Rounding Third

I can barely believe I've been here four weeks. When we were here in January, we had 12 days, and we crammed them so full of things to do that we were dragged out at the end of each day, but we saw so much, and did so much. It seems like I've done almost nothing this visit.

So, I got all dressed up Tuesday, and we zoomed over to the French Senat for our private tour. The senate was described by my friend Mel, who lives the ultimate bi=coastal life (on the coast of San Pablo Bay in Marin and the coast of the Seine in Paris), as "a place where they don't do anything at all but lunch -- but they do lunch very, very well."

There are over 300 senators in France. The Senate was established by Napoleon I to provide himself with a large and prestigious-looking group of people to approve his every whim. As part of the Republic, it's the "other house" -- the General Assembly, with somewhere around 500 members, has the final say if the two houses do not agree on legislation.

We met Isabel there -- she works for a Senator. We had to pass through metal detectors and sign in with identification, etc., but it was not onerous. Then, we went inside the Senate building.

It's a little bagatelle, a small edifice built by Marie de Medicis to soothe her memories after her husband, Henri IV, was shivved in the sheets by Ravaillac in 1610 -- she began the project in 1615 and sort of wrapped it up in 1625. It is special in that it is built around a French-style courtyard, but is clearly an Italian Renaissance building, which makes sense when you realize she wanted it to remind her of the Pitti Palace in Florence, where she grew up.

Because the property on which is sits, and the "little" building to the side, were purchased from the Duke of Luxembourg, the building is known as the Luxembourg Palace, and the name fits.

The great tapestry factories of France and Belgium, for the most part, if not entirely, copy great paintings or other works of art in their tapestries.

There is a cycle of many paintings (12 or more) depicting the life of Marie de Medicis, which now hang in the Louvre. They have been replaced, at the Lux Palace, with d'Aubusson Tapestries of immense size. The grand staircase is exactly that, and the entire building retains all the charm of an empire-area palace, because the various Napoleons dressed it up and housed the Senat there.

A photo of the absolutely incredible library are included for your pleasure. The library has nearly a half-million volumes, many of them well over 150 years of age, for the senators' research. It also has a card catalog and absolutely way-beyond-cool rolling ladders about 20 feet high to give access to the upper stacks, which you can see in the photos.

We also saw Marie's bedroom, which is square and has a lot of gold in it. It is used for highly pomped-and-circumstanced signings now. When the President of France presents his legislative agenda, he does so in this building, surrounded by the various cabinet ministers. He is piped into the room by an honor guards of pipers and drummers playing Ruffles and Flourishes on their tambours and bagpipes.

On a side note, all of you who LOVE French cooking owe an ENORMOUS debt of gratitude to Marie de Medicis (or, de Medici if you think in Italian), for it was she, after a trip to Henri's home to discuss marriage, that decided the people of France were boors and charlatans in the kitchen, and could use a healthy dose of forks and knives at their tables. Additionally, she brought her entire domestic staff from the kitchen in Florence to "teach these sad people" how to cook. And did she ever. The rest is (legendary) history. You know the old proverb -- feed a frog, and he will croak for a night. Teach a frog to cook, and he will conquer the world.

That evening we had "My Dinner with Pierre". Pierre Seydoux is one of the descendants of the family that married into the Schlumberger fortune, just as it was beginning to be a fortune (it was, alas, Pierre's uncle and not his father who married "up".) Pierre is the chief editor for the publishing company that produces France's law books, and the largest law review in the nation -- law reviews are not attached to law schools here, and Pierre no longer "edits", he is the senior managing editor now, and he "has people to do the work for me, which is much better than doing it myself."

Invited to his home for a drink before dinner, I primped like a 15-year old heading for his first formal dance -- the analogy is apt, because I didn't know how to dance, so I just was kinda crazy. Mel told me the appropriate gift to bring to someone's home (a small box of hand-made chocolates is always appreciated, and much less expensive than Champagne, in case you ever find yourself in my predicament).

I wore my suit, but Kelli convinced me to not wear a formal shirt or tie. Good thing. Pierre answered the door in faded jeans and a flannel shirt, and that immediately made the rest of the evening just plain fun.

