Bryce & Damon in Europe
by Pertinax Carrus
Chapter 7, Paris, Part I
Day One
Leaving Rouen after breakfast on Wednesday, June 16, Bryce and Damon more or less followed the Seine River to Paris, a journey of less than two hours. There, they located their hotel, another in the Mercure chain, called Hotel Mercure Centre Tour Eiffel. It was too early to check in, but they parked the car and stowed their luggage, then took off on foot to explore their surroundings. True to its name, the hotel was not far from the Eiffel Tower, and so the guys made their way to that signature monument of Paris. It seems that every story, every movie set in Paris has to have a mention or a sighting of the Eiffel Tower. However, it was not always so popular. Bryce remembered from his French class spring semester that the author Guy de Maupassant strongly disliked it. He ate there every day, as he said it was the only location in Paris from which he could not see it.
Constructed by the engineer Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923) for the great Paris Exposition of 1889, it commemorated the centenary of the outbreak of the French Revolution. There are three levels, the first of which is three hundred steps up from the ground, the second another three hundred steps higher. The third and highest level can be reached only by elevator. More than 200 million visitors have ascended the Eiffel Tower since its construction. As they approached the structure, Bryce and Damon discussed whether to climb the steps or take the elevator. Youth and adventure triumphed over ease, and they made the climb to the first level by marching up three hundred steps. On that level was a restaurant called Le 58 Tour Eiffel, where the guys checked in. Normally reservations are a wise precaution, but they found that they could be seated in about an hour. Reserving that spot, they continued to explore. Climbing another three hundred steps they reached the second level, where there was another restaurant, called Le Jules Verne. Glancing over the posted menu, they congratulated themselves on having made their reservation below. This one was not only more pricey, but was also too much a place for gourmets to suit the two young men. With still time to kill, they took the elevator to the third level. From there, they could look out over the whole of Paris. Bryce took pictures of the city looking towards Notre Dame from each level, wanting to compare them later. He also took a picture of Damon with the Paris map laid out behind him, just to prove that Damon had actually been there, he said.
For Damon, being in Paris was an almost incredible experience. He had seen pictures and scenes in movies and on television programs, but had only dreamed of actually being there. In a way, it was only when he was there, atop the Eiffel Tower, that Damon fully realized that he was in Europe, that he was fulfilling one of his dreams. He was launching the new Damon, just as surely as when, last summer, he left Chicago and enrolled at the University of Clifton. The old Damon, the Damon of the projects, receded further and further. Suddenly, he began laughing. Bryce captured him in a wonderful photograph, his eyes laughing as much as his lips, his teeth flashing, his whole person suffused with joy.
“Now I know I’m never going back to the projects,” he told Bryce, as he kissed him heartily.
Descending, they made their way to the restaurant, where there were several menu options. Bryce and Damon both chose the main dish and dessert option, offering a fine meal as they looked out over the skyline of Paris. The lovers thoroughly enjoyed their aerie eatery, located 58 meters above the ground. You don’t suppose that’s where they got the name, do you?
Descending to ground level, they walked along the Champs de Mars, the Paris equivalent of the Washington Mall, towards the structures at the other end. There, appropriately enough for an anchor of the Champs de Mars, they found the École Militaire. This military college was chartered by King Louis XV in 1750 upon the urging of his mistress, Madame de Pompadour, but did not actually begin accepting students until ten years later. Its initial purpose was to provide military schooling for the sons of impoverished nobility. The young Napoleon Bonaparte was a student here for one year. Today, it is the site of the French Joint Defense College for the purpose of training selected officers from all branches of the armed forces for positions of leadership.
