June 14 2025
Dear All,
After various problems at the new Key West airport, a computer insisting that I needed a visa to visit France and England (I don’t – it was wrong), I have just arrived in Paris. It’s hot, but not as hot as Key West, and I inhabit an ancient stone building with walls thick enough to keep it cool except in a prolongued ‘canicule’ or heatwave. (Remember when we used to have ‘heatwaves’? Now it’s just heat.)
On Saturday, when this post will go out, there is to be a demonstration organized by Americans in the Place de la Bastille, where on July 14 in 1789 the infamous prison of the Bastille was stormed and opened up by revolutionaries. It’s also the day slated for a military parade in Washington DC. Who needs a military parade right now? Or ever, come to think of it.
By 1783, six years before the original Bastille Day in France, the American revolution was concluded. The new country was rid of an autocratic and mentally deranged King, George III, known as Mad King George, who attempted to keep his grip on the colony that was then under English control ( in case there is anyone who doesn’t remember this) and it was so successful that it lasted for 250 years. Enough said?
On arriving in Paris, I felt I could take a deep breath of the air of freedom, as so many refugees to Paris from other countries have done in the past. It seems to be in the stones, in the buildings, in the air here, even though present-day France is far from free from attempts to reduce or stifle it. I’m not a refugee, but at present I feel like some of that same gratitude: relieved, deeply thankful to be here, relishing all the aspects of French life that certain people in the US most dislike.
In the late 18th century, the newly freed American colonies were an inspiration to the French in their struggles, and the two countries were close in their aspirations. Imagine it: Jefferson in Paris, Lafayette bringing ships to aid the Americans in their revolution. Heather Cox Richardson has written extensively about this history recently, and I don’t need to tell anyone what they already know; but it seems to matter to re-iterate it, to remember the hopes and the bold decisions of that century, called the Enlightenment, and to hold out hope for their return.
Meanwhile, I’m shopping in local markets before the temperature reaches today’s full heat, meeting friends, visiting bookshops, saying hello to everything that has become familiar around here, a second home to me for so much of my life, since I first came to stay in this neighborhood of Paris with my old friends, Paul and Elisabeth, both no longer alive. We used to walk to all the cinemas of the 5th and 6th arrondissements in the evenings, then come back to their apartment to sip whisky and talk about films, and books – both of them writers, he an actor too. Several of my close Paris friends have now died, and I miss them. But the ones who are left are who matter now, and it’s wonderful to run into each other on the ancient narrow street of the rue Mouffetard, sit in cafés to chat, and keep that continuity, that flow of talk, that freedom of speech that is so basic to this place and so necessary to being human.
I’m glad to see the current photographic display on the railings around the church: photos of the actual people who work in the shops in this neighborhood – a baker, a butcher, a flower shop owner, a pharmacist. We know their faces and exchange with them daily, they make this quartier what it is, we may say “bonjour” and “merci” but they are not usually noticed and celebrated, workers who serve both visitors and locals, who follow in many of the traditions of their medieval forbears on this street. It’s good to see, too, how the new trees grow, and new square stone cobbles are being set beside the old ones. Continuity, attention to beauty, concern for enough shade – all are essential to make a city livable, in these changing times.
Take care, and thanks for reading,
Affectionately, Ros