many cafés, bakeries and other tempting and tasty eateries along the route. (You can pause the tour at any time.) Or wait until the end of the tour for lunch. Here are three welcoming options within a several blocks of the tour’s endpoint: the uber-traditional, easy-going Bistrot des Halles, the cozy and historic brasserie Le Zimmer, and the upbeat wine restaurant Le Robe et Le Palais.

Afternoon
Stroll the full-length of the Avenue des Champs-Elysées—including visits to the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais and perhaps several shops along the avenue—accompanied by my audio tour The Champs-Elysées: from Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe. At tour’s end, climb the Arc de Triomphe for a sweeping view over Paris (ideally with a pre-purchased, timed ticket or Paris Museum Pass). Then metro over to Trocadero for a fabulous view of the Eiffel Tower.

Evening
Head to a lively neighborhood to raise a glass or two at the joyfully old-fashion and inexpensive wine bar Le Baron Rouge. Prefer a beer? Fishtail around the corner to the character-filled Troll Café. Then stay in the neighborhood spirit for dinner at one of the numerous eateries in the area. Consider L’Ami Pierre, if you dare, for a plunge into Paris bistro life by night or Jouvence for a neo-bistro experience. There are also plenty of pizzerias, cafés and other inexpensive eateries in the neighborhood.

Day 2: Linger on the Left Bank then Meander in Montmartre

Morning
Begin your explorations of the central Left Bank in the Latin Quarter, where student life meets the Parisian bourgeoisie on alluring streets. Peek in at the food shops and stands at Maubert-Mutualité to get a sense of neighborhood market life. Visit the tomb of Saint Genevieive in the beautiful Saint Etienne du Mont Church. Take in the imposing and important Pantheon (avoid the line with an advance ticket or a Paris Museum Pass). Then leave the city streets to take an enchanting stroll with my audio tour of The Left Bank’s Most Elegant Park: Exploring the Luxembourg Garden so as to take part in the lifestyle of the Left Bank that is the Luxembourg Garden.

Lunch
Sample excellent French produce, cheese and more at the Saint Germain Market and nearby bakeries (Maison Mulot, Secco) and pastry shops (Arnaud Larher, Pierre Hermes). Or saddle up for wine and light snacks (call them tapas if you like) at Avant Comptoir du Marché.

Afternoon
Complete your visit of the central Left Bank with a walk through the Saint Germain Quarter, the chic, charming and boutiquey neighborhood that thrives at the heart of Parisian café society. Then head to Montmartre, starting at the metro station Abbesses or Anvers, to climb the hiil to Sacré Coeur before taking a well-earned seat for a drink at the hill’s historic eatery-drinker La Bonne Franquette. Then wind your way down along Rue Lepic all the way to the Moulin Rouge.

Evening
Stay within the atmosphere of Montmartre with dinner at La Mascotte Montmartre for fresh fish and seafood and other fine brasserie fare.

Day 3: Meet Mona at the Louvre, The Thinker at the Rodin, Napoleon at the Invalides, and peek in at luxury boutiques in between

Morning
View Mona and more at the Louvre Museum (get a timed reservation for 10am at the latest and brace for the crowds), then air your mind from your heady art history experience with a noble garden walk with my audio tour The Tuileries Garden: The Royal Walk from the Louvre to the Champs-Elysées.

Lunch
Keep it simple and full of character for lunch at Le Petit Vendôme, a busy bistro where where Parisian joie-de-vivre meets tourist joy-of-travel.

Afternoon
Before and after lunch, go window-shopping in the lap of luxury on Rue Saint Honoré and Place Vendôme. Then head over to the Rodin Museum for an easy-going, sculpture-spotted stroll in the park, along with a coffee stop in its garden café. Enter the museum itself, if in the mood, for a thorough view of Rodin’s work. Then visit Napoleon’s Tomb nearby and, if so inclined, the medieval armor portion and more of the adjacent Army Museum.

Evening
Discover casual, modern, moderately-priced Parisian gastronomy in a neighborhood not yet visited above. Here are some suggestions: L’Oyat, L’Escuella, Aux 2K, Caillebotte, Petit Boutary. Then augment the evening at a jazz club such New Morning, Sunset/Sunside, Duc des Lombards, Caveau de la Huchette.

Be sure to check opening times for all of the suggestions above.

Looking for an even more customized itinerary and personalized touring? Contact me directly for travel therapy by phone and more.

© 2025, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Three Days in Paris: Your Nearly Personalized Itinerary appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

But I’d like you to remove your rose-colored glasses for now as I lead you into the shadows that are the subject of my new VoiceMap audio tour Paris of Dreams and Nightmares: The Dark Side of the City of Light. Along with the charm of its route through the central Right Bank of Paris, this is an unflinching journey through France’s dark past, where torture, assassination and terror are among the building blocks of the beauty that surrounds you.

The route passes major landmarks, vibrant streets, inviting cafés, alluring pastry shops and boutiques, soaring churches, and the playful Stravinsky Fountain, as it reveals both the enchantment of the present and the cruel events of the past.

Watch this video introduction before reading on.

These aren’t ghost stories or legends that I tell; these are historical events that shaped Paris as you see it today. In understanding the terrible building blocks of the City of Light, you’ll gain an important appreciation for how its beauty and brutality have coexisted throughout history.

Here’s one location covered on a tour, a memorial garden inaugurated in the summer of 2025:

The Dark Side of the City of Light now joins my VoiceMap audio tours to the Luxembourg Garden, the Tuileries Garden, and the Champs-Elysées as another of my essential self-guided walking tours to major aspects of Paris and its culture, splendor, history, and life today.

Though VoiceMap is primarily designed to provided GPS-guided audio tour for use on site, I’ve uploaded photos for each of the tour’s locations to allow armchair travelers to fully follow along. So you can listen from your home computer or your iPhone or Android anywhere even if you don’t have Paris plans. Then use the downloaded tour again whenever you do make it Paris.

The VoiceMap Touring App is available from the Google Play Store and the App Store. On your home computer just go to VoiceMap.me. Once you’ve signed up with VoiceMap and purchased the full tour, you can listen to it on your phone, tablet or computer, or all three, on site, on the road or at home.

Even without signing up, you can listen to the first three locations before deciding whether you want to download the full tour.

If, after downloading the app, you don’t land directly on one of my tours, you’ll find them easily by searching “Gary Kraut” in the VoiceMap search block, or by clicking or tapping directly on the author’s page of these Paris audio guides.

© 2025, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Paris of Dreams and Nightmares: Exploring the Dark Side of the City of Light appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

On the one hand, I have a natural aversion to recommending virtual reality tours for travelers. After all, we travel to be someplace, not virtually but actually. On the other hand, virtual reality tours, in addition to being entertaining, can be informative and insightful when there’s a historical or otherwise important unseen component to complement and enhance a visit to the real deal.

Virtual historical reality tours will become increasingly immersive, seamless and sensorial in the years ahead. As they stand, aside from their entertainment value, do they help travelers on site understand and further appreciate what they’ve come to see?

Curious about the added value of the virtual historical reality tours now available within actual sight of three major monuments in Paris, Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Eiffel Tower, and the Louvre I took a test run of their respective magic goggles on site. For Notre-Dame that meant in a subterranean zone one hundred yards in front of the cathedral. For the Eiffel Tower that meant during a stroll along the Champs de Mars, the park that leads to the tower on Paris’s Right Bank. For the Louvre that meant a walk from one end of its courtyard to the other.

All three proved to be both informative, entertaining and recommendable as complements to actual visits inside of these important monuments.

Eternal Notre-Dame: Amaclio Productions’ virtual reality tour of Notre-Dame Cathedral

Notre-Dame is currently inaccessible to the general public, as it has been since the fire of 2019 destroyed its roof and steeple. The cathedral is scheduled to reopen in December 2024, though under what conditions is not yet known. The virtual reality tour, reached from an underground entrance at the far end of the square in front of the cathedral, is currently programmed to end on September 30, 2025.

Following along with a handsome, well-spoken electronic guide (choose your language), the virtual reality tour of Notre-Dame leads visitors to the doors of the cathedral then inside, through various steps of the building’s medieval construction, 19th-century restoration, and current rehabilitation. It’s an extensive tour. In 45 minutes, while walking and turning in all directions, visitors get a close-up view of the structure inside and out, from various heights, while encountering works and learning about its elements in stone, glass and wood. Visitors “ride” a platform to the upper reaches of the cathedral to stand near a rose window and then higher to visit “the forest” of oak rafters and beams that form the wooden framework, those elements that burned during the fire of 2019. Details are also given about medieval Christianity and the structure’s theological underpinnings. All is made understandable to a wide public.

Altogether, this is an excellent tour that’s as visually compelling as it is informative. And complementing the virtual tour, visitors then visit at their own pace an exhibition about the current renovation and reconstruction. Objects and models along with explanatory panels and interviews in French and in English provide visitors with a clearer understanding of elements touched on during the virtual tour: recreating the wooden framework of the forest, restoring stained glass, the grand organ and the bells, replacing stone vaulting and sculptural elements, and conducting research.

The combination of the virtual reality tour and the exhibition afterwards make for an exceptional and entertaining introduction to the cathedral for those with little prior understanding of the construction and current restoration of the cathedral and is equally fascinating for those already acquainted with Our Lady of Paris. The virtual tour last 45-minutes, to which you need to add departure time and time to visit the post-tour exhibition, so count 70-90 minutes altogether.

I recommend getting a good look at the façade of Notre-Dame and a side view as well before taking the virtual reality tour. Then, after the virtual tour and exhibition, now armed with a deeper appreciation and understanding of the architectural and artistic glory of the cathedral, reconsider the actual façade, take a walk around the full perimeter of the building, and, of course, enter to admire the Notre-Dame’s dazzling restoration and luminous interior.

Practical considerations

There’s a cost to virtual reality tours that may be prohibitive to some. The experience at Eternal Notre-Dame costs 30€99 for adults and 20€99 for children under 17, though on certain days and times adults pay the children price, particularly off season.

Groups of up to six people set off together at the same time, with individual headsets speaking in your chosen language. Each person wears a headset and carries a backpack containing what is essentially a laptop computer while walking along the underground maze. Precise instructions and indications keep you moving and prevent you from bumping into other visitors. The glasses/headset adjust well and the tour is captivating enough that it’s easy to forget the equipment and enjoy the walk. However, the backpack is bit cumbersome, and for anyone with a bad back, carrying it for 45 minutes may be uncomfortable.

Brief pauses between scenes within the virtual universe can be momentarily confusing, but the lit path and your virtual guide will return soon enough to point you in the right direction as you walk.

The minimum recommended age is 11, though children as young as 8 may be admitted. However, given the weight of the backpack and the need to precisely follow lit directional indications so as to avoid bumping into walls and, especially, other visitors, this virtual reality tour may not be appropriate for a small and fidgety preteen. Or you can hold your child’s hand as guidance.

For further information and reservations see Eternal Notre-Dame.

Eternal Notre-Dame was produced by Amaclio Productions, a company that has developed other virtual reality and sound and light shows in France, including at the Invalides in Paris, the Cité de l’Histore at La Défense (Eternal Notre-Dame is also available at that site), Mont Saint Michel, and the Carrousel of Saumur.

Viality Tour’s virtual reality and actual walking tour near the Eiffel Tower and in the courtyard of the Louvre

While Viality Tour’s virtual reality tours of the Eiffel Tower and the courtyards of the Louvre don’t have the same high production value as Amaclio’s well-financed Notre-Dame tour, what makes it worthwhile is that these tour has its iconic monuments in plain view and is given by actual human guides, and delightful ones at that. The tour was developed by the young start-up team of Vladina Flaquière and Michel Dang. One or the other may be your guide.

The Eiffel Tower: The goggle-wearing virtual portion of the tour takes users through the construction of the Eiffel Tower from 1887 to 1889 and into the Universal Exposition of 1889 for which it was built. Much of the exposition sprawled along the Champs de Mars, the very park where you’ll be walking. The Champs de Mars formerly served as the parade grounds for the nearby Military Academy (Ecole Militaire).

