The Valley Of Heaven And Hell_Cycling In The Shadow Of Marie Antoinette

by Susie Kelly

  Vendémiaire – vintage month

  Brumaire – foggy month

  Frimaire – sleety month

  Nivôse – snowy month

  Pluviôse – rainy month

  Ventôse – windy month

  Germinal – seed month

  Floréal – blossoming month

  Prairial – pasture month

  Messidor – harvesting month

  Thermidor – hot month

  Fructidor – fruity month

  Across the Channel the irreverent English called them Wheezy, Sneezy and Freezy; Slippy, Drippy and Nippy; Showery, Flowery and Bowery; Wheaty, Heaty and Sweety.

  Having twelve months each of thirty days meant that at the end of every year there were five, or in a leap year six ‘spare’ days. These were known as Sans-Culottides, and were national holidays. Each day of the year was given the name of an animal, an agricultural implement or a plant. Even time found itself subject to change. Henceforth there would be ten hours to the day, one hundred minutes to the hour, and one hundred seconds to the minute.

  The new calendar was unpopular with workers. With the décade replacing the week, it meant they had to work for 9 days instead of 6 before earning a rest day, and the management of leap years was extremely complicated. So it was perhaps fortunate that these new arrangements only lasted for 14 years until Napoléon reinstated the Gregorian calendar and Christianity. However, d’Eglantine would never know that his beautifully named months had reverted to their previous names, as he trundled off to the guillotine in 1794 on falsified charges of forgery and misuse of public funds.

  Although France reverted to the Gregorian calendar and the twenty-four hour clock, one major invention of the Revolution survived – the metric system, which implemented uniform weights and measures to replace previous archaic and haphazard forms of measurement. Those of us who grew up using Imperial measurements – pounds, shillings and pennies, pounds and ounces, miles, yards and inches, were perfectly at ease with their intricacies. However, there is, I feel, far more logic in a measurement system that works on the simple basis of adding or subtracting noughts, and where freezing point is 0° and boiling point 100°, instead of the equivalent Fahrenheit measurements of 32° and 212°.

  Nevertheless, even after 15 years of living in France, unlike Terry I still think in feet and inches and can more readily understand the temperature in Fahrenheit.

  The royal necropolis at St Denis was too far for us to travel today. Even if we had our bikes it was over six miles north from where we were, through some of the busiest suburbs of Paris. We had no idea how we could reach it via overground public transport. Neither would we have time to visit tomorrow, the final day of our trip, so we agreed that we’d return at a later date by car to see where the unfortunate royals had eventually come to rest for once and for all.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Tourists

  “Travelling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, “I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.” Lisa St Aubin de Terán

  OUR onward wanderings took us to the spot where Diana, Princess of Wales was killed. Terry pointed to a giant golden pumpkin sitting on a pedestal surrounded by bunches of withered flowers and some plastic skittles with ribbons, balloons and messages tied to them. “What on earth is that strange thing?” he asked.

  The gilded lump is a replica of the top of the flame on the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the International Herald Tribune newspaper as a mark of the enduring friendship between France and the United States. Although the ungainly blob had absolutely nothing at all to do with the late princess, it has become an unofficial memorial to her purely because of its location. I wondered whether the princess would be aghast if she saw it, or whether she’d giggle behind her hand. Idly the thought crossed my mind that she and Marie-Antoinette had much in common. Both controversial, beautiful and arousing strong partisan feelings, both married off as royal breeding stock, both trying to make the best of difficult marriages, and both meeting premature and gruesome deaths.

  For the conspiracy theorists Diana’s fatal accident couldn’t have happened in a better place. In pagan times the Pont d’Alma was a place of human sacrifice for worshippers of the mythical Greek goddess Artemis, whom the Romans called Diana.

