Bryce & Damon in Europe
by Pertinax Carrus
Chapter 10, Paris, Part IV
Day 5
Once again it was Bryce’ demanding travel alarm which roused them on Sunday morning. After returning to the hotel late on Saturday, they had not gone directly to sleep. However, on a Sunday, as back home, Bryce did not insist on a workout. Instead, they got themselves presentable, had breakfast, and walked the by now familiar route back to Notre Dame Cathedral. There was a Mass listed as the Gregorian Mass of the cathedral chapter. Along the way, Bryce explained that the chapter meant the clergy associated with the cathedral church. In earlier times, it was the chapter which elected the bishops, but then the kings and popes got involved, and now, in these degenerate times, bishops were mostly appointed by the Vatican. A Gregorian Mass was not a term Bryce was familiar with, but he did know that there was a rich deposit of Gregorian music from the Middle Ages, so at least something would probably be in Latin.
They arrived about fifteen minutes prior to the posted Mass time of 10:00, and had no trouble finding seats from which they could see the high altar. At ten, to the ringing of bells, the cathedral clergy processed in, accompanied by a substantial contingent of altar boys. The organ was playing, and a choir began a Latin verse, known as the Introit. Most of the Mass was in French, as was the sermon, but the principal parts, musically speaking, were in Latin. That means the Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. The Kyrie was, of course, in the original Greek, perhaps the most unchanged prayer of worship in the entire liturgy of the Church. As they approached communion time, Bryce noted that a significant part of the congregation seemed to be Americans. Evidently, taking part in this particular Mass was something many American Catholics did on their visits to Paris. All in all, it was an uplifting and very satisfying experience.
Leaving Notre Dame, the guys walked back across the Seine to the left bank, and to the Gare des Invalides. From there, they took a train out to Versailles, located about twelve miles southwest of the center of Paris. Arriving at the train station, they made their way to the Restaurant Nuance, where they had reservations for 12:30. There, at their waiter’s suggestion, they tried the lamb, and found it “scrumptious.” Damon declared he had never had lamb before, but he definitely would have it again. They ate on the terrace, which they always did when the opportunity presented itself, as it seemed a very European thing to do. After completing their midday meal, they walked the short distance to the entrance to the Palace of Versailles.
Originally a hunting lodge, King Louis XIV had the palace and grounds completely redone beginning in 1664, because he did not feel safe in Paris after the experiences of the Frondes when he was a child. He employed several geniuses, including the architects Louis le Vau and Jules Hardouin-Mansart and the landscape artist André le Nôtre, as well as Charles le Brun for interior decoration, meaning mostly paintings. After several previous stays of varying length, in 1682 King Louis more or less permanently moved his residence, and with it the French government, to Versailles.
Bryce and Damon first toured the Grandes Apartements, i.e., the state rooms of the palace. These included the Grandes Apartements du Roi, originally seven rooms in a row, one leading into the next, named and decorated for the seven known heavenly bodies of that time, as follows: first the Salon de Diane, goddess of the moon and the hunt; then the Salon de Mars, god of warfare; then the Salon de Mercure, the messenger god but also the god of commerce and artisans; in the center was the Salon d’Apollon, for Apollo, god of the sun and the fine arts. Louis XIV was called le roi soleille, or the Sun King, and established his throne room here, where everything revolved around him. By the second half of the seventeenth century, the Copernican Revolution was generally accepted, with the heliocentric universe. The Salon d’Apollon was followed by the Salon de Jupiter, associated with law and order; then the Salon de Saturne, for agriculture; and finally the Salon de Venus, for love and beauty. Charles le Brun, who decorated these rooms, had studied under Pietro da Cortona in Florence, and brought that tradition of painting to France. This original arrangement of rooms did not last, but later there was added the famed Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors), constructed between 1678 and 1684. Seventeen huge mirrors reflect the light from an equal number of windows looking out on the gardens. Here many historic events took place, most notably the proclamation of the German Empire in 1871 and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The mirrors celebrate the establishment of a mirror industry in France following the mercantilist policies of Jean Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV’s finance minister, whereas previously mirrors of this quality had to be imported from Venice. Parallel with the Grandes Apartements du Roi were the Grande Apartements de la Reine, including a chapel, which also linked to the Salon de Diane. This chapel, however, was altered, and the present chapel constructed between 1699 and 1710 by Hardouin-Mansart and, after his death in 1708, by his brother-in-law Robert de Cotte. Appropriately enough, the chapel is dedicated to St. Louis, the patron of the dynasty and of France. By the time the chapel was completed, the style was lighter, less ponderous, than the earlier work, marking a transition from the High Baroque to the Rococo in style. Throughout, the impression is one of great grandeur, emphasizing in the paintings and tapestries as well as in the entire layout of the palace the power and glory of the French monarchy. The kings lived here until 1789, when Louis XVI and his spouse, Marie Antoinette, were forced to move into Paris by hostile mobs.
