Paris Dreaming

by Katrina Lawrence

  Mum was inspired by the lofty luxury of high-end Paris, but my dad admired Paris as the city for the man of the street, as the capital of liberty and equality for all. Where my mum adored the social life, Dad preferred socialism, and couldn’t care a toss for fancy clothing (he would have been horrified to learn that the ties Mum sometimes bought for him were Hermès, and as such eye-wateringly expensive). Dad was a lawyer, in the field of industrial relations, fighting the good fight for workers who had been unfairly treated by the powers-that-be. It only made him more committed to the cause of socialism.

  ‘Did you know the French invented the concept of left wing?’ he would often ask. And I’d hear the story once again: during a debate about the king’s powers in the early years of the French Revolution, the group in opposition moved to the left side of the assembly chamber, and so the political terms left and right took hold. Originally the distinction was about whether you were against or for royalty, but it evolved to denote whether you supported social reform or a more traditional society.

  Still — as my dad would note, approvingly — even the conservative French presidents have shown a certain commitment to the notion of fairness. It was just one of the many Gallic paradoxes, Mum once observed, explaining that only the French can reconcile the seemingly opposing ideals of grandeur and democracy. Only the French — and my parents.

  It took us another eight years to find our way back to our beloved France. Dad had been busy building up his practice, while Mum had spent several years studying and strategising her career, before taking a job as adviser to the Premier of Victoria. They were both feeling burnt out, and Paris seemed the perfect reward for years of toil. Of course, I was more than happy to hitch a ride.

  A dreamer of a girl, an only child who spent hours imagining my future life, Paris had remained my fantasy world since my first visit. Nevertheless, at thirteen years old, I was at the threshold of an age when you start to sense that life isn’t a fairy tale after all — that a happy ending isn’t as solid as a triumphal arch at the end of a grand avenue, and life is actually a bumpy road that might take unexpected twists and turns. While my parents’ marriage seemed as content as ever, many of my friends’ parents had divorced. It was the 1980s, and nobody could deny that the world was changing. Women, too, were evolving, wanting more, with feminism — supposedly — finally setting us free. It was a confusing time for girls who had grown up reading Cinderella. On the cusp of womanhood, we looked around and realised ‘happily ever after’ now meant something else altogether. The future was less certain than ever — both more, and less, in our control; and it was both exciting and daunting.

  One of the most powerful displays of Parisian girl power, I discovered, can be found in the Louvre, in the enormous Liberty Leading the People, Eugène Delacroix’s celebration of the July 1830 Revolution. Its intensity floored me, quite literally — I had to sit down on the museum’s parquetry to take in the canvas. I could all too well understand how this painting might have inspired Victor Hugo to write Les Misérables, the musical version of which we had just seen in London. I’d found Les Mis heart-stirring enough — ‘The French had revolutions,’ said Dad, ‘because they dreamed of a better world’ — but Liberty seemed to make the fight for a fairer future personal.

  Liberty is an allegorical goddess-like figure, holding aloft the tricolore flag as she guides the people of Paris to victory. But this is no delicate maiden playing a pale-skinned muse from afar. Liberty is right in the thick of the violent action, her other muscular arm brandishing a musket as she strides barefoot over the bodies of fallen comrades, her fired-up face urging her army of followers onwards. Oh, and her dress is falling down, revealing a pert pair of breasts.

  I was at once seduced and confused. Liberty was strong and sturdy, yes, and I loved that. But she also had to play the sexy card to get attention. The mixed messages somewhat messed with my young feminist-intraining mind.

  My mum was a feminist from way back. The eldest of nine children, her mother hadn’t been allowed to consider a career, and she wanted her daughters to make up for those lost opportunities. Nana refused any help in the kitchen or laundry (which surely would have been tempting given she had eleven mouths to feed and bodies to clothe); instead, the girls had to study. And then study some more. There were no mirrors in their bedrooms; the emphasis was on a beautiful mind. Mum came to like beauty products as much as the next woman, but her workday look was classic and groomed: a tailored suit with sensible heels, accented with a rose-beige lip. She knew how to get ahead in a man’s world, and it didn’t involve cosmetics or cleavage; her real weapon was her intelligence.