Pierre's father was a diplomat, so he has lived all over the world -- northern Africa, Asia, and the United States, among other places. He pointed out the big difference between the French and Americans -- "in France, when we have a lot of money, we try very hard to find ways to not show that fact." Humble houses, or grand houses behind humble building exteriors. Pierre casually mentioned his home in Brittany, "where the river meets the Atlantic", and explained that he goes to visit when he gets a powerful craving for seafood, because it is freshest right there......

We went to a small neighborhood Moroccan restaurant -- their entire kitchen prep space consisted of the cutting board on top of the dishwasher. The other side of the closet, er, kitchen, was the 4-burner stove and home-sized oven. They turned out some amazing food from that small kitchen -- Kelli and I had wonderful b'stilla as an appetizer -- they had the REAL b'stilla on the menu, which we orderd, but alas, they were out of pigeon and we had to "settle" for chicken. B'stilla is kind of like baklava, only with meat replacing some of the nuts, and no honey -- but it does have cinnamon and powdered sugar sifted over the top after it is baked. It's available in the Bay Area at some Moroccan restaurants (as are belly dancers -- at least, the b'stilla is authentic).

Anyway, we talked about many things over dinner (I had lamb kebabs with vegetable stew over couscous) and two bottles of Moroccan rose that was quite delightful -- then sweet mint tea, and after that, we all had a shot of Moroccan fig liquor -- about 55% alcohol, a lot like grappa, but smooth and with a taste of sweetness at the end. We discussed the immigration problems our countries experience, and issues of quality of food and quality of life, as well as Bob Dylan and blues music. Pierre is reported to be quite skilled at blues guitar. We were instructed to telephone when we return in January to come over to the house for dinner next time -- I will dress more comfortably then.

We began our museum days. I suggested we go to the Louvre on Wednesday, because it was open late, but, of course, it is NOT open late on Wednesdays, so "never mind". Instead, we went to the incredible Musee Jacquemart-Andre for lunch and a visit.

Very civilized.

Lunch is served in the old reception dining room of the home. This home, on one of Hausmann's major Boulevards, was quite the to-do when it was built. Set back from the street, it breaks the uniform facades of the street front. Because the lot was on a slope, carriages entered through the port into a circular drive that rounded to the rear of the property and climbed one story at the same time, so that guests actually entered on the first (French, second US) floor. The dining room is just insanely elegant, as is the whole home -- Andre had money, and married his portrait painter, Nelie Jacquemart. They didn't have children, they had parties, and traveled the world in search of collectible pieces of Italian art -- like choir stalls with some of the best wood inlay known -- or Tintoretto frescoes -- or masters of the Venetian school -- both of them loved Venice.

The main reception rooms, with ceilings about 18 feet high, had specially designed walls. The servants would flip back a 4-inch wide section of the parquet floor parallel to the wall, and the walls, on hydraulic jacks, would be lowered into the lower floor of the home, opening the three reception rooms into a grand L-shaped reception area that could accomodate 1,000 guests. The winter garden, and the enormous fresco wall behind the grand double staircase with marble balustrade above, which fresco depicts Henry IV's return to France from Italy, made for a rather sumptuous area for folks to mingle away from the formal reception areas.

Let's just put it this way -- if you've only got one day to "see" Paris, you have to walk past the Louvre, see the Eiffel Tower, the Arc du Triomphe -- but you have to go inside the Jacquemart-Andre -- it's like going into Campbell's Concentrated Cream of Louvre. Not as overwhelming, but there's very, very few pieces in this home that the Louvre would not instantly make room to display.

Dinner was a reheated half of a roasted farm chicken, with rice and sauteed endive. Endive is a commodity in France and Belgium, and a luxury everywhere else in the world -- it's very expensive in Italy, for instance. In California, it's about $4 for a small head, and if you were to weigh it and realize it's about $20 a pound for leaves, you would be clinically depressed for weeks.

In France, it's less than 50 cents a head -- 1 and a half Euros for a Kilo bag. It's cheaper than lettuce.

And it's delicious braised in butter -- of course, baseball cards are delicious braised in French butter, as are shoelaces. Nicely bitter, soft, and yummy. I will be so sad when I have to stop eating fresh bread every day (it's free to walk to the bakeries within a block of here - there are several - and baguettes that would make you weep cost a dollar).

On our way home, we wandered past Dalloyau. It's the most expensive deli on Planet Earth. You have to submit financial statements, in triplicate, with auditor's signatures, to be allowed to trigger the automatic door opener. Once inside, each breath costs seventy-five Euro cents.

