‘You can’t fight it — no pun intended,’ said Andy with a shrug, when I once complained about this glamourisation of combat dressed up in historical garb, the musketeer cult selling the idea that boys best bond through thuggery. ‘It’s like girls and princess stories — it’s institutionalised.’
We walked up Rue Servandoni, which Dumas makes D’Artagnan’s street of residence. You can almost hear the click-clack of his buckled boots scooting over the cobbles — fanned out in peacock-tail patterns — as he rushes off to the latest neighbourhood scuffle. The real-life musketeers would have seen a similar 6th arrondissement to the one we do today, because so much of it dates to the seventeenth century, the so-called grand siècle that witnessed Paris emerge as the world’s eminent political and cultural power.
Le Procope, our dinner destination, was a product of that great century, arguably the social centre of the Age of Enlightenment. It was a time when the pen became mightier than the sword, as Parisians philosophised about how to live well in civil society. The legendary café is now a restaurant, themed to play to the tourist crowd: mirrored walls and sparkling chandeliers, glass cabinets displaying books and busts, a marble-topped table at which Voltaire himself apparently worked. But who could blame the restaurant for boasting of such a grand history?
The Disneyfication of Le Procope doesn’t extend to the menu, which is as French as onion soup, just one of the options along with other Gallic gastronomic delights such as snails, pig’s snout, foie gras and calf’s head. It was the boys’ first Parisian meal and I braced myself when Noah was presented with the kids’ option: steak haché (minced meat) so raw it deserved tartare status. Otto dug into his, of course, while Noah stared suspiciously at the plate before him.
‘This is what Parisian kids eat,’ explained his grandmother.
‘I was built in Paris, you know,’ declared Noah suddenly, much to my mortification. His father had shared this knowledge with him just before the holiday and, even though Noah didn’t really know what the euphemism meant, he seemed rather chuffed about the fact.
‘Just eat,’ I said quickly, before any awkward questions might be asked.
And surprisingly, he picked up his cutlery and did just that. Not with any huge enthusiasm, mind you, but still.
‘Oh my gosh,’ Andy whispered in surprise. ‘He’s acting like a French child!’
The French haven’t always been civilised when it comes to dining. The fork, for instance, only gained widespread acceptance in the seventeenth century, although the Sun King, who set the template for elegant living, insisted on using his hands as utensils. While France would soon claim the silken mantle of global cultural leader, many of the ingredients for its rich brew of civilisation originated in the East. The coffee first poured from silver pots into china cups at Le Procope, for instance, came from Turkey, but the French had long been enticed by Eastern delights. Eleanor, for one, marvelled at the feasts of exquisitely spiced fare eaten with forks from silver plates, celebrated in banquet rooms carpeted in rose petals, when in Constantinople in the mid twelfth century. She was on crusade to the Holy Land, with her first husband, the piously dull French king. As a sensual southerner, Eleanor no doubt craved an exotic escape from the bleakness of Paris, no City of Light at the time. And anyway, adventure was in her blood. Her grandfather, William of Aquitaine, had also been a crusader, and his time abroad inspired him to such lyrical ecstasy that he has gone down in history as the first of the troubadours, those poet-singers of Southern France who gave us the concept of courtly love.
The crusades, for all their horrific violence, actually helped to illuminate life in Western Europe, just emerging from its so-called Dark Ages. Amid the series of holy wars, there was time for Westerners to appreciate the cultures of the East. The Islamic world was then the capital of maths, medicine and science, which stimulated the minds of Europeans, who were also agog at the splendour of the lifestyle they saw. Trade flourished to satisfy a growing Western appetite for spices and sugar, sumptuous silks and precious stones, rosewater and aromatic incense, intricate glassware and colourful cushions.
It’s bittersweet to think of the beauty among the brutality. This contrast between elegance and ugliness is so often seen in French history. William of Aquitaine, arguably the founding father of romantic love, was in reality a thug of a man who would think nothing of kidnapping a woman who took his fancy. Knights, those flag-bearers of chivalry, had a day job, after all, and it was to kill. Then came the Age of Enlightenment, the celebrated summit of civilisation — that tumbled downhill into the horrors of the French Revolution, and a period so bloodthirsty it would give the world the word terrorism. And perhaps that’s why Parisians, to this day, are ever ready to take to the streets in defiant protest, to say non after being brought up to acquiescently nod their little heads. Paris is a place where the red of passion and anger never seems too far from the elegant limestone-beige surface.
The army museum is not usually high on my Paris itinerary. In fact, it had never before even made the list. But when you’re the tour guide for two young boys who often dream of being knights when they grow up, a visit there becomes somewhat inevitable. The museum is located within Les Invalides, so named because it was built, in 1671, as a home for old and infirm soldiers. This explains the austere bureaucratic sprawl of the complex. As for the reason behind the glamour of the elaborate church dome in the middle, so seemingly at odds with its surrounds, there’s no definitive official one — but perhaps being Parisian is enough to have accorded it special status.
