Ninon and Me at the Grand Comptoir

by Katherine Watt

  But dig a little deeper and there is an attitude in Paris that says “the customer is not king”. In fact, le commerçant est roi and the customer is a customer.

  Last night I met Charlotte for dinner in the Marais. I was curious about a restaurant I’d been reading about, Vins des Pyrénées, and asked her if she’d been. She said it was on her list, let’s go. Our rendez-vous was set for the unfortunate time that The World Champion Soccer team was arriving back in Paris and was to parade down the Champs Elysee on top of an open air bus. Hundreds of thousands of people lined up all day for the route. Would things ever get back to normal in Paris? The two buses I would have to take to make my journey 1,50 euro were disrupted, even the metro had closures. So I was left with no choice but a 30 euro Uber ride.

  Normally I’ve learned to maximize the value of my Uber rides by turning the driver into a language tutor. At least I feel less guilty about the cost. Last night, I was not in the mood, and preferred to watch Paris go by. Even away from the Champs Elysées, where tout le monde was gathered, the streets, cafés and sidewalks were jammed with people, drinking, smoking, walking, moto-ing. Suddenly jets flew in front of us, leaving a trail of blue, white and red jet stream! The driver and I gasped in unison! Only in Paris!

  Thirty minutes later the driver dropped me in front of a charming little bistro, on a narrow street just two blocks from Place des Vosges. I was fifteen minutes early for our reservation, but pas de problème. I was seated at a table next to the open window. At 7:45 the restaurant was nearly empty. Only one other table was occupied by four American women.

  The waiter asked if I would like something to drink. “Un cocktail?” “Oui” he brought me a menu. A long list of trendy named but interesting looking cocktails; Zelda, People are strange, L’homme pressé, Medicis, Vol de nuit, Elliot Ness, Le résistant, Come fly with me. I debated between the Zelda and the Come fly with me and in the end opted for the Zelda.

  Fifteen minutes later Charlotte arrived, right on time. Five minutes later Zelda arrived, a wannabe Manhattan with a foamy egg white topping and dried rose petals. Were they edible, I wondered?

  Charlotte asked for the cocktail menu. The waiter suggested that she might not want to order a cocktail because they were taking a long time. Huh? There was a bar not 15 feet away from our table. Evidently the cocktails were made at the bar upstairs, Le 1905.

  “Aha” said Charlotte, “that’s why this was on my list. It’s the bar I had heard of.”

  The waiter launched into the history of the restaurant, Les Vins des Pyrénées. In 1905, the original owner built the house and this is where he bottled wine from the grapes that were shipped in from the Pyrénées, to “Port St. Emilion”

  “Is there a Port St. Emilion in Paris?” I asked Charlotte.

  “Not that I know of. I would like a cocktail she said. I’ll have the Elliot Ness.”

  We asked for the food menu and ordered. We asked for the cart du vin and ordered. Why did we have to ask?

  The wine arrived before Elliot Ness. By the way, my Zelda was fine, not earth shaking but tasty. I didn’t eat the rose petals.

  We shared a starter of lamb croquettes. They were piping hot and very good but a bit awkward to eat since we weren’t given any small plates. We each stabbed one with a fork and munched on it, dipping it in the very nice yogurt sauce. Our plats arrived; poulpe et piments for me and a croque aux truffes for Charlotte. I think both were fine but unremarkable. Maybe the best part of the meal was the Pouilly Fuisse, and certainly the conversation.

  It was an excellent gossip fest.

  “I feel guilty,’’ I admitted. “Everytime I see you I gossip so much!”

  “I guess you feel safe with me!”

  I like that. I felt decidedly less guilty.

  We finish our meal and ask for the bill, heading upstairs to check out Le 1905. It is lovely! A space full of nooks and crannies and lovely little seating areas. We choose a space on an outside terrace. Behind the building apartments with windows wide open to the space between buildings. Golden hues suggest interesting things going on in the apartments. Our small terrace has space for half a dozen. A couple sits at the next table having dinner. We should have eaten up here! Maybe Zelda and Elliot would have made it to the table more quickly.