After their tour of the palace Bryce and Damon exited into the gardens. Preserved for the most part as laid out by Le Nôtre under Louis XIV, the gardens receive about six million visitors annually. Just beyond the terrace bordering the palace is the Basin de Latone. According to Ovid in his Metamorphoses, when Latona and her children Apollo and Diana were harassed by mud-slinging Lycians, who refused to allow them to drink from their pond, they appealed to Zeus, who turned the impertinent Lycians into frogs. The pool contains a magnificent statue of Latona and her children, with their enemies turning into frogs. This was seen as a double allegory, as the enemies of the crown during the Frondes were accused of mud-slinging, and the word fronde refers to a slingshot. It was also intended as a warning to those who were critical of the King’s mistress, Louise de la Vallière. Even as the guys stood admiring the fountain and the long green sward leading down to the Basin d’Apollon, the clock struck three-thirty, and the fountains came on. There are 620 jets of water which spout during what is called the Grandes Eaux, involving 3,600 cubic meters of water sent through 35 kilometers of pipes. It is indeed a grand spectacle, worthy of the Sun King, and lasting for two hours. That was barely enough time to get around to at least the major displays. From the beginning, supplying water for all these fountains was a problem. The gardens at Versailles required more water than the entire city of Paris in the later seventeenth century. The ingenious Colbert devised a system of signals, so servants could turn on a particular fountain as the King approached, and then turn it off as he and his entourage left. All the fountains were in play only for special occasions. But today, Sunday June 20, 2010, they were in play for Damon and Bryce. They ran around frantically trying to take in all the sites. They ended up at the foot of the tapis vert, or green carpet, the name for the mall leading from the Basin de Latone to the Basin d’Apollon. There, amid great spouts of water, was the god Apollo (the sun god, the alter ego of the King) in his chariot drawn by powerful horses rising from the sea, as Apollo did each morning according to legend. The irony was that, in order to have Apollo face the palace, he had to rise in the west, not the east.
In addition to the main palace and gardens, there were quite a few subsidiary structures, among the most significant of which were the additional palaces of the Grand Trianon and Marly, where the King went to get away from the cares and formalities of his court. Marly no longer exists, but the Grand Trianon does, and is in use by the President of the Republic from time to time for special occasions. In addition, there is the Petit Trianon, associated with Queen Marie Antoinette, but actually constructed under Louis XV for his mistress, Madame du Barry. Near the Petit Trianon is the Hameau de la Reine, the Alpine village constructed for Marie Antoinette, who was supposedly homesick for her Austrian homeland. Another minor structure of some interest is the Orangerie, built between 1684 and 1686. One of the symbols of the King was the orange, which was sufficiently like a sun to play the role. During summer months, Louis XIV had orange trees in boxes stationed at various locations, but they would not naturally survive the northern climate during the winter. The Orangerie was a specially constructed hot house, located under the south side of the terrace behind the palace. In it were housed more than a thousand sweet orange trees, the first of which were probably introduced into Europe as a result of the voyages of Vasco da Gama, which brought the guys back to their initial landing place in Europe at Lisbon.
There were more wonders at Versailles than Bryce and Damon could take in in a single day, but they made a good effort to hit the high points. They told themselves that someday they would come back and take their time. For now, they rushed around to see as much as possible in the time available.
Returning to Paris, they began looking for a place to have dinner. Bryce considered at one time dining at the famed Maxim’s, but he was told by his father that the place had declined significantly. It was no longer well maintained, and the food was mediocre. All that was outstanding was the price. As a result, he and Damon passed by and noted the location of this legendary eatery, but did not dine there. Instead, they tried Le Petit Pontoise in the neighborhood of the Pantheon, which provided excellent and friendly service, good food, and a moderate price. Afterwards, they again sought out a student club where they could spend the evening. This time, they found just what they needed, with friendly and interesting young people who wanted to talk, even about politics, without getting hostile. This went a long way towards erasing the negative impressions acquired the night before.