  I was proud of my mother, who was my ultimate role model — and yet I knew from an early age that I was a different girl from the one she’d been. A very girlie one, I was wired to obsess over prettiness — floral wallpaper, pink velvet bedspreads, frilly dresses . . . I’d begged for a Barbie collection for years, and Mum, who herself had, quite unregretfully, missed the influence of such a doll at a formative age, finally gave in, albeit with much reluctance. By the age of thirteen, I’d long stopped playing with the dolls, but they still sat pretty on a shelf by my mirror, into which I’d often sigh, wishing my hair could be longer and blonder.

  If Barbie was the ideal girl in Australia, in France it was Marianne, whom I’d recently learned about in my French classes. Delacroix’s Liberty was an early depiction of Marianne, the ultimate French woman, the symbol of the French Republic whose bust is on display in town halls around the country. Not one particular woman (the name was chosen as it was so common at the time), Marianne is in fact every woman. But, of course, Marianne is beautiful. Every now and then, the French state chooses an iconic identity as the personification of the Marianne ideal, to lend her features to a new generation of busts and illustrations that will end up on stamps and postcards. Real-life Mariannes have included Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve and Laetitia Casta.

  Studying Liberty in the Louvre that day, I wondered if French women sensed a pressure to be both sexy and smart. Perhaps they felt just as Liberty might have: frustrated that she’d broken free of her corsets, only to find she couldn’t escape from society’s expectations that women should be, above all, seductive. Or did they simply accept that women were a package of contradictions, complicatedly wrapped up in layers of lace and feminine frills?

  We emerged from our hours in the Louvre, blinking several times to adjust our vision in the searing sunshine. In high summer in Paris, the sun is so golden it’s practically molten, and the days seem to go on forever. We headed into the neighbouring Tuileries Garden, once a pleasure ground in which queens, princesses and empresses danced, and passed the manicured lawns and parterre gardens to take shelter within the grid of horse chestnut trees. This, to me, seemed like a wooded fairyland, with its whimsical touches of art, including a white marble statue that made me smile for its pure playfulness. Sitting atop a plinth was the bust of a man, his serious, line-etched face offset by a mass of youthful tumbling curls. Children skipped and twirled around the base, while a cat wearing a natty hat and cape stood to the side, one booted toe elegantly turned out.

  Meet Charles Perrault, the seventeenth-century author who recorded a number of popular fictions that had been passed through the generations for centuries, adapting and collecting them in a book he called Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé. Avec les Moralitez (Stories or Tales from Past Times with Morals). Soon this genre would be known as fairy tales, and Perrault immortalised some of what are now the most famous and best loved, including Le Chat Botté (Puss in Boots), La Belle au Bois Dormant (Sleeping Beauty) and Cendrillon (Cinderella).

  ‘Can’t you just imagine Cinderella running along these paths in her ball gown and glass slippers?’ I sighed. I might have been coming to the realisation that real life wasn’t a fairy tale, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t be nostalgic for another time, even one that never existed. ‘Don’t forget the moral of the story,’ Mum reminded me, as she had
done so many times before, ‘the importance of kindness.’

  Disney might have produced a Vaseline-lensed, blissfully-ever-after adaptation of Perrault’s Cinderella, but the original story doesn’t dwell much on the wedding or even the groom; rather, the happy ending is in Cinderella forgiving her step-sisters — who are not in fact ugly, just less beautiful in character. Indeed, Perrault finished his tale with this moral musing: ‘That which we call good grace, exceeds, by far, a handsome face.’