Vladina or Michel or an assistant rather than an avatar is your actual guide. Speaking French or English depending on the scheduled or private group, your guide explains what you see in the goggles as you stand and turn in 360 degrees. You do not walk while wearing the goggles. Instead, between virtual scenes, you then remove the goggles and approach closer and closer to the actual tower. During that time, the tour continues with the actual Eiffel Tower in view as your guide provides further details about what you see today and answers any questions you may have. So this is both a virtual and an actual tour, lasting about 75 minutes, accompanied by your affable guide and with numerous photo ops along the way.

Vladina has worked as a licensed guide at various chateaux in Brittany, the Loire Valley and Versailles, before teaming with Michel to develop Viality Tour. She continues to guide at Versailles. Michel, the equally affable tech half of the team, holds a masters in marketing and worked as a junior product marketing manager with Netgear before he and Vladina partnered to create Viality Tour. Michel does the computer modeling with the assistance of a graphic designer as well as the team’s communications work.

With or without actually going up in the tower, this is an excellent introduction to it. If unwilling to deal with the tickets, lines and crowded elevators, the Viality Tour—both its virtual and actual realities—can serve as your informative visit in and of itself.

If interested in the Viality Tour and also planning to go up the tower, try to sync the two by scheduling the Viality Tour so that it ends 15-30 minutes before the timed ticket you’ve purchased (well) in advance to go up. That will allow for a nice segue from one to the other while allowing you time to go through the security line at the tower. (Viality Tour will not purchase your Eiffel Tower ticket.)

The courtyards of the Louvre: As much as I appreciated Viality’s Eiffel Tower tour, I found their Louvre tour even more interesting and informative. Visitors to the museum are typically unaware of the Louvre’s evolution over the past 800 years from fortress to castle to palace to museum, and even less aware that it was once connected to another palace, the Tuileries Palace. On an outdoor walk with several virtual reality stops from the far eastern end of the Louvre to nearly its far western end, this tour guides visitors through various eras of the construction of the Louvre and the Tuileries, up until 1871, when the latter was set ablaze by the Paris Commune. You’ll near forget the hundreds of people queuing up for the museum and milling about… until the end when you join them.

You don’t have to join them just yet, however, since the Viality Louvre tour make for a nice complement to the audio-guide that I’ve created to the Tuileries Garden for the VoiceMap app, The Tuileries Garden: The Royal Walk from the Louvre to the Champs-Elysées. The Viality Tour ends about where mine starts, with minimal overlap.

The Eiffel Tower tour lasts about 75 minutes. The Louvre tour last 10-15 minutes longer. Each costs 29€ for adults and 19€ for children 8 to 17. Children under 8 are not accepted. Groups can consist of up to 10 people.

For further information and for the tour schedule see the Viality Tour website. Though the indicated language of the tour may be French, it may also be conducted in English, so inquire about that possibility when reserving. With sufficient advance planning, privatization for your own group may be possible upon request.

Vladina and Michel plan to extend the Viality Tour concept to other major monuments of the city over the coming years.

© 2024, 2025 Gary Lee Kraut

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There’s an association in Paris called the Académie Rabelais whose mission, as stated in their by-laws, is to “Encourage among its members and their friends joie de vivre, optimism, good humor, indulgence, gaiety, the spirit of friendship and of remembrance, and respect for the principles of Master François Rabelais: laughing, irony, wisecracking, joyful singing, le gai savoir, eating well and drinking well.”

Reading that mission statement, I thought, “Now there’s a party I’d like to attend!” And so I did, though we didn’t call it a party. We called it lunch with Bruno Carlhian, author of an excellent guide to owner-operated Paris wine bistros, and several members of the Académie Rabelais, under whose auspices the book was published.

La Tournée des Patrons is the clever title of Bruno’s guide. La tournée—the round or round-up—refers to both a round-up of bistro-keepers—des patrons—and the round on the house that owners might offer their clients. In selecting the 100 eatery-drinkeries included in the book, Bruno sought out “authentic” bistros (quotation marks in the original), which he defines as individually owned establishments open throughout the day (i.e. not just at mealtime) and that have a café/bar counter. Fresh, homecooked food is de rigueur, but most important is the presence and personality of the bistro-keeper, one who knows his wine.

A criminal defense attorney, a gallery owner and a contractor walk into a bistro

That’s not the opening of a joke but the start of a cheerful afternoon since they were the three fellow academy members to join Bruno and me at Le Guersant, a bistro on the western edge of Paris, in the 17th arrondissement. Bruno himself is a journalist specialized in food, wine, gastronomy and agribusiness. I’d asked him to choose the bistro for our lunchtime interview.

There’s no mistaking the atmosphere of a neighborhood bistro when you enter shortly before 1pm: several people are standing at the bar counter with a glass of wine or beer or a demitasse; someone behind the bar, who may or may not be the owner, looks up from his or her task to return your ecumenical Bonjour messieurs-dames with a Bonjour, monsieur; beyond the bar there’s a room with few if any empty seats, where a server, who may or may not be the owner, twists through narrow passages between tables or chairs carrying a thick pork chop and potato purée and a square of beef and frites or some such homey dishes; on nearly every table there’s a bottle or at least glasses of wine in various stages of consumption, and you recognize your lunch companions at the far table by the window by their slight nod in your direction, even if you’ve never met them before.

In choosing Le Guersant, Bruno was nearly giving me a scoop. The jury that he presides over within the Académie Rabelais had recently decided that in the spring of 2025 Nicolas Gounse, the bistro’s proprietor, would receive the academy’s trophy La Coupe du Meilleur Pot. The trophy has been awarded annually since 1954 to a bistro-keeper in Paris or the near suburbs whose establishment does justice to the notion that bistro life is best served by the offering of the quality wines of independent growers, personally selected by that bistro-keeper. The trophy takes the form of a wooden box topped with the tin decoration of a cup, a bunch of grapes and a specific kind of bottle called a pot. A pot is a 46 cl vessel with a thick base into which wine from a barrel or from a larger bottle is poured.

It isn’t the wine list itself that’s honored with the trophy. As with the selections in La Tournée des Patrons, the Académie Rabelais pays homage to a bistro-keeper with the wherewithal, the personality and the dedication to operate a welcoming all-day bistro with a bar counter. The wines available have been personally selected by the bistro-keeper as opposed to checked off from a list in a wholesaler’s catalogue. “Quality wines of independent growers” does not mean expensive wines. These are, after all, unpretentious, everyday neighborhood bistros. In short, when it comes to wine, Nicolas Gounse and other winners of La Coupe du Meilleur Pot can talk the talk, without pretention, with the best of them. And from the way the conversation unfolded at Le Guersant over the next 2½ hours, I gathered that my table companions from the Académie Rabelais were among those best of them.

Acceptance into the Académie Rabelais

The Académie Rabelais’s origins date to the Second World War, when a group of writers, journalists and cartoonists who’d left Paris during the German Occupation began gathering in Lyon, which was then in France’s Unoccupied Zone. Guided by local gastro-insiders well acquainted with the keepers of bouchons, as the bistros of Lyon are known, the group began meeting over food and wine. Progressively, as the German Gestapo took anchor in Lyon, those wartime gatherings came to an end. They were revived post-war, in 1948, at Château Thivin in the Beaujolais wine region near Lyon, where the group formalized their association as the Académie Rabelais. Refer to the opening lines of this article for the academy’s humanist mission. Among other events and outings, the academy gathers for dinner three times per year as well for one weekend in a wine region, where they meet winegrowers and restaurant owners.

Nicolas Plescoff, the gallerist at the table, a specialist in 20th-century art and sculpture, has been the academy’s president for the past seven years. In recounting the academy’s history, he said that in the early 2000s membership underwent a significant change as the elder members from the press fell away and more recent arrivals worked in a variety of professional fields.

The group’s by-laws, which allow for a maximum of 50 members (there are current 46), don’t specifically exclude women, but as yet none has been admitted. Potential members are co-opted through personal relationships, not through blind application. Once recommended by a friend, colleague or family member, a candidate must first be accepted as an intern or apprentice. As such, he is expected to attend academy events for a full year in order to become familiar with its spirit, culture and members, and its members with him. After that year, the board gives an initial stamp of approval (or not) to the intern/apprentice whose candidature is then put before the full membership for a final vote.

With the academy no longer dominated by members of the press—in fact, there are now more lawyers among them—Nicolas Plescoff favors a membership represented by a wide variety of professional fields. As with many aging associations, the academy has difficulty recruiting younger members. He’s therefore is pleased that the academy recently co-opted a 27-year-old who works in the wine trade.

As to admitting women, he said that perhaps the next generation will be more accepting of the possibility, but for now there’s general agreement that the Académie Rabelais should remain an all-men’s club. Members don’t spend their time together making misogynistic or crude comments, he explained, but men change their behavior when their wives or other women are around, which would alter the spirit of the academy.

While the academy doesn’t admit women, make no mistake about it: the contemporary Parisian neighborhood bistro as a cultural institution is not a men’s club. At some times of the day and at some meals, men may indeed outnumber women in a neighborhood bistro, but women can and do enjoy a meal there with equal joy or warmth or indulgence. (Stay tuned for an upcoming article about bistro gals. As a teaser, I note that the president of one bistro-going women’s group told me that one reason they don’t admit men is the annoyance of dealing with mansplaining.)

The Académie Rabelais literary prize

While companionability, wine and gregarious service define a restaurant outing with members of the Académie Rabelais, the academy lives up to the literary side of its name. I refrain from calling any of its members “intellectuals.” In other settings, some of them may be. But once, while discussing books at a bistro bar counter, I made the mistake of referring to a stranger with whom I’d recently clinked glasses as an “intellectual” and I nearly got thrown into the gutter for it. In Paris bistro life, I’ve learned, you can refer to a well-read fellow as a philosopher, an artist, a professor, a wisecracker, even a prince or a fool, but call him an intellectual at your own risk and peril. Pas de ça ici, mon vieux! Suffice it to say that a clever, incisive, humanist spirit and a wealth of knowledge on assorted matters including human nature go a long way toward getting you accepted—if not to the academy, then at least to their companionship and to entertaining conversation in a Paris neighborhood bistro.

A jury within the academy awards an annual literary prize, the Prix de l’Académie Rabelais, to the author of a work of fiction or non-fiction displaying Rabelasian spirit, meaning a work that includes a good dose of irreverent humor, and, of course, wine. Appropriate works, according to the lawyer at our table, are hard to come by, what with all the navel gazing and humorlessness of French literature over the past few decades.

The winner of the 2024 literary prize was Laure Gasparotto for “Si tu veux la paix, prepare le vin” (If You Want Peace, Prepare Wine). The 2023 winner was Charles Senard for “Carpe diem – Petite initiation à la sagesse épicurienne” (Carpe Diem – A Little Initiation to Epicurian Wisdom). The winner receives 50 bottles of Beaujolais wine. Descriptions of the prize-winning books over the years can be found here.

Acceptance into Paris bistro life

Anyone, including non-French-speaking visitors, can take a seat in the dining room of a neighborhood bistro or lean into its bar counter to observe bistro life. Participating in it is another matter. That, according to Nicolas Plescoff, entails being accepted by the keeper of the house or his staff. Beyond the courteous tone of your entrance, newcomers, he said, will quickly be judged by what they order. Margins are tights, so “if you order only an appetizer and a glass of tap water during crowded mealtime,” he said, “you shouldn’t be surprised if you aren’t well received. You’re nearly obligated to order an appetizer, a main course, dessert and wine.” Though our table followed that recommendation and then some, that bona fide exchange of good will is certainly not an actual obligation. Three courses may be one too many for some appetites, which is why the lunch menu is often priced for an appetizer + a main course OR a main course + dessert.

Drinking alcohol is, of course, never an obligation. Yet, for those who do enjoy a glass or two, the following wine advice that Nicolas Plescoff provided is well worth considering: “To be accepted in a neighborhood bistro, first order a glass of white wine as an aperitif.”

“Un verre de vin blanc, s’il vous plaît” (A glass of white wine, please) as the easy-to-recall password to taking part in Paris bistro life? I’ve tried it. It does go far to initiating a conversation with the owner or server (what type of white wine would you’d like? dry, fruity, etc.) and lets that person know that you’re willing to spend a few extra euros at the table. “Un verre de beaujolais blanc, s’il vous plaît,” might further indicate that you’ve got some connoisseur’s cred.

