Visiting the Latin Quarter in Paris (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Latin Quarter in Paris (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

On one of my first visits to the Latin Quarter in Paris, I went with one of Laurent’s cousins to get my hair cut and styled like a Parisian woman, which meant a “bob” like Princess Diana wore without the bangs.

All you had to do was wash that cut and toss it to the left to be media ready, which included asking questions at commercial development meetings in Paris.  (Always have about 5 questions to ask at events like these to publicize your firm and do not wear grubby clothing.)

I liked going to the Place Contrescarpe once a month to get that cut tidied up and check out places like the Musée Cluny (Cluny Museum) about the French Middle Ages.

Laurent’s cousin was a schoolteacher and historian.  She gave me a tour of the Latin Quarter:

“In the third century, Paris was called Lutèce and inhabited by the Gauls (ancestors of the modern French).”

I listened as she described the Roman invasions into France, the evangelization of Paris by Saint Denis, and the establishment of the University of Paris in 1215 by Pope Innocent III.

“Until the eighteenth century, all the university people spoke Latin.  That is why this area is called the Latin Quarter,” Laurent’s cousin continued on with her history lesson.

I wanted to visit the lecture halls at the Sorbonne University, but Laurent’s cousin mentioned that there was an antiques fair at the Grand Palais.  We went to that and looked at Art Nouveau lamps and golden Sèvres vases.  The word “antiques” can mean anything in France from the pagan era to the 19^th century.

I do not want French antiques to leave the country.  I am happy to buy good reproductions.  Almost all of France’s châteaux lost their furniture and other decorative arts during the French Revolution when they were sold as “national goods” to pay to run the country while the guillotine was falling.

Then, we went to the Institute du Monde Arabe and looked at an exhibit about Palestinian homes and women’s clothing.

On subsequent trips to the Latin Quarter, I smiled when I saw a plaque on a building that said “Auguste Comte was Born Here.”  Comte is considered the father of social sciences with his “Positivist” philosophy.

I used to sit in this café and read Libération (Communist Newspaper) and Le Canard Enchainée (Written by journalists of the opposition who were out of power at the moment it seems). 

I could not buy these newspapers in the Hauts-de-Seine where I lived across the Seine from Neuilly-sur-Seine, where I worked.  However, I learned as a kid to read about 4 newspapers and tons of magazines to get the real news between the lines in Detroit (Michigan).

The French language was my Latin-language. 

I loved knowing what all the French political parties were and the history of various French companies.  This knowledge helped me with sales and planning trips around Paris of places to visit.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting Chenonceau Chateau with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Chenonceau Château with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Our little wedding party headed out to Chenonceau Château to see the castle with three arches spanning over the Cher River (a tributary of the Loire River) with Italian gardens for strolling.

The château at Chenonceau merited a voyage all by itself as the Michelin Guide described it.  The masses of tour buses there reminded me of Disneyland.  We found parking spaces at the way outer edges of tour bus territory.  They can block you in, if you are not careful.

The attractive setting of Chenonceau made it a favorite of kings’ mistresses and wives, who often fought over it with their fingernails flying.

Thomas Bohier, a finance minister under Charles XIII, Louis XII, and Francis the First, built the château between 1513 and 1521.

Bohier died in 1524, but the financial sins of the father passed on to his son Antoine.  Scrutiny of Thomas’s tax accounts revealed that he owed large sums to the royal treasury.   To pay this debt, Antoine Bohier gave Chenonceau to Francis the First.

When Henri II ascended to the throne in 1547, he gave Chenonceau to his mistress Diane de Poitiers.  Twenty years older than Henri, Diane used her beauty and managerial talent to marginalize the queen, Catherine de Medici (who really was not ugly or naïve – clue – Medici surname).

Henri even went so far as to decorate several of his châteaux with a composed “H” and “C” monogram that really looked like an “H’ and “D” together.

