Touring Angers (France): Viewing the Famous Apocalypse Tapestry with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring Angers (France):  Viewing the Famous Apocalypse Tapestry with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

One day while on the way to celebrate Easter at my in-laws home in Nantes, my husband Laurent and I stopped at the Château d’Angers to go on the tour and view the Apocalypse Tapestry.

We climbed the massive black-and-white striped towers of the Château and admired the gardens at the foot of the tower as well as the Maine River, a tributary of the Loire River below us.

The main item I wanted to see at the Angers Château was the Apocalypse Tapestry.  The tapestry was made for Louis 1^st – the Duke of Anjou following patterns made by Hennequin de Bruges between 1373 and 1383.   76 squares form the ensemble.

The guide told us that the tapestry symbolically transmits the original Greek meaning of the word “revelation.”

The guide was referring to the passing from an Old World to a New One.  The New World is represented by a heavenly Jerusalem versus the whore’s town of Babylon as it was referred to in the Bible.

I liked the scene where the Archangel Michael bested the demons in combat:  you could not go to the New Jerusalem with demons in tow.

We walked around town and then went to the grocery store to buy some Easter gifts for the family:

-Quarts de Chaume wine, which is like a Sauternes from Bordeaux, but produced in the Anjou region

-A huge chocolate bell

Bells are the symbol of Easter in Western France not bunnies as in Eastern France, which has German influence

-Foil-covered Chocolate Eggs

-A large, mauve colored Hortensia for the garden

Everything went in the air-conditioned car to go to the French grandparents’ home for Easter.

The next day my French father-in-law tied chocolate eggs to the bushes like Germans do and hid the other chocolate goodies in the garden.

Florence scampered around with her Easter basket and squealed, “Chocolat” as she found some more Easter booty.  We took photos for her American grandmother to put in her company newsletter’s “Cute Grandkids” column.

We went inside and ate roast leg of lamb, green lentils from Puy, steamed potatoes with chopped parsley and garlic on them, and a Bordeaux Haut-Médoc red.  Desserts could vary, but that was the Easter meal.

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

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Touring Rheims: Visiting France's Coronation Town of French Kings with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring Rheims:  Visiting France’s Coronation Town of French Kings with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Rheims in eastern France is the modern capital of Champagne country and the “ancient” site where the Kings of France have been coronated in the Cathedral.

My husband Laurent and I set out on a chilly, fall day to visit the Cathedral and the Palais de Tau next door, which houses the coronation regalia and holy oil used to consecrate France’s kings.

We had gone to Saumur a few months before and went on the production tour at Gratien et Meyer, so we already knew about “methode champenoise” production and decided to focus our tour on the Cathedral and the Palais de Tau Museum.

I was surprised to see how different the architecture was from that of Paris.  The residential and office buildings had a central doorway with three or four steps leading up to the doorway.

Windows were very tall and had borders around them.  The architectural ornamentation appeared heavier than that of buildings in Paris.  Buildings in Paris look delicate in comparison – fragile even.

We were able to park right in front of the Cathedral.  The gigantesque statues on the façade are visible at a distance.  My favorite statue was of an angel with a sweet smile and a tilt of the head.

The statues on the Cathedral take up half the building.  You can see them from a distance for miles around.  The Cathedral itself is a rust color and very imposing due to the gigantesque statues on it.

We went next door to the Palais de Tau, which houses the tapestries, priests’ sacramental clothing, holy vessels, and other items associated with the coronation of French kings and queens.  There were no books available at the time about how the coronation of the kings took place.

After the museum, we walked around town and ate lunch.  There are many galleries and passages (the forerunners of shopping malls) with shops in Rheims.

We stopped at the local merry-go-round.  Florence stayed on for four rides.  She laughed the entire time.

I noticed when I bought the merry-go-round tickets that people in Rheims said, “S’il vous plait” for “thank you” as they did in Brussels, Belgium.

By Ruth Paget, Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Touring Vaux-le-Vicomte: Visiting the Chateau that Made Louis XIV Build Versailles by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Vaux-le-Vîcomte:  Visiting the Château that Made Louis XIV Jealous Enough to Build Versailles with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The Château at Vaux-le-Vîcomte is located south of Paris by the Château at Fontainebleau.  The Château has almost Rococo parterres in the gardens that were designed by André le Nôtre.

Louis XIV was so jealous when he saw Vaux-le-Vîcomte that he had Versailles built and jailed his finance minister, Nicholas Fouquet (1615 – 1680), who owned Vaux-le-Vîcomte.

Louis XIV hired Fouquet’s artists to build Versailles as well:

-Louis le Vau (architect)

-André le Nôtre (landscape architect)

-Charles le Brun (painter-decorator)

Fouquet was a royal financier, who became “too big for his britches” as Appalachian Americans would say.  He loved learning, embellishing his Château, and serving elaborate dinners on a gold service.  Everyone was jealous of him besides Louis XIV.

He chose as his motto “Quo non ascendet.”  This means “How high will I go?”

