Paris_ The Collected Traveler - Barrie Kerper [272]
The Russian Connection
The Alexandre III bridge over the Seine isn’t the only symbol of a very old friendship between Russia and France, but it’s the most visible. The bridge was named after Czar Alexander III and was built in time for the Universal Exposition in 1900, and for many years it was my favorite Seine bridge. French was the second language spoken by the nobility in Russia, and in the late 1800s and early 1900s Paris was filled with Russian émigrés. Nina Berberova’s The Tattered Cloak and Other Novels (Knopf, 1991) is a work of six short novels all set in Paris and peopled with Russian émigrés. Berberova, who passed away in 1993, wrote these stories of a “wistful, shabby-genteel society that a generation of Russians created in Parisian exile” which were first published in Europe in the 1930s. I think The Tattered Cloak deserves to be better known, and it includes one of the most memorable passages I’ve ever read about the city: “Paris, Paris. There is something silken and elegant about that word, something carefree, something made for a dance, something brilliant and festive like Champagne. Everything there is beautiful, gay, and a little drunk, and festooned with lace. A petticoat rustles at every step; there’s a ringing in your ears and a flashing in your eyes at the mention of that name. I’m going to Paris. We’ve come to Paris.”
S
Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre
When I lived in Paris as a student, I decided that my favorite park in the city was the one next to Église Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, in the Latin Quarter. This was not because the park was particularly pretty—it isn’t—or because the oldest tree in Paris, a false acacia, has reportedly grown there since 1601 (it was planted by Jean Robin, thus the name of the tree is le robinier). Rather, I chose this little park—more properly known as Square René-Viviani—because I was sure it was the one Joni Mitchell sang about in her song “California” on the album Blue (“Sittin’ in a park in Paris, France …”). The reason I was so sure was because I went to every jardin and park in Paris and I sat in each one until I determined she could not possibly have been referring to any other park. (I really did this, by carefully perusing my plan de Paris, and I can honestly report that I dutifully visited nearly every park in the city. I have not been referred to as compulsive for nothing!) I have no verification that this little park is the one Mitchell sings about, but I’m still certain of it, and though I’ve since come to prefer other parks in Paris, I’ll always be fond of this one. The Église Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, which was built on the foundations of a sixth-century church, is among the oldest in Paris and serves the Melchite (Arab and Near Eastern) sect of the Greek Orthodox Church. Don’t miss visiting the interior, which is dimly lit, very atmospheric, and features gorgeous icons (and it smells really old).
Scent
The French—like the Italians, Greeks, and Spaniards, among others—are very attuned to scent, as am I. Each scent I encounter—of a room, a food, a person, a locale—becomes a memory-smell and forever associated with a place. Sometimes the scent is obvious, like the time I drove through Boise, Idaho, at approximately four in the morning in the summer with all the car windows open and I got a huge whiff of potatoes (what else?). Other times, the scent is surprising, like the time I was fortunate enough to have lunch at the former Bouley restaurant in New York. Upon entering, diners were greeted by a small wheelbarrow filled with apples—and though the meal itself was amazing, it is the smell of those fall apples ripening in the foyer that has stayed with me all these years. Every time I open one of my kitchen cabinets and smell the whole cardamom pods I have in a container, my memory-smell is of the Indian sweet shops I frequented in Mombasa and on the island of Lamu in Kenya; when I come across herbs growing wild, my first thought is of Corsica—one of my favorite places on earth—and its maquis, a unique combination