Meanwhile, a carousel twinkles and turns within the Tuileries all year round, come rain, hail or snow, come horse-chestnut blossoms or yellowing leaves. It seems only fitting that there should be a merry-go-round here, on the ground that once held the Salle du Manège, the riding hall of the also-long-gone Tuileries Palace, where young royals would undertake equestrian training.
Un manège is a riding school, but also a merry-go-round, the beloved Belle Époque ride that let every Parisian give the regal art of equitation a whirl. Its story, however, goes back even further. After medieval jousting events were outlawed — by Catherine de Medici, who had lost her beloved husband, King Henri II, to a misguided lance — tournaments turned into playful affairs. One popular contest was tilting at the ring, where nobles on horseback would charge around the field, aiming their lances at rings that hung from poles by brightly coloured ribbons. To hone their ring-spearing skills, they trained on carved horses and chariots, which were suspended from a revolving frame. In other words, the world’s first carousels.
Have you ever wondered why, in English, we have chosen to use the word ‘carousel’? Of course you have! The answer lies this way, over on Place du, yes, Carrousel … Walk east along the gravelly paths of the Tuileries, zigzagging through the shaded groves and weaving around the ponds and parterres, and you’ll come to a triumphal arch so sweet — with its blush-marble columns and tiara of gilded statues up top — that it could have been designed for a theme park itself. Commissioned by Napoléon, to commemorate his military prowess (with this in mind, you might think the monument would be more macho, less pink, non?), the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel also served as a gateway to the Tuileries Palace, and a monument by which the emperor would hold his military reviews, with all their pomp and pageantry. They had nothing, however, on the parties that the Sun King, Louis XIV, had thrown here: his famous … carrousels.
Louis’s carrousels were some of the most brilliant spectacles Paris has ever seen. These equine extravaganzas, inspired by the Italian carusiello, were part noble Olympics, with games such as tilting at the ring, and part cavalry ballet, with their highly choreographed manoeuvres. At a time when France was mightier and more militarily secure than ever, tournaments no longer had to train knights for warfare. Anyway, war was evolving, going professional. Knights brandishing crests and old-fashioned chivalry had gone the way of jousting. The Sun King’s tournaments were less war games, much more costume party.
You probably didn’t imagine a rollick around Ferris wheels and carousels would lead you to war ... Nor to an army museum — a.k.a. the Musée de l’Armée at Les Invalides. Especially if that’s not the kind of Parisian pastime you’d naturally be inclined to consider. I myself didn’t even contemplate a visit here until I was a little forced to, having to find another novel way to amuse two small and energetic boys who were going through a stage of dressing up as knights. I, too, prefer the prettier side of Paris. But this museum is nevertheless fascinating for showcasing how war has changed over the centuries and, as is the case with most Parisian museums, its exterior is as notable as what’s going on within.
To get there, wander back through the Tuileries, or westwards along the river, and over to the Left Bank. You’ll soon see, at the end of a grand lawn-trimmed avenue, a gilded cupola looming large, the very architectural definition of French Baroque. It was the glitz-loving Sun King who commissioned Les Invalides, originally as a hospital and dormitory for wounded veterans. Walk through the arched entrance (above which is a bas-relief of Louis on horseback) and you’ll find that the cobbled courtyard of honour, and the arcaded galleries that border it, are surprisingly peaceful for a place long linked to war. And even though there’s a bureaucratic sprawl to the immensity, the cupola seems to lift everything up to divine heights. You will rarely, I swear, admire a more splendidly decorated dome. It’s as elaborate from the inside as outside, so make sure to enter the church from its southern doors, into what was originally the royal chapel. Spend time gazing up, but also down, because beneath the cupola lies Emperor Napoléon’s neo-Classical red quartzite tomb. That a former royal chapel is now a pantheon for hero soldiers tells you much about France’s pride in its military history.
This is well on show in the museum, too, in the preserved glory of its army paraphernalia. There are floral-embossed armoury and gem-encrusted swords from the times of Lancelot and lances, and the glamour ratchets up a notch from the era of Louis XIV. That’s little surprise, seeing as he was the one who more or less invented the French fashion industry. Under Louis, the army uniform came to be about national pride as much as panache, with snazzy embellishments like braiding and epaulettes. The finery has stood the test of time — you can see similar swaggering styles every Bastille Day, when the famous parade down the Champs-Élysées doubles as a military review for the president, complete with a balletic cavalry display that would surely have pleased the carrousel king.