  The original Alma bridge was built during the 19th century to celebrate an Anglo-French victory over the Russians in the Crimean war. During the 1970s it was demolished and rebuilt. As well as its function of facilitating traffic from one side of the river to the other it serves as an indicator of the level of the Seine, according to how high the waters reach up the statue of the Algerian soldier standing on one of the piers of the bridge. When it reaches his knees, it’s time to take to the lifeboats. During the great flood of 1910 that had ravaged Joinville-le-Pont, the waters had swirled around his neck.

  As we crossed the bridge, a young Japanese man just ahead of us was looking perplexedly at something in his hand. He held out a gold wedding ring and tried to force it onto Terry. He spoke urgently in French with a Japanese accent; or it could have been Japanese with French accent. We couldn’t understand him. Terry pushed the ring back and tugged me quickly after him saying that it was some kind of trick. The poor man looked absolutely distraught, and called after us plaintively. Terry ignored my insistence that we should go back. We had a lively argument on the bridge, during which I accused him of being far too cynical, suspicious and callous, and he said I was far too naïve. While we were in full spate the subject of our disagreement approached another person, who shouted at him. Off ran the ring-bearer as fast as his Japanese legs would carry him. Later I learned that Terry was quite right. The ‘gold ring’ is a well-known scam.

  Terry wanted to go to the top of that most Parisian of Parisian landmarks, the Eiffel tower. While he queued I wandered around the Champs de Mars amongst ice-cream lickers and tourists flicking through guide books, clicking cameras and examining maps. Parents tried to placate tired little wailing children, or bribe them with promises of treats if they’d just for heaven’s sake be quiet. An excited family festooned with cameras and guide books ticked off on a list all the sights they’d seen so far that day, and those still to be crammed in before they went to ‘do’ the châteaux next day. Coaches spilled out streams of school children and old people. Japanese, Chinese, Russian and German people all chirruped excitedly as tour guides chivvied them into order. Coach drivers lounged against their vehicles, smoking, chatting with each other, or simply looking bored.

  After roaming around the park for twenty minutes, I went and stood beneath the tower. Looking up at it I thought firstly that it is a spectacular piece of engineering ingenuity. Secondly I thought what a shame it isn’t somewhere else. A huge iron pylon stuck in the middle of the beautiful buildings and parks of Paris and in my eyes, utterly incongruous.

  It is a view that was shared by a number of French luminaries. When the plans for the tower were first published Parisians by no means took it to their collective heart. Once it was built people living in the vicinity watched it swaying before the wind, wondering whether it might topple onto their houses.

  Aghast at its ugliness, Guy de Maupassant’s first inclination was to leave Paris. However, instead he compromised by eating in the second-floor restaurant of the tower, the only place from where the structure itself could not be seen.

  Many illustrious people protested in the strongest possible terms, calling it ‘a truly tragic street lamp’, ‘a mast of iron gymnasium apparatus, incomplete, confused and deformed’, ‘a high and skinny pyramid of iron ladders, a giant ungainly skeleton upon a base that looks built to carry a colossal monument of Cyclops, but which just peters out into a ridiculous thin shape like a factory chimney’, ‘a hole-riddled suppository’, ‘a bald umbrella’.

  They formed a committee to oppose the building, and expressed their quivering outrage with delicious eloquence:

  ‘We come, we writers, painters, sculptors, architects, lovers
of the beauty of Paris which was until now intact, to protest with all our strength and all our indignation, in the name of the underestimated taste of the French, in the name of French art and history under threat, against the erection in the very heart of our capital, of the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower. Is the City of Paris any longer to associate itself with the baroque and mercantile fancies of a builder of machines, thereby making itself irreparably ugly and bringing dishonour? To comprehend what we are arguing one only needs to imagine for a moment a tower of ridiculous vertiginous height dominating Paris, just like a gigantic black factory chimney, its barbarous mass overwhelming and humiliating all our monuments and belittling our works of architecture, which will just disappear before this stupefying folly. And for twenty years we shall see spreading across the whole city, a city shimmering with the genius of so many centuries, we shall see spreading like an ink stain, the odious shadow of this odious column of bolted metal.’

