Paris Journal 2012 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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The Orangerie in the Luxembourg Gardens hosts many free exhibitions. A new one just opened up with the rentrée, the new season. At the beginning of our evening walk through the park, we wandered into the Orangerie to see “Bougainville & Les Explorateurs,” an exhibition about Louis-Antoine de Bougainville and others, in their adventures that brought many colorful plants to our gardens. The plants that were part of the exhibition made us feel right at home. Of course, they included bougainvillia, which was discovered by the botanist Philibert Commerçon on an expedition led by de Bougainville, starting in November of 1766. It could be that Commerçon bestowed this honor (naming the plant after de Bougainville) in order to ingratiate himself with the boss, because Commerçon got into trouble. You see, at some point on that round-the-world expedition to re-establish France’s reputation as a world leader, it was discovered that Commerçon’s supposedly male valet was really a woman, Jeanne Baré, who was perhaps Commerçon’s mistress. Commerçon was a naughty guy! Oh, those French men and their mistresses! Now you can think about that every time you see a bougainvillia. In this ignominious way, Jeanne Baré became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. The boss on that expedition, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville (1729-1811), had started out studying law, which he quit in order to join the army as a Musketeer, in 1753. He was also good at math; he published a noteworthy paper on integral calculus when he was only 25. He went on to have an illustrious career in the military/navy, and as an explorer and leader of great expeditions. But he got his start as a Musketeer. The name “musketeer” survived as a name of a military rank in the infantry until World War I. In France, the Musketeers of the Guard were a military branch of the Royal Household, first created by Louis XIII. When fighting on horseback, Musketeers were “dragoons.” De Bougainville’s world travels began when he went to Canada, in 1756, as a captain of dragoons. So de Bougainville was a musketeer a century after the four historical figures on whose lives Dumas’s novel, The Three Musketeers, was based. The character of d’Artagnan was based on the life of Charles Ogier de Batz de Castelmore (1611-1673), who was from Lupiac, in the Gers department of France, which was created from pieces of the former provinces of Gascony and Guyenne. The character of Athos was based on the life of musketeer Armand de Sillègue d’Athos d’Autevielle (1615-1644), who was from Athos-Aspis in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department of France. The Porthos character was based on the musketeer Isaac de Porthau (1617-1712), who was born in Béarn, which is also in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department of France. Finally, the Aramis character was based on the musketeer named Henri d’Aramitz (1620-1655 or 1674), who was also from Béarn. Neighborhood lore is that one of the three musketeers kept his horse here, in our building, in a stables that I suspect is now the apartment of the literary critic who lives below us. I’ve written about this in the past, for example a year ago when we got into a conversation with the Sanders (fromagerie owners) about it. D’Artagnon lived at 12 rue Servandoni, which Dumas sometimes refers to as 7 rue des Fossoyeurs, using the older name of the same street. That’s just around the corner from us. Athos also lived nearby, on the rue Férou. So you see, we are in the middle of musketeer land. We dined here in musketeer land, too, last night at Coté Bergamote on the rue Montfaucon. This resto prides itself on serving a cuisine based on fresh herbs and vegetables, but it is not a vegetarian restaurant as I thought when I first saw it, years ago. Its décor is rustic-country. We began by sharing a croustillant de chevre chaud (warm goat-cheese-stuffed pastry) that came with a nice salad. Tom then had salmon with vegetables, and I had the special of the day, a marmite d’agneau – slow-cooked, tender lamb with vegetables, served in a covered cast iron pot, steaming hot. Tom ordered the homemade chocolate cake with a scoop of delicious ice cream for dessert. All this, plus a glass of wine and a liter bottle of Badoit sparkling water was only about 40 euros (tax and tip included), thanks to a deal offered by lafourchette.com. After that lovely dinner, we relaxed back at the apartment. We watched a hilarious video of a Stephen Colbert show via a link sent by my older brother on Facebook. We laughed so hard it hurt. Who needs television when you can get videos like this on the computer? |
Thursday, September 20, 2012
One
of the Saint Sulpice towers in the evening sun.
I
highly recommend this particular edition of The Three Musketeers.
It is a newer translation by Richard Pevear,
and unlike previous translations, it is more complete and is not a
“sanitized” version for “puritanical English speakers.” (Southwest Florida residents and visitors
can find this edition in the Sanibel library.)
Plants
in the Luxembourg’s Orangerie exhibition. The white flowering shrub is a Bougainvllia.
Croustillant de chevre chaud, with salad, at Coté Bergamote. |