Alas, there’s little ring-tilting to watch in Paris these days. But you can come close with some of the city’s oldest carousels. One can be found a few blocks away. Head west along Rue de Grenelle (nip into the delightful market street of Rue Cler if you’re ready for lunch), then continue through to the Champ de Mars. As you cross the park you’ll spot the Manège 1913. This century-plus-old carousel echoes the original ring-tilting training device, with few bells and whistles. Wooden horses dangle from a metal frame, and it must be hand-cranked into action. Once it gets going, the jeu de bagues (rings game) begins, with pint-sized riders clasping batons in their small hands, attempting to catch suspended rings as they go around. It’s great for hand-eye coordination and all the things occupational therapists love, but it’s also good old-fashioned fun. I lost track of time when I once sat here, watching my boys spin around with glee. It’s one of my happiest Parisian memories, and I hope it will remain one of theirs, too.
For bigger kids, or anyone who prefers a more fairytale style of carousel, one can be found just up by the Seine. It’s a fabulous confection of a thing, double-decker with fancy horses and festooned carriages, bright lights and gorgeous colours. And, while it might be overshadowed by one of the city’s most breathtaking rides, the Eiffel Tower, what a carousel teaches you, in this fast-paced on-the-go day and age, is that you don’t need to exert yourself too much to get your thrills. You can simply sit down, and go round and round in circles.
Itinerary
• Square du Vert-Galant: 15 Place du Pont Neuf 75001; Open 24 hours
• Vedettes du Pont Neuf: 1 Square du Vert-Galant 75001; 10.30-22.30
• Île Saint-Louis 75004
• Hôtel de Lauzun: 17 Quai d’Anjou 75004
• Berthillon: 29-31 Rue Saint-Louis-en-L’Îsle, 75004
• Parc des Rives de Seine 75004
• Canal Saint-Martin: Quai de Valmy 75010
When it comes to picking the just-right location from which to launch a perfect Parisian journée, you’re more than spoilt for choice. Still, I can’t think of many places that so effectively set up a joy of a day than the Square du Vert-Galant. Planted within the triangular western tip of Île de la Cité, it’s both central and surprisingly tranquil, and its outlook is as stunning as its own scenery is lovely.
Descend the musty stone stairs just behind the equestrian statue of King Henri IV, in the middle of Pont Neuf. Below you’ll find a daintily fenced-off garden bursting with an inspired bouquet of trees — horse chestnuts, silver lindens and lilacs, accented with a black walnut here, a maple there — shading a flower-speckled lawn. The ‘Square of the Green Gallant’ is indeed lush and leafy, although the name doesn’t refer to its romantic verdancy (even if its sun-dappled benches are popular with misty-eyed couples) but the lusty Henri IV looming overhead — a vert galant is an old yet evergreen ladies’ man, as Henri, who had at least 56 mistresses in his lifetime, most certainly was. Do a circuit around the park, then stroll along the cobbled exterior. At the point of the island you’ll find a weeping willow. If nobody has nabbed
the shaded space beneath, settle yourself in (ideally with a bag of croissants or pains au chocolat to keep you company) — it’s one of the best seats in the house, where you feel as though Paris is all yours. Sit and soak in the sensational views downstream: sweeping from the gilded dome of the Institut de France on your left, over the graceful Pont des Arts, to the regal Classicism of the Louvre. Occasionally a barge will drift by, or a swan or duck. Let yourself go with the flow. You’ll start to feel as though you, too, are floating through the very heart of this river city, as though at the prow of a ship.
It’s easy to forget that Paris is a waterfront capital, what with all the museums to delve into and monuments to look up at and streets to get lost in. But Paris was a river city long ago, before Roman times, when it was the fishing village of a Celtic tribe known as the Parisii, who thrived on this island thanks to a lucrative trading industry. Some descendant anglers can still be found casting a line into the Seine, hoping to reel in a carp or two. It’s an olde-worlde ritual for a city that has grown so much over the centuries. Not to mention: survived so much. Paris’s motto is fluctuat nec mergitur — Latin for ‘It is tossed upon the waves but not sunk’ — and when you take in the city’s geography as much as history, this seems perfectly apt.
