"Madame, I yam Soo-pozz-edd to be"

Sunday. The first Sunday of December. In France, just about any museum worth a diddly-damn is free on the first Sunday of the month. We trek to the Invalides Metro station, where there is an interchange with the RER C-line. You may remember, from the early days of this trip, that I went out to Versailles already and inventoried each of the 1.3 million trees on my walk around the place. I also had to walk the distance from Metro to RER because the 1/2 mile long moving sidewalk (the one that goes UPHILL, naturally), was broken that day.

We decide to go to Versailles.

The people-mover is, once again. alors, deader than a stick. The downhill one is moving at a brisk clip, made all the more rapid-looking by the fact that we are hiking up a continual half-mile slope to the RER station. This fact is brought into sharper focus when we remember that, exiting the metro portion of the complex, we had to climb 3 flights of stairs in order to descend 5 flights of stairs in order to be at the bottom of this, the French Grapevine.

Trains that run every 8 minutes during the week run once per hour on Sundays, even on "free" Sundays. We wait about 25 minutes for a train.

The ride to Versailles is short -- it's only 10 miles from downtown Paris. When we get there, they have signs, ala Disneyland, that say in multiple languages "Your wait from this point to the entrance is 90 minutes", spaced 15 minutes apart. Amazingly, they are of no particular value this day -- we can walk directly up to the building, where fewer than 25 people are in line ahead of us.

We enter, and are told by the friendly lady at the "host" desk, who, of course, speaks English, that today the King's apartments and the Queen's apartments are closed, terribly sorry, but the State Rooms are open and free, and we can rent an audioguide over there, and if we are incredibly good and insanely lucky, at the end of our tour we can see if there is room on one of the (rare) guided tours of the Opera House built into the Palace.

We set out. First, just in case being surrounded by 4 square miles of French architecture has allowed us to forget where we are, we must go to the vestaire, the free coat check, where they take Kelli's bag, through which she has woven her coat. When I slip off my two-layer jacket with the pockets full of guide books, however, they (with appropriately sorrowful looks and perfectly-praticed Gallic shrugs) tell me that they don't accept coats. While actually holding Kelli's in their hands.

It turns out the vestaire (same root word as vest, it means CLOAKROOM) does not actually have any coat hangers. Not that they have run out, they don't have ANY.

Bags, sure. Strollers, no problem. Umbrellas by the squadron. COATS? in a Coat Check? Who do you think you are? Roberto Begnini?

Fine. We march through about 11 rooms, each getting closer to the King's throne room, where he would hear the pleas (in writing, only) of commoners. Finally, we have gotten through that wing of the palace, and we are in the War Salon, which is on the corner. We can see out into the gardens, and are about to make the left turn into the most famous part of Versailles.

First, we stop to watch the incredibly long HD video of the work being undertaken to restore the "Hall of Mirrors" -- there was a sign at the beginning of the tour telling us the room was being restored, but was open during the restoration and was, in any event, being restored in sections, so.

We make the turn, in anticipation beyond measure, to this magnificent salon, more than 200 feet long, 30 feet high, and nearly 40 feet wide.

We make the turn, into the most famous room in all the world -- the Incredible Salon of Scaffolding, Particle Board and Plaster Dust that you have all heard about all your lives.

To be fair and honest, not ALL of the room was encased in a carpet-covered wooden tunnel, although all of the flooring was covered. No, true to their statement about doing the room in sections, there was about a 40-foot long area with no scaffolding, no particle board, no carpets.

Also: no mirrors, no wall covering, no open windows.

Hooray. We can now go down the list and check off "Versailles, Salon des Glaces".

The rest of the visit is, again, quite interesting -- the other wing, with it's balancing Salon of Peace at the turn, takes us in reverse order through the Queen's area, including the bedroom from which she escaped the rioting crowds. The secret door built into the wall coverings is left open for all to see.

At the end of the tour, we exit into a pair of rooms from later periods, one of which has monumental paintings (not GREAT paintings, but HUGE peintings) commemorating all the battles won in French history to that time (go ahead, all of you, and tell me that since it went through Napoleon's time, it actually commemorates ALL the battles EVER won in French history). Waterloo was strangely absent, and we were struck by how often Napoleon, or other great French generals, managed to wage their campaigns on green grassy fields, absent of rocks, trees, or dwellings -- even Austerlitz, which took place in December after a major snow storm, was represented as a verdant pasture, albeit with some snow-covered mountains in the distance, at least.

