I love Paris (and everywhere else) in the spring time

The springtime is my time of year. As the fruit trees blossom pink and white, and the yellow green new born leaves unfurl themselves, my mood is lifted higher and higher. Everything about the season, from the busy, chatty birds, to the white puffy clouds scudding in a pastel blue sky, fills me with well-being and energy. All of a sudden everyone is on the move, we've had a very active social life in the last few weeks, meeting up again with people we haven't seen in months. And of course the garden calls out to us. An afternoon of weeding in the springtime sun is one of life's genuine pleasures. The phone has begun to ring too. People are making their plans.

One of my favorite features of the local spring landscape are the endless fields of colza (rapeseed) that delight the eye around every turn. They last a short couple of weeks, but they are definitely a springtime highlight while they last.

I take my after-lunch coffee outside on the terrace, usually sun bathing along with my lizard friend who lives beneath the roses somewhere. Everything pleases my senses this time of year.

Our good friends Cass and Billy came from California to spend some time with us. We took the opportunity for a day trip down to the Loire Valley.

Our first stop was Vendôme on the river Loir. This medium sized town is one we like very much, and this time we discovered much more of it than we had explored previously. Vendôme is an ancient settlement, first Gallic, then Roman, and later a very important Medieval center. An abbey here claimed to possess a tear that Jesus shed at the tomb of Lazarus. The center of the town is very pretty, with its grand stone buildings.

It seems to project a sense of former glory and grandeur. However, it is not altogether forsaken in present times, as a high speed train link makes it less than an hour's commute from Paris.

We had lunch and took a very pleasant stroll along the river beneath the trees.

Old stone bridges lead to some gorgeous residences which line the river.

Our next stop was Blois, which we have visited before with Cass and Billy, but this time we took a tour of the château there, which none of us had ever done before. It is a huge castle and was the main residence of several kings of France, including Louis XII and François I. It has almost 600 rooms, including 100 bedrooms.

The central courtyard reveals four wings, each completely different architecturally, which is natural as construction progressed from the thirteenth through the seventeenth centuries.

Above, the Renaissance wing. Below, the classic.

There is a lovely covered stone staircase on the outside of the Renaissance wing, designed for François I by Leonardo da Vinci. It is not as grand as the one he designed for the Château of Chambord, which is a double helix and large enough for several horses and riders to use at the same time; but quite pleasant to walk up and down.

The rooms are highly decorated with ornate wall coverings, carved wooden paneling and decorative tile floors. A bit busy for my taste.

The castle sits on the hill above the city with a lovely view over roof tops to the Loire. I don't think it has changed very much in 400 years. There is something about these slate roofs that enchants me.

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After they left, Billy attended a conference in Paris, and Cass was on her own during the days, so I went in to town to keep her company. We went to see the Marc Chagall exhibit at the Musée du Luxembourg Between War and Peace. If you will be in Paris before July 21st, I highly recommend that you take it in. This is one of our favorite museums in Paris. It is small, and thus the shows are focused and easy to take in without the sense of museum fatigue that often descends in huge places like the Louvre or the Musée d'Orsay. I don't know about you, but for my money Chagall is the twentieth century's most wonderful artist. The show covered his entire career, which spanned both wars.

Chagall, of course, was born in Russia and much of his imagery harkens back to his childhood.

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He lived a major portion of his adult life in France. During the Nazi occupation of Paris he was forced to flee to the United States, but returned after the war and died in the South of France in 1985. Chagall lived almost an entire century (he was 97 when he died), experiencing much of the upheavals that marked those times. Still, for me, even as he expresses the terrible horrors of war, political repression and religious persecution, there is something entirely hopeful in his work. And he certainly celebrates human love.

The Jardin du Luxembourg is right in the center of Paris, of course, and is beautiful throughout the year, but particularly so in spring. The display of tulips was extravagant.

It is the second largest park in Paris and probably the most popular. There are numerous children's play areas, tennis, chess playing, model sailboat racing, puppet shows, lots of chairs for sun bathing and miles of strolling paths. Glorious.

The flower borders are spectacular.

There is sun and shade,

and many wonderful vistas.

Cass and I trekked all over Paris, such a walkable city. We had various errands that took us from Saint-Germain-des-Prés to Notre Dame, the Marais and Ile Saint Louis. Along the way we saw this charming café, located a block south of the river, near Place St. Michel.

