The top of the Eiffel tower and Mont-Valerien seen from Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Today I saw Paris in a new way, a new view of my favorite
city. I saw it through the eyes of one of my favorite authors. In his new book “Paris in the Present Tense” Mark Helprin writes the story of Jules Lacour, a 75-year-old cellist who lives in
the village (commune) of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, more than ten miles west of
Paris, on the third reverse bend of the Seine River as it snakes west from the
center of Paris toward the English Channel.
Until today, I had never visited that village. Near the end of the book,
Jules Lacour looks at Paris from the place I saw it today. It is as lovely in
person as Helprin’s description.
Hotel de Ville (City Hall) Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Like most residents of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, I traveled to
the village on the regional commuter train RER A from Paris. When I stepped from the train, the escalator
took me to the west side of the huge park Les Parterres—manicured grounds and
trees stretching from the Grand City Hall east and north for a half mile to a
bluff the looks back toward Paris. From
that bluff at the Terrasse du Chateau, a magnificent promenade more than 100
feet wide stretches north from the village for more than a mile.
The Bridge at Le Vesinet-Le Pecq
When I walked to the edge of the bluff, I was high above the
Seine, looking down on the bridge at Le Vesinet—Le Pecq. To the south is
Versailles. Nearly due east is the peak of the Eiffel Tower. The city of Paris
itself is obscured by the Mont-Valerien just west of the Tower and the
city. In the book, Jules Lacour was
looking in this same direction toward Paris.
Restaurant Maison Fournaise
As I looked, I saw my own history of visiting Paris over the
past twenty years unfold in front of me. Three miles east from the bluff where
I stood was the next full bend of the river at Chatou. On the east edge of Chatou is a tiny island in
the Seine: Ile des Impressionistes. On the island is a small impressionist
museum and the Restaurant Maison Fournaise. When I worked for Millennium
Chemicals in the late 1990s, I was in Paris several times a year. The Paris office was in Rueil-Malmaison just
across the river toward Paris from Chatou.
The sales manager in that office was a serious gourmand who took me to
the best restaurants in Paris so I would know where to entertain visiting
journalists.
For me, the best of all the restaurants he showed me for an
event or dinner was Maison Fournaise. Not only was the food good, this
restaurant serves lunch and dinner on the porch that is at the center of
Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s painting “Luncheon of the Boating Party.” Both for Millennium and for my next employer,
I rented this porch for an evening meal watching boats pass on the Seine as we
ate dinner. My guests from other countries were delighted with this lovely
place they had never heard of. Even some
Parisians did not know of the little restaurant under the bridge at
Chatou. In addition to being the scene
of the Renoir painting, the restaurant has several sketches on the wall covered
with Lucite. These sketches were the work of Renoir’s young friend Henri
Matisse. The young Matisse was in love with a bar maid who worked at the
restaurant. He was often short of money and occasionally paid his bar tab with
drawings on the walls.
The same train RER A passes through Chatou and
Rueil-Malmaison back to Paris. So
several times I stayed in hotels in that area, a delightful surprise for the
people who tracked my expense reports, because I stayed for less than $100 per
night, when the sales team was in Paris at double or triple that price.
Another 3 miles east toward Paris is the village of Suresne
on the east side of Mont-Valerien, the hill between Saint-Germain-en-Laye and
Paris. I stayed several times in
Suresne, also for less than $100 a night. I stayed there because I always had
my racing bicycle with me on trips to Paris. Just across the bridge from
Suresne to Paris is L’Hippodrome on the west side of Bois de Boulogne, the huge
park in the southwest corner of the city.
Riding around L'Hippodrome, Bois de Boulogne
Every day the 2-mile road that circles L’Hippodrome is
closed to traffic for training races from 10 a.m. to dark. As often as I could, either in the morning or
the evening, I rode in those training races.
From Suresne I just rolled down Mont-Valerien and started warming up to
ride in packs of cyclists that sometimes reached 30mph on the flat road around
the horseracing track.
From L’Hippodrome, I rode through the park which is enclosed
by another loop in the Seine, then along the south (Left) bank of the river
toward the place I love best in the center of Paris: the area that stretches
along Quai d'Orsay and then south and up on Boulevard Saint-Michel. This is an area
of bistros and bookstores: crowded bistros and crowded bookstores. Shakespeare
& Company, Gibert Joseph, and dozens of little specialty bookshops line the
roads in this area near the Sorbonne and Jardin du Luxembourg.
Boulevard Saint-Michel
Of course, every love story has a shadow of loss. In my
case, on the east end of the lovely Ile de Cite is the Memorial des Martyrs de la
Deportation—the memorial of the deportation of 200,000 Jews from France. This
underground monument is beautifully made and wrenchingly sad. It testifies that every one of the 200,000
Jews who went to the death camps had a life and hopes that were wrenched away
by Nazis.
The Deportation Memorial
In “Paris in the Present Tense” Jules Lacour and his parents
hide from the Nazis from shortly after Jules is born in 1940 until his fourth
birthday when the family is discovered.
His parents are killed; Jules survives. At the book’s end Jules
struggles against the revival of anti-Semitism in France 70 years later.
A Ride West from the Memorial to Saint-Germain-en-Laye
As I returned to the city, I imagined myself riding from the
Deportation Memorial to Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
I would begin on the Ile de Cite at the memorial site, riding through
the park and across the island. I would
look west in the direction of my birthplace and home far across the Atlantic
Ocean. I first pass through the Paris of love of learning at Boulevard
Saint-Michel on Quai d’Orsay, past Pont Neuf and a dozen other unique and
lovely bridges toward and past the Eiffel Tower. After that I would ride
through Bois de Boulogne, to L’Hippodrome and for a lap or two join the racers
perfecting their craft.
As I leave the training race, I immediately cross the Seine
and ride up to Suresne and over Mont-Valerien and down into Rueil-Malmaison.
There I ride past the gleaming glass and steel suburban building that used to
be my Paris office. I cross the looping
Seine again with a detour from the middle of the bridge, down the ramp to Ile
des Impressionistes and Maison Fournaise.
Back up on the bridge I pass over the Seine. If I glance south on the
west end of the bridge, I can see the next island south of Chatou, Ile de la
Chaussee, where the story “Femme Fatale” by Guy de Maupassant is set. In moments I pass through Chatou and into Le
Vesinet. In front of me I can see the
hill of Saint-Germain-en-Laye rising to the west.
Now I cross the Seine to the west for the last time on the
bridge, Le Vesinet-Le Pecq. Mark Helprin
made this crossing forever comic for me in the book. This bridge is the place
his crude and insanely rich housemates speed across the Seine toward Paris on
matching black Ducati Pingale motorcycles.
I ride though Le Pecq and up the hill toward the village center of
Saint-Germain-en-Laye and its massive city hall.
For the view back to Paris, I ride slowly on the lanes
across the park to the edge of the bluff above the river. The bridge at Le Vesinet-Le Pecq is below and
slightly south. I can glimpse Chatou,
Ile des Impressionistes, and Rueil-Malmaison through the trees in front of me.
Mont-Valerien hides Paris, all but the top of the Eiffel Tower and all of
Suresne and Bois de Boulogne, but I know they are in the present moment, the
present tense, in front of me.