On to the Opera tour. We get to the desk, I ask in my Francaise comedie for two spots on the next english tour, and we are awarded two sticky "my name is" tags that instead have the time of our tour -- and, it's in only 5 minutes! Hooray, we now know just exactly which one thing is going to go right today.

Our tour guide shows up -- a gentleman, about my age, in a tan cashmere topcoat and scarf. We assemble, and he sets off across the room, then across the main courtyard, at a pace slightly quicker than the Blitzkrieg. Exactly no one can keep up with him, especially since we are sprinting across a sloping, wet cobblestoned yard about, well, no, EXACTLY the size of the hall of mirrors, about 80 yards.

Breathless, we arrive at the rendezvous point, where ever-chirpy Kelli puts on her BEST customer-service face and says "you are very quick, sir." Staring down at her as though he had just noticed that there was a living, walking booger in his group, he says with great dignity "madame, I yam soo-poze-edd to bee" and takes off again. I thought I was gonna die laughing.

His tour was fantastic -- he was witty, urbane, totally knowledgable, and possibly, just possibly, more opinionated than even I am. He has a soft spot for royalty, and pointed out that the house of Bourbon still exists in France, ready to return (to, I presume, a ceremonial role much as in England and Holland). It's really not a bad idea, when you think about it. The Queen gives Englishmen something to rally around and agree on as Englishmen, allowing their politics to be as slug-it-out nasty as it needs to be, while still allowing for a patriotic rallying point. Makes more sense than suggesting that anyone who disagrees with the President is unpatriotic......I can't for a New York second, imagine most ANY US President, but particularly our current one, surviving the kind of vitriolic questioning that is a staple of Britain's House of Commons.

He even taught us how people sat in those days -- "etiquette was everything -- ladies could ONLY wear diamonds after dark, and after dark, could wear ONLY diamonds -- rings (worn over gloves), bracelets, necklaces, earrings, even shoe buckles could only be diamonds in the presence of the King." Gentlemen carried their plumed hats under their left arm, never to be worn. Their right hand rested on the handle of their jewel-encrusted sterling or vermeil (gold plated silver) sword; the left held a silk handkerchief (never to be used). The benches in the opera did not have backs, and one was seated only on the front quarter of the bench, turned at a 45-degree angle toward the King and Queen, whose backs you were looking at. Wonderful day, wonderful tour. At the end, he entertained questions, and I asked him if, with the great national motto of "liberte, fraternite, egalite" guiding everything in French life (it even explains why they don't queue up -- if everyone is equal, then getting there first means nothing), did that affect how the history of the monarchy was taught in school?

He gave me a very honest answer -- and the one I fully expected -- which was "it all depends on your teacher -- one cannot teach history without one's personal bias creeping in." And then he abruptly turned heel and disapeared faster than Lance Armstrong on the Alpe d'Huez, before I could ask the journalist's follow-up question, which was whether he was, in fact, a royalist himself.

We walked through old Versailles, found a bakery open, got bread and came home to eat.

Monday. The plan: to meet with Claire and conquer the fabric marts of the Marche Saint Pierre, at the foot of the funicular railway that leads to Sacre Coeur Cathedral.

We meet at our old standby, Picpus Metro station, and walk to Place de la Nation, one stop further up the line. The reason: as can only happen in a city where the underground has more "floors" than the above-ground, it is a shorter walk to our desired Metro line at Nation (where 2 end and 4 meet) that it would be to ride to Nation and then "transfer" (a word the French translate as correspondance, because your walk will be long enough for you to meet, have social intercourse with, and then grow weary of, a pen pal) to the correct line. These are the sorts of things that only a native Parisian can truly teach a denizen of the Second World (yeah, that's right. That's us. You've only heard of the "third world", but, cleverly enough, there were two that preceded it, neither being Africa, which apparently preceded everything.).

We exit the Metro at Anvers station, which is at the foot of Montmartre. Or, to put it another way, we begin our daily Parisian Death March in the only direction available to us: uphill.