It would be ill-mannered of me to note the quantity of wine consumed at our table during our lengthy lunch. I’ll just say that Nicolas Gounse guided us on a lilting viticultural tour de France. We may not have been typical clients—after all, more than familiar faces here, my table companions had recently notified him of the honor they were bestowing with La Coupe du Meilleur Pot—nevertheless, it was clear to me that we weren’t the only ones in the room in trotting conversation, eating and drinking to great satisfaction. Others around the room appeared to be doing the same. It wasn’t a party atmosphere but, more “authentically,” the ambience of an unhurried lunchtime break from whatever appointments or obligations lay to either side of the meal, in other words of a neighborhood bistro at lunchtime.

I was in no rush to leave. Still, at 2:15 on a Thursday afternoon, after 90 minutes of easy-going conviviality, I expected that any minute now one of my tablemates would state that he had to get back to work and the rest of us would then grudgingly agree. Another 30 minutes passed. Then one of the academicians called Nicolas Gounse over to the table. I was sure that it was to ask him to prepare the bill, or at least to bring coffee. Instead, he asked where we should travel next on our seated tour de France.

Drinking vs. excessive drinking

Bistro, in France, implies that alcohol is served. Wine bistro emphasizes the place of the wine selection there but is not to be confused with a wine bar. In theory, a dry bistro is possible, in the same way that admitting female members into the Académie Rabelais is possible.

Excessive drinking—or drinking at all—isn’t directly encouraged by the bistro-keepers that I’ve come to know. At a neighborhood bistro or wine bistro, selling alcohol does help with the bottom line; turning a profit might even depend on the sale of alcohol, as with many restaurants. The theoretical dry bistro would therefor have an economic challenge in France, perhaps overcome by serving lots of bubble tea.

“Wine is a part of our culture,” said Nicolas Plescoff, referring to both France and the academy. “But we aren’t an association of drunks. It’s important to maintain a certain standing. True, our dinners tend to be well served in wine. Perhaps we drink more than the national average, but we drink good wine.”

Nicolas Gounse, our host here, recognizes that wine is a part of daily life for some clients, the way cigarettes may be. Wine is a part of the culture (and one is free to argue that it shouldn’t be) but, wine or no wine, sociability is a primary aspect of the neighborhood bistro (le bistro de quartier). Without sociability (or refuge so for the solitary), there’d be no reason to qualify it as neighborhood (de quartier). Yes, drink does play a role here, though it would be incorrect to peg a neighborhood Paris bistro today, such as Le Guersant, which is open throughout the day, or the selections in La Tournée des Patrons, as primarily drinking establishments or as places for a teetotaler to avoid. Above all, for readers of these lines, they should be seen as important glimpses into local or neighborhood culture.

Frequent consumption or over-consumption of alcohol may be a societal problem, but it isn’t not specific to wine bistros. In what may come off as a form of apology, I note that, fortunate for Parisians, those who have a glass or two or more in a wine bistro or any other type of eatery-drinkery, or at private party for that matter, typically leave on foot or take public transportation rather than get behind the wheel of a car. Getting behind the wheel of a bicycle or scooter is the more likely danger.

I pace myself well as bottles accumulate on the table. I may slow down or, if necessary, put my hand over the glass to announce that I’ve had enough as the circulating bottle tips my way. I nevertheless don’t hesitate to accept, as I did here, a bistro-keeper’s parting shot of grappa, cognac, calvados, or plum or pear brandy when it arrives with the bill or at the bar counter on the way out. I may not finish the small pour, and some of what’s offered may be rotgut, but I won’t refuse what is essentially a gift of acceptance, la tournée du patron. Again, no obligation.

The deeper I’ve gotten into Paris bistro life over the past year, the more I’ve come to appreciate Bruno Carlhian’s selections in La Tournée des Patrons. While Bruno and his fellow academicians more than hold their own in knowing and enjoying good cuisine, and while they do expect fresh and seasonal ingredients, the quality of the food is not primary in selections for the book or for La Coupe du Meilleur Pot, as it might be for a culinary guide or award. Nevertheless, I vouch for the quality (and the quantity) of my three courses (30€) at Le Guersant: poireaux mimosa, côte de cochon + purée, crème caramel.

I can certainly understand the selection of Nicolas Gousne as recipient for the 2025 Coupe du Meilleur Pot, And I can well imagine the pleasure of being a regular or occasional client at Le Guersant. Alas, it’s across the city from me.

Altogether, a terrific neighborhood bistro and a delectable encounter with Rabelaisian bistro buddies, creators of a gargantuan guide to wine bistros.

Le Guersant, 30 bd Gouvrion-Saint-Cyr, 17th arr. Open Monday through Friday from 9am to 11pm. Nicolas Gounse, proprietor. A successful bistro-keeper naturally needs a good right-hand man or woman. Here, Nicolas is primarily assisted by Romain Gastel, with whom he also worked in other bistros for a dozen years before taking over Le Guersant in 2022.

The bistro is a 10-minute walk from the hotels Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile and the Meridien Etoile at Porte Maillot.

La Tournée des Patrons. Text by Bruno Carlhian, photographs by Gabriel Omnès, drawings by Gab. 20€. The current edition (2023) is an update of first edition from 2016. The academy plans to next update the book in 2026.

La Coupe du Meilleur Pot. See here for a map showing the location of the establishments whose owner has received La Coupe du Meilleur Pot over the years, along with other Académie Rabelais recommendations, many of which appear in La Tournée des Patrons.

For other articles in the Paris Bistro Life series, see here.

© 2025, Gary Lee Kraut

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As we watched the flames rise and the spire fall on Notre-Dame Cathedral on April 15, 2019, those who lived in or had visited Paris before felt a nearly personal sense of loss. Notre-Dame was truly “our” Lady, whether beheld with the eyes of a Catholic or not. Even among the hundreds of millions who saw images of the conflagration but hadn’t yet had the pleasure of visiting the French capital, many spoke of the event as a calamity or a tragedy. Many would wallow in those feelings for days.

But for some, there was little time for heartache. The fire was a call to action—for firemen, the president and government officials (Notre-Dame belongs to the French state), Catholic Church officials, historical architects, scaffolders, logisticians, restoration specialists, foundation managers who would accept pledges and funds amounting to 840 million euros (940 million dollars at the time), lumberjacks, quarriers, etc., and journalists and photographers as well. I, myself, took a call from NBC Philadelphia the night of the fire. But once the (lead) dust had settled, media entrance to the cathedral was carefully limited.

Among those who repeatedly gained access to the wounded monument from 2020 to 2024, few journalists covered the restoration project as thoroughly as Sophie Laurant, senior history and cultural heritage reporter for Le Pèlerin, a weekly Christian general news magazine, France’s oldest continually published magazine (1873).

Even fewer, if any, photographers were authorized to enter the worksite as frequently and extensively as Stéphane Compoint, an independent photojournalist specialized in architecture, cultural heritage and aerial photography, and a World Press Photo winner, tasked with Le Pèlerin to cover the restoration project. Stéphane had earned his stripes as a photographer of Notre-Dame well before the fire; in 2013 he’d made major photographic study the cathedral for a special edition of Le Pèlerin, producing photographs that became precious historical documentation of the state of the cathedral before the fire. From the date of the fire until its reopening, he photographed Notre-Dame on 63 occasions from the inside and nearly as many times from outside.

Several days after the reopening of the cathedral to Catholic and non-Catholic visitors alike on December 8, I had the opportunity to interview Sophie and Stéphane, in writing. As you will read in the combined interview below, theirs is a precious testimony to the restoration process and to its technical achievements, its emotional impact, and the collective and individual investment involved, including their own.

(The original, French version of these interviews can be read here.)

Gary Lee Kraut: In your work you demonstrate an acute sensitivity toward heritage sights in general and religious heritage sights in particular. You’ve undoubtedly visited all of the Gothic cathedrals of France? But before examining these structures with the eyes of a professional journalist and photographer, what was your relationship with these magnificent mastodons of the Middle Ages? Do you recall the first time that you visited Notre-Dame?

Stéphane Compoint: A Parisian forever, I grew up in the 6th arrondissement. My grade school and high school were near Notre-Dame. The cathedral has always been a part of my immediate landscape.

My family was rather secular, even anticlerical. But my maternal grandfather drew closer to the God of the Catholic religion after the tragic death of his oldest son (my uncle), who died from drowning while trying to save a friend, who survived. He therefore became a believer and started going regularly to mass, often taking me with him to churches in the neighborhood (Saint Germain des Près, Saint Sulpice, Saint Séverin, Notre-Dame des Champs, Saint Germain l’Auxerrois, along with Notre-Dame) ever since I was a child. At the very least that taught me to be patient because at six years old mass can seem long. If I was well-behaved, I’d get a box of Legos afterwards!

Sophie Laurant: I grew up in Bourges, a lovely medieval town located in the very center of France. The town has one of France’s most beautiful Gothic cathedrals, built starting in 1195. It rose slightly after Notre-Dame (whose construction was launched in 1163) and is a contemporary of Chartres. Furthermore, my father was a history professor and often gave tours of the monument, of which the inhabitants are quite proud, whenever friends or family were visiting. So I learned at a young age how to distinguish Gothic art from Romanesque art. My father explained to us that Bourges was famous for the red of its stained-glass windows whereas it’s the blue of Chartres that dazzled. He pointed out that our cathedral, unlike most, didn’t have a transept but the shape of the overturned hull of a boat.

I don’t recall the first time that I visited Notre-Dame de Paris. It was undoubtedly with my parents when we went up to Paris as tourists. However, I do remember that when I was a university student [in Paris] I went in one Sunday afternoon when I was feeling quite lonely in the capital. By chance I arrived just when the traditional weekly organ concert was going on. It was magnificent. I went back several times afterward, especially since it was free, which is a blessing for a student.

Gary Lee Kraut: Where were you on Monday April 15, 2019 when you learned that Notre-Dame was in flames. How did your evening unfold?

Stéphane Compoint: I was at home, heaving with sobs! But I quickly got into a long phone conversation with Catherine Lalanne, the editor-in-chief of Le Pèlerin, which projected us both into the immediate future and into action, which did me a world of good. Because it was Monday, the day the weeklies go to press, we had to put in place an appropriate editorial strategy right away, modify the issue due to come out on the following Thursday, and launch a special edition that would be published the following Friday. We didn’t get many hours of sleep that week, but at least we were working rather than sitting passively faced with the enormous loss.

Sophie Laurant: While I was in the metro on my way home from work, I received a text from a colleague, but I didn’t realize how serious it was—not until I reached the foot of my building and got a call from my editor, Catherine Lalanne. She’d just asked that the deadline for our weekly edition going to press be pushed back since it was on its way to the printing press, as every Monday evening. She just had time to insert a large photo and a caption. I then followed the events on TV, while at the same time speaking with a friend who does restorations of historical monuments who explained to me that the outbreak of a fire is the nightmare of companies that restore roofing frameworks. I didn’t turn off the TV until it was clear that the monument had been saved. And the next morning I intentionally took a bus to work that passes by the cathedral. I had to see with my own eyes that it was still there. I even took a picture through the bus window to reassure myself. As soon as I arrived at work, we decided to republish our special edition that we’d brought out in 2013 for the cathedral’s 850th anniversary, adding in updated information. For each copy sold, 1€ was donated to the Notre-Dame fund. We sold 33,000 copies and therefore, from the start, had the feeling that we were being useful. It was important to overcome the disaster. Moreover, the architects [responsible for restoring Notre-Dame] asked to consult Stéphane’s photographs, which at that point had become historical documents.

Gary Lee Kraut: When were able to enter Notre-Dame for the first time following the fire? Tell us how that unfolded and about your impressions.

Stéphane Compoint: Despite its status as a Christian weekly, the negotiations between Le Pèlerin and the state’s media communications directors for the restauration project to allow me to enter the site were difficult. Finally, our salvation came from General Georgelin* himself, the person overseeing the cathedral’s restoration, a believer who was sensitive to the mid-elevation photographic work that I’d done with a tethered balloon in 2013 for the 850th anniversary of the cathedral. We gave him large prints of these photographs and he decorated his office with them. I was able to enter the wounded cathedral for the first time on March 3, 2020, ten and a half months after the fire.

