Paris Journal 2013 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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Back in our
“old” neighborhood, we dined with friends Roy and Barbara at Bistro 121 last
night. The food and conversation were
very good, and it is always fun to catch up with old friends. We talked about everything from their home
in the Hudson River Valley where they just spent two months to Dante’s
“Inferno.” I asked Roy
(who is a Dante expert) if Dante really believed in Hell. He said, “That’s a very good question. There’s been a lot of debate about that.” Interesting. I’m reading Dan Brown’s Inferno right now. It is okay; but it is a bit too much like
“formula writing”: oh, the obligatory
chase scenes, and blah blah blah. But the book
does make me want to visit Florence.
Maybe next year. After dinner,
Tom and I walked all the way “home” to the 6th. Only two streets, the rue de la Convention
and the rue de Vaugirard, were necessary to bring us to the tiny rues Férou
and du Canivet. But even though it is
just two streets, it was quite a long trek.
I think it took us over an hour, walking at a brisk
nighttime-in-the-big-city pace. The rue de
Vaugirard, you see, is the longest street in Paris. Most of our time we were walking through
the 15th arrondissement. By
the time we reached the 6th, it felt like we were almost home. But the stretch
of the rue de Vaugirard in the 15th is home to some
extraordinarily important places. One
is the Pasteur Institute. And it is
relevant to the plot of the novel I’m reading now. One of the
Pasteur Institute’s modern research thrusts is to fight against the threat of
future global pandemics. While the
Pasteur Institute conducts much research and also includes a medical
treatment facility, it is not part of the French public hospital system. It is a private institution, with its own
foundation; however, it does receive French government subsidies in addition
to funds from many other sources. As you know,
its namesake, Louis Pasteur, developed the vaccines for anthrax and rabies,
and he invented the pasteurization process that we depend on today to make
our food and drink safer for our consumption. Since then, the
Pasteur Institute has made many more major breakthroughs in the prevention,
control, treatment and cure of infectious diseases. In addition to
treatment and control of polio, diphtheria, tetanus, flu, tuberculosis, and
yellow fever – the institute has done research on the plague. I’m only a
third of the way through this Dan Brown novel. I wonder if the Pasteur Institute will play
a role? Don’t tell me! Anyway, if it
doesn’t play a role in this book, perhaps Dan Brown should consider the
Pasteur for a future novel. I know
that Robert Ludlum wrote one called The
Paris Option in which the plot begins with destruction of this
institute. But that book wasn’t well
reviewed or widely read. Dan Brown is
not a great writer. But he can
be a good story teller. If ever there
was a scientific institution in Paris with a motherlode of good stories in
its glorious history, I think it would be the Pasteur. Go for it,
Dan. Or someone.
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Saturday, September 7, 2013
We
told Roy and Barbara about Tandoori Nights, our new favorite Indian
restaurant in their neighborhood.
Scenes
from the Saint-Gervais church.
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