To the left as they approached the École Militaire they encountered another neo-classical structure, with a chapel with a prominent dome. The larger building was Les Invalides, originally a military hospital and retirement home founded by King Louis XIV in 1670, but now more a museum than a hospital. At the time it was founded, it was downstream from the city, but now was very much in the center of things. The domed area was the chapel, the dome modeled on that of St. Peter’s in Rome. When King Louis Philippe brought the remains of Napoleon Bonaparte back from St. Helena in 1840, the chapel of the military hospital seemed a proper resting place for the conqueror. Some people admired Bonaparte as a military genius. Some admired him as one who brought the excesses of the French Revolution to an end, and restored order. Others admired him as the embodiment of the ideals of the Revolution (a more questionable interpretation). Although in some ways Bonaparte was simply a military dictator, he was so much more than that, that he deserved at least some of the adulation he was given. The sarcophagus containing the remains of Napoleon Bonaparte sat in the center of the chapel, directly under the dome. Around him were others significant in French history, including his brothers Joseph and Jerome and his only legitimate son, called Napoleon II, who died in 1832 at age 21, never having ruled anything. Another of the vaults contained the remains of Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, composer of the Marseillaise, now the French national anthem. The most recent burial is that of Marshal Ferdinand Foche, Supreme Allied Commander in World War I, who died in 1929. It is said that the late President Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970), hero of the French resistance during World War II, who saved France from descending into chaos in 1958 in much the same way Napoleon did in 1799, was accustomed to come to this place to meditate when faced with a difficult decision. Unlike Bonaparte, de Gaulle was a devout Catholic.
After due obeisance at the tomb of Napoleon, Bryce and Damon walked down the Esplanade des Invalides to the bank of the Seine River, and found themselves on the Quai d’Orsay. It was Damon who exhibited his knowledge this time when he pointed out that that phrase, “Quai d’Orsay,” was used to mean the French department of foreign affairs, so the offices should be around here somewhere. That, he said, had been mentioned in the International Relations portion of his Political Science class spring semester. He remembered that because Bryce was talking about visiting France at the time that was covered in class. Sure enough, right on the river bank next to the western edge of the Esplanade and the Gare des Invalides was a building with a sign outside proclaiming it to be the Ministère des Affaires Étrangées. Ambling along the river, they came to the Palais Bourbon, where the French National Assembly met, and where a bridge crossed the Seine.
The bridge was called the Pont de la Concorde, leading across the river to the Place de la Concorde. Bryce recovered his role as tour guide by telling Damon that these two sites were not named for the super jet, or SST, but for peace. Like so many other structures in this section of the city, the square was an eighteenth century creation, originally named Place Louis XV for the king at the time it was completed in 1755. It initially contained an equestrian statue of the king, but during the French Revolution the statue was removed, and the square renamed Place de la Revolution. It was here that the guillotine was set up to enforce the authority of the revolutionary regime, and here that King Louis XVI was executed on 21 January 1793. His wife, Queen Marie Antoinette, followed in September. It is the setting of a famous passage in Charles Dickens’ novel A Tale of Two Cities where Madame Defarge sits knitting as executions are carried out. The guillotine was invented as a more humane mode of execution in the inaugural year of the French Revolution, and was named for the most prominent member of the commission which designed it, Dr. Joseph Guillotine. During the ten month period following the execution of the Queen, from September of 1793 to July of 1794, known as the Reign of Terror, nearly 17,000 executions were carried out here in the Place de la Revolution using the guillotine, and it continued in use until capital punishment was abolished in France in 1981. When a more moderate regime came into power following the execution of Maximilien Robespierre in 1794, the guillotine was removed from this prominent public place, and it was renamed Place de la Concorde in a move towards reconciliation.
“How could anyone think execution by that machine was more humane?” Damon asked.
“Well, in a very real way, it was. Before, the means of execution depended on one’s social standing. Beheading was reserved for members of the nobility. I’m not sure why,” Bryce said. “Anyway, commoners were either strangled or hanged, which amounts to the same thing. It’s very undignified, which I guess is why nobles were not hanged. When beheadings were carried out earlier, an axe or scimitar-like sword was used. But, in the hands of a nervous or novice executioner, this could result in a mess. When the English executed their king, Charles I, also in January by the way, in 1649, the executioner botched the job and had to hack at him three or four times to get the head off. With the guillotine, it’s swift and certain every time.”