After a couple of hours of walking hither and yon, enjoyable though it was, we were seriously tired and the day was warm. We decided to buy a ticket for the Batobus and sail along the river while we waited for Billy who would join us for dinner. A day ticket is 15€, not inexpensive, but well worth it if you are planning to do a lot of touristing during your day in Paris. The Batobus is like a bus or the metro, but you can "hop on and hop off" all day long with your pass, and of course it's a much more pleasant way to get from one spot to the next. It is not like the huge bateaux mouches which have blaring commentary as you glide along. It is simply a nice mode of transportation, though rather slow. It makes a circle on the river between the Hôtel de Ville and the Eiffel Tower, stopping in between at Notre Dame, the Louvre, Champs-Elysées, Musée d'Orsay and the Jardin des Plantes. The entire tour takes about an hour and forty minutes. Cass and I stayed on and enjoyed Parisian sites from the middle of the river.

The Hôtel de Ville:

The Louvre:

Sunbathing next to Notre Dame:

Enjoying life on the quai near Musée d'Orsay:

The Eiffel Tower:

Billy was waiting for us at the quai in front of the Eiffel Tower. We had made reservations at the famous restaurant La Fontaine de Mars, which is just a short walk from here. It also just happens to be right around the corner from our old Paris apartment, so I feel very nostalgic in this neighborhood. This is one of the oldest bistrots in Paris and very popular. In fact, when President Obama brought his family to Paris shortly after his first election, they chose to eat here.

This was Cass and Billy's last night in town and it seemed the perfect final note. The food was typically French, in the best sense.

***

Back at home, our terrace garden is coming to life, including the blooming of my favorite clematis.

On the trail of the Wanderer

Raise your hand if you read The Wanderer by Alain Fournier when you were an adolescent. Its original French title is Le Grand Meaulnes and in Britain they call it The Lost Domain (or The Lost Estate). By any name, it is the quintessential book of adolescent romance. It is often compared to J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye.

For those unfortunates among you who have never discovered this most magical of stories, I will give you the general plot. The narrator of the story, François, a boy with a minor disability which makes him limp and thus keeps him a bit apart from his classmates, is the son of a small town teacher at the turn on the twentieth century. A mysterious and very charismatic boy, Augustin Meaulnes, comes to live with his family and attend school with François. He is nicknamed The Great Meaulnes because he is not only tall, but obviously special - grand in both senses of the word. François is fifteen and Meaulnes perhaps sixteen when the story begins. Meaulnes, who is slightly unruly, steals the horse and cart which are being prepared to head for the train station to pick up François' grandparents, who are coming for the Christmas holidays. Meaulnes has not been chosen for this honor, and simply preempts everyone else and drives off in the buggy.

Meaulnes never makes it to the train station, as he becomes lost in the labyrinth of small tracks that run though the countryside. He is gone for several days and no one knows what has become of him. Upon his return he reveals, but only to François, that while away he has had a most amazing adventure. After a long frustrating attempt to find his way to the station, he had accidentally stumbled upon an old manoir, in the middle of nowhere. A long drive leads to this tumbled down ruin of a house which is festooned with brightly colored Chinese lanterns in every window. Along the walkway leading to the house are masses of children in small groups unaccompanied by adults pronouncing that today, they are "in charge". The children are dressed in quaint antique costumes. The entire scene is entirely enchanting to Meaulnes. He joins the festivities and in the course meets Yvonne and Frantz, the children of the owner of the manoir. He falls helplessly in love with Yvonne, but it is Frantz who he becomes more entangled with, leading to many unfortunate outcomes. After leaving the fête he loses his way again, and much of the rest of the novel involves his searching for the mysterious domain and trying to find Yvonne again.

John Fowles, author of The French Lieutenant's Woman says that Le Grand Meaulnes is "the book one never quite forgets–not only a serious novel but a very great one." My brother sent this book to me while he was taking a university year abroad in France. I was sixteen. I certainly never have forgotten it, and if someone asks me what my very favorite novel is, I quickly cite The Wanderer. Certainly none has ever seemed so magical to me.

Most moving of all is that Alain Fournier wrote this book when he was a mere twenty-three years old. It was first published in 1913 and became an instant classic in France. All high school students read it. Fournier was killed just a few years later in the trenches of WWI at the ripe old age of twenty-eight. It is only about ten years ago that his remains were discovered and and a memorial raised to him and his comrades in Saint-Rémy, close to the site of his death.

Much of the novel has strong autobiographical elements. Fournier's father was indeed a school teacher; the descriptions of the school and countryside are of the places where he grew up. He also fell desperately in love with a mysterious girl he met by chance, and his characters convey conversations he had with his real life companions. The limp that François has in the story was actually a condition his sister had, to whom he dedicated his novel. His writing is very beautiful and evocative. Here is a narrative passage that is typical. It describes the first morning after Meaulnes has stumbled upon the manior and joined the festivities:

        The next morning, Meaulnes was one of the first to be ready. Following the advice he had been given, he put on a simple, old-fashioned black suit: a tight-waisted cutaway vest, wide-bottomed trousers that hid he delicate shoes, and a top hat.

