Visiting Rouen (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Rouen (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

On one of many weekends to come, Laurent took me out to Rouen, which is located on the Seine River.  He went to business school there and received an MBA in Finance and Accounting.

The Impressionist painter Monet made Rouen famous with his multiple views of it in fog, rain, sleet, snow, and nice weather.  You pass Giverny on the way to Rouen, so he made money close to home in his retirement years.

Rouen has a population of 400,000 people, who live in this “city-museum.”  Every building we walked by was from the 15^th century it seemed.

He showed me several key spots on campus like the offices of his chess club, the Junior Achievement Business club, and the dorm where he studied.

Rouen owes its 18^th century success to the sale of indigo-colored cotton.  Now it has a port, railroad, and other infrastructure to make it an industrial center that serves as a main entryway into Paris for commercial shipping traffic.

We visited the Cathedral, which is huge.  A wedding was going on, so we left.

We ate pizza in a 15^th century building and went to the movies.  We did not care about the weather, because we were seeing films.   This became a weekend outing for us when we did not want to spend too much money.

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

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Musings about St. Roch Church (Paris) Tombs - 2 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Musings about St. Roch Church (Paris) Tombs by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Le Nôtre’s Tomb in St. Roch is inspiration for a film.  Le Nôtre designed the gardens at Vaux-le-Vicomte and at Versailles.

Louis XIV went to a dinner at Vaux-le-Vicomte held by his finance minister Fouquet.  Fouquet served the king on gold-plate dishes, which angered Louis XIV, because all of his gold was melted down to pay Swiss mercenaries for his many border wars.

Louis XIV asked Fouquet to do one last financial operation and, then, arrested him.

Louis XIV brought Fouquet’s architect Le Vau, writer of fairy tales Perrault, and Le Nôtre to the plain of Versailles to build his imposing and well-visited palace.

The book entitled The Sun King’s Garden: Louis XIV, André le Nôtre and the Creation of the Gardens of Versailles by Ian Thompson speculates that Le Nôtre was Louis XIV’s only friend.  They rode in separate carriages, but spoke about the state of the gardens often.

Fouquet’s mistress Louise de la Vallière also became Louis XIV’s mistress once the King imprisoned Fouquet.

The moral of this story is to not make the King jealous of your wealth and flaunt it or he will seize your property to give my blog an ending, or moral with a lesson, like Perrault’s Fairy Tales.

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


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St. Roch Church on rue de Rivoli in Paris (France) - 1 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the St. Roch Church on rue de Rivoli in Paris (France) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I took a Concours Test in French to get into graduate school at “Langues O” at “Porte Daupine,” one of the locations of the University of Paris around the metropolitan area of the capital.

I passed the test, but found a job at Deloitte (Paris) in the Communications Department, which included working for the “Japan Desk.”  I took the job instead of getting a degree at that point in my life.

I walked from Porte Dauphine to the Champs-Elysées and then continued down to the Louvre.

I.M. Pei’s Glass Pyramid, designed by the Chinese-American, in the courtyard of the Louvre was being built at the time.  I could not get in, so I went down rue de Rivoli and visited other sites.

Ever the adventurer, I noticed the St. Roch Church on rue de Rivoli across from the Louvre and went exploring.  Louis XIV set the cornerstone to this church during the 17^th century.

St. Roch is dedicated to this priest, who cared for plague victims in 1315.  I thought Louis must have had this church built as an insurance policy.

St. Roch is famous for the people who are buried in the church:

-Pierre Corneille (1606 – 1684) – French playwright

-Le Nôtre (1613 – 1700) – the landscape designer, who created gardens at Versailles and Vaux-le-Vicomte for Louis XIV and Finance Minister Fouquet respectively

-Diderot (1713 – 1784) – the renowned intellectual, who edited the Encyclopedia that created the foundation for the Enlightenment.  The Enlightenment spawned the writers, who created the intellectual basis for the American and French Revolutions

Part 2 about St. Roch will follow…

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

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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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