On the northern quay of the square, one-hour river cruises set off from 10.30am, from the Vedettes du Pont Neuf pier. If you can ignore the whirring of camera buttons and guided commentary, a boat tour is a most grand and cinematic way to experience Paris, and fully appreciate the urban importance of the Seine. The river is the source of Paris, for one, having long enriched the surrounding lands that attracted the various inhabitants and hordes, helping Paris to grow into one of the world’s most important cities. It has also anchored this city, splitting it into the Left and Right Banks, as much as melding its halves together. These days, the river is more than just a demarcation line; it’s attracting new life to inner Paris. The lower quays, once congested with trading barges and traffic whizzing by, are now the place of party boats and pedestrian zones.
Disembark back at the Square du Vert-Galant. The Seine is so beautiful nowadays, it’s difficult to imagine it as anything but; however, for many centuries it was little more than a sewage system, graveyard and rubbish dump, so noxious that most Parisians stayed as far away as possible. It was Baron Haussmann who — as part of his mid-nineteenth-century modernisation of Paris — cleaned up the waterways of Paris, bringing life back to the river. Around this square alone, you could once find a laundry barge, a bathing house, and a café-concert, a kind of Belle Époque outdoor nightclub.
Head back up to Pont Neuf, and then to the northern end of the bridge; take a right and stroll along the river, past the Île de la Cité. Haussmann wiped out most of that enclave’s old Gothic town, so it’s no longer a full-rigged ship of an island, all a-clutter with medieval masts. It’s a grand ship still, sure, but pales in comparison to the pleasure liner soon coming into view behind it: the Île Saint-Louis— a harmoniously built seventeenth-century stone cruiser, ringed by masts of poplars, a plane tree for a flagpole at its prow.
At a time when most of Paris was a multi-layered medieval jumble, urban planners and architects were able to start afresh on the Île Saint-Louis — previously a cow pasture and port for wood-laden barges — fashioning it into a miniature version of their ideal metropolis. They chose to build in stone — rather than stick with traditional timber-beamed techniques — which was considered more modern and noble. As a result, the island became a beacon of civilisation, a gleaming example of the city of the future. Some say that Paris was illuminated by Haussmann, when he widened the streets and lined them with limestone apartment buildings, but the brightening actually began right on this very island. And it wasn’t just exterior beauty — new inner architecture trends and techniques allowed for townhouses to feature bijou boudoirs and luxurious bathrooms. It was here that the architect Louis Le Vau, who would go on to international design fame for his work at Versailles, cut his design teeth, creating the island’s most attractive mansions. It was here, too, where Parisians discovered the pleasures of waterfront views.
Wander across the first bridge, Pont Louis Philippe, and head to the right. Admire the pretty mezzanine window at 43 Quai de Bourbon — Le Vau’s sister first lived in this slim building, which might explain the feminine flourish (a Masonic resident would later leave his rather more masculine mark on the façade). Meanwhile, the younger Le Vau brother, François, built the residence that wraps around the western tip of the island. This edifice would eventually be split up into apartments, one of which was the home of Aurélien, the eponymous hero of French poet and Surrealist Louis Aragon’s novel. Those windows now look over a leafy nook named after the author himself. Aragon waxed lyrical in his poetry about the island, which must have inspired much emotion, being the favoured address of Nancy Cunard, with whom he had a long and intense affair in the 1920s. The English heiress had run away to Paris, to escape stifling English aristocratic expectations. With a figure like a marble mannequin, long arms covered in African bangles, and a face so superb it barely seemed real — sculpted cheekbones, sapphire eyes, bow lips — Cunard was immortalised by the era’s top painters, photographers and writers. The avant-garde it-girl partied it up all around Paris, but it was on the tranquil Île Saint-Louis, in an apartment with walls painted blood-red, that she sought solace. Being from the Cunard shipping family, she perhaps couldn’t help being drawn to this luxury liner of an island.
Sit for a while in Place Louis Aragon, a shaded deck at the island’s prow. Oh to be able to sail into a dimension of history where this island becomes a ghost ship for its most glamorous past residents. Cunard would be slinking past, her bangles jingling, a trail of lovestruck men in her wake. You might also spot Marie Curie, who moved here as a widow with two young daughters, finally enjoying some downtime in the afterlife after her stellar scientific career. Or perhaps a soignée Helena Rubinstein, inviting everyone back to her penthouse pad for a rooftop party.