Before we’d reached the entrance of Les Invalides, we’d already walked past half a dozen soldiers, bulked up in camouflage, fingers lightly poised on the triggers of their assault rifles (their chic berets as jarring as a golden dome on a staid barracks-like building). Sadly, these officers were not part of a roving live exhibit.
‘Why do the soldiers have such big guns?’ asked Noah. ‘Are there baddies even in Paris?’ I took a deep breath. The boys had only heard that Paris is the place where all good things happen: chocolate-flavoured breakfasts, macarons in every colour of the rainbow, and parks filled with ponies. I decided to go for elusive over explanatory. ‘They’re just making sure we’re extra safe,’ I said, feigning nonchalance.
However, it’s a jittery kind of secure that you feel every time you see such a soldier. Officially in State of Emergency mode, Parisian streets were saturated with combat troops trained to take on the world’s toughest war zones. ‘It feels kind of odd going to an army museum that celebrates the history of war, when war seems to be on its footsteps,’ muttered Andy as we walked inside.
France had been officially at war — against terrorism and radical Islam, according to the then French prime minister — for over a year, since January 2015, when two masked gunmen forced their way into the Paris office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, and assassinated the editor and other staffers attending the weekly editorial meeting. The killers were radicalised French Muslims, carrying through Islamic State’s threat to punish the magazine for its depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.
France and Islam have a fraught history. The old Arabic term for crusaders is ifranj, or Franks, as the French were the main players in the various crusades launched between 1095 and 1291. Not surprisingly, some identities have claimed that the current hostility is simply the latest holy war in a long line of many. It makes for an effective sound bite and recruiting strategy, but many historians insist this is a false interpretation of the facts. A visit to the army museum proves that the world has immeasurably changed since the time of the crusades. In the exhibition rooms — once infirmaries where countless men died from agonising injuries — uniforms are on show, sanitised of gore stains and savage rips, but precious little remains of crusader armoury, which has simply disintegrated into history.
Even so, it wouldn’t hold up a mirror to today’s war. For one, it’s a battle where most combatants don’t look like soldiers. On one side, there are the stealth
fighters, wearing civilian garb and an angry scowl; on the other, regular Parisians, clad in dresses or jeans, out drinking wine en terrasse, their defences completely down on a Friday night. When homegrown terrorists once again struck Paris, in November 2015, shooting random targets at a music concert and various nearby restaurants and bars, the world changed forever. War no longer has a uniform.
We walked over Pont Alexandre III, the most flamboyantly exuberant of all Parisian bridges, its pillars topped with gilded Pegasuses, garlands of nymphs and cherubs, and the most voluptuous lampposts in town. It crosses the narrow gap between glamorous and gaudy, and it’s this tongue-in-chic that has made the much-loved bridge a star of many movies. The sense of theatricality continues as you head towards the Champs-Élysées, past the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, their ornamentation overscaled so that you can’t help but feel awed, like a child staring up at a cartoonish Disney palace.
‘Pipi!’ yelled Otto suddenly, somewhat shattering the sweet illusion of my moment. The boys found the French children’s word for urine so hysterical that they’d shout it out at random moments. You can imagine my dismay. But this time Otto had good reason for the outburst, so we raced over the Champs-Élysées to find a public toilet. ‘Will there be a Madame Pipi there?’ asked Noah. He and his brother would also roll around in hysterics at the unofficial French term for a (usually female) public washroom attendant — true to the cliché of boys and their love of toilet humour.
‘Guys, just say, “Bonjour Madame,”’ I said sternly. ‘I don’t actually know if the ladies who work in bathrooms like being called Madame Pipi and I don’t want you upsetting anyone.’ I often use the potential effects of an action on other people to explain why my boys shouldn’t carry out said action in the first place, but bribery is often more effective, so for good measure I threw in: ‘And if you’re nice to her, and say “bonjour” and “merci,” we’ll go get ice cream.’
After the Charlie Hebdo massacre, five per cent of the French population took to the streets in solidarity, and to take a stand for the right to free speech. Many Parisians raised pencils as a symbolic statement, and on social media thousands around the world shared a quote often attributed to that ultimate Enlightenment man Voltaire: ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ To this day, I’m torn. As someone who works with words, I’m supposed to inherently support unbounded freedom of expression. But I also believe in the importance of empathy and civility. We teach our children to be well mannered, to not be hurtful to others — so to then allow them to grow into adults who will say anything regardless of the consequences, well this just doesn’t sit right with me. Just because you have the right to be a bigot, do you really need to bandy that right around? Then again, I would never want to suggest that someone, by causing offence, deserves physical retribution. We all need to learn to grow a thick skin in life, another lesson we teach our kids. Charlie Hebdo didn’t take its pencil only to Islam; it actually more frequently satirised Catholicism, although politicians have by far been the most common objects of derision. Before the masthead became a household name and catchcry for libertarians, the usual response to the magazine was more shoulder-shrugging than eyebrow-raising. It was simply part of the newsstand mix; you could buy it or leave it. As Voltaire himself knew, one result of democracy is debate, with a mix of views, some ugly — but in the end, they’re just words. Harsh they might be, but they don’t hurt as much as swords, the old-fashioned way to inflict pain or defend your beliefs.