  M.Eiffel riposted stoutly:

  ‘For my part I believe that the Tower will possess its own beauty. Are we to believe that because one is an engineer, one is not preoccupied by beauty in one’s constructions, or that one does not seek to create elegance as well as solidity and durability? Is it not true that the very conditions which give strength also conform to the hidden rules of harmony? Now to what phenomenon did I have to give primary concern in designing the Tower? It was wind resistance. Well then! I hold that the curvature of the monument’s four outer edges, which is as mathematical calculation dictated it should be will give a great impression of strength and beauty, for it will reveal to the eyes of the observer the boldness of the design as a whole. Likewise the many empty spaces built into the very elements of construction will clearly display the constant concern not to submit any unnecessary surfaces to the violent action of hurricanes, which could threaten the stability of the edifice. Moreover there is an attraction in the colossal, and a singular delight to which ordinary theories of art are scarcely applicable’.

  I am often shocked by the fact that I have a certain amount in common with Adolf Hitler, being an Arian, opposed to blood sports, and an animal lover. When he saw the Eiffel Tower, he remarked succinctly: “Is that all it is? It’s ugly!” I agree. If I could, I’d move it elsewhere, maybe to one of the Channel ports, or in a very large field where people could go and look at it if they wanted to – like Stonehenge.

  Terry had given up after a 30-minute wait to catch a lift to the top of the tower with no noticeable movement in the queue ahead of him. He found me trying to give directions to the Louvre to a couple who didn’t speak any language that I recognised. I think they must have been from one of the Balkan states. The only word I could understand was ‘Louvre’, which they repeated insistently. I pointed to it on my ragged little map, then pointed to the river and repeated ‘Batobus’ loudly and slowly, making wave-like movements with my hands and a gentle engine noise to help them. But they obviously didn’t understand, and responded with streams of angry-sounding guttural noises. I wondered why they’d chosen me – perhaps it was my outlandish footwear. Then again, maybe I’d misunderstood and they didn’t want the Louvre at all. With an apologetic shrug, rueful facial contortion and a final long, slow ‘B-A-T-O-B-U-S’, I abandoned them and walked around with Terry while he photographed the ‘odious column’ from a variety of unusual angles.

  I admit to not being easy to impress. Many places described in glowing terms have not lived up to my expectations, which were obviously unrealistic. Venice I’d found grubby, malodorous, outrageously expensive and infested with very rude people. I’d ended up buying two sets of coloured decanters and matching glasses that I didn’t like, as the only means of escape from a limpet-like and increasingly menacing salesman. Mind you, that was in 1968 and under unfortunate circumstances. I expect it’s much nicer there now. I’ve seen Mount Kenya and Mount Kilimanjaro topped with snow, and they weren’t quite as big or quite as majestic as I expected – and they were very big and very majestic. Until now, the most beautiful place I had ever seen was the Suez Canal. At dusk, with silhouetted camel trains swaying along the banks and the setting sun reflected in the turquoise waters, it was magical.

  But already, even from the relatively small part of Paris that we’d seen I was absolutely knocked sideways. It was beautiful and elegant beyond anything I could have imagined, and lived up to every glowing description I’d ever heard. Each corner revealed another perfect vista, one glorious building standing beside another; space and light and perfect proportions. Every stone throbbed with history. Like a magician pulling endless rabbits from his top hat, Paris delivered one visual thrill after another. The few buildings that failed to enchant us could not detract from the wonder of this luscious city. And that wasn’t all. There was a feeling of pure pleasure all around, a relaxed atmosphere as if on that day the whole world overflowed with joie de vivre.

  Towards late afternoon we began making our way homewards. As we climbed down into the Batobus, kindly passengers swung their feet out of the way and smiled sympathetically, looking at my peculiar shoes, sunburned limbs and scarlet face.