“Yeah, okay. But still ....” Damon shuddered.
They decided not to cross the river, but to continue along the left bank upstream. Along the way, they admired the Louvre across the river, which would be the object of a full day’s visit on Friday. They came to the Pont Neuf, which, ironically, is the oldest bridge across the Seine. Of course, at the time it was constructed, under King Henry IV (1589-1610), it was the newest bridge, but all those older ones have long since fallen apart, to be replaced by others. As they continued along the quais, they saw a baton mouche, which gave Bryce an idea of what to do for dinner. As it turned out, his memory was imperfect, and the bateaux mouches did not leave from near the Pont Neuf, as he initially told Damon, but near the Pont de l’Alma, farther downstream. Having made his decision, Bryce called in a reservation for a dinner cruise that evening.
To fill in the hours until then, they continued their explorations, reaching the Pont St. Michel, opposite the Île de la Cité with Notre Dame in view. That, too, would require a later visit. But this time they turned down the Rue St. Michel after taking in the fountain dedicated to the Archangel, and entered the Latin Quarter, so called because it was the University sector, and, in the Middle Ages, everyone at the University spoke Latin, in classes and writings, of course, but also in their social interactions, on pain of fine. In fact, there is evidence of the appointment of spies, called lupi (wolves), to report on lapses by those called vulgarisantes, or speakers of the vernacular. Students at Paris were considered clerks, i.e., clergy, and were required to be tonsured and wear clerical robes, the origins of out academic gowns today. Until the mid-thirteenth century, the university did not own property as such, but met for lectures and examinations in churches and guildhalls. In 1257 Robert de Sorbon, an alumnus of the University of Paris and confessor to King Louis IX, and himself from a poor background, founded a collegium or institution for poor students which provided combined dormitory rooms, facilities for a proctor, a lecture hall, and a dining hall in the same building, called La Sorbonne. In the later 1960s, someone in California also decided to put lecture rooms and dormitory facilities in the same building, and thought he had done something revolutionary. Some of the regulations for the Sorbonne, dating to 1274, sound awfully familiar. Among them are:
The students eating in their own chambers should be admonished by the proctor to be quiet and to refrain from noise, so that those passing by in the courtyard and in the street not be offended, and fellow students in adjacent chambers not be disturbed in their studies.
No student shall bring outsiders frequently to drink at the expense of the community; if he does, he has to defray the costs according to the estimate of the dispenser.
No student shall have the keys to the kitchen.
No woman of whatever status shall eat with students in their chambers.
If a student attacks, knocks down, or severely beats one of the servants, he has to pay one sester of wine to his fellow students, and this wine ought to be of the better or best quality.
Except for the part about no women in the rooms, not much has changed in seven and a half centuries, and Jacques de Vitry’s description of student life at the beginning of the thirteenth century makes it clear that the prohibition against women in the dorms was frequently violated. Reading these rules from a book picked up in a bookstore on the Rue St. Michel, Bryce and Damon laughed as they wandered down the street.
Only a short distance down the Rue St. Michel they came to the Musée de Cluny on their right.
“Wait a minute,” Damon said. “I thought Cluny was a monastery. I definitely remember something about that from Dr. Dickinson’s lectures fall semester.”
“You’re right. I never thought of that. Let’s check it out,” Bryce said, and so they entered the museum.
There they found that the building had once been the Paris priory of the Abbey of Cluny, but was confiscated during the French Revolution. It now houses a museum of medieval arts. The most well-known of its exhibits is “The Lady and the Unicorn,” a series of six tapestries from the Late Middle Ages depicting a lady flanked by a lion and a unicorn. The first five depict the five senses, but the sixth is somewhat ambiguous, entitled Mon seul desir (My only desire). The most likely interpretation is that it represents love. Damon certainly thought so, as he purchased a copy in the museum gift shop (they’re everywhere).