We wander through streets largely familiar to us from last visit, although we were there at night, and in the rain, then. Today it is "mostly cloudy, with occasional periods of sun", as the weather forecast says. Also, it is windy (over the weekend Brittany, Normandy and the south of Great Britain were under warnings for hurricane-force winds), and about 36 degrees, with a chance of reaching 40. Chance gras.

We are here because the lovely Mrs. has decided that our tattered drapes that sit in our very narrow windows that flank the front door (which are, for the most part, invisible to all who visit us because they are also set about 4 feet under our porch and receive slightly less light than graced the Man in the Iron Mask at bedtime) have draped their last, have welcomed their final guest, and are more accurately described now as a loosely organized gathering of lint.

We want French draperies for the front door. Since the windows are only about 6 feet tall and 18 inches wide, there is a fleeting, but perceptible chance that we can afford this excursion.

The possibility of finding said drapes, however, is rather somewhat less than robust.

I merrily plow headfirst into this sojourn (a French word that loosely means "sore day"), convinced that, since Kelli admires the similar draperies in Karen's windows, which are linen with cutwork, that we are, in fact, in search of narrow panels of linen with cutwork, as we have seen in so many 2nd/1st and 3rd/2nd story windows on our prior Death Marches.

And now, a word from our sponsor: Gentlemen, please be aware that there is a demonstrated link, attaching itself to the Y-chromosome, which makes THEIR definition of "like", as in "let's look for draperies like these" only marginally related to YOUR/OUR definition of "like". Your definition: Let us go find something similar in size, shape, color, and design to this example you are holding in your hands. Their definition: Let us go find something.

We arrive in the fabric district. This is an oddity about Paris that is probably similar to how New York City once was, also -- I've not had the opportunity to truly live in and explore any other European cities, so I don't know if it is slightly unique, unique, or VERY unique (that's a linguistic joke, people), but is an oddity -- in Paris, you can go to a fabric district and most stores sell fabric or sewing materials. A few blocks away, everyone is selling, well, let's just leave it at "deeply (and we DO mean DEEPLY) creative personal sculptures in a variety of silicone-based materials, frequently requiring batteries (not included)", and a few blocks further away, everyone is selling ready-to-wear (pret a porter, literally, "ready to carry") clothing.

Of course,



(wait for it)



You know it's coming . . . .



it's closed.



BUT

only for a few hours -- they open at 2 pm on Mondays, and stay open for 3.5 hours, to help out those poor souls who neglected to purchase enough sheer organdy silk to complete the redecoration of their seraglio (we're branching out -- that one's Arabic, and means "harem-room", at least, it does in the New York Times' Sunday Crossword).

We take a walk. That's what you do when you can't do what you WANT to do in Paris, you walk. It's also what you do to GET TO what you want to do, and it's what you do when you are doing what you want to do. You also do it when you have stopped doing what you want to do, and are moving on to the next item in your programme, which will also, alas, be closed just now.

We wander the neighborhood and find the first modern church built in Paris -- it's entirely made of brick on the outside, just after the turn of the 20th century. Claire enjoys these excursions with us, because we just boldly march into these buildings that she has seen for years but never explored. Some nice stained glass inside; I drop another $10 on a long-lasting candle as this week is "really" the week that our agent is sending out the book proposal -- last week was spent on the phone and e-mails, preparing publishers for its arrival. Sounds like a very appropriate strategy to me -- get 'em excited before it arrives, so they will read it. Anyway, keep doing your juju or white magic or prayer circles, as you feel appropriate.

There was plenty of time left, so I proposed a visit to a museum. That's another great thing about Paris -- wherever you go, there's a museum. We did not have time to do justice to the 5-story Musee de l'Erotisme, right there in that "sculpture district", (while walking through it, Kelli asked two questions -- "Is that person standing in the doorway in the fur coat waiting for a client, and, is it male or female?", to which my answers were "yes", and "yes", respectively), but we did have time to visit the home and atelier of a 19th century French artist named Gustave Moreau.

