I'd stayed in France before, for some time the summer between high school and college. At that time I was in Provence, in a small town named L'Ile-sur-Sourge, where the sun is nearer and clearer than any other place I've been, and I say that from Santa Fe, in the Sangre de Cristo mountains. I had a bike, a copy of Moby Dick, and the sort of blind confidence one has after graduation, even without destroying a giant snake demon. I loved it. The people were friendly (except in one mountain-top restaurant, a data-point which I'm going to re-classify as experimental error), the food was an open invitation to gluttony, and the whole country seemed to have treasures tucked away in corners, like the Cathedrale d'Images, atop Les Baux (whence bauxite, by the by). So when a vacation to Paris was planned, I was thrilled to return to France.
I was underwhelmed when we arrived. My French is serviceable, and a great deal of useful vocabulary, especially regarding food, has been drilled into me since age eight, but it has degenerated through disuse. Still, it seemed that to make myself understood I needed to repeat myself several times, even when engaged in some routine task like purchasing a ticket to the Catacombs (the Catacombs are well worth the price of admission, and if I ever get around to producing my One Man Hamlet, I'll set it inside them). The exception to this constant lack of understanding was at the hotel, run by two tiny elderly women who were unfailingly cheerful and kind, and understood every word I said (except my first name, the difficulty of which I can hear myself. When I francified it, they caught on immediately, although it was in that form that they addressed me from then on).
Still, it was Paris. Paris is a jewel of a city, in a number of ways. The streets were laid out by a lapidarist, and in the sun they define the facets of the city. Each corner brings a new beauty to the eye, often unlooked for, as when the home of Eloise and Aberlard was stumbled across. Their tomb is nice as well, in the harmless way the word is used nowadays. It mentions nothing about Abelard's seduction/rape of Eloise, commenting only on their piety, learning, and fidelity. This gloss is a theme of a number of Parisian monuments, particularly those from World War II.
But Parisians were grim and unfriendly compared to the inhabitants of Provence, with the only people willing to help, in exchange for having their picture taken near some item of interest, being German tourists. The final straw was when the Parisian police, in a random sweep of a subway station, demanded a twenty euro fine for a lack of picture ID, a failing whose dire consequences were never mentioned by the ticket seller, and nowhere in the (very) fine print on the automated machines. It took a walk through the Jardin des Plantes to calm down after that run-in, a theme which was repeated a number of times: getting irritated with the people, and calmed by the surroundings. The aggravation of this confrontation was augmented by my ignorance of French law. I understand that they have rather more pervasive powers of search and seizure, but the limits and required provocation for such acts I am ignorant of. How shall I put this...I missed the Bill of Rights. Thank Heaven for Mrs. Conway, who taught it to me. I'm not claiming that American law is superior to French law (though I might if I'm provoked), simply that being ignorant of it was discomfitting.
I never felt that way in Provence, where people, you know, smiled and said hello. If a gendarme had stopped me there, I would have felt far safer dealing with him than I did dealing with the Parisian police. Indeed, I was stopped there once by a gendarme, who came running after me. He was returning Moby Dick, which had fallen from my backpack.