Fouquet’s downfall began when he invited Louis XIV to dine at his newly finished Château at Vaux-le-Vîcomte.  The king and his mother, Anne of Austria, lived at the defensive Château at Saint-Germain-en-Laye.  I am sure they noticed that Fouquet had more gold on his table than Louis XIV had in the nation’s treasury.

Vaux-le-Vîcomte was built for pleasure.  The Great Gatsby would have loved holding champagne and caviar parties here while chasing Daisy Fay Buchanan around the parterres in the garden.

The Château’s interior mythological paintings were painted by Charles le Brun.  Fouquet did have more gold tableware than Louis XIV, who needed back pay for his troops.  He ate dinner, left, had Fouquet arrested, paid his soldiers, and took Fouquet’s artists to build his château at Versailles.

When Louis XIV said, “L’Etat c’est moi” that meant everything belonged to him, including noble men, women, children, their portable property, and their châteaux.  (Mel Gibson's movie Braveheart is a great example of royal and aristocratic rights over serfs in Scotland, which was similar to France.)

The musketeer d’Artagnan arrested Fouquet on September 15, 1661 in Nantes for graft on a state financial transaction. A special court was set up to try Fouquet. 

After three years, the verdict decided upon was banishment from the kingdom.  Louis XIV did not want Fouqet to leave the country and imposed a sentence of life imprisonment on him instead.

Fouquet’s motto should have been, “Do not cheat the king out of his money.”

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

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Touring Honfleur: Visiting Normandy's Port that Explorer Jacques Cartier Used to Sail to Canada by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring Honfleur:  Visiting Normandy’s Port that Explorer Jacques Cartier Used to Sail to Canada by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

My husband Laurent and I set out on another rainy, damp winter day to visit the port town of Honfleur in Normandy, France.

Honfleur is a Norman town, which is located at the mouth of the Seine River.  This prime location made it a prime destination for marauding Vikings, who used the Seine River to go to Paris and steal treasures from Parisians.

Rollo, the chief of the Normans, became the Duke of Normandy in 911 after signing the Treaty of St. Clair-sur-Epte.  The legacy of the Normans lives on in their blonde descendants.

Honfleur was also the port where Jacques Cartier left for the New World in 1534 as an explorer.  Francis 1^st (House of Valois) was disappointed that what would become Canada held no gold, diamonds, or spices.

It was not until the 17^th century that Samuel de Champlain founded Québec in 1608 that Canada’s wealth became apparent.  Louis XIV knew that he could make money in the fishing industry and fur trade for the fashion industry from his Canadian colony.

My memories of Honfleur are of drizzling cold rain, which obscured the outlines of the buildings.  At 2 o’clock, we ate at the Sainte-Catherine Church Restaurant, which is right in front of the church of the same name.

Laurent and I ordered the same delicious meal:

- moulies marnières – mussels steamed in white wine with chopped shallots and chopped parsley sprinkled on top just before serving

- grilled salmon fillets with sautéed vegetables

- a slice of camembert cheese, a regional cheese from Normandy with a creamy center that you can spread on toasted bread

- chocolate mousse

We drank a Muscadet from the mouth of the Loire River on the Atlantic Ocean with our nice meal.

The Sainte-Catherine Church was built entirely of wood with stone foundations.  It is similar to the wood stave churches of Norway; they were part of the marauding Scandinavians, who came to France.

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

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Touring Trouville: Visiting Normandy's Famous Fish Market Town with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Trouville:  Visiting Normandy’s Famous Fish Market Town with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

My husband Laurent and I broke up a rainy, polluted Parisian winter day by driving out to Normandy to visit the oceanfront town of Trouville on the English Channel.

Trouville sits across from Deauville (home of the American Film Festival).  You have to cross the tiny, River Touques to go from one town to the other.

Deauville and Trouville are neighbors, but are completely different from one another. 

Deauville is a resort with yachting facilities, a casino, a long beach boardwalk, a horserace track, and numerous restaurants with outdoor terraces for showing off expensive sunglasses and signing autographs, if you are in show business. 

People will still eat seafood platters in Deauville when it is 50 degrees outside and be perfectly happy in their cashmere sweaters and scarves.

Trouville, on the other hand, is famous for its fish market.  More people cook at home here despite the very good port restaurants.

The fish market is the most exciting part of town.  The day’s catch is displayed with good wines to go with the fish.  Fish with glistening eyes and crimson red gills are what housewives look for to cook at home.  

Housewives scurry about with their metal, wheeled shopping caddies to buy lots of fish and six bottles of a wine they know at a time.

The travel writer Jan Morris described Trouville as a town of artists in her book Among the Cities.  A statue of Gustave Flaubert greets visitors to the port.  The writer Proust vacationed here as did the Impressionist painter Monet.

I was also ready to call Trouville the City of Artists for all its specialty food shops.

One of Trouville’s local pastry shops was named “Au Succulent.”  Another shop had a cookbook on Norman cuisine with bottles of Normandy’s apple brandy called Calvados next to it. 

Calvados and a little crème fraîche on steamed mussels sounded great I thought.  We ate some mussels prepared that way called Moules à la Normande that made a cold day visit to Trouville seem very warm.

I still love breathing in salty, ocean air and think it makes food taste better.

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

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