Accidental Histories- a day full of Paris stories

The day started out well with a woman in our courtyard asking me if I always smiled.  I told her that we were "en vacances" and remarked on the wonderful weather we had been having since we arrived.  She said that the past week of sun and over 20C temperatures was the warmest April weather since 1947!!!

We walked over to the left bank via Notre Dame and then stopped briefly at Shakespeare & Company.  The first Shakespeare & Company, run by Sylvia Beach (who published James Joyce's Ulysses), closed in 1941 and was in a different location.  George Whitman who is still alive at 97, had opened a bookstore in 1951.  He knew Sylvia Beach, and after her death in 1962, with her blessing, changed the name of his bookstore to Shakespeare & Co.  His daughter, born in 1981, named Sylvia, currently runs the bookstore, which has free readings and other events. We decided to return for the reading this evening.

Notre Dame

We then went to the Luxembourg Gardens, which were breathtaking today.  Chestnut blossoms in full bloom and lots of people hanging out.  The Senate of France is housed in the Gardens in a palace built by Marie de Medici after her husband Henri IV was assassinated in 1610.

A greek actor-in Luxembourg Gardens

Luxembourg Gardens

We then went for lunch at Bread and Roses on Rue Fleurus-- we shared a very good plate of interesting dips and salads.

We chose to continue to walk on Rue Fleurus and fortuitously ran into the apartment building where Gertrude Stein lived from 1903-38 with her brother Leo and Alice B. Toklas.   A man was just leaving the building and asked if we wanted to enter to see the courtyard.  Of course we said yes and took some pictures.  It is still a very lovely building.

In the Gertrude Stein courtyard

We then went to check out Le Bon Marche, one of the main Paris department stores, which was very quiet on a Monday.  There was a special exhibit of a maison de thé, designed by Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999) for a Unesco exhibit in 1993.  There is also an exhibit of her photographs at the Petit Palace, which we are planning to see soon.

Alain was feeling peckish, so we stopped at Polaine bakery for an apple tart.  We then, again fortuitously, turned down Rue des Grands Augustins and ran into the apartment where Picasso lived from 1936 -1955.  Another beautiful location near the Seine.

Picasso residence

Back to Shakespeare & Company for an evening with Alan Riding, former European Cultural Correspondent and Paris Bureau chief with  the New York Times.  He talked about his most recent book entitled And the Show Went On:  Cultural Life in Nazi Occupied Paris.  It was an excellent talk- dealing with the role of intellectuals, authors and artists in Paris during the war.  A number welcomed the Nazis, while others were caught between wanting their works published and not being seen as collaborating.  Riding's thesis was that the line was often blurry and that people also moved from more tacit collaboration to resistance as the war went on.  Riding also talked about the numerous French writers and artists who went to Berlin during the war, to be feted by Goebbels.

Alan Riding at Shakespeare & Co

So it was a most wonderful day of accidental run-ins with the fascinating history of Paris.  That's why I'm blogging this evening.  Tomorrow the weather is going to turn cold- only 14 degrees C expected.