  While my parents are different in many superficial ways, they have always been united by substance, by values — one of which could certainly be termed ‘good grace’. They believe in civility and decency, for one, but also the religious definition of grace: the peace of mind and strength of soul that come from love of God. I, on the other hand, was never the most committed of Catholic girls. Perhaps because I went to the local public school, I hadn’t been indoctrinated in Catholicism to the same soul-searing extent. Despite sharing a Sunday Mass ritual, I could never seem to achieve my parents’ beatific state of mind. I jiggled on the uncomfortable wooden pews. My thoughts wandered . . . Still, I guess I was Catholic enough to feel guilty about not being Catholic enough.

  ‘Now here’s a good role model for you, much worthier than Cinderella,’ pronounced Dad, as we headed out of the Tuileries and over Rue de Rivoli. I looked up to see a statue of a woman astride an armoured horse, holding a flag as though poised to charge into battle. It was the original, golden version of the statue I walked by every Saturday, when Mum and I visited the State Library of Victoria: Saint Joan of Arc, the legendary girl warrior of the fifteenth century.

  Born into a rural peasant family in 1412, just as the Hundred Years’ War with England was about to ramp up again, a teen Joan started hearing voices of saints urging her to fight for the French heir, Charles VII. It was a harsh time when hope was in desperate need, so word soon got around. Upon theological examination, Joan’s divine inspiration was officially accepted, and she was allowed to fight for France, her hair cropped and her tiny body dressed in knight’s garb. At the helm of what was now effectively a religious war, Joan led the troops to various victories — until she ran out of luck and found herself in the hands of her enemies.

  Joan could have stayed at home spinning wool with her mother and sisters, but instead fought against the limitations of her gender, noted Dad, who as the father of a daughter often displayed admirable feminist traits. ‘She also shows the importance of following your convictions,’ he added. I wasn’t quite convinced. Joan, after all, had been burned at the stake for witchcraft, and for generally being a woman who didn’t know her place. But at the very least, I figured, the story of Joan reminded me that I was lucky to live in modern times, in an enlightened era that offered women so many choices. I would probably never have to opt for the particular role of girl warrior — but Joan proved we all had one within if we ever needed to fight against injustice. Our own inner Liberty, ready to storm the barricades. Frilly dress or not.

  One of Dad’s favourite stops on a Paris Left Bank walking tour is a cute cobblestoned lane just off Boulevard Saint-Germain. The Cour du Commerce Saint-André is the picture of prettiness, festooned with fairy lights and lined with shops bearing quaint signs and colourful slatted shutters. Few would guess this little strip is so heavy with symbolism, having helped to pave the way to modern France. Behind a hefty green door, a certain Dr Joseph-Ignace Guillotin invented the mechanical decapitation machine that would kill off Old France. Just across the way, the champion-for-the-poor Jean-Paul Marat printed his radical paper, L’Ami du Peuple (Friend of the People), an incendiary read that fired up Parisians and helped send the monarchy up in flames.

  If you twist around a corner down to the Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie, then take a right, you find yourself outside a restaurant called Le Procope. This is where the expression ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’ was coined, according to my father. Peering through the windows of Le Procope, I found it a stretch to believe that such a lustrous setting could inspire radical thoughts. One of those famous French paradoxes, perhaps?

  When Le Procope opened its gilded doors in 1686, it set the scene for a new type of Parisian institution, the literary café. And a luxury one at that. A world away from the city’s traditional tavern — a rough and rowdy, ale-drenched affair of a place — Le Procope was all chandeliers reflected in mirror-coated walls, and marble-topped tables adorned with silver pots of steaming coffee, newly imported from the East, and plates of pretty pastries. The Age of Enlightenment was flickering into life. Patrons could peruse the newfangled newspapers, and openly discuss politics, philosophy and other pressing issues of the moment, all the while ordering endless cups of caffeine to keep the conversation buzzing. Add to this percolating brew a sprinkling of the greatest minds in the city who frequented the café, and you had a potent recipe for a social and political phenomenon.

  French socialism has always had a uniquely intellectual bent to it, Dad explained. The movement didn’t begin among the working classes so much as the coffee-quaffing intellectuals who idealised the notion of social equality. That’s why they wanted to democratise knowledge, he explained, adding that this was the very place where a group of philosophers came up with the idea of the modern encyclopaedia.