Day 6
Monday began with a workout by Bryce and additional sleep by Damon. No surprise there. After breakfast, they decided to just wander for a time. Essentially, they had hit all the typical tourist attractions, as well as quite a number of the religious sites significant to Bryce, and so simply wanted to enjoy the Parisian atmosphere. Their evening was set, but the rest of the day was open. And so it was, they decided that, as the restaurant where they ate the evening before was in the area known as Pantheon, they would check out the Pantheon.
In 1744 King Louis XV suffered an illness, and vowed that, if he recovered, he would replace the ruined church of Ste. Genevievre, patroness of Paris, with a new structure. In consequence, the new church was begun, but because of financial and other problems it was not completed until 1790. By that time, the French Revolution was in full swing, and so the National Assembly decreed that the confiscated property would be used as a mausoleum for national figures of note rather than as a church. Count de Mirebeau was the first such secular entombment in 1791. Among subsequent burials or reburials the guys recognized the names of Voltaire, Rousseau, Jean-Paul Marat, Joseph-Louis LaGrange, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Émile Zola, Pierre and Marie Curie, Louis Braille, Lazare Carnot, Léon Gambetta, Jean Jaurès. Jean Monnet, and André Malraux. That’s quite a collection of thinkers, writers, scientists, and politicians, along with a whole list of people neither Bryce nor Damon recognized.
“It seems like every time we turn around we are seeing some building, or hearing some story, about church property that was confiscated by the French Revolution,” Damon commented.
“True,” Bryce agreed. “Well, the Church was a large property owner prior to the Revolution. And, significantly enough, the man who was the chief administrator of church property immediately before the Revolution was Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord. He came from a noble family, but because he had a club foot, was thought unfit for a military career, and so his family forced him to pursue a career in the Church. He was made a bishop just before the Revolution got going. He got back at the Church for accepting him by being the man who proposed confiscating Church property. The whole Revolution got off the ground because the government was bankrupt, so they had to raise money somehow, and the economy was in a mess, so Talleyrand chaired this committee which solved the problem by taking over all the assets of the Church. Then he cooperated in setting up a schismatic Gallican church in France, separate from Rome, then he resigned as a bishop and took to living with a woman called Madame Grand.”
“Wow, talk about getting revenge,” Damon whistled.
“Yeah. I don’t know what his relations were with his family. I’ll have to look that up some day. Talleyrand was a good diplomat later on, serving as Foreign Minister for the Directory, the Consulate, and the Empire, and then representing France at the Congress of Vienna in 1814 and 1815. But it was definitely a mistake to force him into a career in the Church,” Bryce commented.
“He’s not buried here, is he?” Damon asked.
“Not on the list we were given, so I guess not,” Bryce responded after checking.
Completing their survey of the Pantheon, the two young men set out on a jaunt across Paris, past the École Polytechnique. Bryce noted that their friend Curtis Manning would probably have attended here had he been a Parisian. Such technological institutes dealt with such practical subjects as engineering. They were advocated by proponents of the Enlightenment for those seeking vocational education rather than the traditional studies at the universities leading to the professions, i.e. theology, law, medicine, and philosophy. But it was Napoleon Bonaparte who saw to the establishment of such schools, as they provided the technical expertise he needed for his armies. Beyond the École Polytechnique they arrived at the banks of the Seine at the Pont Sully. They crossed the river on this bridge, touching on the tip of the Île St. Louis, and proceeded down the Boulevard Henri IV to the Place de la Bastille.
Damon was disappointed that there was no Bastille there, but Bryce consoled him with the information that he felt the same way the first time he visited the site. The Bastille was pulled down during the French Revolution, after its dramatic storming on 14 July 1789. The Bastille was constructed during the Hundred Years War as a defense for the eastern approach to the city of Paris. At one time it was used as a political prison, but in 1789 there were no political prisoners, and, in fact, only seven prisoners in all, including four counterfeiters, two lunatics, and a young man, the Count of Solages, listed as a debauchee, sent there at the request of his family. The Marquis de Sade had been there, but had been moved to another site earlier in July, Bryce remembered from his French Literature class last spring. It was also an arsenal, the real goal of the mobs in 1789 being the gunpowder stored there. When the mobs gained control, they tore the governor to pieces, and in their ignorance later exhibited old pieces of armor and a printing press as tools of torture. Wild stories passed around as truth about torture and prisoners. The Bastille was torn down by November of that revolutionary year.