Satire has a long history in Paris, going back to the seventeenth century, when wits proved that the pen was much mightier than the outlawed sword. Parisians, stifled under autocratic royal rule, found an outlet for their frustrations by writing, reading or sharing satirical verses. More recently, illustrators ridiculed the powers-that-be in an autocratically presidential France by sharpening cartoons into a counter-culture art form — of which Charlie Hebdo became a leading example. Unless you grow up in this country, you probably can’t fully appreciate the paradoxical pleasures of these very French cartoons, with their equal parts cynicism and joviality. We saw satire come to life as an impromptu street performance later in the week. Andy and I were at a bar one evening when several other customers en terrasse popped on masks — photos of politicians’ faces, Hollande’s included — and proceeded to act skits on the footpath, interacting with passers-by to the general hilarity of the crowd. I file it all in the ‘Only in France’ folder, along with escargots and nymph-laden bridges.
Cones in hand, we walked through the Jardin des Champs-Élysées, which was bristling with nattily dressed French children who probably don’t require bribery of ice cream to induce good behaviour. Perhaps, however, this lovely park is where the seeds are sown for future Parisian rebels. One of its star attractions is a tree-bordered puppet theatre that, since 1818, has been telling the story of Guignol, the marionette famous for taking a stick to the police. Watching Guignol beat up the pompous gendarme puppet, while an audience of usually demure children duly cheered on raucously, was somewhat illuminating.
The Jardin des Champs-Élysées was mapped out in 1667, the year when Paris was lit up by almost three thousand lanterns — sparking its moniker and mythology as the capital of light — and when the city got its first serious police chief. His wide-ranging powers ran the spectrum from prettying street paving to stamping out ugly violence, and his iron-fist-velvet-glove style earned both respect and resentment. To this day, the Parisians have a love–hate relationship with their ever-present police force, which is still highly centralised and all-powerful. But, as every Parisian parent knows, sometimes you need to be told non to be kept in line.
Later in the week, we took a day trip to Parc Astérix, the theme park that celebrates the iconic French comic books. First published in 1961, the series has sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide. I accounted for many of its Australian sales back in the 1980s, although I’m not sure what exactly appealed, as I was what you’d call a girlie-girl, predisposed to prefer stories of Disney princesses to battles between Gaulish tribes and Roman soldiers.
Asterix Park, as you can imagine, is no Disneyland. There are no little girls wearing tiaras and taffeta, for one, and there’s a glaring absence of American accents. This is very much a fun park for French kids, who’d rather spin around in cauldrons than teacups, and who like their magic courtesy of Druids, not fairy godmothers. Big kids visit, too, for the whirl of rollercoasters, and what strikes you is that, in this idealised world of Old Gaul, the new French who are there present a fresh face for modern times, a face that comes in many different colours.
The Asterix books are often seen as a symbol of France’s resistance culture — resistance against globalisation, modernisation, multiculturalism and change of any kind. So how could such an old-fashioned hero speak to kids today? Perhaps the diminutive Asterix, with his stash of magic potion, represents the naughty child we all secretly wish we could be, the one who can punch above his weight and stick it to the big guys.
Planning to spend a sunny morning in the Tuileries, we headed for its entrance on Rue de Rivoli, just near the tip of the Louvre, so that I could show the boys the golden statue of my other Gallic childhood icon. Joan of Arc is up there with Eleanor of Aquitaine when it comes to fierce sense of self and all-round girl power, and she’s the counter-example I proffer whenever the boys insist that only men can be knights. Dieu merci for Jeanne, French mothers of girls must sometimes say, Thank God for Joan. And he did thank her, actually, by way of canonisation.
I noticed a French flag wrapped around a leg of Saint Joan’s horse. It was probably tied there after a Euro Cup celebration, but it reminded me that the fifteenth-century warrior had become somewhat of a figurehead for French nationalism of late, embraced by far-right political party the National Front, which had been gaining mainstream ground in recent years. Its leader, Marine Le Pen, had positioned herself as a modern-day Joan, fighting the system, the European
Union, immigration, the world in general. If she could ride right back into good old Asterix times, she no doubt would.
We wandered into the park, past the funfair that sets up in the Tuileries for the summer. The boys had had their fix of flashing-light rides for now, so we guided them to the nearby pond for the more simple pleasure of sailing model boats. We found the famous Alain, the man with the rickety trolley of wooden yachts with sun-faded pastel sails, and hired a couple of his lovingly carved boats — some of which date back decades — for two euros a pop. He placed them delicately in the water, and gave Noah and Otto each a stick for steering their sailboats around à l’ancienne, the old-fashioned way. The rest of us sat nearby on metal chairs, expecting the boys to get bored well before the end of their allotted twenty minutes. Instead, they seemed to fall into a meditative trance, almost hypnotised by the slow swirl of their activity.
‘Ah, for the good old days,’ said Andy. ‘When kids had fun for hours on end with little more than a stick.’
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