Steve's Travel Blog: Down to the Wire

Leaving is getting close. I will try to finish once we get home but often there's lots to catch up on and when we're back to life in AZ, Paris becomes a wonderful memory.

Blog fatigue (BF) is setting in but fortunately as I write this I'm two completed posts ahead.

How do I know that BF is here? It's when I see pics I've recently taken but am losing the wherewithal to do all that it takes to write about & post them, that's BF. Example...today we went to the Museé Carnavalet...the museum of the history of Paris. For years I avoided it. I went last year & liked it. I'm decidedly not enthusiastic about posting a blog about it, photos & all.

The permanent collection is a collection of art (in a way, it is an art museum) & artifacts about Paris thru the centuries. Its exhibits are divided into the various eras of Paris' past. The only periods that interest me are the Revolution & its aftermath (as messy as it was) and the Napoleonic period that soon followed, IOW from about 1788 to 1830 or 1840. That's also the time when Chopin & Liszt were doing their thing.

We learned today that the Napoleon section is closed. Bummer!

Right now there is a temporary photographic exhibition of the liberation of Paris. There's been lots of commemoration of that event 70 years ago last month.

We did the liberation thing first. It was very good, learned alot but after awhile, the hundreds of B&W photos & movie clips zone you out. We were not allowed to take photos, so here is a description of what we saw.

It turns out, very soon after Paris was liberated, the then curator of the Carnavalet put a call out to everyone & anyone who took pics & in anyway recorded the occupation & the liberation. There was an exhibition in November 1944 & this is an attempt to take those resources, add more, then show what they have.

The occupation was not pretty, neither was the liberation. The occupation lasted from June, 1940 until August, 1944. The German Army, instead of simply putting forth, "OK, we're in charge now...just go about your business; you don't bother us & we won't bother you", they started actively implementing the Nazi ideology...persecution & deportation of Jews, gypsies, gays & any other opposition. And of course, the systematic looting of art treasures from museums & private collections alike.

This exhibition was less concerned with the occupation; attempting only to show what it was like shortly before the liberation began. The scenes of German officers dining at the Meurice & other Parisian fineries. The French language street signs replaced with German language signs. They had to...the locals took down all their signs. Paris, a city of 3 million before the occupation shrunk down to 800 thousand by liberation.

But once the street fighting started, the cameras clicked & we are there. The exhibit has perspective...informed us that the recorded liberation history was glamorized. The only fighting photos published showed armed men but in reality, the liberation fighters were poorly armed...only about 500 rifles & 800 pistols at the start plus whatever they could take from the dead.

There's a short film clip of a German soldier wounded in the street, the section when he was killed removed, then we see partisan fighters, a man & a woman stripping his body of weapons & ammunition.

Finally we get thru the fighting & we see Allied soldiers (the Allies saw to it de Gaulle & his men went first) entering the city to the joy & affection of the citizens. We see German officers & soldiers being marched away. Here you have partisan fighters who have an obligation to protect the surrendered Germans but occasionally a citizen breaks thru and klops a prisoner in the head. It's wrong but how can you blame them?

Then the scene shifts to the celebration. I'm telling you, Times Square on New Year's Eve has nothing on Place de la Concorde that day. Even through the graininess of those old B&W movies, the throngs of people...the sheer joy & relief that the horrendous, long, dark night is finally over...comes thru. I kinda had tears in my eyes.

Gen. de Gaulle goes to the Hotel de Ville (the same one that stands there today) and gives a stirring victory speech. At that point, Susanne & I were photographed out so we went to see the rest of the museum.

This is my last post from Paris. Today/Monday we have both lunch & dinner with friends, tomorrow it's Pack Day & Wednesday we leave. When I originally planned the trip, I wanted to stay til Thursday. Call me superstitious but I didn't want to fly on Sept. 11.

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As we left the museum we came upon the Victor Hugo School with this plaque next to the entrance.

With the some assist from Google Translate, here's what it says:

"From 1942 - 1944 more than 11,000 children were deported from France by the Nazis
with the active participation of the Vichy French Government.

They were murdered in the death camps because they were born as Jews.

More than 500 of these children lived in the 3^rd Arrondissement.

Many of them attended the Lycee Victor Hugo."

How's THAT for tying the past to the present!!! (Notice there is no apology for the French who participated.)

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The rest of the Carnavalet Museum had many, many works of art & history. Here are a few.

If you're wondering about the root causes of the French Revolution, consider this. Here you are, poor. Dirt poor, living in a city that's a mess. No sanitation, garbage everywhere, stinking open sewers. You struggle every meal to feed your family. Your housing is appalling, no heat, leaking roof, too many people crammed into too few rooms. And no way to improve your lot.

Then there is your King-dude. All fancied up, fabulous clothes, the finest food, living like a well, king.

And why him, not me? (Because he picked his father more carefully, that's why.)

Let's have a Revolution!!!

OTOH, think of ole Louis XVI. "Why are they so mad at me? I'm just doin' what my father did & his father before him. I mean, I'm number 16, for gawd's sake!!"

Back to reality...here's what the Bastille looked like before.

Let's not forget Marie-Antoinette. Last year I posted paintings of their beheadings. I'll not repeat them here.

And if you want to have a gander at the facilitator, here's the man who invented the guillotine. It's named after him...surprise!!!!!

May I present the happy, somewhat smiling le docteur Joseph-Ignace Guillotin.

Shhhhh. Photographer at work.

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Lunch at the Foyer de Madeleine, in the basement of the Madeleine Church. Here's a LINK to explain what it's all about,

Father McCarthy couldn't make it this year so it was just the three of us, Susanne, Laurie & me.

Here are our wonderful, kind, eager volunteer servers & photographer, but reluctant photographic subjects. The lady on the right had a decidedly British accent.

You purchase a one year membership in the association for 5 euros per person. The lunch then costs 8.50 euros each. Our membership from last year was still good. Our lunch would cost double to triple the price anywhere else in Paris. The room is a very long corridor. The food is basic French, nothing fancy but plentiful & quite good.

We saw Laurie our first evening at the vegetarian restaurant but sat at opposite ends of the table so this was our chance to really catch up. After the meal, there's a place for coffee at the far end of the corridor where it makes a right turn, unbelievably inexpensive (two espressos & a tea for 2.60 euros). All in all, we were together two hours & it seemed to go like a flash.

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After saying our good-byes, Susanne & I strolled over to Place de l'Opera with Opera Garnier as its centerpiece, my 2nd favorite building in Paris,