Paris_ The Collected Traveler - Barrie Kerper [164]
It is said that the Duchesse de Longueville watched the duel from the windows of 18 place des Vosges, the home of Marguerite de Béthune, the woman whose lovers’ pavilions faced each other. The quarrel between the Duchesse de Longueville and Madame de Montbazon reads like a novel filled with slander, malice, jealousy, and spite. Scandalmongering was a favorite occupation, and the preferred weapon was not so much the sword as the letter: dropped, intercepted, recopied, falsely attributed, and purloined letters were ferried back and forth, leaving a trail that invariably led to the loss of reputations and, just as frequently, of life—Coligny’s in this instance—and ultimately to civil unrest. At the risk of oversimplifying, tensions mounted to such a pitch that many of those who had anything to do with the Place des Vosges before the middle of the seventeenth century eventually joined the Fronde, the antimonarchist aristocratic campaign of 1648–53. It was the last aristocratic revolt against the monarchy, and Louis XIV, the Sun King, never forgot it. To ensure that the aristocracy never again rose against him, he made certain that almost every one of its members moved to Versailles.
Like its storied residents, the Place des Vosges remains a tangle of the most capricious twists in urban memory. Known initially as the Place Royale in 1605, it became the Place des Fédérés after the Revolution in 1792; the Place de l’Indivisibilité in 1793; and then the Place des Vosges in 1800, under Napoléon. It resumed its first name in 1814, after the restoration of the monarchy, and lost it once more to the Place des Vosges in 1831. After yet another revolution, it became once again the Place Royale in 1852, and finally the Place des Vosges in 1870. The Place teemed with intellectuals, writers, aristocrats, salons, and courtesans. It witnessed generations of schemes, rivalries, and duels, the most famous of these being the duel of 1614, known as “the night of the torches,” between the Marquis de Rouillac and Philippe Hurault, each flanked by his second, everyone wielding a sword in one hand and a blazing torch in the other. Three were killed; Rouillac alone survived, and lived thereafter at 2 place des Vosges.
I come to the Place des Vosges to make believe that I belong, that this could easily become my home. Paris is too large a city, and time is too scarce for me to ever become a full resident—but this square is just right. After a few days, I am at home. I know every corner, every restaurant, and every grocer and bookstore beyond the square. Even faces grow familiar, as does the repertoire of the high-end street entertainers and singers who come to perform under the arcades every Saturday: the pair singing duets by Mozart, the tango and fox-trot dancers, the Baroque ensembles, the pseudo-Django jazz guitarist, and the eeriest countertenor–mock castrato bel canto singer I’ve ever heard, each standing behind stacks of their own CDs.
For lunch, I’ve grown to like La Mule du Pape on the rue du Pas-de-la-Mule, scarcely off the square: light fare, fresh salads, excellent desserts. And early in the morning, I like to come to Ma Bourgogne, on the northwest corner of the square, and have breakfast outside, under the arcades. I’ve been here three times already, and I am always among the first to sit down. I think I have my table now, and the waiter knows I like café crème and a buttered baguette with today’s jam. I even get here before the bread arrives from the baker’s. I sit at the corner of this empty square and watch schoolboys plod their way diagonally across the park, one after the other, sometimes in pairs or clusters, each carrying a heavy satchel or a briefcase strapped around his shoulders. I can easily see my sons doing this. Yes, it does feel right.
Then, just as I am getting used to the square and am busily making it my home—tarts, salads, fresh produce, baguette, jam, coffee—I look up, spot the imposing row of redbrick pavilions with their large French windows and slate roofs, and realize that this, as I always knew but