The buildings of Île Saint-Louis remain, mostly, private. It’s not the go-to for museums and monuments. But the decks, both upper and lower, are for all Parisians. Lean over the parapet of Place Louis Aragon; you might spot, down at water level, another patient angler, or picnickers unpacking their baskets. Speaking of which: lunchtime. Continue around Quai de Bourbon. At the next intersection you’ll find a cluster of restaurant options. Weather permitting, buy a baguette sandwich and nibble away while leaning against the Pont Saint-Louis, watching a mime or musician or whichever busker has set up for the day, or head down to the lower quays to join the other al fresco eaters.
As you wander along Quai d’Orléans, which leads into Quai de Béthune, take the time to examine the architectural details: the grand old carriage doors topped by mascarons (menacing sculpted faces originally designed to keep bad spirits from entering a building), the lacy balconies and stone garlands, the rusticated stonework and crumbling shutters … At 22 Quai de Béthune, the keystone appears to be a beautiful woman’s face; on closer inspection you’ll see her outstretched bat’s wings hooked with she-devil claws. It seems a fitting former address for the man who would come to be considered one of Paris’s most decadent, even degenerate, of poets.
Charles Baudelaire moved to Île Saint-Louis in 1842, on the cusp of adulthood. His stepfather had just sent him on a voyage to India, in the hope of veering him away from his intensifying, and expensive, obsession with women and fashion and various other dissolute habits. It only made him yearn all the more to escape the bourgeois life. So after his exotic cruise, is it any wonder Baudelaire came to settle in this pleasure boat of a place? Not that you could call it settling, because the young poet’s colourful bohemian life was only just beginning. He began to write some of the works that would comprise his scandalously phenomenal Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) collection; he continued racking up huge debts while shopping for his dandy clothing and accessories; and he fell hard for Jeanne Du
val, his ‘Black Venus’ and muse-slash-dominatrix of a mistress for the next twenty years, whom he installed in a little love pad around the corner.
Baudelaire was the archetypal Parisian flâneur, that ambler of streets and observer of modern life. He was said to pad around with soft, nervous, cat-like steps, and he particularly loved sauntering at night, his nostrils positively quivering with anticipation as to what might be around the corner. Some say the poet was a synaesthete, meaning his sense of sight, sound and smell would all whirl together. Perhaps, because his words are uniquely evocative. He lamented Haussmann’s cleansing away of the redolent, dirty old Paris — ‘my memories are heavier than rocks,’ he sighed — but it’s curious that he opted to live on this proto-Haussmannian island of bright stone and neat streets. Perhaps he liked to talk and walk dirty, but come home to luxuriously clean sheets.
A little further along the quai you’ll notice, at the end of Rue de Bretonvilliers on your left, an arched pavilion. It’s all that’s left of the island’s most sumptuous estate, the Hôtel de Bretonvilliers. Much of it had crumbled away by the time Baudelaire moved here, but its corner parterre garden remained — until Haussmann wiped it out, in 1866, with the creation of Boulevard Henri IV, just up ahead. Baudelaire, at the time racked with syphilis and stress, about to suffer a paralysing stroke, probably had no energy to muster the effort for outrage.
Turn left at the boulevard and wrap around into Quai d’Anjou, at the corner of which is the legendary Hôtel Lambert, considered the most magnificent seventeenth-century townhouse in Paris. So ingenious was the layout — a puzzle of variously shaped rooms — and so lavish the detailing, it made an instant star of Le Vau, along with painter Charles Le Brun. Its status has been enhanced by a series of fashionable residents who threw suitably excessive parties, hosting French icons from Voltaire to George Sand to Brigitte Bardot. Unless you’ve been lucky enough to be a guest at one of the soirées — former owners Baron Guy and Baroness Marie-Hélène de Rothschild threw the hottest parties in town here in the 1980s and ’90s — a visit is now only available virtually, via Google Images, because like so much of the island it’s tantalisingly closed to snoopers like us. Since 2007, the Hôtel Lambert has belonged to a Qatari prince, whose restoration plans, which included underground parking, have had many a Parisian heritage lover in an outraged tizz.
Paris for Dreamers Page 13