The chocolate cakes were affordable at about $55 to serve 8 -- but I cannot imagine taking a knife to a work of art such as this. You could, truly, shave in your reflection off the ganache frosting. Some cakes had gold leaf decorations; the chocolate cake had a random sprinkling of trapezoids, which are immediately recognizable to those "in the know" as the pattern on the flooring tiles of Dalloyau.

They had a whole Serrano ham there, to be sliced by hand. The fat and skin from the top had been carefully placed back over the cut surface so it would not dry out. It was $185 per kilo.

Here's a tip: If you are a collector of the finest things in life, like Hermes bags, go to Dalloyau and purchase a bottle or two of wine. They have a LOT to choose from, and their prices are like anyone else's for the same wine. Two bottles will surely earn you a precious maroon Dalloyau bag with the gilt lettering and the gold braid handles. Crowds will part for you. You will actually be able to walk across L'Etoile as a pedestrian, as the cognoscenti of Paris stop, slack-jawed, drooling and stupefied that you, an AMERICAN, for God's sake, have a Dalloyau bag that actually has contents.

Yesterday we got up early so we could spend the day at Versailles.

I'm going to spare you the suspense -- of COURSE we did NOT spend the day at Versailles, despite the fact that we actually DID get up in time.

I read my e-mail.

It seems that our son needed to work on his car, so he thoughtfully moved my car out of our driveway so that he wouldn't damage it with an errant tool or a flying bolt. He parked it across the street, where I have often parked it myself.

Our neighbor over there is having her kitchen and bathrooms remodeled. When I left, an enormous truck=sized bin had been there several days collecting demolition debris.

So, of course, one of the folks working on her house, well, they just kinda ran into the car while it was parked there minding its own business.

Stephen was upset, of course. The neighbors stepped right up, said they would take care of the repairs and deal with the workmen themselves, and offered to get the car to a repair shop the next day.

This was in our e-mail, along with a request to jump onto Skype if we happened to get up early (and this was the ONLY morning we had done so since Thanksgiving), so we contacted Deborah and got everything straightened out -- we understand that Stephen is now feeling better because he is assured that he's done the right thing in all ways here, including moving the car in the first place. It's being fixed now. It should be very happy when I get home.

It took nearly two hours to complete this conversation. (Remember, Skype is free. If you have friends with computers, use it.)

NO longer possible to get to Versailles by 9, or 10, or 11 (it was now 10:30), I slipped into a depressive coma that was only eased by a bit of breakfast (no, really, just a bit -- a small yoghurt -- and if you think WE spell yoghurt funny, the French spell it Yaourt and strangle themselves asking for it).

I assembled a brisk and detailed program for the day, one that included three museums. We actually GOT to two of them, and that's pretty damned good.

The first was the Nissim Camondo. Billed as an "everyday home of the early 20th century" we thought we'd get a chance to see how Paris' bourgeoise lived.

Ah, no.

This place was just a touch behind Jacquemart-Andre, mainly because they didn't serve lunch.

Camondo's family was originally from Spain, went to Italy as bankers (Jews were not comfortable in Spain then, even though the Camondo family could not have been succesfully prosecuted for practicing Jewry), where they helped finance Victor Emmanuel's efforts to unify Italy, and were awarded the title of Count as a result. Later, they scurried off to Constantinople, where they opened another highly successful bank, before decamping to Paris in the mid=1800s.

They got to Paris just as people were subdividing and selling land directly adjacent to the Parc Monceau, one of Paris' lovliest. The two brothers each purchased a plot that backed onto the park, and built homes and began collecting art.

The son inherited one home, and sold off nearly everything and tore down the house, building in its place a mansion whose rooms vary in size and shape and height in order that they could perfectly accomodate the paneling purchased from 17th century palaces, or the monumental works of art, etc. The family saga was a sad one -- a marriage of convenience (melding two fortunes), two children, one of each sort, then the wife took up with an Italian horse trainer and bagged on the family. Dad got custody, raised his two beloved children in his museum, and life went on. The daughter took up riding, and the son wound up in the air force in World War I.

Nissim, the son, did not return from a mission near Verdun in early 1917.

