OK, I'll make a confession here. I had a goal. I was actually going to see something, or rather, to see if I could see something. But I decided to take my time getting there. The weather was lovely. The sun was out, so I took the great Paris Metro (still have to blog about that!) to Odeon on the Left Bank in the heart of what is still called the Latin Quarter. It really ought to be called the university quarter, but this is Paris, and old names often stick, so even though nobody much studies Latin anymore in the universities, the quarter still takes its name from the fact that they used to...a couple hundred years ago! It's a lively place as is anyplace where students congregate, and I come out of the metro right by one of my favorite statues, the one of Georges Danton, the great revolutionary leader (and martyr) in a heroic pose. It's where students traditionally gather to start demonstrations and marches. Danton would have liked that. I take a quick appreciative look at old Georges, then head up the rue de l'Odeon past some very cool shops, including Sandreme Ganem which sells colorful teapots that are fired and kiln dried right there. I head past the Odeon Theatre, one of Paris's older ones and there in front of me are the gates to the Luxembourg Palace and its beautiful gardens.
The palace was originally built for Marie de Medici, yes, THAT family. She was the wife of King Henri IV and mother of Louis XIII, and she had the palace designed to look like the Pitti Palace in her native Florence. Today it houses the upper house of the French Legislature, which they also call the Senate. Nice digs. I was entering an end I hadn't entered before, strolling along, when I came to a lovely fountain, called, not too originally, the Medici Fountain. I stopped to take in the view and read the little plaque (in French) that explained to me that it used to be a much longer lawn, but that Haussmann, who redesigned the entire city in the 1860s, wanted to cut a new boulevard through it, so he moved it in closer, and had the pool designed to make it look longer. Clever fellow Haussmann. It's a peaceful green space, and there were people lolling about. The Luxembourg always has people in it because it's one of the few large green spaces on the Left Bank. But I continued on to the large circular pool that sits in the center of the gardens. Around it were large numbers of the little metal chairs that are a sort of minor landmark of the city. There were a number of people sitting about, taking the sun, and, of course, the usual number of couples sitting side by side taking in each other--a recurring theme in this unquenchably romantic city. I sat down to watch people stroll by. The Luxembourg is a remarkably democratic kind of place. Every kind of person wonders through--older couples and younger ones, French people and people from every imaginable nationality. There was a Russian couple, and a family with large numbers of kids whose ethnicity I couldn't quite identify--eastern European by the sound of the language. I sat for a while until two men sat in back of me and lit up cigarettes. If I hadn't been downwind, I would have stayed, but I was, so I left. Lots of people outside the United States smoke. Lots inside do too, but fewer. France passed a law a few years ago banning it indoors, and remarkably, French people decided to obey that one, but that means they all smoke outdoors. So it was time to move on.
I left and walked toward the corner of the gardens where only those in the know go. They go to watch the Boules players. Boules, or Petanque (or Bocci Balls for those of Italian extraction, though in that version the balls are larger, ceramic instead of metal, and brightly colored) is a *very* traditional game in France. Many people play it, but mostly it's older men, often retired, and it is the most French of games. I was pretty sure there would be boules players at the courts in the corner of the gardens, and I was rewarded with a fair number of them. The game isn't too complex. You throw a small "target" ball about fifteen feet out, then each team tries to get its balls as close to the target as possible. The first players aim for accuracy, then there are "strikers" (well, that's what I call them), who try to target the enemy's balls and knock them away. The balls all look remarkably similar, and I often wonder how the players tell them apart, but they do. Real old-timers have little magnets on the end of strings that they swing down to pick up their balls without having to bend over. It's a social game. People talk, measure the distance between balls, laugh, and enjoy the weather. Family members are often there. In this case, there were several wives sitting to watch. One was knitting. Acquaintances would show up, shake hands with the men, do the little kiss on both cheeks (the real ones, not the fake ones you see on TV) with the women, talk about this and that. It's said that France is a nation of villages, and certainly Paris is a city of them. When I sit and watch the Boules players, I feel a part of the village.
I sat for a half hour or so and admired the skills. It's a lazy game, but it fits the culture somehow, and one can easily imagine everybody repairing off to the cafe afterward for a little glass of wine or beer, or maybe a coffee. Time to go. Out I went by another gate and headed for the church of Saint Sulpice. I hadn't been there in many years, so I decided to take in the famous Delacroix paintings that grace one of the chapels. I found the church being restored, with scaffolding in front of it, but the entry was clear. Saint-Sulpice was once the seat of the most important seminary in France where most of its great bishops were educated. That's moved on, of course. A few years ago, the church drew the bizarre attention of Da Vinci Code tourists because there's a meridian line in it. It was actually put there to figure out when Easter would be, but Dan Brown invented all kinds of nonsense about it in a book packed with nonsense, and so for a while, mobs of tourists came to gawk at it. I hope they left some money. Maybe that's what's paying for the restoration of the front!
Anyway, I'm not there to look for the body of the Virgin Mary or any weird albino priest murderers. I'm there to look at art. In the first bay to the right as you enter are the last three great masterpieces of the 19th century painter Eugene Delacroix. He moved near to the church to paint them, and that house, where he also died, also houses a lovely little museum dedicated to his work. I go into the chapel, and sit on the bench and admire the work. It's not well presented because it's not well lit, but if you sit there long enough, you can see the remarkable liveliness of it. I particularly like the fight between Jacob and the Angel, which seems to me to be far more passionate than the usual bit of church art.
Anyway, I wander 'round the church (which is also renowned for having one of the finest pipe organs in France) and realize that, like so many late baroque churches, it's not really that interesting...well...unless you're looking for secret code stuff!
I head out of the church and back to the Odeon, say a final little farewell to Danton, and head down into the metro network. It's been a great walk, but I'm looking forward to dinner with my friend Gordon in one of our favorite restaurants, and nothing will keep me from that!
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