UNE VILLE CULTURELLE!

Musée du Luxembourg

Friday morning Tom and I got an early start to see the Chagall exhibit, and although there was a line, this time we toughed it out and viewed the show—which was stunning.  We were already huge Chagall fans, but the focus of this exhibition—Chagall in war and peace—was very moving.  We spent a couple of hours there, but time stood still. . . .

In the evening, we attended a concert/talk on James Joyce and music at the Sorbonne.  Tom had seen a notice for it just the day before at the library of the Centre Culturel Irlandais.  We had nothing else on the calendar for that hour, so we showed up . . . and Tom came away from the evening with an invitation to give a talk in a research group there.  Continued luck of the Irish!

Polidor

With no destination in mind afterwards, we headed out to look for an interesting dinner spot, and we landed at a place that’s apparently very well known: Polidor.  We hear it was featured in the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris, and we know it has served lots of intellectuals, writers, and ex-pats over its long existence (it was founded in 1845).  And it’s a trip!  The place was packed, but the hostess managed to seat us . . . in the middle of a long table of other guests.  Communal dining!  Old-fashioned French comfort food is what you would call the menu; it’s accompanied by a communal bread basket and water bottle.  Polidor was lively and fun, but I wouldn’t recommend it for a culinary experience as much as for the vibe.  And it proudly proclaims: Polidor n’accepte plus les cartes de credit depuis 1845 (Polidor hasn’t accepted credit cards since 1845).  Still, it was a nice way to end a long and busy day.

La Résistance exhibit

Saturday began with no real plan (other than our Saturday market run) until we were meeting some new friends for dinner.  But we decided to go to a free exhibition on the French Résistance at the magnificent Hôtel de Ville (City Hall).  This exhibit of documents, photographs and film covered the occupation of Paris, the Résistance movement, liberation, and reconstruction.  In many ways, it traced an emotional arc similar to Chagall’s lifetime journey.  Everything was in French, but we managed to make out most of it, though I had a headache by the time we left: translating is hard work . . . and even harder work when you don’t have a dictionary at hand!  

Notre Dame

But what a happy accident we had on the way home.  We noticed that there was an absolute crush of humanity everywhere in the city center—hundreds of people on every bridge, folks lining the streets and squares.  And then we realized that we had stumbled into the moment when the nine new bells of the Cathédrale de Notre Dame de Paris were to sound for the very first time!  We had heard this would happen on Palm Sunday, but it turned out that 6:00 PM on Saturday was the inaugural ringing.

So we stayed in the area to be among the first to hear these new bells that have been constructed to harmonize with the huge Emmanuel bell already in Notre Dame—a beautiful thing to hear and witness!  The Emmanuel bell, the last of the original bells of Notre Dame (the others were destroyed in the French Revolution), has tolled to announce the end of the First and Second World Wars, the liberation of Paris in 1944, and the attack on the twin towers in New York on September 11, 2001.

Bells ringing on big screen

This unexpected pleasure almost made us late for our dinner engagement, but we got home in time to change and head out again.  We were meeting Edward and Freda, an Irish couple whom we first encountered at the Irish Embassy party ten days ago.  They contacted us and invited us to dinner with their good friends, Charles-Henri and Simone.  We had a perfectly delightful evening at La Cigale Recamier, a wonderful French restaurant specializing in soufflés.  Edward and Freda are gracious and fun, and we were really pleased to see them again.

Chagall

But little did we know at the start of the evening that we would see them once again the very next day!  We had plans to meet our friend Catherine MacCarthy for crêpes after mass at the Centre Culturel Irlandais (or “the Irish College,” as everyone here calls it), and Freda and Edward had plans to attend mass as well.  So we all went out for crêpes together afterwards, and we had a great long chat.  This was a bit of a send-off for Catherine, who returns to Ireland next weekend.  We will miss her.  But we also simply enjoyed having some of our various worlds come together as we continue to be amazed by the rich experience we are relishing here in Paris.

Chagall