Sophie Laurant: I finally went inside Notre-Dame on October 21, 2020. During the first year [after the fire] the teams were busy with decontaminating the lead and consolidating the cathedral. Also, under the management of General Georgelin, a very strict, top-down administration was put in place to filter press requests. Luckly, Le Pèlerin had published in 2013 a special edition magazine entirely devoted to Notre-Dame, prepared with assistance from the clergy. Stéphane was able to enter for an initial post-fire photo reportage in March 2020. Catherine than insisted—incessantly—to the general and to the communications services for the restoration project that Le Pèlerin wanted a print journalist to be able to enter. They finally accepted for us to become “partners,” allowing us to regularly follow the rehabilitation in pictures and in text. I didn’t go often, but more than most other media.

I have an indelible memory from that first visit of climbing scaffolding, of the incredible view over Paris that then revealed itself. When I reached the top of the walls of the cathedral, I had a view of the charred beams that were still stuck into the angles of the crossing of the transept. That’s all that remained of the base of the spire! It was then that I fully realized the extend of the task that lay ahead.

* GLK note: Notre-Dame Cathedral belongs to the French state and so it is the state’s responsibility to maintain the edifice. The day following the fire, President Emmanuel Macron announced his wish that the reconstruction be complete within five years. General Jean-Louis Georgelin was appointed to spearhead the project the next day. General Georgelin did not live to see it reopened since he died in a hiking accident on August 18, 2023.

Gary Lee Kraut: Carrying out the research necessary for the restoration project gave specialists the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of the building and its history. Were there any discoveries or analyses that particularly surprised or impressed you?

Sophie Laurant: Yes, the researchers were the first to mobilize, immediately after the fire. At the Association des Journalistes du Patrimoine*, we quickly organized press encounters with some of them. Their primary message was the following: “We have a lot of information about Notre-Dame and we have to put it to the service of the restoration.” Immediately, the architects** asked them to take sample, to carry out analyses and studies, to make surveys and collect data throughout the monument in order to document as much as possible all of the elements, including the debris. These details studies enabled them to refine their restoration strategy. For example, to select a limestone very similar to the origin when cutting new stones.

Over those five years, the specialists discovered enormous amounts of information about Notre-Dame. For example, that the walls were consolidated by enormous iron staples. We didn’t think that that technique had been so used in the 12th century.

But the most spectacular discovery is undoubtedly the uncovering during the archeological digs at the crossing of the transept of high-quality pieces of sculptures from the medieval jube [also known as a rood or choir screen in English]. That decorative wall enclosed the church’s chancel, separating the sacred space where mass was said from the more secular space of the nave where the public came to hear (but not see) the service. Catholic liturgy evolved in the 16th century, prompted by the Protestant Reform movement. Jubes were destroyed in almost all churches and cathedrals in order to bring the clergy and the congregation closer together and allow a better understanding the ceremonial rites. However, since the sculpted figures represented Christ, Mary, the Apostles, etc., the workers had the habit of piously burying their pieces on site as they removed them. That’s why archeologists have found pieces of the jube in many cathedrals, such as in Bourges or Chartres. What’s incredible here at Notre-Dame is that sculptures retained colors that would have been lost if they’d stayed in contact with the air inside the building. On certain figures from the Gospels, we see that they have blue eyes or a delicately pink complexion, as in illuminated manuscript from the period. It’s magnificent! They’re now exhibited at the Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages in Paris. I also learned that one of the heads found during prior work on the cathedral in the 19th century, and that’s now found at Duke University in North Carolina, fits perfectly with a bust that was found in March 2022. For a project called “Notre-Dame in color,” the American researcher Jennifer Feltman is pursuing research with French colleagues to gather together the different pieces.

Stéphane Compoint: As a photo-journalist I’ve participated in many campaigns of archeological excavations throughout the world (Egypt, Turkey, Peru, Chili, etc.), including underwater excavations of the Lighthouse of Alexandria from 1995 to 1997, for which I won a World Press Photo. I was particularly moved by the discovery of the medieval jube in the spring of 2022. Seeing the face of Christ, eyes closed, emerging from the archeologists’ large and small brushes in the middle of the crossing of the transept is something that I’ll never forget. I also remember the reaction of the chief archeologist, who was right next to me at that moment: “The greatest emotion of my career!” Since I was the only press photographer on site that day, it gave me even greater professional satisfaction.

* GLK note: The Association des Journalistes du Patrimoine is France’s association of journalists covering all manner of cultural heritage. From 2016 to 2022, Sophie Laurant served as its president. Gary Lee Kraut served as the association’s secretary general 2016-2020. Stéphane Compoint is also a member.

** GLK note: In France, historical monuments are preserved by specialized architects known as “Architectes des Bâtiments de France.” These civil servants entrust restoration projects to other specialists, the “architectes en chef des Monuments historiques.” Philippe Villeneuve is the chief architect in charge of the cathedral restoration project.

Gary Lee Kraut: Over the course of your respective work, you’ve met many craftsmen, workers and managers of the restoration project, in Paris and throughout France. Are there any whose approach or personality particularly impressed or fascinated you?

Sophie Laurant: They were all high-level, passionate craftsmen. I especially appreciated meeting the painting restorer Marie Parant, who coordinated one of the groups that restored the paintings in the chapels of the choir of Notre-Dame. A great admirer of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc*, the architect who painted them in the 19th century, she invited me to visit her workshop near Bastille to show me documents and help me understand the quality of the colors. She also participated in the “chorale des compagnons,” a chorus consisting of all those who took part in the restoration, whether archeologists, logistic specialists, stone cutters, etc. The chorus sang inside the cathedral on Dec. 11, [several days after its reopening,] to celebrate the working community that they formed together. We could sense a real “Notre-Dame effect” that had unified them, a mix of pride with respect to the monument, of the joy of working on a common project, and a fervor for something greater than themselves individually.

I was also struck by the strong personality of Loïc Desmonts, a young lead carpenter (only 25 years old!), who’s redeveloping in Normandy the art of building wooden framework using medieval methods. He and his team cut wood while it’s still green using hand tools. He also promotes the “French-style scribing tradition in timber framing,” which is a way of creating on the ground a full-scale drawing of each piece of the frame before cutting it. That tradition of scribing has existed since the 13th century and is recognized by UNESCO on its list of “intangible cultural heritage of humanity.” While visiting him, I met members of the NGO “Carpenters Without Borders.” Among them were two American craftsmen who spoke to me with tears in their eyes of their love for Notre-Dame, the reason that they came to France to give a hand to their French colleagues. There are in fact very few carpenters anywhere in the world with the know-how to cut the framework in the way it was done back in the day.

Finally, there’s Iris Serrières, a stained-glass artist who works in the company run by her mother, the stained-glass restorer and creator Flavie Vincent-Petit, in Troyes [100 miles southeast of Paris]. When I met this deliberate and joyful young woman, she was hesitating between becoming a theologian and a master glassmaking! Maybe, she said, she could do both. The family workshop restored a portion of the cathedral’s 24 upper bay windows. The two women shared with me their feeling about being a part of a long line of master-glassmakers and of rediscovering how and continuing “to combine intelligence, gesture and spirituality” so that “these windows were again legible.”

Stéphane Compoint: I was impressed by the encyclopedic knowledge that Philippe Villeneuve, the chief architect, has of the monument and by the sound way in which he made decisions that were crucial but far from obvious in the days following the fire. I also appreciated the personality of the head scaffolder, Didier Cuiset, whose academic training is limited but whose know-how is exceptional. Like many journeymen, he comes from a modest background and was brought up with little inclination to speak of oneself, but he had to learn how to explain what he knows and how he knows it in order to satisfy the media. He made a lot of progress in five years.

*GLK note: Viollet-le-Duc led a major restoration of Notre-Dame in the middle of the 19th century. In doing so, he also added new elements, some of which existed but in different forms over the centuries, including the spire that collapsed during the fire and has since been rebuilt.

Gary Lee Kraut: Was there a moment during your journalistic or photographic work inside the cathedral that particularly surprised you or that has left a lasting impression?

Sophie Laurant: There was one moment that I’ll remember for a long time. It was in the spring of 2022 when I decided to interview the crane operator who was piloting the crane from 80 meters (262 feet) overhead. The crane was there throughout the entire project. In order to reach him, I had to take an elevator up to a tiny platform, 60 meters (197 feet) up, and from there climb a caged ladder the final 20 meters (65 feet) before reaching his heated and comfortable cabin. I had vertigo from the start, and I was afraid of stopping paralyzed in the middle of the ladder, suspended in mid-air. I decided that I’d rather give up on attempting the final ascent, because if ever I blocked ongoing work due to a panic attack, I undoubtedly would never be given permission onto the site again. The crane operator, very much at ease up there, offered instead to conduct the interview on the tiny platform! I wasn’t so calm there either, but I didn’t dare refuse. So in the cold and the wind, with the crane lightly swaying, I gathered my courage, avoided look down at the miniscule workers working down below on the temporary roof of Notre-Dame, and I asked him my questions. I’m rather proud to have succeeded because at home I have vertigo on a stool!

Stéphane Compoint: In the summer of 2020, at the end of a day photographing inside the cathedral, at one-thirty in the morning, I was struck by an unexpected encounter with the top of the charred spire imbedded in the exterior curve of an arch of the nave. I’d entered the building at 7:30 a.m. and hadn’t eaten or drunk for 18 hours, but that vision, that photo, was well worth the effort! In the fall of 2020, I also had that first long-awaited overall exterior view that took in all of the devastated wood framing, which I was able to take thanks for a giant tripod (of my own creation) that I’d raised about 15 meters (49 feet) above the devastated transept crossing.

Gary Lee Kraut: Do you feel that the public was sufficiently informed throughout the rehabilitation period? Did you encounter any difficulties doing your journalistic work?

Sophie Laurant: In the end a lot of articles were written. The entire international press covered the project, from near and from far. It’s true that the public powers overseeing the project were selective in choosing media that could enter the site and they limited access. Some of the reasons are understandable. The cathedral was entirely covered in lead dust. We had to get entirely undressed in a special chamber, put on a disposable boilersuit, and take a shower and shampoo when we finally left, like all workers who enter a “contaminated zone.” Furthermore, the project had to be done in five years, so the teams didn’t have much time to devote to the press. Clearly, it was difficult for the journalists to endure, to have to incessantly request authorization to interview anyone involved in the project. But at Le Pèlerin we had the privilege of being able to follow operations on a regular basis. I entered the cathedral seven times over five years. Stéphane entered far more frequently.

Gary Lee Kraut: Sophie, you wrote most of the text and, Stéphane, you took the photographs for the special edition of Le Pèlerin about the “exceptional construction site” of Notre-Dame published to coincide with the reopening of the cathedral. Does this signal the end of the Notre-Dame adventure for you or will you continue to report on and photograph Notre-Dame?

Stéphane Compoint: After the reopening, Le Pèlerin will naturally reduce its written and photographic coverage of the construction site. Nevertheless, work will continue for about another three years on the exterior of the cathedral, particularly around the apse and the buttresses of the nave and the chancel. We’ll try to be present at key moments during that work.

Sophie Laurant: We’re going to continue to follow the restoration which is now focused on the chevet [east end] and gables of the cathedral, outside. Stéphane will also try to exhaustively document the cathedral as it today, as he did in 2013. And we’re going to be very attentive to the choice of master glassmaker who will be designing new windows for the southern side of the nave; the installation of contemporary tapestries in the northern chapel in the next 18 months; the upcoming creation of a museum decided to Notre-Dame in the Hôtel-Dieu [the old hospital that occupies one side of the square in front of cathedral], and the square itself that will be entirely remodeled and modernize so as to allow for a better reception and flow for visitors. We’ll likely be publishing many of these reports on our internet site over the coming years.

Gary Lee Kraut: Having followed the restoration these past five years, has your view of the cathedral changed?