A little farther down the Rue St. Michel, they came on the other side of the street to an entrance to the Luxembourg Gardens. They entered, and found a delightful green space in the middle of the Latin Quarter. At one end of the gardens is the Palais de Luxembourg, the seat of the French Senate, but this interested the guys less than the gardens themselves, and the great fountain at the center. The gardens were laid out for Marie de Medici, widow of King Henry IV, in emulation of the gardens in Florence she knew as a child. Along the terraces are statues of the famous women of France. In the center is an octagonal basin with a fountain where children sail boats, which Bryce and Damon watched enviously for some time. They also found in the southwest corner among apple and pear trees the theatre des marionettes, and enjoyed a performance, laughing along with the children. They stopped at the gazebo to sit outside sipping a glass of wine as the band played.
Reluctantly, the two guys left the Luxembourg, heading back to their hotel to complete their registration and get their room. It was now late afternoon. From the Luxembourg they followed the Boulevard de Montparnasse to the Children’s Hospital, then made a dog leg to the Boulevard Garibaldi and the Boulevard de Grenelle back to the Seine, and so to the Rue Jean Rey, on which their hotel was located. They checked in, retrieving their luggage and getting settled in their room. They took a brief nap, having been very busy since leaving Rouen that morning, and cuddled a bit.
Arising in plenty of time, they made their way to the Pont de l’Alma, passing again the Tour Eiffel. They boarded their baton mouche shortly after 7:30, and got settled in prime seats near a window and the front of the boat. Later arrivers would have to sit farther away. By 8:30 they were on their way. The little excursion boat made its way upstream, past the Place de la Concorde and the Louvre on the right bank, going as far as the Île St. Louis. Rounding this island in the river, they passed the Cathedral of Notre Dame on the Île de la Cité and went under the Pont Neuf. Along the left bank they passed the Musée d’Orsay, the Palais Bourbon, and the Invalides, rounding a gentle curve and encountering the Tour Eiffel. In the center of the river was the Île des Cignes, which they rounded as their end point downstream, just as the Île St. Louis was upstream. There, on the tip of the island, was a copy of the Statue of Liberty, presented by the sculptor, Frédéric August Bartholdi. Passing the Palais de Chaillot and catching a view of the Arc de Triomphe, they returned to the Pont de l’Alma.
While all this was taking place, Bryce and Damon were served an excellent dinner as musicians played. Two menus are offered, and in an act of self-denial Bryce chose the less expensive, at only 90 Euros per person! He did not tell Damon how much the excursion cost. After an aperitif Bryce had duck foie gras while Damon had veal as what was called “starters.” Then came the main course, a young hen stuffed with apricots and foie gras for Bryce, duck tournedos with berries for Damon. This was followed by cheese, and then a dessert, for which they both chose chocolate feuillantine. Of course, with their meal they had wine, a light Chardonnay.
Following this indulgence, they returned to their hotel. On their first night in Paris they engaged in loving intercourse, lasting for nearly two hours before they collapsed into exhausted somnolence.
Day Two
They awoke on Thursday morning to the obnoxious demands of Bryce’s travel alarm. This day would be devoted to an entirely different, but no less significant, side of Paris. Bryce had, to Damon’s disgust, discovered that their hotel had a fitness center, and insisted on working out before breakfast, but Damon, as he did in Clifton, snatched an extra hour or so of sleep. After breakfast at the hotel, which was not included in the price of the room as it was elsewhere, and sending an e-mail to his family, as he did most days, Bryce was joined by Damon for an excursion to Montmartre. They decided to try the Paris streets, so Bryce got out the car, and, with great caution, negotiated the way across the river and up to the basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, or the Basilique du Sacré Coeur. They were fortunate in finding a parking place, and so began to explore Montmartre before entering the grounds of the basilica. In this part of Paris they found many artists, who were setting up sidewalk displays as they watched. Both Bryce and Damon submitted to having their portraits drawn by street artists, which pleased both them and the artists. Bryce also purchased two paintings, one of the basilica, the other of the Seine and a baton mouche, reminiscent of their romantic evening the night before. These would have to be shipped before they boarded their airplane to return home, but that seemed aeons away.
