Paris Notes

My next stop after Brussels was Paris, which I expected to be overrated. But boy, was I wrong. The city lived up to its reputation and for the history and literature buff that I am, it kept throwing up surprises and delights. Like Delhi, it’s a city that does not reveal itself effortlessly. One needs to spend time, be a flaneur and read up a lot to get a grasp of the city.

The imprint of the French Revolution and the subsequent martial exploits of Napoleon are all-pervading in the city. Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité is not an ancient slogan for the French but something that is stamped in the city’s psyche. The city’s architecture, its central axis comprising the Champs-Élysées, the Arc de Triomphe, the Luxor obelisk, the Pantheon, Les Invalides and ofcoure the Eiffel Tower towering over all of this, is emblematic of the French belief in their superiority. That they were unique and had something to offer the world was a worldview that they took seriously and thus built their city to mirror the idea.

Les Invalides, which houses the tomb of Napoleon, is a full-fledged military museum that commemorates all the military exploits (and defeats) of the French. Its definitely worth visiting to get a handle on the French. (I couldn’t help but wonder that had it not been for the Holocaust and his blunder of attacking Russia, would Hitler have managed to be revered like Napolean?) The gallery devoted to de Gaulle was also well-stocked and commemorated the Resistance fighters of France with numerous exhibits (sabotaged railway tracks, personal belongings….)

Parisians read. They know their literature and take it seriously. Every metro ride I took brought me face to face with a reader buried in a paperback (merits a separate blog post). After all, this is the city that gave us Proust, Colette, Hugo, Balzac, Zola, Hemingway, Malraux, Baldwin, Dumas, Camus, Sartre, Stendhal, Wilde….

Sartre and de Beauvoir put St. Germain de Pres on the global literary map and it was good to see them commemorated in the metro station. The Louvre was, well, big and huge and mind-numbing. After a point, the whole experience becomes a comedy when one starts running from gallery to gallery to visually devour all that is on offer. For me the Donatellos, the Botticellis and the galleries devoted to Delacroix and Ingres were the highlights.  

The shifting demographics of Europe is quite palpable in Paris and I better understood the popularity of someone like Houellebecq. When I got out of the Château Rouge metro station where my Airbnb was, I for a second, thought I was in Lagos. The street sight looked straight out of a comic panel of Aya. Such a delight!

The Champs-Élysées was all corrupted thanks to the global MNC brands, boutiques and sportscars parked all over. I also saw a horrific sight – people queuing up and waiting their turn to enter Louis Vuitton showrooms. The Pantheon is a must-visit if only to see the resting place of Victor Hugo (Two million people lined the streets of Paris to bid goodbye to him). The other notable people resting there include Voltaire, Rousseau, Marie Curie, Zola, Dumas and Braille.

The prettiest monument in all of Paris must be the Vendôme Column, erected by Napoleon to commemorate his victory at Austerlitz.