Sophie Laurant: Yes. I now know it very well, whereas before it was just one of many cathedrals that I didn’t enter very often before the fire. And I remember its grey walls, the semi-darkness, the crowds. Now it’s blond, clean, extremely well lit, and that showcases the paintings (now all cleaned) unlike in any other church in France.

Stéphane Compoint: The first thing that changed in my view of the cathedral was that I was better able to measure the extent to which the work of the builders of the 12th and 13th centuries is full of technical achievements. Being able to listen to lead architects speaking often and at length on site is worth any number of lectures in a lecture hall. I therefore learned a lot of fascinating things about a field—architecture—that has always interested me (my father was an architect). And the way I see Notre-Dame has changed because we’ve gone from a dark cathedral to a luminous cathedral, and, like many photographers, I like the light! Finally, I know that from now on I’ll see images of the expert craftsmen and journeymen at work superimposed onto my actual view whenever I visit the restored cathedral, and that’s a privilege.

To learn more about Sophie Laurant’s journalistic work, see here. 
To learn more about Stéphane Compoint’s photographic work, see here. 
Entrance to Notre-Dame Cathedral is free. Timed reservations are not required but can help avoid long lines, especially during busy periods. For a timed reservation, see here. 

© 2024 Gary Lee Kraut / France Revisited

The post Notre-Dame: An Interview with Witnesses to a Dazzling Restoration appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

En regardant les flammes s’élever et la flèche tomber sur la cathédrale Notre-Dame le 15 avril 2019, ceux qui vivaient à Paris ou l’avaient déjà visitée ont ressenti un sentiment de perte presque personnel. Notre-Dame était vraiment « notre » Dame, qu’elle soit vue dans les yeux d’un croyant ou non. Même parmi les centaines de millions de personnes qui ont vu les images du sinistre mais n’ont pas encore eu le plaisir de visiter la capitale française, beaucoup ont qualifié l’événement de calamité ou de tragédie. La plupart ont éprouvé ce sentiment de perte durant des jours.

Mais pour certains, il n’y a pas eu de temps pour le chagrin. L’incendie a été un appel à l’action – pour les pompiers, le Président et les représentants de l’Etat (Notre-Dame appartient à l’État français), ceux de l’Église catholique, les architectes des monuments historiques, les échafaudeurs, les logisticiens, les spécialistes de la restauration, les responsables des fondations qui ont accepté puis géré des dons s’élevant à 840 millions d’euros (940 millions de dollars à l’époque), etc. Même activité intense chez les journalistes et les photographes. J’ai moi-même reçu un appel de la chaîne américaine NBC Philadelphie la nuit de l’incendie, mais aucun média ne pouvait entrer dans la cathédrale durant ces premiers moments. Et même plus tard, lorsque le risque d’inhaler de la poussière de plomb a diminué, l’entrée de médias a été très soigneusement limitée.

Parmi ceux qui ont pu entrer à plusieurs reprises dans le monument meurtri entre 2020 et 2024, se trouvent la journaliste Sophie Laurant et le photographe Stéphane Compoint, tous deux travaillant pour Le Pèlerin, un hebdomadaire chrétien d’informations générales, le plus ancien hebdomadaire de France à être publié sans interruption depuis sa fondation, en 1873.

Peu de journalistes ont été autorisés à pénétrer dans la cathédrale pendant la période de restauration aussi souvent que Sophie Laurant, grand reporter histoire et patrimoine au Pèlerin. Et encore moins de photographes ont obtenu des autorisations aussi fréquemment et aussi largement que Stéphane Compoint, photojournaliste indépendant spécialisé dans l’architecture, le patrimoine et la photographie aérienne, et lauréat du World Press Photo, chargé par Le Pèlerin de couvrir le projet de restauration. Stéphane avait gagné ses galons de photographe de Notre-Dame bien avant l’incendie puisqu’en 2013, il avait réalisé une étude photographique majeure de la cathédrale pour une édition spéciale du Pèlerin, produisant des photographies qui sont devenues une documentation historique précieuse de l’état de la cathédrale avant l’incendie. Entre la date de l’incendie et la réouverture, il a photographié Notre-Dame à 63 reprises de l’intérieur et presque autant de l’extérieur !

Quelques jours après la réouverture de la cathédrale aux visiteurs—catholiques et non catholiques—le 8 décembre, j’ai eu l’occasion d’interviewer Sophie et Stéphane, par écrit. Comme vous pourrez le lire dans l’entretien combiné ci-dessous, il s’agit d’un témoignage précieux sur le processus de restauration et ses réalisations techniques, sur son impact émotionnel et sur l’investissement collectif et individuel, y compris le leur.

Gary Lee Kraut : De par votre travail vous avez une sensibilité aiguisée pour le patrimoine en général et pour le patrimoine religieux en particulier. Vous devez bien connaître toutes les cathédrales gothiques de France. Mais avant de voir ces édifices de l’œil d’un journaliste professionnel, quel était votre rapport avec ces magnifiques mastodontes du moyen âge ? Vous rappelez-vous de la toute première fois que vous avez visité Notre-Dame ?

Stéphane Compoint : Parisien depuis toujours, j’ai grandi dans le 6ème arrondissement, mes collège et lycée étaient très proches de Notre Dame : la cathédrale a toujours fait partie de mon paysage proche !

Ma famille était plutôt laïque, voire anticléricale… Mais mon grand-père maternel s’est rapproché du Dieu de la religion catholique après la disparition tragique de son fils ainé (mon oncle, donc), qui est mort noyé en voulant sauver un ami, lequel s’en est sorti. Il est donc devenu croyant, s’est mis à aller à la messe régulièrement et m’emmenait très souvent dans les églises du quartier (Saint Germain des Prés, Saint-Sulpice, Saint Séverin, Notre Dame des Champs, Saint Germain l’Auxerrois mais aussi Notre Dame) dès mon plus jeune âge. Au moins, ça m’a appris à être patient car, à l’âge de 6 ans, la messe peut sembler longue ! Si j’étais sage, j’avais droit à une boite de Lego à la sortie !

Sophie Laurant : D’abord, j’ai grandi à Bourges, une jolie cité médiévale située exactement au centre de la France. Or, cette ville possède l’une des plus belles cathédrales gothiques de France, construite à partir de 1195. Elle est légèrement postérieure à Notre-Dame (dont le chantier commence en 1163) et contemporaine de Chartres. En outre, mon père était professeur d’histoire et faisait souvent visiter ce monument dont tous les habitants sont fiers, à des amis ou des membres de la famille venus en visite. Si bien que j’ai appris très jeune à distinguer l’art gothique de l’art roman ! Mon père nous expliquait que Bourges était fameux pour le rouge de ses vitraux alors qu’à Chartres, c’était le bleu qui éblouissait. Il nous faisait remarquer que notre cathédrale, contrairement à la plupart, n’avait pas de transept mais une forme de carène de bateau renversée.

Je ne me souviens pas en revanche de ma première visite à Notre-Dame de Paris. Ce fut sans doute avec mes parents, lorsque nous « montions » à Paris en touristes. Cependant, je me rappelle que lorsque j’étais étudiante, j’étais entrée, un peu par hasard, un dimanche après-midi où je me sentais très seule dans la capitale. Et, par hasard, je suis tombée au moment du traditionnel concert d’orgue hebdomadaire. C’était magnifique et je suis ensuite revenue plusieurs fois. Surtout que c’était gratuit : une aubaine pour une étudiante !

Gary Lee Kraut : Où étiez-vous le 15 avril 2019 quand vous avec pris appris que Notre-Dame était en flammes et comment s’est déroulé votre soirée ?

Stéphane Compoint : J’étais chez moi, attaqué par des sanglots ! Mais je suis entré très vite dans une longue conversation téléphonique avec Catherine Lalanne (la rédactrice en chef de Pèlerin), ce qui nous a tous les deux projetés dans un futur proche et dans l’action, ce qui m’a fait un bien fou ! Car nous étions un lundi, jour de bouclage des hebdomadaires, et il a fallu tout de suite mettre en place une stratégie éditoriale adaptée, modifier l’édition à paraitre le jeudi suivant et mettre en route un n° hors-série à paraitre le vendredi suivant…. La semaine fut très courte en heures de sommeil mais au moins nous étions dans le travail plutôt que passif face à cette immense perte !

Sophie Laurant : J’étais dans le métro, je rentrais chez moi du travail. J’ai reçu le SMS d’une consœur, mais je n’ai pas réalisé que c’était grave. C’est seulement arrivée au pied de mon immeuble que j’ai reçu l’appel de ma rédactrice en chef, Catherine Lalanne : elle venait de demander qu’on recule le bouclage de notre numéro hebdomadaire qui partait à l’imprimerie, comme tous les lundis soirs. Elle a juste eu le temps de faire insérer une grande photo avec une légende. Du coup, j’ai suivi tous les événements devant ma télévision, tout en dialoguant avec un ami restaurateur de monuments historiques qui m’expliquait que les départs de feu sont la terreur des entreprises qui restaurent les charpentes. Je n’ai éteint la télé que lorsqu’on a appris que le monument était sauvé. Et le lendemain matin, je suis passée exprès en bus devant la cathédrale : j’avais besoin de vérifier de mes yeux qu’elle était toujours bien là. J’ai même pris une photo à travers la vitre, un peu rassurée. Dès je suis arrivée au journal, nous avons décidé de republier notre hors-série paru en 2013 pour les 850 ans de la cathédrale, avec évidemment une actualisation. Sur chaque numéro, 1 € était reversé pour la collecte en faveur de Notre-Dame. Nous avons vendu 33 000 exemplaires… Nous avons donc eu, dès le début, le sentiment d’être utiles. C’était important pour surmonter ce désastre. D’ailleurs, les architectes ont demandé à consulter les images de Stéphane qui devenaient des documents historiques.

Gary Lee Kraut : Quand avez-vous pu rentrer à Notre-Dame pour la première fois après l’incendie ? Pouvez-vous nous raconter l’aventure et vos impressions ?

Stéphane Compoint : Malgré le statut d’hebdomadaire chrétien, les tractations entre Le Pèlerin et les responsables médias du chantier pour me laisser accéder au site furent très difficiles. Finalement, c’est du général Jean-Louis Georgelin lui-même (chef de l’Établissement Public chargé de reconstruire la cathédrale*), croyant et sensible au travail photographique à mi-hauteur (en ballon captif) que j’avais réalisé en 2013 pour le 850e anniversaire de la cathédrale, que viendra le salut. Nous lui avons offert des grands tirages de ces photographies, avec lesquelles il a décoré son bureau… Et j’ai pu entrer pour la première fois dans la cathédrale blessée le 3 mars 2020, soit 10 mois et demi après l’incendie.

Sophie Laurant : Ce fut seulement le 21 octobre 2020. Car durant la première année, les équipes étaient occupées à dépolluer le plomb et à consolider la cathédrale. En outre, se mettait en place, sous la direction du général Georgelin nommé par le président de la République Emmanuel Macron, toute une administration pyramidale qui filtrait les demandes de la presse. Heureusement, au Pèlerin, nous avions publié en 2013, un hors-série entièrement consacré à Notre-Dame, réalisé avec l’aide du clergé. Stéphane a pu déjà effectuer un premier reportage en mars 2020. Ensuite, Catherine a insisté, insisté sans cesse, auprès du général et du service de communication de cet établissement public chargé de la restauration. Finalement, ils ont accepté que nous soyons « partenaires », c’est-à-dire, que nous puissions assez régulièrement, suivre le chantier, en images et en textes. Ce n’était pas beaucoup mais c’était plus que la plupart des autres médias.

De cette première visite, je garde le souvenir des échafaudages à escalader, de la vue incroyable sur Paris qui se dévoilait alors. Quand nous sommes arrivés sur le sommet des murs de la cathédrale, j’ai vu les poutres calcinées encore fichées dans les angles de la croisée du transept : c’était ce qui restait de la base de la flèche ! J’ai ressenti une impression de désolation. Là, tout à coup, je me rendais compte de l’ampleur de la tâche qu’il restait à accomplir.

* NDLR : La cathédrale Notre-Dame étant propriété de l’État français, c’est à l’État qu’incombe l’entretien de l’édifice. Dès le lendemain de l’incendie, le président Emmanuel Macron a annoncé son souhait que la reconstruction soit achevée dans les cinq ans. Le lendemain, le général Jean-Louis Georgelin est nommé à la tête du projet. Le général ne vivra pas le temps de la réouverture puisqu’il décède dans un accident de randonnée le 18 août 2023.