  The young waiter turned on electric fairy lights and the small patio was magical. I think there was some kind of unobtrusive but pleasant music playing. The same young waiter brought us the same cocktail menu we gotten downstairs. We decided to go off menu.

  “I’d like a very dry martini.” Charlotte said. That evolved into a discussion about the exact recipe for a dry martini. I still say good martinis are very hard to come by in Paris! I asked for a Sidecar. Crickets. “Can you ask the bartender if he can make one?” I suggested. They can make a Le Résistant, a Come fly with me and an Elliot Ness but a classic Sidecar?

  Maybe 10 minutes later the waiter came back to tell me that Sidecar was a go. He would have been back sooner but he had a lot of cloth napkins to fold. Finally the martini and Sidecar arrived and both were good.

  Bottom line, here was a restaurant and bar that have so much potential. They could be great. But they are ok. With potential. And neither of us is probably going to make the effort to trek across town to come back. Later it occurred to me that there could be an excellent business in consulting with places like this. A few simple modifications; getting the cocktails to the table quickly, better trained servers, more customer service, could turn a really lovely location into a place worth traveling to.

  But this is Paris. Parisians don’t take kindly to advice and suggestions. Maybe there are enough people already in the 4eme to keep the place busy enough. And who asked for your opinion anyway?

  Philippe, who supposedly likes me and beamed when I said the grilled courgettes and dorade were the best thing I’d ever eaten at GCA, won’t make me a Sidecar, even though he’s got all the ingredients behind the bar.

  You’ll get what you get..

  “Ce n’est pas assez d’être sage. Il faut plaire.”

  It is not enough to be wise. You have to please.

  A woman who has loved only one man will never know love.

  “What would Ninon do?” - Louis XIV (aka Sun King)

  Epicureanism:

  When we say… that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood by some through ignorance, prejudice or wilful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not by an unbroken succession of drinking bouts and of revelry, not by sexual lust, nor the enjoyment of fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul.

  - Epicurus, “Letter to Menoeceus”

  Of all things which wisdom has contrived which contribute to a blessed life, none is more important, more fruitful than friendship.

  -Cicero

  An Insurance Policy

  Upon leaving the convent, Ninon knew she had two choices; take a husband or get a job. Having committed to never doing the former, she planned for the latter. What she needed was an insurance policy, something that would guarantee her future and remove any hint that she may be tainted material. Marquis Henri de Sévigné was just the ticket.

  Henri was not unattractive. He was just a vain and impetuous young man. He was easy pickings for the clever but young Ninon. More importantly, he was from a family of means and could be precisely what she needed to guarantee her future as an independent woman.

  While Henri was just not unattractive, Ninon had been fortunate to be born quite lovely. Her year in the convent merely added to the discipline and habits required to maintain her natural gifts. She lived a
life protected from the sun so her beautiful white skin was unblemished by the savagery of the everyday elements. Ninon was resolute in protecting her attractions. She ate well, didn’t drink, in fact drank an extraordinary amount of water, which flew in the face of contemporary convention, and slathered her entire body with bull semen. As a result, in addition to her god given (although Ninon doubted the existence of a god) gifts she was slim and had alabaster skin that was wonderfully soft to the touch.

  At twenty two, she was not only lovely to look at she was delightful to listen to. She cleverly asked all the right questions and reacted to the responses with exactly the right balance of interest and boredom. Young Henri was no match for our Ninon. In due haste he set her up in a modest but lovely apartment on rue des Tournelles, truly an address to be coveted and just a block from the Place des Vosges.

