A World Ago

by Dorien Grey

  Water had to be asked for, and came in bottles—evidently it is so horrible all over Europe that few people drink it, subsisting on wine, which is frequently as weak as water.

  After breakfast, we were assigned rooms—two to each room with an adjoining bath connecting, or close by, two rooms. The keys were of the large skeleton variety, attached to tags resembling large sheriffs’ badges. Bob and I took room 123, Jim and Roge in 124. They were up two flights, through plain red-carpeted halls which creaked as we walked down them.

  Our rooms were at the end of the hall. The doors, like all the doors in the corridor, had no knobs and were opened by the keys only. Jim and Roge’s room was a bit larger than ours, having a small entryway between the door and the bedroom. It was located on the corner of the building, with two large French windows facing in the direction we’d come. It was also very cold all the time because it had two outer walls.

  Our room was next door, facing a narrow side street. There was a splendid view of an open-fronted fish market across the street; the proprietor had a particularly loud voice, no doubt through much use, as he called out his wares. The whole street was lined with open shops, stands, and push-carts. The French do not believe in paper bags—everything you buy is wrapped in newspaper.

  Our room was also cold—a small iron radiator, painted yellow, stood against the wall behind the door. By holding a hand about two inches away, a very slight warmth could be felt. The knob was turned all the way in one direction, so we turned it all the way in the other—which did absolutely no good at all, so we gave it up and wore our peacoats most of the time.

  Against the rear wall, near the window, stood a large plain wardrobe, with the inevitable full-length mirror. We unpacked our things into the drawers at the bottom right side of the wardrobe, washed, shaved, and were joined by Jim and Roge, who wanted to use our sink since their room was far too cold. My electric shaver was of no use; French electrical sockets consist of three small round holes arranged in a triangle.

  By this time it was around ten or ten thirty; since the first tour did not start until two, we decided to go out and walk around, to more or less get our bearings. There was no sun and no prospect of any, so we left our cameras.

  The street was busy, with little cars and people wandering about, some in a hurry and some not. No one even gave us a second glance as they went about their business.

  Perfume shops and candy stores; restaurants (which they call Brassieres, and shook Roger all up) and novelty shops lined the street on both sides. Some of the restaurants looked big and modern, and had little outside windows for people who are just passing by and would like a sandwich or roll. Most of the shops were small, modest, and quiet. Occasionally a woman would pass us with ridiculously long loaves of bread, carried like a standard.

  The importance of a street can usually be judged by its width. The one we were on was average, but soon opened out into Rue Monmartre, a very wide thoroughfare, which we had come down on our way to the hotel. Here the shops were larger and a bit more elegant, but nothing really fancy. Sidewalk cafes were still operating, though completely enclosed in plywood and glass. Newsstands were on almost every corner, covered with magazines and newspapers. And every so often along the street were the “Suze” pillars.

  They fascinated me and were, in a way, the most typically Parisian things I’d seen. They stand about 12 to 15 feet high, and resemble huge sawed-off peppermint sticks, though they’re always green. Atop them, like a hat, is a metal overhang, supporting yellow glass frames that announce, in black letters, SUZE. They’re used for advertisements—for everything. Yet they always manage to look neat, and the posters appear to be new.

  At infrequent intervals were squat round dark green metal structures, open at the bottom which usually show several pair of legs, facing inward. These are the public restrooms, though I only saw men using them. Ah, Paree….

  Along Rue Monmarte were many large movie theaters—one picture was playing at several theaters around Paris, and lines of people were continually in front of them. The name of the movie was “Graine De Violence”—an American import, the story of average, happy American schoolchildren originally called “Blackboard Jungle.” What an impression of our school system they must have gotten out of that!

  Outside each entrance to the Metro—the Parisian subway—is a large map of Paris, with outlines of all the subway routes; very convenient for the French, but almost no help at all to an outsider. We stood looking at it, trying to find something recognizable, when a little man in a tan overcoat walked up and asked “Can I help you?”

  We asked how to get to the Arch of Triumph from where we were, and he traced it quickly out with his finger; so quickly that it didn’t really show us much. We said “Merci,” and started up the street toward the entrance to the Metro. He passed us and started down the stairs, saying “I’m going that way myself—I’ll show you.” We told him no, thanks, we were just looking around right now, and walked on.

  About six blocks up the street, in the direction the bus had come, we came to a dance hall which was featuring Louis Armstrong in person. Making a mental note for future reference, we decided it was time to start back to the hotel for dinner and the tour. The street we turned down was one of the very narrow ones, where only two could walk abreast on the sidewalk. Bob and I walked ahead, looking in the shop windows; Bob was looking for a pair of garters to send home for his girl.

  I glanced behind us and saw that Roge and Jim weren’t there. We saw them back about half a block, talking with a little man in a tan overcoat.

  We had been warned, both by the officer in charge of the trip and our guide, that Paris was alive with Communists who will do anything to get their hands on American dollars. The purpose to which they put them I don’t know, but seeing our little friend whom we’d left heading for the Arch of Triumph, now running into us six blocks in the opposite direction, I felt that something was not quite as it should be.