Gary Lee Kraut : Les recherches préalables à la restauration étaient l’occasion pour les spécialistes d’approfondir leurs connaissances de l’édifice et de son histoire. Y avait-il des découvertes ou des analyses qui vous ont particulièrement surprise ou impressionnée ?

Sophie Laurant : Oui, les chercheurs ont été les premiers à se mobiliser, dès le lendemain de l’incendie. A l’Association des journalistes du patrimoine*, nous avons d’ailleurs organisé très vite une rencontre avec certains d’entre eux. Leur premier message était le suivant : « nous avons beaucoup d’informations sur Notre-Dame et nous voulons les mettre au service de sa restauration. » Tout de suite après, les architectes** leur ont demandé de réaliser des prélèvements, des analyses, des études, des relevés dans le monument afin de documenter au maximum tous les éléments, y compris les débris. Ces études très poussées leur ont permis de préciser leur stratégie de restauration. Par exemple, de choisir un calcaire très similaire à celui d’origine pour tailler les pierres nouvelles.

Au fil des cinq ans, les scientifiques ont découvert énormément de nouvelles informations sur Notre-Dame. Par exemple, que ses murs étaient consolidés par d’énormes agrafes de fer. On ne pensait pas que cette technique était autant utilisée dès le XIIe siècle. Mais la découverte la plus spectaculaire est sans aucun doute, la mise au jour, lors de fouilles archéologiques à la croisée du transept, des morceaux de sculptures de grande qualité du jubé médiéval. Ce mur décoratif servait au Moyen Age à fermer le chœur de l’église et à séparer l’espace sacré où était dite la messe, de l’espace plus profane de la nef où le public venait écouter l’office (mais ne voyait pas). Au XVIe siècle, la liturgie catholique évolue, poussée par la Réforme protestante. Les jubés sont détruits dans presque toutes les églises et cathédrales afin de rapprocher le clergé de l’assistance et de mieux faire comprendre le rite.

Cependant, comme les personnages sculptés représentent le Christ, Marie, les apôtres… les ouvriers avaient l’habitude d’enterrer pieusement sur place les morceaux qu’ils démontent. C’est ainsi qu’on a retrouvé des morceaux du jubé dans de nombreuses cathédrales, comme Bourges ou Chartres. Mais là, à Notre-Dame, ce qui est incroyable c’est qu’on a pu sauvegarder les couleurs des sculptures avant que l’air ambiant ne les détruise. Et l’on découvre ainsi que certains personnages de l’Evangile ont les yeux bleus, un teint délicatement rosé, comme sur les enluminures ! C’est magnifique. On peut les voir en ce moment exposés au musée de Cluny, à Paris. Et j’ai appris qu’une tête qui avait été retrouvée au XIXe siècle lors de précédents travaux, et qui se trouve aujourd’hui à l’université américaine Duke, en Caroline du Nord, s’adapte exactement à un buste qui vient d’être retrouvé, en mars 2022. La chercheuse américaine Jennifer Feltman avec le projet « Notre-Dame in color » poursuit la recherche avec ses collègues français pour rassembler tous les morceaux…

Stéphane Compoint : En tant que photo-journaliste, j’ai participé à de nombreuses campagnes de fouilles archéologiques dans le Monde (en Égypte, Turquie, Pérou, Chili, etc.) dont celle sur les fouilles sous-marines sur les vestiges du Phare d’Alexandrie en 1995-1997, où j’ai reçu un World Press Photo. J’ai été donc particulièrement ému par la découverte des vestiges du jubé médiéval, au printemps 2022 : voir un visage du Christ, les yeux clos, émerger des brosses et pinceaux des archéologues au beau milieu de la croisée du transept, c’est quelque chose que je n’oublierai jamais. Je me souviens aussi de la réaction du chef des archéologues, qui se trouvait à côté de moi à ce moment précis : « La plus grande émotion de toute ma carrière ! ». Et puis, j’étais le seul photographe de presse sur le site ce jour-là, ce qui m’a également procuré une grande satisfaction professionnelle !

* NDLR : Sophie Laurant a été présidente de l’Association des journalistes du patrimoine du 2016 to 2022. Gary Lee Kraut servait du secrétaire général du 2016 à 2020. Stéphane Compoint est également membre.

** En France, les monuments historiques sont conservés par des architectes spécialisés appelés « architectes des Bâtiments de France ». Ces fonctionnaires confient les chantiers de restauration à d’autres spécialistes, les « architectes en chef des Monuments historiques ». Philippe Villeneuve est l’architecte en chef des monuments historiques à la tête du chantier de restauration de la cathédrale.

Gary Lee Kraut : En préparant vos articles sur les multiples facettes de la restauration, vous avez pu rencontrer de nombreux artisans, ouvriers et responsables, à Paris et à travers la France. Y a-t-il une ou plusieurs personnes dont l’approche ou la personnalité vous a particulièrement impressionnée ou fascinée ?

Sophie Laurant : Ce sont tous des passionnés et des artisans de très haut niveau. J’ai beaucoup apprécié de rencontrer la restauratrice de peintures, Marie Parant, qui a coordonné un des groupes qui restaurait les peintures des chapelles du chœur de Notre-Dame. Cette professionnelle est une admiratrice d’Eugène Viollet-le-Duc*, l’architecte qui les a peintes, au XIXe siècle et elle m’a invitée deux fois dans son atelier, à Bastille, pour me montrer sa documentation et me faire comprendre la qualité de ces couleurs. Elle a aussi participé à la chorale des compagnons qui s’est formée entre tous les intervenants, qu’ils soient archéologues, logisticiens ou tailleurs de pierre. Ils ont chanté le 11 décembre dans la cathédrale pour célébrer la communauté de travail qu’ils ont tous formé. Il y a réellement eu un « effet Notre-Dame » que nous sentions chez tous : mélange de fierté devant un tel monument, de joie de travailler à un projet commun, d’élan vers plus grand que soi.

J’ai aussi été marquée par la personnalité forte de Loïc Desmonts, un tout jeune patron charpentier (il a 25 ans), qui redéveloppe, en Normandie, l’art d’ériger des charpentes à la façon médiévale : avec ses équipes, il taille le bois encore vert et utilise des outils manuels. Il défend aussi « l’art du trait à la française » qui est une façon de tracer, à l’échelle 1, les épures de chaque pièce de charpente, sur le sol, avant de les tailler. Cet art est reconnu par l’Unesco. Chez lui, j’ai rencontré des membres de l’ONG « Charpentiers sans frontières ». Notamment deux artisans américains qui m’ont parlé, les larmes aux yeux, de leur amour pour Notre-Dame, pour laquelle ils sont venus en France, donner un coup de main à leurs collègues français. Car il existe très peu de charpentiers, dans le monde, qui savent encore tailler des charpentes à l’ancienne.

Enfin, je citerai Iris Serrière, qui est vitrailliste dans l’entreprise de sa mère, la restauratrice et créatrice de vitraux, Flavie Vincent-Petit, à Troyes. Cette jeune fille très réfléchie et joyeuse, hésitait, quand je l’ai rencontrée, entre devenir théologienne ou maître-verrier ! Peut-être, se disait-elle, qu’elle pourrait pratiquer les deux… L’atelier familial a restauré une partie des 24 baies hautes de la cathédrale. Les deux femmes m’ont confié leur émotion de s’inscrire dans une lignée de maître-verriers, de retrouver et continuer à « allier l’intelligence, le geste et la spiritualité » pour « redonner à lire ces vitraux ».

Stéphane Compoint : J’ai été très impressionné par la connaissance encyclopédique du monument par Philippe Villeneuve, l’architecte en chef, et par la sureté de ses prises de décisions, cruciales mais qui n’avait rien d’évidentes, dans les jours qui ont suivi l’incendie. J’ai aussi beaucoup apprécié la personnalité du chef des échafaudeurs, Didier Cuiset, dont le cursus académique se limite à un bac -3 mais dont le savoir-faire est exceptionnel. Comme de nombreux compagnons, il est d’origine modeste et a reçu une éducation où on est peu enclin à parler de soi-même, mais il a fallu qu’il apprenne aussi le faire-savoir pour satisfaire les médias… et il beaucoup progressé en cinq ans !

*NDLR : Viollet-le-Duc a dirigé une importante restauration de Notre-Dame au milieu du XIXe siècle. Ce faisant, il a également ajouté de nouveaux éléments, comme les chimères, ces sculptures de créatures imaginaires et en a remplacé d’autres comme la flèche qui s’est effondrée lors de l’incendie et qui a été reconstruite depuis.

Gary Lee Kraut : Y a-t-il un moment dans vos recherches qui vous a particulièrement surpris ou marqué ?

Sophie Laurant : Je pense à un moment dont je me souviendrai longtemps : au printemps 2022, je devais interviewer le grutier qui pilotait la très grande grue de 80 mètres de haut. Elle a accompagné tout le chantier. Celui-ci m’a fait monter en ascenseur jusqu’à une minuscule plateforme, à 60 mètres de haut où l’on doit ensuite prendre une échelle à crinoline pour franchir les 20 derniers mètres avant d’arriver à sa cabine chauffée et confortable… Déjà, j’avais le vertige, mais j’ai eu peur de rester paralysée au milieu de l’échelle, suspendue dans le vide… J’ai préféré renoncer, car si jamais j’avais bloqué le chantier par une crise de panique, je n’aurais sans doute plus jamais eu le droit d’entrer à nouveau. Le grutier, très à l’aise, m’a donc proposé de faire l’interview sur la minuscule plateforme ! Je n’étais guère plus tranquille, mais je n’ai pas osé refuser. Alors, dans le froid, le vent, avec la grue qui oscillait légèrement, j’ai rassemblé mon courage, évité de regarder les ouvriers minuscules qui œuvraient plus bas, sur le toit provisoire de Notre-Dame, et je lui ai posé mes questions. Je suis assez fière d’avoir réussi, car chez moi, j’ai le vertige sur un tabouret !

Stéphane Compoint : A l’été 2020, j’ai été marqué par la rencontre inattendue avec la partie sommitale de la flèche calcinée, encastrée dans l’extrados de la nef, lors d’une fin de journée de reportage, à une heure et demi du matin : j’étais entré à 7h30, sans pouvoir manger ou boire durant ces 18 heures, mais cette vision et cette photo valait bien tous ces efforts ! A l’automne 2020, il y a aussi cette première vue générale extérieure tant attendue, qui englobe toute la charpente dévastée, que j’ai pu prendre grâce à mon trépied géant (de ma conception) que j’ai élevé à une quinzaine de mètres au-dessus de la croisée dévastée.

Gary Lee Kraut : Estimez-vous que le public ait été bien informé pendant toute cette période de réhabilitation de Notre-Dame ? As-tu rencontré des difficultés en faisant tes reportages ?

Sophie Laurant : Il y a eu énormément d’articles au final. Toute la presse internationale a couvert le chantier, de près ou de loin. Mais il est vrai que l’Etablissement public a choisi les médias qui pouvaient accéder sur le chantier et a restreint l’accès. Certaines raisons sont compréhensibles : la cathédrale était entièrement couverte de poussière de plomb. Donc, il fallait se déshabiller entièrement dans un sas, se vêtir d’une combinaison jetable et prendre une douche avec shampoing au retour du reportage. Comme tous les ouvriers d’ailleurs qui pénétraient « en zone sale ». D’autre part, le chantier devait se mener en cinq ans, donc les équipes n’avaient pas beaucoup de temps à accorder à la presse. Mais c’est sûr qu’il était difficile à vivre, pour les journalistes, de devoir demander sans cesse des autorisations pour toutes les interviews des acteurs du chantier… Et encore, au Pèlerin, nous avons eu le privilège de suivre régulièrement les opérations : je suis entrée sept fois en cinq ans sur le chantier et Stéphane presque dix fois plus.

Gary Lee Kraut : Sophie, vous avez rédigé la plupart des textes, et Stéphane, vous avez pris les photos pour le hors-série important sur ce « chantier d’exception » publié par Le Pèlerin la semaine de sa réouverture. Ces reportages signalent-ils pour vous la fin de l’aventure Notre-Dame ?