When Henri II was killed by a lance at a tournament in 1559, the regency and revenge of Catherine de Medici began.  Catherine knew that Diane loved Chenonceau and made Diane give it to her despite the fact that Diane owned it.  (This is what life is like under tyranny sometimes. Vive la France Royal.)

Other women owned Chenonceau, but none matched Diane and Catherine for their parties and glamour.  Catherine even had mini Naval battles on the Cher while guests nibbled hors d’oeuvres and drank cocktails in the gardens. 

(Crémant de Saumur probably even reminded Catherine de Medici of Asti Spumante from what is now the Piedmont region of Italy. Asti Spumante is a lightly carbonated, sweet white wine from the region next to Tours.  The people in the Touraine like this wine with pork products like rilletes spead on toast and rillons pork belly cubes or slices.)

“Is it always crowded like this?” I asked Laurent.

“No.  The French like this château for more than its beauty.  Did you know that the Cher River here was the dividing line between Free France and German-occupied France during World War II?” Laurent asked.

“No, but that makes this château even more interesting,” I said.

That kind of information is important to know, because wars determine which language you will speak, what kind of legal system your country will have, what kind of money you will use, what kind of water you will drink, and what languages children will have to speak and learn subjects in at school. 

When Germany occupied France during several wars, French children had to learn all their subjects in German. 

So, the French still want people to speak French even though they are probably fluent in Italian (especially in the Touraine), Spanish, and German.  (The Germans have slow, steady highly reliable financial products.  Clue – utilities and railroads in Monopoly).

Enough of exploring the land of Valois castles for today!

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Ancient Rome and Latin Literature Reading List in English Translation - Compiled by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Ancient Roman Civilization and Latin Literature Reading List in English Translation - Compiled by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Understanding ancient Roman society and civilization is important in the United States, because our government institutions are based on those of Republican Rome and not Imperial Rome.  

Latin schools are often located in large cities in the US as training grounds for future lawyers.  They all have mock jury as a club and US government study clubs like Close-Up, which is sponsored by the US Congress.

The ancient Romans produced much literature about administering and maintaining good government, legal rhetoric, science, plays, and literature.

Reviews and interpretations of these books can be found on library literature databases, publisher’s websites (Oxford University Press notably), and Goodreads (an Amazon subsidiary company).

I put together a list of books on ancient Roman Civilization below that is divided into the following categories in no particular order of preference:

History:

-The Rise of Rome by Livy

-Agricola and Germania by Tacitus

-The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius

-The Conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar

-The War with Hannibal by Livy

-The Fall of the Roman Republic: Six Lives by Plutarch

-Histories by Tacitus

-Makers of Rome: Nine Lives – Coriolanus, Fabius Maximus, Marcellus, Cato the Elder, Tiberius Gracchus, Gaius Gracchus, Sertorious, Brutus, Marc Anthony, and Julius Caesar by Plutarch

-The Early History of Rome by Livy

-The Rise of the Roman Empire by Polybius

-The Rise and Fall of Athens (Theseus, Solon, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, Nicius, Alcibiades, and Lysander) by Plutarch

-The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives: (Agesilaus, Pelopidas, Dion, Timoleon, Demosthenes, Phocion, Alexander, Demetriusm, and Pyrrhus) by Plutarch

-On Sparta by Plutarch

-The Life of Alexander the Great by Plutarch

-The Annals of Ancient Rome by Tacitus

-The Civil Wars by Appian

-The Civil War by Gaius Julius Caesar

-The Later Roman Empire by Ammanius Marcellinus

-The Essential Writings of Flavius Josephus

-The Roman History: The Reign of Augustus by Cassius Dio

-The Letters of the Younger Pliny by Pliny the Younger

Literature and Mythology

-Metamorphoses by Ovid

-Odes by Horace

-Georgics by Virgil

-The Complete Poems by Catallus

-The Sixteen Satires by Juvenal

-The Comedies: Volume 1 – 4 by Plautus

-The Biographies of Hercules, Troades, Phoenissue, Medea, Phaedra, Oedipus, Thyestes, Hercules, Oetaneus, Fabula Praetesta by Seneca