  Although Ninon did not love Henri ( in fact she really didn’t even like him) she recognized that he was vitally important to her future as a Parisian courtesan. She learned from him. And he was a naive and willing teacher. She quickly learned when to withhold and when to give; when to listen and when to talk; and after six months Ninon learned when to cut and run.

  By then Ninon had feathered her little nest on rue des Tournelles quite well. She had the beginning of a lovely salon, with stylish but comfortable furnishings and a few pieces that would become the beginning of an extraordinary art collection. She quickly became adept at the art of love and was not learning anything more; at least from Henri. He had become engaged to his cousin Marie and Ninon decided it was time to move on to a new arrangement.

  Henri was of course, destitute. In spite of his engagement he was quite used to getting what he wanted and he wanted to continue to be spoiled by the attentions of the lovely Ninon. He wanted to have his proverbial cake and eat it!

  It was at this very early and pivotal stage of Ninon’s career as a courtesan that she determined she had allowed this to go on too long. Three months was her new limit. She also wisely decided that she would have just one lover at a time. But no one lover would overstay his welcome in her bed.

  Avril 1667 rue des Tournelles

  “Have you seen that Italian’s bust of the King?”

  “I have heard that he was brought here to redesign the entire Palace!”

  “Noooo, not the entire Palace.” “X” tutted, emitting a tiny puff of air from his snarling lips. ” He’s just been invited to submit a proposal for the east facade. A proposal you silly twits!” “X” had strolled over to the periphery of the cluster of gossipy women. Why are they here? he wondered. How on earth did Ninon allow these vapid soulless nitwits into her salon? What on earth did she think they would contribute? Even their powders and paints and tresses and abundance of decolletage add nothing to the scene. If I were looking for frippery I could go spend an evening with one of my own mistresses. They are always eager to supply me with the latest gossip along with more salubrious satisfactions. This time his puff of dissatisfaction included an audible grunt.

  The women merely took a few steps further into the luxurious room, away from Monsieur X and continued their chatter.

  “Did you hear what he did to his mistress? The woman was the wife of his workshop assistant.”

  “No… don’t tell me. I saw him on the square the other day. He was staring into space. Just gazing at the horse chestnuts as if he expected them to do something. He’s actually rather handsome, in that dark, oily, Italian kind of way. It was truly odd how he stared for a very long passage of time.”

  “Well, this was years ago,” Madame A was not to be deterred from her story. “Before he was married and had all of those little Italian brats. He had a long time affair with the wife of his workshop assistant. What did the thankless trollop do? She started sleeping with his brother!”

  “Oh my…”

  “True! Of course the sculpture was enraged!”

  “What did he do?” Madame X asked, on pins and needles, exactly the reaction Madame A was looking for.

  Madame A took a long sip of her sherry and looked around the room surreptitiously, as if daring nearby ears to listen in. Everyone was engrossed in their own discussions, or gathered around Ninon, hanging on her every word. Clearly Madame A had an audience of one. She sighed heavily, disappointed that she had wasted this juicy tidbit of gossip on the vain and silly Madame X. She looked around the room again, desperately hoping to find more eager ears for her story. It wasn’t going to happen.

  She took a dramatic breath, one more sip of her sherry and launched into the denouement of her tale.

  “Well, he engaged with one of her servants.” She glanced again longingly at the group surrounding Ninon.

  “Go on, please…” plead Madame X.

  “And he had the servant slash up her face with a straight razor!” She waved her hand in the air for effect while Madame X gasped and spilled a bit of her own sherry on her abundant decolletage.

  “No!” Madame X finally was able to utter as she used her lace hanky to delicately mop up the spill on her generously exposed bosom

  “Mais oui.” reinforced Madame A. “Of course the woman is terribly scarred and absolutely hideous.”

  “And the sculptor? What happened to him?”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  Madame X wrinkled her nose, looking for more.

  “Well, you know how those papists are. The Pope hastily arranged a marriage to a woman half his age whom he rendered a breed mare. She bore him a passel of children.”

