Paris Journal 2013 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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We were
determined to find the entrance to the park behind the Paris Observatory without
consulting a map, and so we took the longer way. But we found it, no problem. Getting there was half the fun. As soon as we
crossed the boulevard du Montparnasse, we could sense the change. We were not in the 6th
arrondissement anymore. No way. The clues were tiny but they were
numerous. We were most certainly in
the 14th arrondissement. The 14th
just is not quite so chic and well-maintained. And it is home to some enormous hospitals,
almost all of which are important in the history of medicine. Our first stop
in the 14th was 68 bis, avenue Denfert-Rochereau, the home of the
Paris boutique of L’Artisanat Monastique, in one of the many Saint Vincent de
Paul buildings. Basically, the
boutique sells things made by monks and nuns.
There are similar boutiques in several other cities in France. Products include fruit preserves, honey,
table linens and house dresses with lace or embroidery, small leather goods,
sausages, cologne, kids’ clothes, china, religious art, etc. The place even sells organic wine and
Chartreuse! The operation
has a Facebook page and a web
site. We didn’t buy anything
because we were planning to walk a long way; neither one of us wanted to
carry a jar of honey or fruit preserves.
But the merchandise was fun to look. Over 200
monastic communities make the products sold in the boutiques, but it started
mainly with one, the Monastery of Solan, in the Gard region, an area
historically in dispute between Catholics and Protestants. The order of
nuns there was established in 1991 on the site of a former Clunisien
monastery. Under the leadership of
Pierre Rahbi, these nuns developed a specialty of agro-ecology. They make organic wines, vinegers, aromatic
salts, fruit preserves, and aperatifs. We crossed over
to the triangle where a 1906 statue of Théophile Roussel by the French
sculptor Jean-Baptiste Antoine Champeil (1866-1913) resides. Roussel (1816-1903) was a physician who did
important research on pellagra. He became
a politician, too; he was elected “deputy” (the equivalent of a U.S.
Congressman) and was president of a society for the protection of children –
a value apparent in this monument on the avenue Denfert Rochereau. He was also an avid promoter of a law
against alcoholism, and a law against irresponsible fathers. Pellagra, a
disease generally caused by a deficiency of Vitamin B3, was often brought
about by diets that were too heavily dependent on corn. Roussel worked to restrict the consumption
of corn in France, and thus eradicated the disease in this country. However, it remained elsewhere in Europe. In the 19th
century, it was thought that some kind of toxin or germ in corn was causing
pellagra. In the early 20th
Century, the U.S. Public Health Service, with funding allocated by Congress,
established the Spartanburg Pellagra Hospital in South Carolina for the
purpose of finding a cure for the disease.
In research that would not be considered ethical today, the research
team led by Dr. Joseph Goldberger
induced the disease in prisoners in order to prove that the cause was
a nutritional deficiency. By 1926,
Goldberger proved that a balanced diet or just a little brewer’s yeast was
all that was necessary to prevent pellagra.
To this day, however, in France people don’t eat much corn, and they
tend to think of it more as animal feed. We continued
our walk, on to the end of the avenue de l’Observatoire and then around the
right side of it, on the avenue Denfert Rochereau. Then we took sharp left on the boulevard
Arago, and discovered an evangelical Protestant church on one side, with a
University of Paris Faculty of Protestant Theology building on the other
side. I was surprised to see that the
university has a Protestant Theology program.
So while Protestants are no longer burned alive in the streets of
Paris, they are nonetheless relegated to the lower part of the 14th
arrondissement. (Just kidding.) We finally
reached the entrance to the park on the far side of the Observatory. It is a not-so-manicured park in which the
lawn is allowed to have some weeds and is allowed to grow to the point of
uneven fluffiness. I liked the effect
of slight disarray for a change. The
park has a steady slope leading up to the observatory. When we left
the park and continued our walk up the rue du Faubourg Saint Jacques, I was
surprised to see that this hill was not natural; it had been constructed and was supported
on the rue du Faubourg Saint Jacques side by a huge stone retaining wall. Along that
street we re-discovered the Société de Gens de Lettres de France, housed in a
former stately home that also now serves as the headquarters for the CEAA
(Conservatoire Européen d’Écriture Audiovisuelle). The Société de
Gens de Lettres was founded by Balzac in 1838. Victor Hugo was also one of the first
members. The stately home, the former
Hôtel de Massa, was originally built in 1777 on the Champs Élysées. But the president of the Galeries Lafayette
department store, Théophile Bader, bought it and wanted to build a shopping
center in its place. But the
building was too historic to be demolished; it had to be moved, stone by
stone, to this location. It took two
years to reassemble it on Observatory grounds on the rue du Faubourg Saint
Jacques. The task was done in 1931 –
quite an undertaking for bad economic times.
Funding came from the French ministry of education (administratively,
the Observatory is part of the ministry of education). The Hôtel de Massa then became the
headquarters for the Society of the Men of Letters; an appropriate location
because not far from here, Balzac wrote some of his important works, and
started La Comédie Humaine. Last time we
saw this place, years ago, students were lounging all over the lawns. Not this time. Perhaps it is too damp from all the rain we
had recently. We turned on
the rue Cassini, and I was amazed at the beautiful residential buildings
there. These were all unique; it is
like no other street I’ve seen in Paris. Tom wanted to
see Val de Grace, the gorgeous military hospital, so we detoured on our way
back toward home, so that we could sit on the Place Alphonse Laveran and gaze
at the glorious institution. After strolling
back through the Luxembourg Gardens and resting at the apartment, we walked
up to Le Christine for a fine dinner, and then enjoyed two sets of live jazz
by Christian Brenner’s trio at Café Laurent – a lovely way to end a great day
in Paris.
Olivier Robin playing
the drums at Café Laurent. |
Saturday, September 21, 2013
The
building that houses the Paris boutique of L’Artisanat
Monastique.
Window
in a Saint Vincent de Paul chapel.
The
former Hotel de Massa, now home to the Society of Men of Letters, and the
audiovisual school.
Rue
Cassini. |
