by Adam Thorpe
Cuisine mieux avec des oeufs, said a banner.
‘She’s got a new wheelchair,’ I said. ‘I saw her just before my last migraine.’
‘Who?’
‘Mademoiselle Bolmont.’
‘Oh. How was she?’
‘Happy, in fact.’
‘How nice for her,’ sighed my mother, placing a big leek in the trolley.
I half-blinded myself by staring straight up at the neon lights without blinking. We were at the meat counter. She was wondering what to have for Sunday lunch.
‘The lamb’s too much,’ she said. ‘Though I’d like nothing better than a leg of lamb. Just as well Gigi likes mutton, isn’t it?’
I looked at her, not really listening, amazing blobs dancing in front of my eyes from staring at the neon lights too long: yellow and then blue and then green. Her spectacles twitched on her nose. She picked up the frozen leg of mutton in its stiff cellophane and placed it in the trolley. It was just like someone found too late on the tundra.
The blobs were going crimson, now.
‘At least things are back to normal,’ she said. She turned and looked at the full shelves that carried on and on down the aisles behind. ‘At least things are back to normal.’
Then orange, then purple, then red.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am deeply grateful to the following for their crucial help and generously-given advice during the writing of this book: Alexis Abbou, Lucille Arché and the late Olivier Arché, André Burtaux, Gilles Crépin, Jean-Michel Dagory, Colette Duduyer, Girija Dulac-Smith, Eric Durand, Françoise Gaillac, François Grimal, Patrick Jacquier, Marius Kociejowski, Anne-Marie Maher-Williams, Celia Matson, Catherine Raguin, Auguste Sarrouy, Catherine Bésiex, Françoise Vilain, and my brother Jimmy Thorpe. I am particularly indebted to Yves Ruault of the second-hand bookshop C’était Demain in Nîmes, for providing both animated debate and obscure primary sources; to David Owen for precious information concerning details of insurance law; and above all to Simone Meyer for reading through the manuscript with such meticulous care and attention.
With special thanks also to my agent Bill Hamilton for his support, to my editor Robin Robertson for doggedly seeking perfection, to the copyeditor Steve Cox for his astute queries, to my wife Jo for her inspired influence beyond reckoning, and to my children Joshua, Sacha and Anastasia for informed suggestions en route.
The account of the action at Bagneux during the Franco-Prussian war is drawn from Guerre de 1870–1871: Chevilly et Bagneux by Alfred Duquet (Paris: Fasquelle, 1899). 100 Years of Miele (Gütersloh: Miele, 1999) provided much useful technical information. Extracts from Menie Grégoire’s Les Cris de la Vie (Paris: Tchou, 1971) are used almost verbatim. An earlier version of the Coppélia ballet story was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2000. A main source for the first days of the May 68 riots was Le Livre Noir des Journées de Mai (Paris: Seuil, 1968).