  Bob and I got back to them just in time to hear:

  “…400 Francs for an American dollar. You have some with you, yes?”

  “No,” Bob cut in, “We left all our money back at the hotel.”

  “You are in Paris a long time?”

  “Just got here this morning,” volunteered Roge, happily unaffected by it all.

  “You have money at the hotel you would like to change?”

  “Nope; we already changed in all into Francs” Jim said, glancing at Roge.

  ‘There are many of you American sailors in Paris?”

  “Oh, a few,” I said, noncommittally.

  “Hey, you know where any good places are—inexpensive but nice?” Roge can, at times, be remarkably naive.

  “Oh, yes—the bistros—they are very nice; not expensive—many pretty girls. You would like I will take you there tonite.”

  “Well, maybe sometime,” said Bob.

  “Where are you staying?” the little man asked.

  “Hotel Swisse—I’ve got a card here…” and before we could stop him, Roge had shown him the green card the hotel had given us to show taxi drivers.

  “Ah, yes. I know—I come by at eight o’clock, and take you to these places. Very nice; very inexpensive. There are many American sailors at this hotel?”

  “OK—we’ll see you at eight tonight,” Jim said, as he grabbed Roge’s arm and started ushering him down the street.

  “Promise?” our friend called.

  “Sure,” we said.

  Poor Roge never did quite get the point.

  Somehow, by blind luck and a little homing pigeon blood, we found our way back to the hotel. Dinner set the pattern for all meals thereafter—first, soup; next a salad (or fish, or spaghetti—most often spaghetti). Then the main course—meat (roast beef or veal slices), potatoes, a vegetable (green) and more bread, which we ate in amazingly large quantities. After the main course, cheese, many varieties brought in on a platter by the waiters, who served whatever cheese you selected. Next, fruit—o
ranges and apples, probably more in the summer; and then, desert. To drink—wine (coffee only at breakfast) or water (bottled). We’d always order two bottles of wine at 300 francs (50 cents) a bottle.

  Immediately after lunch we went out to the busses. I ran upstairs for my camera, though the sun still wasn’t out, and off we went.

  Unfortunately, I do not have the elephantine memory seemingly required by writers—there is a pamphlet tucked away somewhere, outlining our tour point by point, but it is, for all practical purposes, lost.

  The Place de La Concorde is a wide, flat space without much purpose that I could see. Scattered around it are tomb-like structures with statues upon them representing 12 of France’s leading cities. On this square, Louis the Fifteenth (?) lost his head, as did Robespierre, the power behind the thrown, Marie Antoinette, and some 3,000 assorted noblemen and commoners. Here also died Dr. Guillotine, who lost his head in his own invention.

  To the right can be seen the Eiffel Tower—directly behind is the River Seine, which is disappointingly just exactly like every other river in Europe, with the possible exception that it has more water. The Louvre Museum and several other official buildings stand guard over another square on the other side of the river; I forget the square’s name, but it is much more park-like. All these buildings are the color of dirty cake and of the rather cold architecture of the Revolutionary period.

  The tomb of France’s great humanitarians, including among them Victor Hugo and Louis Braille, is housed in the Church of the Madeleine; the exact replica of the Parthenon. Napoleon had intended it to be a temple for and to his men, but somewhere along the line it became a church, and the burial place of France’s great humanitarians.

  Napoleon’s body lies in the gold-domed church of Les Invalides, in five successive coffins. The outermost one is of highly-glossed ebony, fashioned on top like an open scroll. It is at the bottom of a large rotunda, from which you look down on the tomb and the twelve winged statues around it, representing Napoleon’s twelve great battles. I stood on the same spot another sightseer had been, sixteen years before—an obscure upstart named Adolph Hitler.

  Directly across the rotunda from the entrance, and on a raised terrace in the highest part of the church, is a copy of the altar in St. Peters in Rome. The altar is covered by a high vaulted canopy, supported by four of the most beautiful columns I’ve ever seen. Though the imitations are wood, they could easily pass for marble. They are not straight, but twisted like taffy when both ends are twisted in opposite directions. The originals are of dark and light marble; the canopies are of red silk. The church has no electricity; all light enters through two tall yellow-glass windows on either side of the altar, which even on the gloomiest of days, as this one was, the entire building is filled with a soft diffused light.

  A glass partition behind the altar closes off the chapel from the rest of the church, which is now a national museum. What the Church of the Madeleine is to France’s humanitarians, the Tomb of Les Invalides is to her military heroes. Besides Napoleon, the church also houses some of France’s most renowned military dead. Marshall Foch, leader of the allied forces in the First World War is guarded over by eight French soldiers, pallbearers in bronze, carrying his coffin. A wreath had been recently laid at the base of the monument, and our guide told us there is never a time when there are not flowers of some sort placed there.

  Many others are there; generals and admirals unknown to us, but remembered with pride by the French. Six of them have their hearts enshrined here while the rest of their remains are buried elsewhere in France. Napoleon’s son Joseph is in a small room off the rotunda in a heavy, barbed steel coffin—brought from Austria as a gift to the French people by Adolph Hitler.