Stéphane Compoint : Après la réouverture, Le Pèlerin va évidemment alléger la couverture écrite et photographique du chantier. Néanmoins, le celui-ci va durer encore trois ans environ à l’extérieur de la cathédrale, notamment au niveau de l’abside et des arcs boutants de la nef et du chœur : nous nous efforcerons donc d’être présents aux moments clés de ces travaux.

Sophie Laurant : Nous allons continuer de suivre les travaux qui désormais se concentrent sur le chevet et les pignons de la cathédrale, à l’extérieur. Stéphane va aussi essayer de documenter de manière exhaustive la cathédrale telle qu’elle est aujourd’hui, comme il l’avait fait en 2013. Et nous allons être attentifs au choix du maître-verrier qui doit proposer de nouveaux vitraux pour le sud de la nef ; à la pose de tapisseries contemporaines, dans les chapelles nord, d’ici dix-huit mois ; à la création prochaine d’un musée de l’œuvre de la cathédrale, dans l’hôtel-Dieu, sur le parvis… parvis qui va être entièrement remodelé et modernisé pour un meilleur accueil des visiteurs. Nous publierons sans doute beaucoup de ces reportages sur notre site internet, dans les années qui viennent.

Gary Lee Kraut : Après avoir suivi de près la restauration ces 5 dernières années, votre regard sur la cathédrale a-t-il changé ?

Sophie Laurant : Oui. Je la connais désormais très bien alors qu’elle n’était pour moi qu’une cathédrale parmi d’autres dans laquelle je n’entrais pas si souvent avant l’incendie. Et puis, je me souviens surtout des murs gris, de la pénombre, de la foule… Là, elle est blonde, propre, extrêmement bien éclairée. Cela met en valeur les tableaux (tous nettoyés) comme dans aucune autre église en France.

Stéphane Compoint : La première chose qui a changé dans mon regard sur la cathédrale, c’est que j’ai pu mieux mesurer à quel point le travail des bâtisseurs du XII° et XIII est parsemé de prouesses techniques ! Car pouvoir écouter régulièrement et longuement les architectes en chef sur le terrain, cela vaut tous les cours magistraux d’architecture en amphi ! J’ai donc appris beaucoup de choses passionnantes sur une discipline, l’architecture, qui m’a toujours intéressée (mon père était architecte). Quant à mon regard, il a changé car nous sommes passé d’une cathédrale obscure à une cathédrale lumineuse. Et moi, comme beaucoup de photographes, j’aime la lumière ! Enfin, je sais que, à l’avenir, je verrai des images d’artisans d’art et de compagnons au travail se superposer à ma vision actuelle lors de mes prochaines visites de la cathédrale restaurée : un privilège !

Pour en savoir plus sur le travail journalistique de Sophie Laurant, voir ici.
Pour en savoir plus sur le travail photographique de Stéphane Compoint, voir ici. 
La réservation (gratuite) pour visiter Notre-Dame n’est pas obligatoire. Cependant, elle est vivement conseillée pour un temps d’attente réduite.Voir ici. 

© 2024 Gary Lee Kraut / France Revisited

The post Interview : Notre-Dame, témoins clés d’une restauration éblouissante appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

… you’ve looked in many stores for a new armchair and finally select one from BHV Marais, the department store located across the street from City Hall. You choose the fabric and the color. It’s Oct 22. Delivery is promised in handwriting by the mannerly floor section manager: Délai : +/- 19 Janvier 2024 ou AVANT ! LE PLUS TOT POSSIBLE !! – [Delivery] Date: +/- 19 January 2024 or BEFORE! AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!)–capitals and exclamation points in the original. You have the choice between pick-up at the store or, for 115€, delivery chez vous. The delivery fee seems exorbitant. You’d rather ask a friend with a car to help then take him to dinner. You pay for the chair in full (717€), without delivery, and go about your Parisian life.

Six weeks later, you receive a text message from BHV announcing a delivery delay. The new date is 31 January. You respond that the delay is inacceptable. Your message is ignored. Mid-February, you receive a message announcing that the armchair will be available as of 28 February. This time the message promises, as compensation (dédommagement) free delivery/assembly (livraison/montage), “[normally] billed at 139€.”

A week later, you’ve received no further news of the actual delivery date. It’s now February 21, four months since you paid for the armchair. You’re in the area of BHV so you enter the department store to find someone to speak with. You’re pleased to come upon the same floor section manager who sold you the promise of an armchair. She’s chatting with a colleague.

You greet them kindly: Bonjour. They turn to you with wary expectation. Looking only at the floor section manager, you calmly explain that you’ve received several (plusieurs) delay notices for an armchair that you purchased from BHV Marais four months ago and counting, and still no armchair. She leads you over to her desk and looks up the purchase order, the one with the buoyant and promising capitals and exclamation points, in her own hand: Délai : +/- 19 Janvier 2024 ou AVANT ! LE PLUS TOT POSSIBLE !!

She immediately blames the delay on the supplier, with whom “we always have problems.” Annoyed by the immediate deflection of responsibility, you ask why she kept that detail from you when you purchased the armchair. She says that she didn’t know at the time. You tell her that you have no direct relationship with the supplier, only BHV, so that for you BHV is responsible. “It should arrive next week, monsieur,” she says. “C’est comme ça”—That’s the way it is.

There’s no greater sign of your acculturation in Paris than feeling properly self-righteous and seizing the proper moment to râler (grouse, gripe, grumble). This is it. The battlelines are drawn with a c’est comme ça. Her why-are-you-still-here expression tells you that she thinks that should be enough.

You hadn’t actually intended to râler, you’re not a râleur (grumbler) by nature but by cultural adoption. The floor section manager’s rigid refusal to acknowledge the store’s responsibility is a sign that the moment has come. If you don’t start now, you’ll find yourself wondering while in the metro or in bed or trying to work what you would say or write to best express your frustration with BHV. So you begin with the word that signals to all within hearing distance—the floor section manager and her colleague who is standing nearby. You look the floor section manager in the eye and tell her that the situation is inacceptable. If you’d known it would take so long for the armchair to arrive, you say, you wouldn’t have purchased it.

She returns your square look in the eye as her colleague moves a step closer. She looks to him, he looks to her, they both look to you.

“Un instant,” she says, a sign that she will look on her terminal for proof that the situation is more than acceptable because it is what it is. Indeed, she points at a spreadsheet on her screen and says, “They say it will arrive in one week.” She repeats the offer for free delivery or, she now adds, an 89€ refund. Her tone in presenting the choice is like that of a bored waiter proposing pommes frites or haricots verts. It also bothers you that she’s offering 89€ when the last message spoke of a 139€ delivery value and four months ago she’d offered delivery at 115€. You call her on it. She has an immediate answer: 115€ was an old price. It’s now 89€ for delivery and 139€ if the deliverymen mount the piece of furniture and dispose of the packaging. You tell her that the only mounting required is screwing on the legs.

You’re not sure what to say next and you don’t want to repeat inacceptable so you chose another missile of a word from the râleur’s handbook—you tell her that this is inadmissible.

“I explained the situation,” she says. “Do you understand?”—Vous comprenez? She may or may not be making reference to your accent, but leaving it at that she remains within the rules of engagement. Her colleague inches closer. He can’t seem to focus on his own job until the situation is resolved. You can tell he’s dying to get involved, and he does as he, too, says, “Do you understand?”

What you understand is that you are now culturally obliged to râler further.  You say, “I understand that delivery of my armchair is so long overdue that I’d like to a refund.”

“I’ve given you a choice, Monsieur,” she says. “Delivery at home or an 89€ refund and you pick up the merchandise.”

Yes, you know that you’ll presumably soon have your armchair, whether picked up with your friend’s help or delivered with the legs screwed on and the box removed, and that you can then decide for yourself if you ever want to shop at BHV again. So even though you’re unlikely to make any headway against a business as detached, in your experience, as BHV Marais, and a salesperson as doctrinaire as this, with a workplace rubbernecker by her side, you proceed to tell her (you don’t acknowledge him) that she’s presented you with a false choice (un faux choix), one that is intellectually dishonest (intellectuellement malhonnête; it’s an expression that would get you laughed out of Walmart, but here the number of syllables alone signals that you’re a worthy Parisian adversary) since any reasonable choice would involve a full refund (remboursement total).

As her colleague watches, ready to leap to her defense, she tries to goad you into insulting her personally by asking if you thought she “lied” (menti) when she gave you the original delivery deadline (délai de livraison). You know how this works: Calling her a liar (une menteuse) would label you an aggressor and allow her to call victory and store security. The rules of an in-store râlerie require steadfast concrete reasoning. You won’t fall into her emotional trap. So you tell her that you aren’t here to discuss her feelings. You tell her that you were “duped” (dupé) into buying the armchair, with her own handwriting as proof (la preuve). Four months after the original order, you tell her, the honest choice is between a total refund and, you now add, appropriate compensation.

She says, “Do you want to give me a delivery address or not?”

You’ve had your say and there’s nothing more to do here. Despite your elevated heartrate, you coolly give her your address for delivery, should you decide to accept it. Her colleague walks away. Obtaining an 89€ refund sounds too complicated and isn’t an acceptable number anyway. That thought leads you to declare one more time that the situation is inacceptable and to ask now for the contact information for the complaint department.

She writes down the customer service email address.

One might think that any store salesperson properly trained in customer service would know that few clients would bother making a complaint at that point—after all, the chair is due to be delivered in one week and you’ve apparently accepted free delivery—and so would revert to the customary etiquette of farewell, perhaps with a kind assurance that you’ll be happy with your beautiful armchair. If so, one hasn’t shopped in Paris. As she hands you the slip of paper with the email address, and apparently feeling the need for a final power play, the BHV floor section manager says, “Whatever you send will be forwarded to me and you already have my answer.” You now have no choice but to formalize your grievance (réclamation).

At home, you write to BHV Marais customer service. You keep your message short and direct, just the facts of the delay and the unacceptability and inadmissibility of the offer of simply free delivery. You include a scanned copy of the invoice with its capital letters and exclamation points. You make no personal comments about the floor section manager other than to note your incrédulité regarding her parting shot about this réclamation being dead in the water (lettre morte). You conclude by requesting a full refund for the as yet undelivered armchair.

You’ve done your Parisian best. You’ve presented logic, you didn’t once lose your temper, and you’ve made proper use of two of the three most important words in any proper râlerie: inacceptable and inadmissible, using them sparingly, while throwing in an incrédule and an intellectuellement malhônete to let customer service know that you’re no stranger to complaint departments in France. For the time being you’ve refrained from using the third important word, scandaleux, so as to deploy it at the appropriate time with the appropriate interlocuteur.

Two days later you receive a message signed with a guy’s first name inviting you to please be assured that your request is being treated by the head of the concerned department so as to provide you with a response, and thanking you for your understanding. Business-speak for good luck (bonne chance). Since you’re also invited to rate and comment on his response, you give it a 1 of 5 and comment that the client is only reassured when a matter has been fully resolved, and you thank him in return for his understanding.

Several days later, on a Sunday afternoon, you get a phone call from BHV customer service. The female voice is young and sweet and her words are spoken with a smile. You’re offered free delivery (with the legs screwed on and the box disposed of) plus a 60-euro refund. You comment on the strangeness of that number, 60, remarking that it seems to be resting on its way somewhere. She explains that that’s the amount the manufacturer is willing to reimburse and they won’t give more. Since the number is clearly n’importe quoi (rubbish), you tell her that it is inacceptable for BHV to deflect responsibility in this manner. You further tell her that the so-called free delivery isn’t truly a gift because you had planned on picking the armchair up yourself at the store in January. She responds that delivery nevertheless costs BHV and that you could be reimbursed 89€ if you still wanted to pick up the merchandise. Actually, you would like it delivered but are still annoyed that she’s using 89€ as the figure for dédommagement. You tell her that 89€ is n’importe quoi given that BHV’s text mentioned a delivery value of 139€. She says she doesn’t understand. She says this with such innocent-sounding sincerity that you’re about to lose your own thread of logic, when suddenly you remember that you’re the wronged party and have yet to deploy the most important term of any self-righteous râleur. You use it now.

