Toussaint Part Deux

The post-Halloween portion of break begins with a mild sense of abandonment. Saul is in Tours visiting family, Rachel is in Cadiz, Spain, visiting a friend, Emma and Anna are both in London; I have the entire 9th arrondissement to myself. Aside from petty things like raiding the fridge and leaving my pajamas on the bathroom floor, I take advantage of my relative solitude by resuming activity during daylight hours and seeing some things. Such as:

Saint Sulpice: Yes, the “Rose Line” of Da Vinci Code fame is “marked” by an obelisk and a brass strip running through the church. No, the church is not happy about it. Signs posted on the wall next to the obelisk tactfully debunk the novel and insists there is no Rose Line. Evidently the gnomon, as it is properly termed, of Saint-Sulpice was created in order to observe Earth’s rotation. This was accomplished via a tiny hole in the facing wall that casts a beam of light on the obelisk at various astronomically significant times. Wikipedia’s two-cents: “Brown's novel confuses the Paris Meridian [or “Rose Line”] with a local meridian found in the Parisian church of Saint-Sulpice, marked in the floor with a brass line (the Paris Meridian actually passes about 100 meters east of it).” So in Dan Brown’s fiction the two lines are one in the same, and in the church’s fiction the Rose Line doesn’t even exist (though to be fair the term “Rose Line” is fictional). Seems no one finds the truth particularly persuasive.

Exhibit of Disney art at the Grand Palais: This exhibit’s main purpose in life is to demonstrate the relationship between Disney’s early work and his immediate influences—19th century paintings and illustrations, and early 20th century films. In doing so the exhibit places Disney within a broader art historical framework and also conveniently highlights the European elements of Disney’s work. I spent two hours of intellectualized nostalgic bliss gazing at oh, say, the original animation cells of Alice in Wonderland side by side an 1865 first edition of the novel complete with John Tenniel’s illustrations. Tacked onto the end of the exhibit is a section on the subsequent influence of Disney on later art, specifically surrealism and pop. Apparently Dali and Disney spent years working on a joint film, which was never fully realized until after their deaths (at the hands of Roy Disney). Needless to say, the final project was pretty bizarre. But all melting clocks aside, this exhibit is great because it offers a new way to experience and appreciate the seemingly familiar.

Vaux le Vicomte (a.k.a. Erin and her friend Melanie get the hell out of Paris for the day): Back in the day Louis XIV’s finance minister, Nicholas Fouquet, hired the architect Le Vau, the painter Le Brun and the landscape architect Le Nôtre to design and build him a chateau on the outskirts of Paris. The resulting masterpiece was so impressive that before it was even completed Louis XIV threw Fouquet in jail and ordered Le Vau, Le Brun and Le Nôtre to build him something bigger and better. Thus was born the royal vanity project par excellence, le Chateau de Versailles. The musketeer, d’Antagnan, and the “man in the iron mask” also figure into this history in ways I would appreciate more had I ever read Dumas.

The chateau was of course gorgeous and dripping in luxury, though having been to Versailles, I couldn’t help but think it was pretty small (only a few dozen gilt ceilings). I am told the gardens are magnificent, but my appreciation of them was completely cock-blocked by the descent of the thickest fog I have ever seen. Visibility was perhaps 50 ft. A garden of grand geometric vistas and crystal clear reflecting pools was transformed into an episode of Scooby Doo. Statues had a habit of appearing out of nowhere; ponds stretched on interminably with the other side obscured in opaque white. Le Nôtre may have molded the natural landscape to his meticulous design, but nature had the last laugh. I supposed Melanie and I could have been pissed, but we mostly laughed right along with nature. Though we were robbed of the conventional garden experience we were offered quite a unique alternative.

After a day marching around in the cold and fog of the countryside we were ready to be back in the lights of Paris. Mission accomplished.