His father was "distraught", a condition we would today diagnose as clinically severely depressed. He took to eating his meals in the room he had built solely to house the formal Sevres china, using the real dining room once every couple of years to host a dinner for his gourmet club.

Dad never really recovered from the loss of his son. His daughter had no interest in the art collection, so Dad made plans to will it, and the house, to the Society for Decorative Arts in France, who has maintained it ever since.

Daughter was an accomplished equestrienne. After Dad died, daughter, who had married and had two children of her own who were close to majority, saw no need to flee France in 1940 -- her French citizenship would keep her safe, after all -- and she, her husband, and two children, all of whom maintained high public profiles throughout the war competing in equestrian events, were arrested in 1944, not long before the liberation of Paris. She and the children were sent to Drancy immediately, and to Auschwitz within weeks, and her husband followed by a few weeks. By the autumn of 1944, the Comondo line had been extinguished.

The house was just unbelievable. The library, a rotunda with natural walnut paneling, overlooks the Parc Monceau. The house required a staff of 15 to run it.

There was a short, stout woman, whose photo you can see in any dictionary filed under "dour", a museum guard, who followed us around every room of the first floor. I had my camera on its tripod, and I was taking pictures like a happy fool. Docent Ratched allowed it.

In the dining room on the upper floor, an older man came sprinting towards me, and while I didn't really understand his French exactly, I got the message that photos weren't allowed, so I folded up my equipment and moved along, eager to avoid an international incident (I'm not actually sure if the Bush Administration still maintains an embassy in Paris -- do we have diplomatic relations with the French?)

Shortly thereafter, he came back, explaining that photos were OK, but no flash (I never, ever use flash in a museum) and no tripods (I always use a tripod, because I use no flash, so the photos are long exposures....). I said I understood, and moved another room down the list.

His boss came up to talk with me next. I didn't understand his French completely, either (odd how that would happen with two people in a row -- what are the chances of TWO unintelligible French people talking to me?), but I clearly understood that tripod photos required an application, a trip through the compact, yet oh!-so-painful maze that is the French bureaucracy of, shall we say, 2 months, and then it would only be approved after the payment of a fee and proof of membership in a group that they knew and liked.

OK, OK, I won't take any pictures.

Then, the little guy got on his radio, to the consternation of everyone else visiting the museum -- it was loud, and they were all forced to overhear (and understand, putting them all ahead of me) the conversation, which clearly was dealing with the photo situation again.

It mercifully ended after a few minutes. At which time I was beckoned to follow our original tormentor, back into the dining room, where he pointed out some of the more attractive items, then said that I had been given a "brevet promotion in the field" and was now officially authorized to take photos with my tripod (please, no flash).

You had to be there. Not only did we take photos of that room and the ones we had skipped, he insisted I follow him into some portions of the house that were off=limits to the public. Out of deference to his 15 years on the job, I didn't photograph any of those areas, lest his superior ask to see the pictures when we were done.

It was all too hilarious.

The kitchen was to die for. The stove was insane, and the ovens, originally gas, were large enough to spit-roast a haunch of beef - and ingeniously designed so that the rising heat spun a fan which drove a chain drive which rotated the spit. An entire year's production of a copper mine was on display on the pot rack.

From there, a couple of Metro rides, and we were at Marmottan-Monet museum. The upper floor was devoted to a special showing of sculpture by Camille Claudel, with a couple of Rodins thrown in for comparison's sake. The main floor had stuff on it, nothing wildly exciting, but there was a basement, which most people never found. The elevator from the ground floor only goes up.......but there's a staircase around the side, away from everything else in the museum, on the other side of the entry.......

And down there, in the basement, which we shared with a somnolent guard and exactly 5 other people over the course of an hour, was about 25% of Monet's oeuvre. Mammoth paintings, small sketches, caricatures he did as a teen-ager. This is where they've chosen to display the works that normally reside in the Tuilleiries Orangerie, which is undergoing terminal reconstruction, due to be completed early this past year........

So cool. I mean, you just get off the subway and go see something that people in the Bay Area will, in a couple of months, line up for hours to view. And you are alone with it.

So, there you are. No photos of the Monets, because those folks actually had a sign up, and checked my camera along with my jacket. That's another wonderful thing about Parisian museums -- free coat check -- they will NOT accept tips -- so that you don't have to tromp through the spaces feeling like a Mongolian pack animal sentenced to a week in a sauna.