C’est scandaleux, you say.

You take a deep breath then launch into a mild rant about being dupé by BHV from the start and the floor manager’s faux choix, which was intellectuellement malhonnête, and how your many followers, as they say in French, will soon know that this is inacceptable, inadmissible and scandaleux, until finally she interrupts.

Monsieur, she says, you didn’t let me finish my proposition. You’ll get free delivery and assembly of the armchair, 60€ refunded through your credit card, and a 50€ voucher for in-house purchase.

Whether or not the extra 50€ came from your excellent and emphatic use of inacceptable, inadmissible and scandaleux, you can’t tell. But you know that this is clearly the moment for you to stop de râler and to accept that the négociation has come to an end.

So, with the proper air of resignation, you accept her proposition. And like that, the unacceptability and the scandalousness of the situation disappear like vampires at sunrise.

Once you’ve accepted the offer, you and the customer service rep discuss how and when all this will occur. Her voice is even more soothing and reassuring than before as she explains the timing: the armchair delivered next week, the voucher from BHV within 24 hours, the refund from the manufacturer in 2-4 weeks*. You can nearly smell the floral scent of her perfume. Your own tone is melodious, with a hint of sandalwood, as you provide her with your email address and mailing address. When she says that she knows where that is, you tell her to stop by sometime to see your armchair. The banter is so light and cheery that you nearly forget that you’ll both be glad when the conversation is over. But the time has come for her to ask if there’s anything else she can do for you today, for you to say, “No, that’s all,” and to wish each other un bon dimanche, a good Sunday. She will then return to other dissatisfied clients and you can now decide how strongly you want to advise against ordering anything from BHV Marais.

Very strongly indeed.

© 2024, Gary Lee Kraut

*Six weeks later, when the 60€ has failed to arrive, you wonder if BHV has pocketed the refund from the manufacturer.

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Non-members stop by the bistro for morning coffee or a pre-lunch aperitif, unaware of the planned, informal gathering of the Joyeux Mâchonneurs. But they might as well be a part of the group as Hervé slices off chunks of headcheese to offer them a taste. Headcheese and coffee? Maybe. Headcheese and wine? Sure.

Tristan Olphe-Galliard arrives with a bottle of wine that he sets on the counter as his contribution to the morning gathering of the Joyeux Mâchonneurs. Before sharing the wine, though, he shares the story of why he’s arrived later than planned: The mechanism to open the door to his building was stuck, so to get out he had to crawl like a thief from the window of a neighbor’s apartment. And he definitely can’t stay with us past lunch, he says, since he has to… Right.

He’s brought a red Mentou-Salon, a cousin to Sancerre, from the eastern winegrowing area of the Loire Valley. A brief explanation is enough—this is a social gathering, not an informational assembly. It’s easy-drinking wine, a pinot noir of the cherry-tinged kind. Tristan is an ambassador for the network of Bistrots Beaujolais, bistros which are themselves ambassadors for Beaujolais wines or at least have some on their wine list. He’s also a freelance photographer, as well as a member of the Francs-Mâchons, a non-profit association with a natural affinity to the Joyeux Mâchonneurs but more organized and with a distinct appetite for Beaujolais wines. But Triston is only partially on duty this morning; not duty enough that he feels obliged to bring a Beaujolais to this gathering but dutiful enough to invite me to meet him here to discuss my plan to visit some of his Bistrots Beaujolais over the next two months. Research.

But first things first. The barman opens the bottle.

You don’t need to be a member of the Joyeux Mâchonneurs to attend the Tuesday morning gathering. You don’t have to eat pig. You don’t even have to arrive joyeux, though hopefully you’ll leave that way. All you have to do is bring something sharable to eat or drink (keep it simple) or else buy a(n inexpensive) bottle of wine at the bar. And, no, the point is not to go on a pre-noon bender. It’s enough to toast with a sip or two—a bistro glass is small anyway. It’s the spirit that’s generous, not the pour. You can put your hand over your glass in refusal at any time (though it will likely be filled as soon as you look away). Seriously, order coffee if you like.

Bistro life

The word bistrot (with a final t in French) encompasses a range of restaurants and eatery-drinkeries that emphasize traditional French food and wine. In English-speaking countries, bistro may carry an air of pretention, which doesn’t belong in France. At its heart, the French bistro (let’s leave out the t here) is an unpretentious neighborhood gathering place for traditional, homemade food and inexpensive drink. “Traditional, home-made food” itself can vary within limits and budgets. And in the relatively wealthy city of Paris, “unpretentious” is itself a term that’s up for grabs, while “inexpensive” will depend on the neighborhood. In any case, a bistro should feel down-home rather than upscale, even those that attract an upmarket crowd.

In terms of opening hours, there are two types of bistros: a bistro that’s open only for lunch and dinner, i.e. a bistro as restaurant alone, and an eatery-drinkery bistro, such as Le Vaudésir, where food is served at specific hours yet one can enter throughout the day for liquid nourishment (and, if you’re a regular or ask kindly, maybe someone can make you a sandwich or give you some headcheese or a hard-boiled egg). I’ve met with Tristan this morning in soliciting his help constituting a list of the latter kind of bistro, the historic but not necessarily bygone bistrot de quartier, the neighborhood eatery-drinkery bistro. The archetype of a neighborhood bistro such as Le Vaudésir serves a social function as a gathering place, an outlet for extroverts, a refuge for the lonely, escape from your spouse or kids, comic relief for the observer, a place where a regular is recognized, etc.

In the densely populated and much-visited city of Paris, “neighborhood” doesn’t mean that the patrons all live within three blocks of the bistro. At lunchtime, neighborhood bistros are frequented by those who work in the area but live elsewhere. And the dinner crowd may be a mix of neighborhood residents, Parisians with a city-wide vision of dining out casually, and travelers staying in nearby hotels.

The neighborhood bistro of the eatery-drinkery kind may not have Bistrot written in its name or on its awning. Even a café or a brasserie or a meat-and-potatoes/sausage-and-lentils dive can be considered the local bistro if it serves an unpretentious social function (gathering place, refuge, escape, etc.) and presents the other elements associated with the bistrot de quartier: traditional cuisine and cheap or modestly-priced drink, conviviality, a changeable atmosphere morning to night, and a smattering or more of Joyeux Mâchoneurs or their like. Just as Joyeux Mâchoneurs by any other name would be just as joyeux, a bistro by any other name would be just as … bistro.

I’ve neglected to mention the other essential element to the type of bistro that I’ve come looking for: an on-site owner. Not just any on-site owner, but an on-site owner as conductor, MC, security guard, arbitrator, sphinx, ultimate judge, merchant and boss. He may stand stoically on the raised platform of the bar as he surveils the room. He may join in the banter of his regulars. He may raise a glass with others. He knows his regulars. He knows when to be wary and when to be welcoming. At Le Vaudésir, he’s Christophe Hantz.

By the bar counter there’s a list of names and dates of owners at this site since 1896, beginning with a certain Forestier, who sold wine. For much of the first half of the 20th century, coal and wood were also sold here. (The second room, behind the bar, is where they were stored.) In 1993, the owner at the time renamed the bistro Le Vaudésir, after one of the seven “climats” of Chablis Grand Cru. Vaudésir Chablis was still a relatively inexpensive at the time, but it’s now too pricey to belong on the selection here. Christophe has been at the helm of Le Vaudésir since 2001.

Michelle Steiner, the chef he hired that year, joins us for a drink before returning to the kitchen to make final preparations for lunch service. “Christophe and I are like an old couple that’s never copulated,” she says. Christophe isn’t yet around to give his take on their relationship.

La Fête du Livre Bistrot at Le Vaudésir

There is no off-the-beaten track in Paris; there are just streets we haven’t yet ventured down and doors we haven’t yet opened or times of day or night that we haven’t yet been there. So it isn’t to go off the beaten track that I’ve returned late the same day by taking the train to Denfert-Rochereau, walking 10 minutes south, and turning left onto rue Dareau. The street leads film-noir-like to a door beneath the railroad tracks. The first room is so crowded that I can’t even push open the door. I enter through the second door a few yards further down. No, I haven’t gone off the beaten track to make my way back to Le Vaudésir this evening; I’ve come to attend the Fête du Livre Bistrot, a celebration of books about bistros, their authors, and, above all, bistros themselves.

Not all Parisians go in for such places, as the diminishing numbers of restaurant-bar-café bistros show. They’re too old-fashioned for some; the cooking isn’t contemporary enough for others; they prefer to mingle elsewhere, differently or with a younger crowd; if there’s a squat-toilet that may not be to everyone’s liking. “Local” itself may have lost its significance for those who prefer screen time. The foreign visitor may be intimidated to stand at the counter with piliers de bar (literally bar pillars, i.e. barflies) or sitting elbow-to-elbow at a table beside animated strangers in unintelligible conversation. No, the atmosphere of the eatery-drinky neighborhood bistro isn’t for everyone.

But it is for everyone here this evening, chatting with each other and with the authors, purchasing books, examining the works of two photographers, drinking the Saint Pourçain wines brought by the producer who’s serving them at the bar, reaching for the plate of headcheese and pâté on the bar counter. Tristan is here, Hervé is here, and so are other members of the Joyeux Mânchonneurs.

I speak with the winegrower of the Saint Pourçain as he serves me a glass. The wine is free this evening. Christophe is also behind the bar. I say hello. He raises his glass and offers his infectious smile, though he may or may not recognize me.

I chat with Alain Fontaine, owner of Le Mesturet, in the 2nd arrondissement. Le Mesturet’s awning reads Bar à Vins and Restaurant but it’s bistro enough for me. Alain spearheads a non-profit association whose mission is to promote and defend the idea that the art de vivre of bistros and traditional cafés of France deserve recognition as “intangible cultural heritage.” He says that foreign visitors, Americans in particular, are more prominent supporters for bistro life than the French themselves. (Perhaps, I think, because we like a good cliché or because we don’t have these at home.) Earlier this year he hosted at Le Mesturet a launch part for Café Society: Time Suspended, the Cafés & Bistros of Paris, a collection of photographs by Joanie Osburn, a frequent visitor to Paris from San Francisco. I tell him that I’ll be stopping by Le Mesturet to speak with him soon in the context of my own research. Whenever you want, he replies.

I run into free-spirited food writer and guide Guillaume Le Roux, whom I knew from restaurant press events a dozen years ago and haven’t seen since. We recognize each other immediately, briefly catch up, and promise to get together soon.

I speak at length with historian Laurent Bihl, author of Une histoire populaire des bistrots and gladly weigh myself down by purchasing his 800-page book.

I greet Gérard Letailleur, author of “Histoire insolite des cafés parisiens” and “Si Montmartre et La Bonne Franquette nous étaient contés,” whom I’d previously met at Aux Sportifs Réunis-Chez Walczak, a historic bistro in the 15th arrondissement.

I nod to Pierrick Bourgault who’s in intense discussion with someone interested in his work as a photographer and writer. Patrick explores his love and appreciation for bistros in both non-fiction and fiction. Among other publications, he’s the author of Au bonheur des bistrots,  which pays homage through photographs to the men and women who run countryside cafés, and the novel Journal d’un café de campagne. We’d previously met at the unmissable La Bonne Franquette at the top of Montmartre.

I meet Benjamin Berline, who’s part of the team working with well-known French food writer Gilles Pudlowski. He gives me a copy of the 2023 edition of the Petit Pudlo des Bistrots, a booklet that brings together 107 recommendable Parisian bistros (with an introduction by Alain Fontaine).

I find Tristan outside and thank him for setting me on my way for my bistro research. I tell him I’ll see him soon. (Though Tristan and I don’t run in the same circles we do manage to cross paths often.) I tell him I’m leaving. He says that he’ll be leaving soon too. Right.

Le Vaudésir, 41 rue Dareau, 14th arrondissement. Metro Saint-Jacques or Metro/RER Denfert-Rochereau. Closed Monday evening, Saturday lunch, Sunday. Cash only.

© 2023 by Gary Lee Kraut

The post An Introduction to Paris Bistro Life: Le Vaudésir appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.