Paris Journal 2013 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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We walked up to
the Place Dauphine, expecting it to be the quiet, serene place that it
usually is. My goal was nothing more than
for us to enjoy a few minutes sitting on a bench in that very old-fashioned
square that is really a triangle. You can’t see
the Place Dauphine coming, as you approach it along the bridge from the left
bank (or from the right bank either, for that matter). You see it just
as you reach the rue Henri Robert – a small opening between buildings that
yields to the Place. So there was no
warning – except that I did see police paddywagons parked along the other
side of the street as we reached the Île de la Cité on Pont Neuf. I turned on rue
Henri Robert and there was a group of big policemen not far ahead, and beyond
them, at the wide end of the Place, a demonstration was taking place. There were no
signs for the demonstration. Some
demonstrators carried French flags.
Others carried Syrian flags.
The demonstrators burned something at one point, which created some
black smoke that turned into a purple haze and then dissipated. We didn’t get
too close. But there weren’t many
demonstrators. Those who were there
were very conservatively dressed Parisians.
They didn’t seem to be all that young.
The demonstration had a decidedly pathetic air. I doubt the police would have the need to
even scold anyone, much less arrest them. Some young
people were in the Square, closer to the narrow end where we were, and they
were clearly just groups of friends waiting to have picnics. They were pretty much ignoring the
demonstration, but seemed to be politely waiting for it to end before
beginning their parties/picnics. A leader of the
demonstrators was speaking into a bullhorn, but with the acoustics in that
square surrounded by brick and stone buildings, it was impossible to
understand what he was saying. I’d
hear phrases, but they’d be out of context.
Several time he’d refer to “the State” and there would be an outcry of
booing from the crowd. Since it wasn’t
much of a demonstration, there isn’t anything in the local news to tell me
about it today. [Later in the
day: I found info on the web indicating
that this was supposed to be a “grand” demonstration against military
intervention in Syria. Then I found a
Facebook page that claims there were 850 people at the demonstration. Now that is a lie. There were nowhere near that many. I’d say there were about 80 people there,
at most.] After several
minutes of watching and listening to the demonstration from a bench on the
far end of the square, we decided to leave the Place Dauphine, cross the
Place du Pont Neuf, and visit the Square du Vert Galant instead. There we found
peace and quiet, flowers, and a view of the Seine. Lovely. When it was
time, we walked back over to the left bank toward dinner. I’d reserved a table at the Rotisserie d’en
Face. We felt we really had to give
the restaurant a try; we’d not dined there in years. It is the only restaurant that the once
famous Jacques Cagna still owns. But after last
night’s dinner, I’m doubting that Jacques Cagna has anything to do with this
restaurant anymore. It was decidedly
mediocre. The food wasn’t bad; it was
good, but a little boring. The prices
are too high for what the food really is.
(I was thankful for the Lafourchette.com discount.) The quality would be okay in an ordinary
neighborhood brasserie; but it is not what it should be in a restaurant that
promotes itself as being so much more. The timing of
dinner was perfect. When we left, it
was a bit after 8:30PM and the live music would start around the corner at
the Café Laurent at 9PM. We wanted to
arrive a little early so that we could have seats where Tom would be able to
see the drummer’s left hand. We situated
ourselves in two comfy chairs with a round coffee table in between, right in
front of the drum set. We ordered two
glasses of wine, one small bottle of Badoit, and one coffee. Laurent, the manager/waiter/namesake of the
hotel’s café, was pleased with our order.
We were all set to be there for two sets of music. I went to use
the ladies’ room, but it was locked.
The men’s room was just a one-seater, and so I entered it and locked
the door. It was just as nice as the
ladies’ room. When I left the
men’s room, I was in the hallway between the two restrooms. Then as I was about to open the second door
to return to the café, there was Christian
Brenner, the pianist, smiling and holding the door open for me. What a gentleman he is. I think he noticed that I was coming from
the direction of the men’s room. Who
cares. The bass player
showed up, as did the guitarist. I was
starting to worry that there’d be no drummer.
While the drums were there, there were no stands or cymbals. With just a
couple minutes to spare, the drummer rushed up to the “stage,” which is
really just a 6-inch riser. He caught
the look of happy relief on my face and he smiled. He began extracting the folded up stands
out of the corner hidden by the grand piano. In almost no
time, he was ready to play. He’d
opened his case of Istanbul cymbals and bolted them on top of the stands with
the efficiency of someone who’d done this a zillion times. The riser is
much to small for a quartet, but the group managed. All four of them were well-mannered, nicely
dressed, calm, and sophisticated. They
did not goof around, like so many of Tom’s musician friends do. These men were nice and serious about the
music. After nearly
two sets of excellent improvisational jazz, there was a surprise. A fifth musician appeared on the
scene. He was carrying a custom-made
saddle-brown leather case. He unzipped
it and extracted a beautiful saxophone. This bald,
elegant man played the sax with eloquence, grace, and ease. What sweet notes. When the two
sets were done, so were we. It was
after 11PM, and so we asked Laurent for the check, even though we could have stayed
for a third set. We’d put in a full
day of work, after all, and had even squeezed in a visit to the marché before our pre-dinner walk. The walk home
was not long, but it was full of sights and sounds as we made our way past
the nightlife of the rue Dauphine to the busy and colorful Carrefour de
Buci. After we crossed over the
boulevard Saint Germain on the rue de Seine, calmness began to descend. When we’d finished a block of the rue
Lobineau by the marché and turned
left, we walked about the hulking backside of the Saint-Sulpice church and
near silence surrounded us. The tiny
restaurant Au Bon Saint Pourçain was serving its last few customers of the
evening. We said “bonsoir” to the
boss, as we always do, when we turned the corner onto our tiny, dark
street. It is dark, because the one
streetlight, mounted high on the wall of the building across the street, is
not working. I can imagine
that a neighbor may have taken the light out on purpose, because it is just
too bright. We felt like
shadows as we pushed the ancient, heavy oak door open to the courtyard. Closing it behind us, we made our way
across the old stones to the doorway, where I found the stairway light switch
by memory. Up the concave,
worn stone steps to the wooden, carpeted ones, we were then home, one level
up from the ground, in an apartment that has sheltered people since 1640. It’s calm, it’s
quiet, and it’s home, for September. |
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Place
Dauphine, with a small demonstration taking place at the far end, near the
Palais de Justice.
The
Square du Vert Galant at
the western tip of the Île de la Cite.
A
shop near the Rotisserie d’en Face, on the rue
Christine.
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