  Madame X was deep in thought, trying to fathom some part of the story, not clear exactly what.

  “And his servant and the woman...” Madame A whispered conspiratorially, “were both imprisoned! For infidelity and assault.”

  “No!”

  “Mais oui.” Madame A shrugged.

  In the heart of the salon, Ninon herself was deep in discussion with several Messrs about Gian Lorenzo Bernini themselves. Not the gossip, but the merits of his being brought from Italy to make an important proposal for a significant new Palace facade.

  Although she had been a frequent presence in Paris’s most notable salons, she had only recently inaugurated her own at l’hotel Sagonne on rue des Tournelles, very well situated adjacent to Place Royale. The salon at l’hotel Sagonne fast became “the” place to be. Ninon’s habituées were quickly dubbed the L’oiseaux de Tournelles”.

  Ninon looked lovely as usual. Her long hair, grown out again after a period of sporting her infamous “bob ` la Ninon” (the result of her cutting off all her locks to console the desolate Marquis de Villarceaux upon ending their “arrangement”) fell in luxuriant curls around her shoulders and across her own famous poitrine.

  An Embarrassment of Riches

  Writing every day is becoming part of what I do. It’s certainly a change from my corporate life. I wake up by 8, get up by 9. I used to be sitting at my desk at 7 am, unless of course I was traveling somewhere; China, Malaysia, Australia, India… Now I get up when I can’t wait any longer to answer the call of nature. I’ve made myself a rule, not to leave my room until my bed is made up; at least I will have one small bit of discipline in my life. So I make my bed and then head to the kitchen to make coffee.

  While the french press is steeping, I turn on my laptop and the lights and fans. I check on my tiny balcony garden, basil, thyme and chervil along with the pansies and petunias, giving them a drink of water. Then I plunge the coffee and spend the next hour or two checking and sending emails, checking my social media accounts, doing my Duolingo. I’m on day seven hundred and something of Duolingo.

  Then I decide where I am going to write today. I’ve started to feel completely immersed in Ninon’s life; the mystery of how it all evolved is gradually unfolding. Where did she go when she left the convent? What did she feel like? Was she afraid?

  I’m drawn to 36 rue des Tournelles. It looks nothing like
it must have looked when Ninon walked these streets over three hundred years ago. Now it’s completely gentrified and part of the trendy and tourist saturated fourth arrondissement - the Marais. I once had dinner at the small café on the corner.

  “I’m writing a novel about a woman who lived on this street in the 1600s. Do you ever wonder what it was like here then?” I asked the waiter.

  “I’ve only been working here for a couple of months.” he responded.

  Today I wrote at GCA. Philippe helped me find the right table on this very hot Paris afternoon. Not this table. Too noisy, they are doing construction across the street. This side is better, facing the park or facing inside?

  “Facing inside of course. J’écris mieux ici. Je ne sais pas pourquoi. Je pense peut-être tu es mon muse.”

  I’m not sure he understood my American accent. But he seemed pleased. I’m GCA’s Hemingway. And Le Clou’s Hemingway (yesterday the lovely Thierry was wearing the SF Giants cap I brought him and proudly pointed it out to me), I’m also Le Cépage’s Hemingway where Laurent thoughtfully sets up a second table to accommodate my beverages while I write and admonishes me to stop writing for a bit while I enjoy my dorade. “Quand tu travailles, travaillés et quand tu manges, manges!” When you work, work and when you eat, eat!” He’s right of course. Monsieur durade gave up his life for my enjoyment. It is my obligation to enjoy it. And I’m Les Loups’ Hemingway, handsome Rafaele eager to make sure I have what I need at my regular table. Such an embarrassment of riches. So many handsome waiters and restaurant owners and the glorious opportunity to write at my leisure! All patrons of the arts.

  A Holiday

  It’s time for a break. I have been in Paris for over six months and other than the trip to the US I have not stepped foot out of the city.