Paris Is No Place to Practice Your French


La Musee D'Orsay

Paris is No Place to Practice Your French

Mme. Lazar would have been so proud of me as I used the subjective with ease (il faut que j'aille maintenant), but as Tony says, Paris is no place to practice your French. Very few people reply in anything but English. I think it's because while eggs like me speak French and are understood, as I was, they don't understand the replies in French. So the French, known for their ability to quickly capitulate, just answer in English. Sometimes, if I couldn't hear someone because they were behind glass, and I asked them to repeat something, it would come out in English.

I must sound very francophobic, but I am not. I chose Paris over Amsterdam, because I really wanted to walk around Paris and speak French. I found myself repeating the names of stations. Miromesnil, Jacques Jaures, Glaciere, Mairie d'Issy, Varenne, Champs de Mars, Trocadero.

"A weekend away to parlez francais, well fancy that."

On Sunday I was all over the place. I went to Maison de Balzac first, in the 16th Arrondissement. It's close to the Passy metro stop. I visited the home of one of my favorite authors, Honore de Balzac. He wrote both Cousine Bette and Cousin Pons there. These are two of my favorite novels. Both Bette and Pons have some very gay elements. Pons is a single man, a music teacher, who lives with his dear friend of many years, Schmucke, and their house is filled with knicknacks that turn out to be quite valuable. They could have called the novel Cousine Marie.

They had three sets of galleys; I was fascinated to see today's proofreading marks in use back then. Now I can walk around my office, or at LGNY, and say things like, "Hey if these proofreading marks were good enough for Balzac..."

It was hot as hell, though. Really hot. I don't know how he wrote a damn thing when it got so hot; but he was alive before global warming.

I then went to the Musee d'Orsay. I was there most of the afternoon. It's fantastical; it's in an old train station. I must've taken three rolls of film inside. I take a lot of photos of statues; they know how to stay still.

There was one statue I really loved. It was Napoleon III's son with his dog, Nero. THe dog looks lovingly up at his imperial master. The sculptor who did this piece must've really loved dogs; he captured that loyal gaze so well. The Prince must've loved that dog; I suspect he insisted the dog be featured with him. I loved the sculpture. I feel verklempt. Meanwhile, that kid's father was the reason Victor Hugo went into exile for 18 years, and he was partial inspiriation to Zola's Rougon-Macquart (20 novels about France under the Second Empire, 1851-1871). But I still like the statue. that sort of boy-and-his-dog love transcends time.

There was a temporary exhibit of a Swedish impressionist named Jansson, featuring many bleak, dark blue landscapes of and around Stockholm. Later, when he was in a long liaison with a man named Knut, very bright scenes of all-male bathing pools appeared. His best work. The exhibit had no problem pointing out that he had a long relationship with Knut and affairs with some of the models in his male nude paintings. The French are not "liberal" or "progressive." They are just realists who realize gay people are part of life, and not some fascinating, exotic exception. Vive la Republique.

Hide the children.

I had a lovely overpriced baguette on the roof terrace of the D'Orsay, overlooking the Louvre.

Then I headed to the Maison Hugo.

Posted: Sun - July 11, 1999 at 02:41 AM        

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