At the Place de la Bastille nothing remains of the former prison. There is a column in the center of the square commemorating the Revolution of 1830, and the new facility of the Paris Opera is located where the former Bastille train station stood until 1984. No, Bryce informed Damon, they would not be coming back here in the evening. They were going to the old opera house on the Place de l’Opera, now referred to as the Palais Garnier. Near the Place de la Bastille they found a nice place for lunch.
Continuing in a northeasterly direction down the Rue de la Roquette, they arrived at the Père Lachaise Cemetery. This cemetery was established as such during the Napoleonic period, and officially called the East Cemetery, as part of a plan to move all the small cemeteries, usually located by churches, out to the suburbs. It was so called after the Jesuit confessor to King Louis XIV, who had a house on the site of the present chapel.
“What is this thing you have with dead people?” Damon asked.
“There are lots of famous people buried here. Some were moved here from earlier burials in the city, and others were originally buried here during the past two centuries. It’s like an outdoor Pantheon,” Bryce attempted to explain his passion for the past.
In order to encourage Parisians to make use of the facility, the remains of La Fontaine and Molière were moved there in 1804, and in 1817 the reputed remains of Peter Abelard and Eloise were re-interred there. Their monument has become a meeting place for lovers. Bryce recognized a series of names from his French Literature classes, including Honoré de Balzac, Pierre Augustin de Beaumarchais (who, in addition to being a successful playwright, helped arm the American colonists during our Revolutionary War), and Marcel Proust. Associated with Bonaparte were his brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, Marshal of France and sometime King of Naples, Marshal Michel Ney, and Bonaparte’s mistress, Countess Marie Walewska. Jean François Champollion, the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphics was likewise in Père Lachaise. There were numerous artists of various sorts, including musicians Georges Bizet and Frédéric Chopin; painters Jacques-Louis David and Eugène Delacroix; and performers Sarah Bernhardt, Isadora Duncan, Marcel Marceau, and Edith Piaf. Maria Callas was there, but because of vandalism to her tomb her ashes were scattered in the Aegean, and only an empty urn remains in Père Lachaise today. Bryce identified several significant French historians, including Jules Michelet and Adolphe Thiers (who was also a significant political figure). Two great engineers were Georges Eugène Baron Hausmann, who as Napoleon III’s Prefect of Paris practically rebuilt the city, laying out the broad boulevards like the Champs Élysée; and Ferdinand de Lesseps, who constructed the Suez Canal and the Corinth Canal, but failed in his efforts in Panama. Of interest also was Emmanuel Joseph de Sieyès, whose pamphlet What is the Third Estate? is credited with setting off the revolutionary fervor in 1789. When asked what he did during the Terror, he famously replied, “I survived.” Another notable figure is Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon, who founded his own brand of utopian socialism. A noted American is William Temple Franklin, grandson of Benjamin Franklin. Of special interest to Bryce and Damon was Oscar Wilde, and also Gertrude Stein and her partner Alice B. Toklas. But the favorite of both Bryce and Damon was Jean de Brunhoff, author of Babar the Elephant, which, it seems, was a treasured memory from the childhood of both young men.
The rest of the afternoon was spent browsing the offerings in the Marais, along the Rue St. Honoré, and along the banks of the Seine. To the collection he had already acquired, Bryce added additional works of literature and history. This was something else he would have to ship home rather than take on the return flight, but again he was not thinking about that at the time. Much more restrained, Damon acquired only a few mementos and a couple of art books. He joked that he could not read French, but he could look at the pictures. In the early evening, the two returned to their hotel to dress up for their later adventures. They went out to a really nice restaurant in the Hotel Bel Ami on the Rue St. Benoit, not far from St. Germain des Près. Bryce admitted he was attracted by the name, with a reference not so much to George Duroy’s films as to Guy de Maupassant’s novel of 1885.
