Touring the Abbaye de Chaalis (Parisian Countryside): Visiting the Archives for Art Historian Emile Male and Jean-Jacques Rousseau by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring the Abbaye de Chaalis (Parisian Countryside):  Visiting the Archives for Art Historian Emile Mâle and Jean-Jacques Rousseau with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

We spent Basille Day visiting the Abbaye de Chaalis in the countryside east of Paris.  This Abbaye was founded in 1136 by King Louis le Gros (Louis the Fat).

The Abbaye de Chaalis is run by the Institut de France.  They give excellent, private tours, but they are only available in French.

I liked the room with art historian Emile Mâle’s books and journals in it.  Mâle specialized in the art of the Middle Ages.  I read all of Mâle’s books in college in English and then in French when I lived in France.  I switched my personal preferences from modern art to French medieval art, because of his writings.

Mâle was the curator of the collection at Chaalis at one time.  His daughter gave the museum his sword from the Académie Française to preserve and protect when he died.

We also visited the Jean-Jacques Rousseau room.  The guide told us that whenever Russian visitors came to visit France, they always wanted to see Rousseau’s artifacts at Chaalis.  The Russians told guides that Rousseau’s book The Social Contract was a foundation for the development of Communism.

When Laurent and I left the Abbaye de Chaalis, we passed by Ermenoville where Rousseau was buried on a wooded island before his tomb was moved to the Panthéon in the Latin Quarter in Paris.

We also passed the kiddy amusement park called Parc Astérix after the French comic book series.

That was a fun outing capped off by a dinner with a Margherita pizza (provolone cheese and basil on top of tomato sauce), some rosé, and a lemon sorbet.

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

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Touring Sainte-Madeleine Basilica in Vezalay: Visiting Burgundy's Church Celebrating Foreign-Language Study with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring Sainte-Madeleine Basilica in Vézalay:  Visiting Burgundy’s Church Celebrating Foreign-Language Study with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

On a cool spring day, my husband Laurent and I went on a weekend road trip to Burgundy to visit the Sainte Madeleine Basilica in Vézalay.

When we arrived, we parked at the bottom of the hill leading up to the Basilica and began our climb.  The street leading up to the Basilica was lined with souvenir shops, art galleries, and wine cellars selling Vézalay wine.

I bought a French-language book on heraldry, family crests that were used on armor.  Obviously, French heraldry differs from English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and German heraldry, because their armies faced each other on battlefields.

The Michelin green touring guide for Burgundy explained the significance of the Basilica Sainte Madeleine.  A church and abbey have always stood on the Basilica’s site since the 9^th century when it was founded by Girart de Rousillón.

The Basilica is famous for several reasons:

-Saint Bernard called for the Second Crusade from the Basilica’s pulpit on March 31, 1146

-The relics of Mary Magdalen were housed in the Basilica, which made it a pilgrimage site.  However, other relics of Mary Magdalen were found at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume in southeastern France close to Aix-en-Provence.

-Vézalay is also the starting point for one of France’s four pilgrimage routes that lead to Saint Jean Pied-de-Port in the Pyrénées and eventually Saint Jacques de Compostela.

-Finally, during the Third Crusade, Richard the Lionheart, and Philip Augustus met at Vézalay on their way to the Holy Land.

The Basilica at Vézalay still attracts hordes of visitors thanks to its restoration by Viollet-le-Duc, who also restored Nôtre Dame in Paris.  The Basilica was fully restored in 1859.

Visitors have always come to the Basilica at Vézalay to admire its tympanum, the half-circle arch over the main church entranceway, which portrays Christ giving his apostles the Gift of Tongues to speak foreign languages.

The Gift of Tongues is celebrated during the Catholic Feast of Pentecost.  Ridged rays shoot out from Christ’s hands to show him giving his apostles the Gift of Speech, or ability to speak foreign languages, to spread his gospel.

The tops of the columns inside the Basilica all had elaborate foliage and fantastic beasts on them.  The lateral aisles around the main pews perfectly show that the Basilica was built to accommodate circulating crowds of pilgrims.

After visiting Vézalay, we went to Dijon and walked around town for an hour.  I just wanted to look at the rooftops with their diamond-shaped rooftops.

We did not have rooftops like that in Paris.  The diversity of just architectural styles in France never ceased to amaze me.  This diversity revealed different climactic patterns, building materials, and different cultural living patterns.  I still love driving around the French countryside for this reason.

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

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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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