Meandering in the Marais

Saturday, June 1, 2012
Paris, France

Bonjour!
The trouble with following walking tours is that I don't. Instead of staying the course, I go off on serious tangents. This is especially true when I am in an exciting city like London...or Paris. In fact, after just one day on my ownsome in the City of Lights, I am totally in danger of doing my feet in--all over again.

So here's what I did today: I meandered in the Marais. At random, I chose to follow DK Eye Witness Guide's Walking Tour in one of Paris's most vibrant neighborhoods and then, voila--suddenly 8 whole hours had passed on my feet! Not that the good authors had ever intended for that to happen. It was simply that their tour took me past 3 museums and since I have never met a museum, I did not like, I went right ahead to say Bonjour. The end result is that I visited The Musee Carnavalet (which is the Museum of the City of Paris)--the Musee Cognacq-Jay (both were a first-time for me) and the Maison Victor Hugo (which I had last visited 25 years ago).

Meanwhile, I am currently reading The Flaneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris by American author Edmund White. He writes: A flaneur is a stroller, a loiterer, someone who ambles through a city without apparent purpose but is secretly attuned to the history of the place and in covert search of adventure, aesthetic or erotic". I don't know about the last, but as for adventure and the aesthetic, bring it on. A flaneur have I become, and gladly, in a city that simply begs one to metamorphose into an explorer.

So, I began early--after a baguette and Nutella breakfast, I was out of my apartment at 9.00 am while everyone else seemed comatose. I bought a day pass on the metro as the monthly pass I intend to buy is not sold at the weekends. I shall have to wait till Monday to go through the paperwork, it seems. Mission One:  Unaccomplished. The day pass cost me 6. 70 Euros but I'm pretty sure it paid for itself with all the metro-hopping I did today.

 I decided to take the metro to St. Paul to begin my journey through the Marais. So with perfect weather conditions working in my favor, I walked towards Musee Carnavalet.


Musee Carnavalet:
The best thing about the Musee Carnavalet is that it is housed in one of the finest Parisian mansions (known as hotels particulier); the second best thing is that it is free of cost. The third best thing is that it is fabulous. If you want a quick insight into the colorful history of this city, it would be a good idea to start here first. I simply can't think why I didn't get here on earlier visits to the city.

Some of the Musee Carnavalet's Highlights for me? The lovely building, the classically-laid out gardens, the magnificent marble staircase with 180 degree Brunetti painting enveloping the stairwell, the two rooms devoted to shop signage in an epoch when few people could read (this is also why street cries were so common then and unheard now), Napoleon's Cradle, the G. Fouquet Jewelery store that was entirely designed by the Prague master of Art Deco, Alphonse Mucha, and a reproduction of the bedroom of Marcel Proust including the bed in which he wrote most of his masterpiece,  In Remembrance of Things Past. A visit is best made chronologically thorough the centuries starting with Archaeological Paris to the 20th century. The 18th century Baroque rooms of Madame Sevigny (its most famous resident) are stunning in their decorative excess and the18th century is best represented in the stark rooms of the French Revolution where I saw a wonderful replica of the Bastille and its keys.

Paris' Jewish Quarter:
The Marais was the original settlement of the city's Jews and they are still well-represented (as I discovered when my walking tour continued) in the many kosher delicatessens, restaurants and bakeries that did brisk business on this Sabbath day. You can get knishes, bagels, kugels and babkas galore and the delicious smells of good hearty cooking filled the crevices of every narrow street. Goldenburger's is supposedly the best of them, but since I had carried a sandwich, I did not stop to find out how good it actually is.

Musee Cognacq-Jay:
My ramblings then took me to the quietly serene entry courtyard of a museum of which I had never heard before: the Musee Cognacq-Jay--which derives its name from Theodore-Ernest Cognacq and his wife Marie-Louise Jay who together founded one of Paris' best-known department stores, Samaritaine. Although he did not have the time to acquire artworks himself and left that to an army of dealers, Cognacq did have well defined tastes. Eighteenth-century works were a special favorite and the collection has marvelous items by Boucher and Fragonard as well as masterpieces by Watteau and Tiepolo--including a study for Cleopatra's Banquet (the finished version of which is the proud possession of The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia--and which I saw just two weeks ago.