  While we were gazing down upon Napoleon, Roge and Jim discovered two American girls from Minnesota. While the rest of us moved reverently about from body to body, Roge and Jim, like Napoleon’s twelve guardian angels, helped hold up the rotunda and discussed the American scene with the girls. They were, it turned out, a schoolteacher and a stenographer in Minnesota, had been in Europe three months, had wandered all over, from Greece to Germany, and were leaving for the States the next day. They had spent their last fifty francs getting in to see Napoleon, who didn’t really care much one way or another.

  They were lost someplace in the shuffle, and we left without them. It had started to drizzle again, very lightly, as we got on the busses; when suddenly somebody spotted the girls, half a block down. Commander Miller, in charge of the tour and in civilian clothes, took out after them. After a few minutes of talking, interspersed with glances toward the bus (everyone had their noses pressed to the windows) they started walking toward the bus.

  They were hustled to the rear by a group of officers (also in civilian clothes), which Roge took as rank discrimination, and there they stayed, while the enlisted men up front sulked.

  Next on the agenda came Notre Dame Cathedral. It lies on an island in the Seine river. From pictures and postcards, I’d assumed the island was just big enough for the Cathedral. Hah! I wouldn’t have even guessed it was an island if I didn’t know.

  The first impression I had was that it was a lot smaller than I’d ever imagined it. Not small, by any means, just smaller. It’s about the same color as Illinois topsoil, surrounded on one side by the Seine, in front by a park, and on the other two by the city, which crowds up irreverently close. It is magnificent, there’s no doubt about that, but it’s a delayed magnificence—it gets better the more you think about it, but standing in front of it on a miserable day, it’s just a building. The arched doorways are works of art, covered with carvings of saints and devils—one saint, I forget his name—is standing there holding his head in his hand, which is at his waist. He was decapitated by the Romans or someone. The great central doors have been closed, I believe, since Napoleon’s coronation, when he went in a general with his wife, and came out Emperor and Empress.

  Inside, the most impressive sight are the Rose Windows—North and South. 300’ in diameter, they are a kaleidoscope of color. Taken out piece by piece during the Second World War, it took several years to put them back.

  Frankly, not meaning disrespect and realizing that it took several hundred years to complete, I think Washington’s National Cathedral will be much more beautiful when finished.

  Two things I found of special interest—one were the gargoyles. Lord, they’re fantastic. Whoever possibly dreamed them up must have been suffering from an advanced stage of Delirium Tremens. The other is not to be found in most travelogues or books; over the main altar, far in the back of the church where it was so dark you could hardly see, hang cardinals’ hats. They are on very long strings suspended from the ceiling far above, and are placed there upon the death of a cardinal. There they hang. But, should one of them fall down of its own accord, it’s not put up again. Currently there are nine or so.

  The entire cathedral is surrounded by and covered with statues, spires, buttresses, flying buttresses, and what have you. But with all this, it somehow doesn’t look cluttered.

  I was also quite disappointed to find Quaisimodo had never run about among the gargoyles, or saved a fair maiden from an angry mob storming the cathedral by pouring molten lead on them.

  Undated insert between pages 10 and 11 of handwritten journal

  Dear Folks

  Quick note department—enclosed find one more page of the Paris journal—I’d better finish it soon or I’ll forget it.

  Fresh milk today—how wonderful. Buy a cow. Got a large box of cookies from Ann Margason.

  Journal continues

  I’ll never forget the end of that movie; Quaisimodo, with his arm around a gargoyle no uglier than himself, watching the so-called heroine ride away with her prince charming. That one scene always struck me as being a rare glimpse of the beauty that lives within the human soul, which shows itself now and again despite all we may do to hide it.

  Somewhere between the time we left the busses and the time we
left the cathedral, the girls left us.

  One of the officers, in civilian clothes, was wearing a sporting cap similar to those that were the rage in America in the late twenties. They are currently considered fashionable in Europe. Not only did he wear it, but he wore it backward. When he was getting on the bus, Leonard, a Mess Deck MAA also on the tour, looked at him, grinned, and said “Hi, cat!” The look he got could have melted the tires.

  The Eiffel Tower looks like a huge erector set. It also looks old. And dirty. It’s painted brown, which from a distance looks like rust. Since there is only one Eiffel Tower—what use anyone could possibly find for another I can’t guess—there is nothing to compare it with. It looks largest when standing directly under it; then it is gigantic. It was built for an 1898 (?) world’s fair, in spite of people’s skeptic opinions that it would never get off the ground (it didn’t).

  The bus couldn’t get within two blocks of it, so we had to be satisfied with gazing from a distance. Naturally, through the whole tour, my camera was going as much as speed and weather would permit. Bob took a picture of Jim, Roge and I with the tower in the background, which incidentally turned out quite well.

  Postcard postmarked “U.S.S. Ticonderoga, CVA 14, Nov. 29, 1955, 9 a.m. Subject: The Rock of Gibraltar from its airfield.

  Dear Folks

  Bet you can’t guess where I was. Ah, no fair—you peeked. Many long letters coming of my expeditions. Took some film on my new camera and hope and pray it only turns out the way I took them. Don’t think I’ll send them home—it’ll be more fun when I can be there to explain them. Thanks for the cards