Then they entered the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Located at the summit of a butte marking the highest point in the city, the basilica was begun in 1875 as an act of national penance for the excesses of the Paris Commune in 1871, during which the leftists had martyred the Archbishop of Paris, Georges Darboy, and other hostages. Montmartre was a working class neighborhood and a bastion of the left, so the site was purposely chosen to emphasize the guilt of the left in those atrocities. On the other hand, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus emphasized the loving and forgiving nature of God. Although begun shortly after the defeat of the Commune, the church was not completed until 1914, as World War I began, and so dedication was delayed until after the war, in 1919. Authorized by the government, the construction was nonetheless financed entirely through donations. The portico is flanked by statues of St. Louis IX and Ste. Jeanne d’Arc, the national saints of France. Built of travertine, the church constantly has a white aspect despite weathering and pollution. Since 1885 there has been continuous adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, leading Bryce to search out the chapel of adoration. He was somehow not surprised when Damon joined him. They spent a half hour in prayer before God disguised as a wafer. For Damon, it was reminiscent of the chapel at Lourdes where he first prayed.
Then they toured the entire basilica and the grounds, including the gardens of meditation. A Mass began at 11:15, which they attended. As was always the case, Bryce received communion, while Damon received a blessing. Following Mass, they spent some additional time in the basilica in prayer.
They then exited, hungry as only teenagers can be, and searched for lunch. The found a place on the Rue Le Pic, and enjoyed their meal. After that, they could not resist visiting the Moulon Rouge on the Place Pigalle and ogling the sex shops, at least a little bit.
Putting that behind them, they got back in the car and drove out to St. Denis. Montmartre and St. Denis are two halves of a single story. Regardless of speculations about ancient Gallic and Roman uses, Montmartre, the mount of the martyr, was so called because it was the place of the execution of St. Denis, the first Bishop of Paris, in the middle of the third century. Legend has it that, after his beheading, Denis walked carrying his head to the place of his interment at St. Denis. That same source says that Ste. Genevievre, patroness of Paris, had the first chapel built about 475. Medieval legend identified St. Denis with Dionysius the Areopagite, a convert of St. Paul at Athens, and attributed to him the authorship of several mystical treatises. In any case, in the seventh century the Frankish king Dagobert became a patron of the monastery which had grown up at St. Denis. In 754 Pepin the Short was crowned in the abbey church, establishing the dynasty which produced Charlemagne in the next generation. The abbey church became the burial place for the French monarchs. Abbot Suger began the rebuilding of the church, which introduced the new Gothic style of architecture in the twelfth century.
Of course, all this was swept away during the French Revolution, when the tombs of the kings and queen were violated, and the remains thrown into the river. The abbey was suppressed, and the building used to stable horses. With the royal restoration after 1815, what was left was collected and restored at St. Denis, so it contains a grand collection of funeral monuments, even though there are few actual remains remaining. Of pre-Revolutionary royalty, only Louis VII and Louise de Lorraine, Queen of Henry III, remain, but Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and Louis XVIII were deposited there after the restoration. One of the most impressive monuments is that of Louis XII and his consort, Anne of Brittany, with two levels, showing the monarchs above in life, but on the lower level in death, with sunken features, the stitches of their embalmment, and other reminders of the transitoriness of life obvious. This kind of macabre display is typical of the Late Middle Ages, in the wake of the Black Death. The high altar of the abbey church contains relics of St. Denis.
After touring the church, Bryce thought it important to make his position clear to his partner. “I do not believe that St. Denis carried his head from Montmartre to St. Denis. Nor do I believe that St. Denis is the same as Dionysius the Areopagite mentioned by St. Paul, as some medieval authorities claimed. They are off by about two centuries.”
“Gee, what a shame. I thought we could get another good dose of miracles here,” Damon commented.
“There are plenty of miracles without inventing them,” Bryce replied.
