January 26, 2009
I have always had success shopping the Marais, whether in the antiques rich Marché St. Paul or discovering a new boutique along the rue Vieille du Temple. Of course, sometimes I just wander aimlessly and that’s when I appreciate Paris the most.
At No.47 rue des Francs Bourgeois, otherwise known as the Hotel Amelot-de-Bisseuil, I learn that Beaumarchais wrote the libretto for Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro here. Perhaps more important, he built a business here called Rodrigue, Hortolez and Co., a front for exporting arms to the American colonies (merci beaucoup).
By the way, the street name comes from “free citizens,” too destitute to pay taxes.
I’m now in the heart of the Jewish quarter, settled in the 13th century, and still the place for Jewish immigrants. The most recent emigration followed the French exodus from Algeria in the early '60s.
Farther up the street, I enter the Musée Carnavalet, which traces the history of Paris. The famous chronicler, Madame de Sévigné, lived here from 1677-96. Her letter-writing campaign to her beloved married daughter in Provence preserves a way of life full of instructive gossip.
She was a true sybarite. It is said that doors had to be removed to make way for pyramids of food piled twenty platters high. Guests had to pass notes to each other because they couldn’t see around the mounds of meats and treats.
Eleven rooms belong to the French Revolution and many others to the Belle Epoque. I especially like Marcel Proust’s cork-lined bedroom and the private dining room transported whole-cloth from the Café de Paris.
Do you have a favorite room in a favored museum?
still thinking about today...
It's difficult for me to pick favorites, but if I have one, it is most certainly in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. Once the home of one of Rome's most influential families, the three-story villa is now a showcase for their centuries of collected art. It is breathtaking to imagine oneself wandering through as a guest of the family in their heyday, when Pauline Bonaparte was married to Prince Camillo Borghese. Before my first visit, I read The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa, which details the rise and fall of a Neopolitan family, and visiting the museum provided me with an image of what their home must have been like. There is nothing more divine than to stroll through in the heat of a July afternoon, among the Berninis and Caravaggios, camera-less and alone.
Thinking...I have many, one in the Victoria and Albert in London; one in... Oh, dear, I shan't: All at The EYE are better-travelled than I. Pun untended, so I get credit for it?
I've spent many a leisurely, time-out-of-mind, thankful hour in museums, which feel, to me, like havens. Oh, another -- in Philadelphia, and I can't recall its famous name. It's an enormous house whose owner filled it with art of every age; has an entire Ruebens room where I stayed more than an hour, sitting on the floor (there was no place else) and buying a magnificent Ruebens book. His Piccasos will break your heart, breathtaking.... Said owner had a fixation on hinges and like things, so art is punctuated by those, disconcerting in some rooms. I saw it in Philadelphia, but recently that collection toured the country. Perhaps abroad, as well, for it's well worth seeing. Wonder if the hinges etc made the tour.
sory: Picasso
oh, forget it. love me anyway