Neat house. Lower floors preserved as he left them (he was pretty wealthy and had no "issue", so left everything to the state for a museum), and the upper floor atelier was turned into two floors, each with about a 15-foot ceiling, for display space. He did some monumental paintings, but he was also a prolific draftsman and sketch artist, and the museum displays literally thousands of these items in large cases with many vertical drawers, which, when opened, contain framed items on hinges that can be leafed through, stacked about 10-deep. The outer walls of both rooms are, literally, wall-to-wall cupboards which, when opened, have 10-15 leaves with dozens of sketches, studies for his paintings, engravings, and drawings. It's one of those places that crams a lifetime of work into a few large rooms, and it's fascinating.

Also fascinating: the way they added the extra floor in the atelier. It's a big room -- I would guess perhaps 30 feet wide and 70 feet long -- and they didn't mess around -- they brought in 15-inch steel I - beams and laid them across the room, on BOTH floors (one set holds up the roof), so that, in the event it becomes necessary to route the Metro through this house, they can just drop the tracks on and go.

Speaking of this sort of construction, we also visited the Montmartre cemetery, where we paid our respects to Stendahl, Offenbach, and a plaque for Fragonard, but missed Zola, who was apparently hiding near that plaque.

Forgive me, there's no other way to say this: going to a cemetery with Claire truly brings it to life. Descended from a once-but-no-longer wealthy family whose members, about 125 years ago, decided to restore a great abbey in the countryside and became unwealthy in the process, she's related to the Montgolfiers (inventers of the hot-air balloon), and knows her stuff -- art history and French history -- in a personal way, so as we walk by apparently anonymous graves, she explains that this family is from Tunisia, that one is famous for inventing this item, this other one grew hugely wealthy from producing such-and-so. Truly, gone but not forgotten.

And now, the fabric stores are open.

We begin our cautionary tale by pointing out that, on the walk UP (there's that word again) to the big fabric markets, we walked past Tissus Saint Pierre, the fabric store where last January we purchased fabulous brocade fabric to reupholster our dining room set, at silly bargain prices. They, of course, being a mere fabric STORE and not a fabric SOLAR SYSTEM, were open to capture any stray trade that might have thought the huge stores were open early on Monday. We ignored them (we spit on you! ptah!) and proceeded to our day as already described.

It is now mid-afternoon. We have stopped at an artisanal boulanger and obtained sandwiches and all-butter palm leaf cookies larger than our heads. They were fabulous. Claire said they reminded her of her girlhood, when her mother would have palm leaf cookies for her after-school snack. Claire insisted that no Proustian tomes would result, however -- as good as these cookies were, they were not her madeleines.

We head back UP the hill to Marche Saint Pierre, where the voilage is, but of course, located on the 3rd (French) floor. Being a warehouse, the floors are rather tall -- about 21 stairs between them. We trudge up, and find hundreds of bolts of curtain fabric.

In lace.

OK.

Lace.

So, we're contemplating replacing WHOLE drapes that might be wearing a little thin, thus producing a couple of tattered spots with tiny holes, with all-new fabric consisting almost entirely of pre-planned holes, done in the patterns of dolphins or sailboats or fruits and vegetables. Bound down the sides, the fabrics are sold in 12, 18, 24 and 30 inch widths, with fringy-scallopy kinds of details and regular holes every foot or so -- the deal is, you buy a length, cut it to fit your particular window (which was probably not made in a factory in the first place), and thread a rod through the holes. If you want fringy-bottoms, you cut at the bottom of the fringys, and if you want scallopy-bottoms, you cut at the TOP of the fringys.

We look through approximately 4, 113 bolts of lace curtains. None is quite right.

No problem, there is always Reine across the street. If the King of Fabric warehouses isn't right, then the Queen surely will be.

Astonishingly, voilage is on the top floor at Reine, too. We enter the store, which Claire has visited "hundreds of times", and march directly to the staircase on the far right, where I strap on oxygen and begin, once again, to climb Jacob's Ladder.

Reine has some nice products, actually -- as well they should be, since the prices would require that we call AAA to come out and jump start Marie Antoinette's heart. Fortunately, none are "just right", although Goldilocks seems to be getting closer and closer to finding the proper chair.

With heavy hearts, (horse manure -- with heavy LEGS) we descend the stairs, turn right to go out the exit, and, right there in front of us -- yes, RIGHT THERE -- IT IS!


Wait for it.



You KNOW what's coming, don't you?




The elevator.