        The courtyard was deserted when he came down. He took a few steps and felt as if he had been transported into a springtime day. It was indeed the mildest morning of that winter. The sun was shinning as in early April. Melted frost glittered in the grass like dewdrops. Several little birds were singing in the trees. Now and then an almost warm breeze flowed over his face.

Alain Fournier, 1913, the year of the publication of Le Grand Meaulnes, and a year before his death 

For a long time I have very much wanted to visit the countryside where this marvelous story takes place. It is several hours south of here in the Berry departement of France, in a little town named Epineuil-le-Fleuriel. For my birthday this year, in mid-April, I got my wish. 

The school house, where Alain Fournier grew up and which is the setting for the earlier part of his novel, is now a museum. The vines had not yet sprouted, but the building was just as described:

A long red house at the far end of the village, with five glazed doors and Virginia creepers on the walls; an immense courtyard with covered playgrounds, a washouse and a big front gateway facing the village...

 

We arrived first thing in the morning and had the entire building to ourselves for our visit. There were not even guides or monitors. There were two classrooms, one for the younger children, which was headed by Fournier's mother (Millie in the story). This is the second room where the older children were taught by M. Fournier (M. Seurel).

 

 

Meaulnes, being one of the oldest boys, sits near the window. Here is his bench. The desks have authentic workbooks from the era.

At this time France had just passed a law making primary education mandatory for all children. Many little school houses like this one sprang up all over the country.

 

The head teacher was often also the mayor of the town, having official duties to perform in another room of the school house.

 

The head teacher, at least in the case of Alain Fournier's father, also saw himself as the voice of reason against the superstitions of the church. He taught the children to think for themselves and not be led by church doctrine, which he felt should not impinge on daily life matters. He often found himself at odds with the local priest.

The school house was the home for the teacher and his family. There are many wonderful descriptions of these rooms in Le Grand Meaulnes. We visited them all.

        When it was dark, when the dogs on the neighboring farm were beginning to howl and light had appeared at the window of our little kitchen, I would finally go home, just as my mother was beginning to prepare dinner. I would climb three steps of the attic stairs, sit down without saying anything and, with my head pressed against the cold banisters, watch her light her fire by flickering candlelight in the narrow kitchen.

        But then someone came who robbed me of all those peaceful childhood pleasure. Someone blew out the candle illuminating my mother's gentle face as she bent over the evening meal, and extinguished the lamp around which we had always gathered as a happy family at night, when my father had closed the wooden shutters over the glazed doors. And that someone was Augustin Meaulnes, who the other pupils soon called the Great Meaulnes.

View from the dining room, through the narrow kitchen and into Fournier's classroom

 

The room that François shared with Meaulnes was in the attic. Here they plotted their return to the lost domain.

The town in the novel is named Saint-Agathe, which was the name of a chapel not far from Epineuil-le-Fleuriel. The village church figures prominently into the story. We enjoyed walking around the town and seeing the various locations where the story takes place.

The title character of the novel got his name from another village, not far from Fournier's hometown.

 

The lost domain is supposed to be a combination of locales, but this private residence, not far outside of town, is widely held to be the main inspiration. Apparently Fournier was invited here as a child and brightly colored Chinese lanterns were used as decorations at the party he attended, a christening that involved many young children as guests.

The French version of the book has a setting very much like the one I photographed.

 

Our over night visit included a stop at this lovely Bed & Breakfast on the same street as the school. Our hosts tell us that it was the home of the first sweetheart Alain Fournier had as a school boy, though not the one that inspired the novel itself.

The grounds of this little manoir, which has been in the same family for many generations, are very evocative of the lost domain itself. It seemed as if it could have taken place right here.

The Berry countryside was just beginning to come alive after our long winter. The Sunday morning of my birthday dawned warm and bright. We enjoyed a long slow drive home through the countryside.

The Cher river is one of the loveliest in France, in my opinion. Small and gentle, it is not commercialized and runs through remote and quiet countryside before joining the Loire at Villandry.

The bucolic nature of this part of France has probably not changed so much since the days when Fournier grew up here.

We took a charming walk through the countryside and experienced the landscape that Meaulnes discovered on his grand adventure:
       
        Anyone but Meaulnes would have immediately tuned back. That would have been the only way to avoid becoming still more seriously lost. But he reflected that he must now be a long way from La Motte. Furthermore, the mare might have veered into a side road while he was asleep. And after all, the road he was on would surely take him to some village sooner or later. Added to all these considerations was the fact that when he stepped up on the footboard with the mare already pulling on the reins, he felt a growing, exasperated desire to achieve something and arrive somewhere, in spite of all obstacles.

In On the Road, Jack Kerouac has his hero take only one book on his travels – Le Grand Meaulnes.

Here's the trailer for the 2006 movie:

This is the centenary year of the publication of Le Grand Meaulnes. If you're in France, it's a great time to visit Epineuil-le-Fleuriel.