This small collection is also worth visiting because it stands in the actual home of this collecting couple--the Hotel de Donon, a hotel particulier that was built in the 1500s but decorated in the style of Louis XV and XVI with superbly carved and painted wood panelling in twenty rooms on four floors. Of great interest to me was the huge collection of Meissen porcelain figurines about which the couple was very passionate.

I found the nicest place to eat my pate sandwich lunch: the shaded front courtyard which I had practically to myself as the formal back gardens were closed. The thoughtfully-placed benches gave me much-needed  rest before I picked up the pace again and continued.
PS: This Museum is also free of charge.

The Place des Vosges:
This is one of Europe's largest and best-known squares and it was crawling with sunbathing humanity on an afternoon that turned so warm I had to peel off my jacket.  It has everything you would expect to see in a formal European square: fountains, statuary (an equestrian Louis XIII), topiary trees and a periphery of formally designed blush-hued buildings--complete with wrought-iron embellished French windows and colonnaded arcades. I guess it is not surprising that France's best-loved author chose to live here and it was at his home that I made my next stop.

Maison Victor Hugo:
Hugo towers over French literature like a colossus and, after the success of Les Miserables on stage and screen, is arguably France's most famous writer. His personal and professional lives were as colorful as the characters he created and in his stately home overlooking the Place des Vosges, I learned a little more about both. He lived in exile for many years (following his fallout with the powers-that-were) on the English Channel island of Guernsey and, in the midst of a good marriage, fell in love with a much younger woman named Juliette Drouet with whom he became besotted. The house is preserved in much the same way as it was in Hugo's lifetime with a few rooms being replicas of the chinnoisserie-decorated d home in which he had lived with Drouet while on Guernsey. In his bedroom, his fondness for medieval furniture (which he collected) is evident while the huge Sevres vase that a grateful nation presented him (once he had made up with it) is proudly displayed.
PPS: Lucky for the third time--yet another free museum!


Exploring The Bastille and Buying Loaves at Poilane:
Fairly falling with fatigue, I walked the short distance to the site of the Bastille (about which I learned so much today) marked by a tall golden 'July Column' in the center. The Bastille was a prison and it's 'storming' on July 14, 1789, is possibly the most significant happening in French history. A handful of prisoners were released by a mob incensed by the monarchy's excesses. They marched on the Palais Royale and then removed to Versailles, seat of government, imprisoned members of the royal family consisting of Louis XVI, his wife Marie-Antoinette and their young children, imprisoned them in the 'Temple' and, for the following few months known as the Reign of Terror, went berserk. A horrendous new instrument of death called the guillotine was fashioned to chop off the heads of the aristocracy in full gloating view of a blood-thirsty public: most of these one thousand odd executions occured in the modern-day Place de la Concorde (later renamed as such to repair bruised sentiments on both sides of the class warfare). French monarchy ground to a halt and the principles of 'Liberte, Egalite et Fraternite' were established in the new Republic.

Every trace of the Bastille has long disappeared. Today traffic whizzes around speedily in every direction. I escaped into the underground to accomplish my next mission: the procurement of a Boule--the famed round wholewheat loaf from the famed French bakery Poilane on Rue du Cherche Midi. By the late afternoon, all of Paris was buzzing. When I found Poilane, I also found a queue outside it. The boules are so gigantic that they are actually sold in halves and quarters. I bought half a boule and a croissant for my breakfast tomorro. Mission Finally Accomplished. I then took the metro back to Porte D'Orleans to accomplish yet another errand--the purchase of a local Lebara phone SIM card and a few other odds and ends for my pantry.

Then, when I couldn't take another step, I hopped on to a tram and got off at the second stop, right opposite my building. It was time for a much-needed cuppa and I promptly put the kettle on. I skyped with Llew and my brother Roger, chatted with my Dad on my new phone and spent the evening relaxing completely and promising myself that I will not overdo it like this again.

As if....

Tomorrow is the first Sunday of the month and the most significant museums in the city are free! You know where I will be ...

A demain...