From there they proceeded in a leisurely manner, not wishing to get sweaty in their good clothing, to the Place de l’Opéra and what was now called the Palais Garnier, the older opera house, dating to the mid nineteenth century. There, they had tickets to a performance of La Donna del Lago, with music by Gioacchino Rossini, based on the novel The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott. Damon had seen operatic productions on campus, but this would be his first time at a full scale opera in a real opera house, an experience not to be neglected. As they approached, and also during the intermission, Damon also quizzed Bryce about the setting for The Phantom of the Opera, the musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l’Opéra by Gaston Leroux. The famous sewers of Paris, leading to underground lakes and caverns, are real, in part the work of that great Baron Hausmann whose tomb in the Cemetery of Père Lachaise they had seen that afternoon. They also play an important role in one scene from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. They acquired a synopsis of the plot of the opera in English for Damon, who admitted he enjoyed the music and the spectacle, even though it would never replace jazz as his favorite musical genre.
Day 7
Their last full day in Paris opened much like most of the others, with Bryce working out in the hotel fitness center, and Damon catching an extra hour of sleep. After a late and lazy breakfast, they set out to the west to visit the great green space, the Bois de Boulogne. This is a great park of over 2,000 acres on the western fringe of Paris. As the name suggests, the Bois de Boulogne was originally part of the woods surrounding Paris, and was for a time a royal hunting ground. In the mid nineteenth century it became a public park, owned by the city of Paris, and laid out by that intrepid city planner, Baron Hausmann, between 1852 and 1855. For their visit, Bryce and Damon broke out some of their “traveling student” gear, namely backpacks, and had the hotel fix them picnic lunches, so they arrived ready to spend the day.
They crossed the Seine by the Pont de Jena and passed through the Trocadero Gardens, approaching the Bois by the Porte de la Muette. Just inside the Bois is the Pelouse de la Muette, or Meadow of la Muette. La Muette was the name of a royal chateau which once existed here, and was once inhabited by Marguerite de Valois, daughter of King Henry II and Catherine de Medici, sister of Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III, and first wife of Henry IV. It was from here that Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette made their abortive escape attempt during the Revolution. Bryce and Damon found that it was here that King Louis set aside a small plot to carry out experiments with potatoes. Except in Ireland, where desperation overcame caution, much of Europe initially thought potatoes unsafe for human consumption. In 1748 a French court even prohibited their production, as they were considered a source of leprosy. But the experiments carried out by Antoine Augustin Parmentier during the 1770s proved potatoes healthy, to the significant benefit of the diet of the laboring classes of France. Most of the rest of Europe had already made that decision. Later Parmentier was Inspector General of Health under Napoleon, and was responsible for the first mandatory smallpox vaccinations in France as well. He is buried in the Cemetery of Père Lachaise, although the guys did not know it when they visited there the day before. The first manned flight set off from the Pelouse de la Muette in the fall of 1783, a hot air balloon orchestrated by the Montgolfier brothers, with the departure witnessed by the royal family and Benjamin Franklin, our ambassador to France at the time. He had just signed the Treaty of Paris, ending the American War for Independence.
To the west of the Pelouse de la Muette is a large artificial lake, oddly enough called the Lac Inférieur, oddly because it is considerably larger than the body to the south called the Lac Supérieur. Perhaps “upper” and “lower” would be better translations than “bigger” and “smaller.” The two lakes are connected by a waterfall. They found that boats could be rented on the Lac Inférieur for a fee of ten Euros for the first hour, and four Euros for every succeeding half hour, and so undertook their first strenuous activity of the day (not counting Bryce’s workout and their walk over). They spent all of an hour and a half on the lake, including the two islands in the “lower” lake.
Leaving the lakes, they rented bicycles and headed further west, arriving at the Jardin du Pre Catelan, or gardens of Catelan meadow. Theophile Catelan was the Master of the Hunt in the Bois de Boulogne at the time of Louis XIV, and lived at the Chateau de la Muette. Thanks to the influence of Hyde Park on Napoleon III during his period of exile in London, all the formal allées in the Bois except the Avenue de la Reine Marguerite and the Avenue Longchamps (leading to the race course) were winding and pleasant for bikers. At the Pre Catelan they found an excellent site for their picnic lunch, and, conveniently, a public restroom afterwards. Located on the southern fringe of the meadow are the Shakespeare Gardens and Theatre. Bryce and Damon had no desire to visit the theater on a fine summer afternoon, but they found the gardens interesting. There were several, laid out to reflect several Shakespearean plays. For example, the Macbeth area featured Scottish plants and landscape, while the Midsummer Night’s Dream garden had a Greek theme. Although they had just completed their lunch, the guys took advantage of the presence of several snack bars and cafés to order glasses of wine, and sat sipping as they looked over the delightful landscape.