  Although we hadn’t planned to visit Notre Dame today it was right in front of us and just a question of hopping off the boat. We clambered up the steps to the quay and stood for a few moments staring up at the great cathedral. I knew that somewhere embedded in the cobblestones, amongst the milling feet of the crowds is the absolute geographical centre of the city. On French road signs giving the distance to Paris, the measurement is taken from this point. It was rather a nuisance that it was hidden by all these thoughtless people, and it took a few minutes before we spotted it underneath the wheels of a twin baby-buggy. While the parents were photographing each other against the backdrop of the cathedral I nudged their infants forward a few inches to expose a circular stone engraved with the words: ‘Point zéro des routes de France’. At its centre is a bronze sun. As I wheeled the babies back over it I wondered how many people notice the marker.

  Inside the candle-lit cathedral a solo female voice soaring to the ceiling sent shivers up and down our spines. It was impossible to move around through the dense crowd, so we stood at the back for a few minutes listening and watching the flickering flames.

  Then Terry nudged me and whispered: “Come on, I’m getting hungry. Let’s get back and go and have dinner.”

  The last Batobus of the day was due to leave in 10 minutes. In the small ticket office, I tried to buy a bar of chocolate from a machine, to fill ‘un petit creux’. The machine greedily swallowed our coins, but refused to spit out the Mars bar, which became stuck in transit between a collection of M&Ms and some Fruity Fruits. We couldn’t dislodge it even when we banged our fists on the glass panel.

  At the counter ahead of us was a long queue of Japanese girls with perfect skin and hair, all wearing jeans and hooded tops. I thought it was a pity that Western clothing is displacing traditional costumes because they would have looked exquisite in kimonos. They weren’t there to buy tickets, but only wanted information. The man at the counter very patiently showed them timetables and answered their halting questions. He waited while they conferred in their own language, answered more questions, and finally wished them ‘Bonne soirée’ as they chattered noisily out of the office, like a bunch of starlings returning to their roost.

  Apologetically I explained about the Mars bar and pointed at the machine. No problem, he smiled, he would retrieve it. It would be no trouble at all. He locked the till, locked the office, closed the barrier, exited through the rear of the booth, come round to the front, tilted the whole machine forward and administered it an almighty thump with his fist. The Mars bar disentangled itself and plopped into the slot, from where he extracted it and presented it to me with a small bow. What a charming gentleman.

  It was as much comfort food as to quell any hunger. For the last hour or so I had been contemplating with increasing gloom the journey back to Joinville-le-Pont on the RER semi-underground train. Tragically,
as I climbed onto the Batobus trying to unwrap the chocolate, the wretched thing slipped from the wrapper and slithered into the river without a murmur, as if it had a life of its own and no intention of ending it by being eaten.

  We disembarked at Le Jardin des Plantes where I clutched at the opportunity of delaying our journey just a little longer. Terry wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about visiting the gardens. In fact he wasn’t at all enthusiastic. I dragged him in anyway and managed to pass twenty minutes admiring a great number of recently dug-up beds of earth surrounded by keep-out tape, and a large and realistic dragon made from recycled waste materials.

  Over Charles de Gaulle bridge we dawdled on our way to the station. Even the vile but comfortable sandals had failed to save me from a nice springy blister that had developed under the ball of my right foot from all the hours of walking around in the heat. I walked with a strange gait, taking all the pressure on my right heel. Terry knew how panicky I was feeling about our return journey. I knew he knew, and he knew I knew he knew. But neither of us mentioned it. Instead we discussed the sights we’d seen, and how funny I looked shuffling, hobbling and limping along. All the time, like a drum-roll before an execution the word ‘underground’ repeated itself over and over in my mind.

  The labyrinthine station expected you to know instinctively which line you needed to choose in order to reach your destination. There were a number of coloured circles with different letters in them, none of which, as far as we could find, told you which went where. It was like playing a complicated board game without knowing the rules. We anxiously scoured notices and diagrams to try and find the route that would take us back to Joinville-le-Pont. A pencil-slim lady with a blonde chignon and grey eyes overheard us, and pointed out the right direction with a perfectly manicured hand and a dazzling smile. As we glided down the escalators I tried to avoid mentally measuring how far beneath the surface we were going; the descent seemed to take forever.