Which Kelli and Claire both walked past without even the slightest nod of recognition. Despite the large yellow sign hanging down from the ceiling. And the shiny stainless steel doors. And the buttons and indicators.

I stopped dead in my tracks. It was surprisingly easy to do so. And I pointed.

Neither of them recognized where I was pointing. They both LOOKED RIGHT AT THE ELEVATOR! and did NOT recognize it as a small private room which takes you to high places while preserving your feet and legs.

Claire: "I never knew there was a elevator here! Look at the things you are finding in Paris!"

At the prices they charge, they ought to have Arabic castrati carry us about in sedan chairs, but I surely would have settled for the elevator.

Anyway.......

Just on a hunch, now 7 hours after our first arrival in the neighborhood, I suggest we walk the extra two blocks (what the hell? It was downhill anyway, and no stairs were harmed in the making of this additional walk) and check at Tissus Saint Pierre.

There's no chance we will find what we are looking for here, because it's just a sham of a fabric store -- it only has ONE flight of stairs. Our quarry, apparently warming up to spend its useful life at the highest point in a home, is, of course, UP those stairs.

Of course, they've got what we "want". And, they have some that is turned the other direction -- only 12 inches long, but it offers the key benefit of covering the top of the draperies we will be sewing, because the fabric we wind up selecting does not have those pre-built holes woven in.

The fabric we select also doesn't have binding for the first 10 inches or so -- having Claire with us, we are able to let the attendant know that we need her to start measuring from the point where the binding begins --- victory number one.

The "valance" fabric is tres cher -- only twelve inches long, it is about $10 per running foot. It comes in repeating panels about 6 inches wide. We decide to purchase 4 for each window, since they will have to sit on a separate rod in front of the other drapes, and will have some pleating, etc., etc.

We unwind the fabric from the bolt. It is linen, which explains the price.

The second panel in has a black thread which has been woven into the panel. Visible from a distance of, oh, our neighbor's living room.

I'm NOT going to spend the extra money to buy two extra panels to get past this blemish.

The attendant explains (via Claire) that this is linen, and imperfections like that are to be expected.

I unwind 8 panels, then 10 panels, and point out that only THAT panel has an imperfection.

They can't give us 10 panels for the price of 8.

They can't cut off two panels and discard them.

So, I suggest we unwind ALL of the fabric from the bolt and start at the other end -- perhaps we can find 8 clean panels there.

Absolutely not.

Now, if I have learned anything in my time here, I have learned that the French see themselves as logical people (stemming all the way from Descartes' famous "I think, therefore I am", which, illogically, he uttered in Latin, yet the French see it as their national motto).

They also have a deep-rooted belief that all good ideas are French in origin. Nothing wrong with that, as Americans are identical -- Darwin was not an American, so we ought to throw out his proven scientific concepts in favor of God-fearin' American ones, don't you know?

I have also learned to wait. Stubbornness is a powerful force. Now, she had already cut the other fabric, so we were on the hook, but I was perfectly willing to walk away from that linen fabric -- and come back another day, after the flawed piece had been sold -- but I made it clear by my silence that we weren't going to buy it that way.

We dithered. We dickered. We wandered about the room, hands in pockets, whistling tunelessly.

After about 10 minutes, it happened.

Enough time had passed, and the attendant came up with a brilliant idea to solve this impasse.

"Why," she said to Claire in French, "don't we just unroll all the fabric and cut from the other end?"

Why, indeed?

You know, even if I wind up HATING these curtains, they represent a victory that demonstrates I have genuinely learned how to deal with the French national psyche and attitude, at least for one day, and that is priceless to me. Regrettably, the curtains themselves are not priceless, and will wind up being about $50 per window. Ah, well -- better that people should be able to be voyeurs looking through intended holes in the draperies.

We proceed to a cafe on the Place de la Nation, where we go for a drink and stay for the evening. Kelli has her first steak in France, and loves it. We bludgeon poore Claire into eating with us, then stagger home after some wonderful wine from St. Chinian (a tiny village at the entrance to the Pyrenees, the so-called "gateway to Erce", where I obtained my beret and Kelli's famous fringy brown lined jacket at the weekly market) and much good food, including Berthillon peach ice cream.

There's more, but I don't want this to take an hour to publish, so, enjoy the photos, see if you can match them to the text, and come back for more soon.