Kathleen, Queen of the Desert

Sometimes you fool yourself into thinking you’ve pretty much seen all the gorgeous art there is to see. You’ve seen towering sculptures by Michelangelo. You’ve seen the sketch-like brushwork of Fragonard. You’ve marveled at the pastels of Cassatt, and you’ve looked goggle-eyed at works by Van Gogh, Soutine, Lautrec, and Monet. I just hadn’t realized some works of medieval needlepoint would take my breath away.

The Musee National du Moyen Age–the National Museum of the Middle Ages–better known as the Cluny Museum, is a Left Bank treasure of stone heads, Byzantine ivories and altarpieces, stained glass, fabrics, and tapestries. This museum is in a medieval house built on top of Roman baths (one of three sets on the Left Bank) on busy Boulevards St. Germain-des-Pres and St. Michel. “The Cluny” may be built of stone, but at its heart are works of sublime beauty: the six tapestries of the Lady and the Unicorn. 

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There was a memorable party given at the gorgeous chateaux and gardens at Vaux le Vicomte by Nicolas Fouquet in the summer of 1661. And I’m not talking about the wedding of Gina Logobria and Tony Parker. Mr. Fouquet put on his celebration in the 17th century in response to a request from Louis XIV, king of France (1738-1715). The story goes that the 23-year-old king (shown below) was so jealous of the estate’s splendor–as well as suspicious of where Fouquet had gotten his hands on such money–that Fouquet was invited to Louis’s hunting lodge for a party, then arrested, then put in jail. (Where Fouquet eventually died.)

 

It seems however, that in fact Nicolas Fouquet was the fall guy for a large amount of embezzling that was done by the Cardinal Mazarin (coincidentally the king’s godfather) who had died that same year. Fouquet himself didn’t help matters by refusing to tone down his parties and other excesses. 

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One of my most memorable art exhibitions on this trip wasn’t at a museum. It was at a library. I braved a cool, breezy afternoon to go see the Francisque Poulbot exhibition at the Bibliotheque de Fornay just north of the Seine across from Ile Saint-Louis.

    

Poulbot (1879-1946) was famous for his illustrations of the effect La Grande Guerre (the Great War–WWI) had on the street children of Montmartre.

 

In fact, street urchins became a main theme in all of his artwork. Poulbot supported Le Clos de Montmartre, a charity that raised money for Les Petits Poulbot–street urchins– affectionately nicknamed after him.

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St. Eustache Church serves the parish where I live in Paris. The church has an impressive organ, and there are free concerts every Sunday. But who was St. Eustace?

Eustace (in French it’s pronounced “oo-stash”) was originally a Roman general and captain of the guards named Placidus. He served the emperor Trajan. While hunting a white stag near Rome, Placidus saw a vision of Jesus on the cross between the stag’s antlers, and the stag was calling his name. 

 

Placidus converted to Christianity, got baptized, had his family baptized, and changed his name to Eustace. Then all the trouble began.

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For all moving beings in Paris, the allees, avenues, boulevards, impasses, passages, quais, and rues are very important. Like in the United States, some of these designations of surfaces for vehicular passage are a little vague–do you have to be so many feet wide to qualify as an avenue as opposed to a rue?–but I’ve compiled a sampler of what I understand so far.

ALLEES: There are several alleys or lanes in Les Halles (the covered markets), the large shopping area south of me. These alleys are small paved pathways, sometimes only wide enough to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists. Even the sprawling Pere Lachaise cemetery has walking allees between the grave sites (shown in the image below). Allees don’t usually have sidewalks.

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