  My mind reeled at the thought of how thrilling it must have been to fill all those blank pages. I pictured these men as the literary equivalent of the early explorers who charted the globe, sailing back to Paris with gobsmacking stories to report, inspiring a new generation of scientists — for these writers must have felt as though they were also charting new territory. My pangs of envy almost hurt. I had recently decided I wanted to write for a living, but about what I had no idea. In bookstores, I’d wander around the various sections and look at the different genres, wondering where I could slot in — but everything seemed to have been penned on paper. What more could there possibly be to say?

  Still, I felt compelled to write in some shape or form. It seemed like the perfect method for making sense of a complicated world. And — I won’t lie — it also appeared to be such a romantic way to eke out a living. An insular, independent job, it appealed to an only child — yet it was sufficiently connected to society by virtue of its analytical and observational activities. I pictured myself scribbling away in a pink notebook, for hours on end, in glamorous cafés . . . I should have known early on that I would end up writing about the more aesthetic side of life.

  Interestingly, most philosophers of the Enlightenment — such as the charming and vivacious Voltaire — while challenging their world and the very basis of human existence, weren’t revolutionaries. They argued the case for fairness, certainly, but within the current framework of French life, complete with the monarchy and the growing middle class. I came to believe that they simply liked the modern pleasures of life — including their silky culottes and the velvety hot chocolate they sipped from porcelain cups while lounging on cushy couches.

  Talking about social justice while savouring truffle risotto and sipping vintage champagne in a five-star restaurant only makes true sense in Paris. Because the French believe as much in the concept of equality for all, as they do in luxury for all. Everyone can — and should — aim high.

  High in French is haut, an adjective that Gallic types love to link to all the important things in life, to raise them to greater heights and infuse them with a haughty demeanour. For example, haute couture (high fashion), haute parfumerie (fine fragrance), haute culture (high culture), haut bourgeois (upper middle class) and, of course, haute cuisine (fine dining).

  It’s a delicious irony that French restaurants became posher after the Revolution, the very event that was meant to level things out socially. Once modest establishments that dished up restorative broths (les restaurants), a sophisticated new generation opened shop after the 1789 Revolution, as chefs once employed to concoct lavish banquets for aristocrats found themselves out of work and in need of a career rethink. For a price, all
Parisians could now wine and dine at marble tables, under chandeliers. The French, you see, do not believe equality means sinking to the lowest common denominator.

  Ledoyen is a pretty, buttery-yellow pavilion nestled in greenery at the foot of the Champs-Élysées. It was also the scene of my first deluxe dinner out. Cue all my 1980s finery: a puffy taffeta skirt paired with a velour bolero jacket. My parents and I sat on high-backed, velvety chairs, our table dressed formally in starched white linen, the brightening glow of the candelabras lightening up the delicately etched ceilings as the sky darkened to a perfect shade of French navy just beyond the ruched curtains.

  Our meals came out nestled beneath silver cloches, which were then dramatically lifted by a trio of faultlessly in-sync waiters, revealing such delights as a mille-feuille of seafood swimming in a silken purée, an artful array of vegetables as colourful as paint on a palette, an intricately designed roulade, swirled and sliced to perfection.

  ‘There’s a wonderful French expression, gauche caviar,’ Mum said, during a conversation about the contradictory country we had all come to love. ‘It literally means “caviar left”, although we tend to say “champagne socialism” in English, referring to socialists who have certain expensive tastes,’ she explained. ‘Yet another French paradox.’

  ‘Isn’t that a little hypocritical?’ I wondered aloud.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with living the good life from time to time,’ said Mum.

  ‘If you work hard for it,’ noted Dad.

  ‘And you’re grateful for it,’ Mum added.

  I was certainly grateful for the dessert trolley that was wheeled over, laden as it was with fruit tarts glossy and bright, as though studded with huge gemstones; chocolate in every possible guise of cake and tart; and sculptural, sugar-encrusted confections.