-The Aeneid by Virgil

-Theogeny – Works and Days by Hesiod

-The Library of Greek Mythology by Appollodorus

Rhetoric and Law

-Selected Works by Cicero

-On Obligations by Cicero

-Murder Trials by Marcus Tullius Cicero

Science and Philosophy

-Natural History by Pliny

-Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

-On the Nature of the Universe by Lucretius

-Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

-The Niomachean Ethics by Aristotle

-Selected Political Speeches by Cicero

-Letters from a Stoic by Seneca

-The Satyricon by Petronius

-The Essential Writings by Epictetus

-On the Republic – On the Laws by Cicero

Happy Reading!!

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting Amboise Chateau (Loire Valley, France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Amboise Château (Loire Valley, France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The British always reserve ahead for tour buses of at least 30 to go around visiting châteaux along the Loire River in summer.  If you do not have a reservation in July for a tour bus, it is almost impossible to buy tickets for a small group. 

With no tour buses available, Laurent and my American family drove to Amboise in stick-shift cars as a bachelor-bachelorette party.  It was stop-and-go all the way there, but we finally made it.

Amboise dominates a rock outcropping on the right bank of the Loire.  It has high walls that tower over the Loire River; during one of many religious wars, Protestants hung from the walls of Amboise as trophies.

The round towers are large enough for horses to trot up four abreast to the garden esplanade.  A king could ride in his covered carriage up to safety from trouble in town below easily this way.

We took a tour in French that our bilingual wedding attendees had to translate for the rest of us.  Defenders of Amboise have been fighting off intruders at this spot since the 11^th century during the 100 Years’ War with England.

Charles VIII defended the Loire Valley less and invaded Italy more during the Italian Wars in the 15^th century.

Charles VIII discovered the luxurious Italian lifestyle and brought back Italian furniture for his castles as well as Italian architects, sculptors, and gardeners.

The flame-styled Gothic windows line up in one wing against the rectangular Renaissance windows in another.

“That would be a great photograph to show the difference between those two styles,” I said in my nascent reviewer’s eyes.

Leonardo da Vinci is buried at Amboise.  The Valois King Francis the First brought him to Amboise to paint, put on parties, and build war machines as da Vinci did for Ludovico Sforza of Milan. 

At one time, there was a restaurant in a half-timbered home in Old Town Tours called the Leonardo da Vinci that had models of his war machines dangling from the ceiling.  The restaurant was Italian with the Milanese specialty of risotto on the menu.

Leonardo da Vinci’s home, the Clos Lucé, is located at the foot of Amboise with its own museum containing the artist’s notebooks that he wrote in reverse script that he could read in a mirror.  (Industrial espionage prevention tactic in the Renaissance?)

I studied art history in high school and at the University of Chicago, which enabled me to identify and compare styles without textbooks at Amboise. 

I thanked all my dignified professors at the University of Chicago, whom I thought were a little stodgy in their suits, ties, and pocket hankies for their hideously grueling essay exams, so I could be my own tour guide in France, if needed.

Essay questions like “Discuss the Development of Plurifacial Sculpture in Renaissance Italy using at least 10 Sculptures as Examples with Complete Identification” and “Compare and Contrast 15^th Century Italian Renaissance Painting in Florence, Sienna, Venice, and Rome using at least 5 Works from each City” explain why I spent hours memorizing art works in the art library and described all my professors as sort of “evil in a good way” over pizza.  They wanted to keep little undergraduates like me in their graduate courses occupied in wholesome pursuits.

Those art history tests had three essay questions and usually 30 identification questions, which required identification slides, design and composition analysis, and significance of the work of art in its social and historical context.  You had to do this in about three or four paragraphs.

Fast writing and thinking were a by-product of this testing.

I was having fun at my wedding, and it had not even started yet.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France


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