Leaving the Pre Catelan, they rode westward still to the Grande Cascade and the bird sanctuary. Beyond that lay Longchamps, the horse racing facility, which, like Shakespearean plays, held no interest for them at that time. They spent some time at the bird sanctuary, but had no specialized knowledge, and so simply enjoyed the sights and sounds without understanding much of it. Not far away was the Monument to the Fusiliers, visited briefly. Then they undertook an extensive tour to the southern part of the park, passing all the way down to the Port de Boulogne, but not exiting the park, of course. From there, they turned eastwards, bypassing the tennis courts dedicated to Roland Garros, arriving at the Jardin des Serres d’Auteuil, the botanical gardens of the city of Paris. First established under King Louis XV in 1761, the hothouses now provide about 100,000 plants per year for the interior decoration of municipal buildings. The greenhouses contain substantial collections of tropical plants, including many from the former French colonies in Africa, so they spent a good deal of time familiarizing themselves with these specimens as Damon learned some of the physical realities of the Africa he sometimes identified with. Most of the exhibits seemed to come from Central and South America, however.
Remounting their bicycles, Bryce and Damon made the lengthy jaunt northward to the entrance to the Jardin d’Acclimatation on the Avenue du Mahatma Gandhi, where they found the site of the Musée National des Arts et Traditions Populaires, or Museum of Folk Crafts, where there had been exhibits of such dying or dead crafts as blacksmithing, boat building, agriculture, etc. However, Bryce learned that in 2005 the museum was transferred to Marseilles in the south of France. He remembered it from a visit when he was a child, and was sorry not to be able to share that memory with Damon.
Instead, they passed into the Jardin d’Acclimatation, which was an amusement park with rides and exhibits, including a small zoo. Bryce and Damon enjoyed watching the children at play as much as doing anything themselves. As in the Tuileries Gardens and the Luxembourg Gardens, there was a marionette theater, evidently a popular amusement among the young in Paris.
Nearby there was a stable, at which they rented horses, parking their bicycles for the time being. On horseback, they continued their explorations of the Bois. They passed the rose gardens at the botanical gardens, to which they would return on their bikes, and came to the sports fields on the western edge of the Bois. There was an extensive facility for polo, and an even more extensive one for soccer, which everywhere except in the United States is called football. A smaller area devoted to Rugby was as close as one could come to American football. After riding around these areas, and back into the center of the Bois, they returned to the stable, and reclaimed their bikes and backpacks.
Thus arrayed, they returned to the Parc de Bagatelle, so named for a chateau constructed there by the Count d’Artois, younger brother of King Louis XVI, who later became King Charles X (1824-1830). For a nominal fee of 0.75 Euros, they entered this extensive botanical garden, which was especially noted for its roses. Fortunately, they were at their best in June. There they sat and once again enjoyed a glass of wine alfresco, and made use of the public restrooms, before beginning their return to the hotel. It was now late afternoon, with many of the facilities at the Bois closing at 5:30. Although it would be light for many hours yet, they decided to leave at that time, and so made their way by bicycle back to the rental station at the Lac Inférieur, where they retrieved their passports. They had to be left as security when they rented the bikes.
As they walked out of the Bois de Boulogne, Bryce and Damon discussed some of its less salubrious history. From the later Middle Ages until the royal government imposed some order, it was a habitat for robbers preying on travelers coming from the west. During the nineteenth century, it acquired a reputation as a place of assignation, so a saying grew up that the unions consummated in the Bois did not require a priest. Even today, despite the efforts of the Paris police, the Bois and its environs was a well-known haunt of prostitutes, both female and male. Bryce and Damon definitely wanted to avoid this sleazy side of the Bois de Boulogne, even as they joked about it. There was no danger at this time, as this aspect of things did not get underway until dark.
After returning to the hotel for showers, as they were sweaty after spending so much time biking, walking, and on horseback in the June sun, the duo set out once again for the Latin Quarter, which they found so compatible. There they had dinner and spent the evening, talking for the most part, but also dancing with each other and with others just a bit. It was their last night in Paris, so they also celebrated with wine, but did not become inebriated.
The next morning, after their usual routine, they checked out of the Hotel Mercure Paris Centre Tour Eiffel, and began their journey eastward, out of Paris and out of France.