Left Bank

Let us go to the other side of the River Seine, to the Quartier Latin, the oldest but one neighbourhood of Paris, bastion of science, and like the district of Saint-Germain, a Mecca for men and women of letters, intellectuals, artists and philosophers.

The origin of all this mental activity begins in the 6th century when the then kings founded an abbey on the left bank. The church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés is a relic of this once powerful monastic complex. The first university opened its doors already in the 12th century. Then the poets and thinkers arrived: Voltaire and Rousseau in the 18th century, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir two centuries later; and finally Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso. Place Saint-Germain-des-Prés boasts ‘Aux Deux Magots’, ‘Flore’ and ‘Lipp’. These two cafés and a brasserie are arguably the most famous meetingplaces of the erstwhile band of surrealists and existentialists. Max Ernst, Joan Miró and Man Ray drank coffee here, Sartre worked day in day out on his classic book ‘L’être et le néant’ (Being and Nothingness), Boris Vian and Juliette Gréco started their road to fame, and it was here in 1968 that the spark struck that would fan the fire of student revolution. Today the district is peaceful: ambitious students of the Sorbonne buy required reading matter in bookshops, and a couple of modern painters dream of the glory of past times. Legends are a thing of the past, but it is still interesting to go and sit on a café terrace on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, and while sipping a café au lait (coffee with milk) imitate the favourite pastime of the Parisians: watching the human circus passing by.

Turn left now. This is the Boulevard Saint-Michel. A few yards further turn left again for the Rue des Ecoles. Here diligent students have dedicated their precious time in the pursuit of knowledge for centuries now. The Sorbonne university, established in 1257, is located around here. At first a theological institute, it has now become the largest university in France.

Less lively activity in Rue Soufflot: the Panthéon serves as a temple of fame and as a mausoleum. Here lie the remains of Rousseau, Voltaire, Victor Hugo and other deserving citizens of the Grande Nation.

Back to the bustle on the ‘Boul’Mich’, as the Boulevard Saint-Michel is called partly lovingly, partly irreverently. We follow the flow of people. On to the Jardin du Luxembourg, at which heart lies the palace of Mary de Médici, first queen and then widow of Henry IV. The French Senate has been assembling here since 1800. When Henry IV died, it is told that Mary de Médici was so overwhelmed by nostalgia for her mother country that she had a kind of Palazzo Pitti built, Italian gardens included. These extensive gardens around the palace are amongst the most beatutiful in Paris. Fountains and flowerbeds form the perfect background for meditation. The Jardin de Luxembourg is a perfect haven, far away from the hustle and bustle of the city, the roaring traffic and the stench of gasoline. An hour’s stroll, and you will be able to recharge your batteries: watch the OAPs play their jeu de boules, see how schoolboys, schoolgirls and students immerse themselves in classical and modern literature, children play near the ponds, sports fanatics are playing tennis or are jogging past, only to go and sit in one of the many pavillions, to have a drink – or merely to sit in the sun and quench their mind.

 

Versailles and Vaux-le-Vicomte

An hour’s drive from Paris only: the Château de Versailles, one of France’s most famous palaces. Go by public transport (RER, Line C 5) rather than risk your life on the busy Périphérique (ring road).

Until 1662 the Louvre had been the epicentre of royal power. Then, Louis XIV, the Sun-King, at the tender age of 23, expressed a wish to transform the small hunting lodge that his father had had built at Versailles, into a palace of which the dimensions and splendour would amaze the entire world. The construction took fifty years. Famous architects and landscape gardeners designed the palace and the surrounding park. Thousands of craftsmen and artists helped to leave a feudal seal on the royal chambers. The Royal Court of the Sun-King became the hub of European politics. Crowned heads and other guests of honour were entertained, more than 15,000 people lived here permanently, all basking in absolutist self-glorification. Showpieces such as the famous Hall of Mirrors still invite admiration.

The magnificent gardens are equally seductive. They extend over 250 acres (100 hectares): terraces, flowerbeds, fountains, a clever system of canals imitating Venice, clumps of trees with peaceful seats and broad lanes that invite you to stroll. With a little help of your phantasy it is easy to imagine the royal court prancing about in its magnificent apparel, whilst abandoning itself to rioutous gaiety to the strains of baroque music.

In these royal gardens monuments tell of the splendour of bygone days: ‘Petit Trianon’ and ‘Grand Trianon’, the two smaller palaces, which were a present from Louis XVI to his wife Marie-Antoinette. She in her turn had Le Hameau, a model farm, built, as she wished to romanticise the everyday life of the peasant.

The example for Versailles was Vaux-le-Vicomte, a palace about 50 kilometres southeast of Paris.Take the Motorway A4 in the direction of Metz/Reims. Continue on the A86 in the direction of Melun-Senart. From there the N6 leads you straight to Melun. Vaux-le-Vicomte lies about 6 km. northeast of Melun.

The story goes that Louis XIV turned white with envy when on 17 August 1661, on the occasion of the inauguration, he set eyes on the palace that Nicolas Fouquet, his minister of finance, had built for himself. ‘On 17 August at six o’clock in the evening Fouquet was King of France. At two o’clock that night he stopped being anything.’ Thus Voltaire later wrote about this event. The King was consumed by jealousy. The man who shortly before had had his precious silver service melted down to pay for his costly wars, left in a huff that same evening. Three weeks later Fouquet was arrested by d’Artagnan, the famous commander of the musketeers. The ex-minister would never see his palace again. He died on 23 March 1680 in the dungeon of Pignerol.

Louis XIV hired the same architects and landscape gardeners who had erected Vaux-le-Vicomte in only five years’time: the architect Louis Le Vau, the painter Le Brun, and the landscape gardener André Le Nôtre, who at Vaux-le-Vicomte had created a masterpiece of French landscape architecture.

Whereas tourists at Versailles are jostling for tickets, Vaux-le-Vicomte remains an oasis of complete peace. The private owners have reconstructed the palace in exactly the same state as Louis XIV would have seen it back on that terrible 17 August 1661.

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