In fact, Damon had been following along with Bryce, absorbing the stories and the ambiance as much as his partner. Even so, he could not forebear teasing Bryce when the opportunity presented itself.
Leaving St. Denis, Bryce drove back to the hotel and parked his car. They entered the hotel bar, and enjoyed a drink before setting out to find their evening meal. The restaurant at the hotel was pretty starkly efficient, offering about as much ambiance as the University cafeteria at home, so they did not even consider dining there. They headed back towards the Latin Quarter, where they intended to spend the evening.
There they dined at a student café, which made quite a contrast with their repast on the Seine the night before, but was enjoyed as much. There were numerous places where the young gathered in the Latin Quarter, so it was not difficult to find a location with music which appealed to the two guys. At one such location they were playing music similar to that which was played over the sound system at parties at the Sigma Alpha Tau house back home. Damon could not resist, so he stood and began dancing by himself. It did not take long before he attracted some attention. Only minutes later a very sexy looking young woman approached and began dancing with him. He never did learn her name. Of course, he responded, and soon they were putting on a show not unlike those he mounted at the fraternity parties. The woman was quite good, and the crowd seemed to enjoy watching them gyrate around the floor. There was much clapping and cheering. All in all, despite the close quarters they managed to provide a grand display.
Bryce noticed a young man bouncing on the balls of his feet, standing at the fringe of the dance floor. Several times, he seemed about to reach out and grab either Damon or the woman, but their gyrations always resulted in avoiding him. Bryce got the distinct impression that the woman was purposely teasing the man, coming close, executing some sexy manoeuver, then moving quickly away. When the music stopped, Damon thanked the woman, and headed towards the table where Bryce sat. The woman followed him, and when he sat down, she sat in his lap. Damon looked startled.
“What’s she saying?” he demanded of Bryce.
Bryce was laughing so hard he could hardly reply. “I think she’s coming on to you, Damon. She’s complimenting your jungle moves. Now she’s complimenting your athletic prowess. Now it’s your shining black skin,” Bryce translated as the woman babbled in French, and ran her hand through Damon’s hair.
“I’m shining because I’m sweating like a stevedore,” Damon commented.
All of a sudden, the young man who had been hovering on the sidelines loomed over Damon and the woman. He yelled something in French and grabbed the woman. She screamed, and hit him.
“Cochon! Bâtard! Singe lourd, qui ne puis pas danser!” she yelled, as she hit the young man with the wine bottle on the table, spilling wine all down his front. She kissed Damon, then stalked out of the establishment.
Temporarily stunned by being hit, the young man did not react until the woman had disappeared. He then turned on Damon, and began yelling at him.
“Cool it, Man,” Damon said. “All I did was dance with the lady.”
“Ha! Americain!” he began, then launched into a long diatribe at the top of his voice.
After a few minutes of this, which was attracting a good deal of attention, Damon said to Bryce, “Let’s ditch this joint. I don’t like the company.”
They got up to leave. The Frenchman continued to yell. As Damon turned his back on him to leave, the young man grabbed Damon’s shoulder, spinning him around. Without a second thought, Damon punched him hard in the stomach. The man doubled over and collapsed onto the floor. Damon and Bryce continued to the door. Just before they left, there was a cheer from most of the clientele.
“What was all that about?” Damon asked as they made their way down the street.
“Well, he was using a lot of slang, so I’m not sure I got all of it, but as nearly as I could tell he was mixing up resentment at being shown up before his date with an attack on American foreign policy,” Bryce replied.
“American foreign policy! What the hell does American foreign policy have to do with anything?” Damon demanded.
“Something about imperialism, as far as I could make out,” Bryce replied. “Just forget it. He was pissed off when you danced with his girl, and evidently he’s a lousy dancer. At least, the girl called him a clumsy ape who can’t dance.”
“She did, huh?” Damon said smugly.
“Should I be jealous?” Bryce teased.
“Idiot!” Damon said, and punched his boyfriend.
It was a memorable evening.