Bonjour, my dear friends and subscribers, both new and long-time.

Un grand merci (a big thank you) for being part of this wonderful global family of Francophiles. Your support enables me to continue growing and improving MyFrenchLife™ Magazine and the le Bulletin newsletter, offering more to this growing global community.

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Here’s what you’ll find today:

1. This week “16.18.a - They Found Us. And France Has Never Been More Inexhaustible.

2. The Writers’ Room returns next week - [MyFrenchLife Magazine Contributor Profiles, where you’ll learn more about our contributors than others know!]

3. This week’s ‘What’s happening in ‘MyFrenchLife™ Magazine’ - a selection of new contributors and fresh articles.

4. You can also find the free newsletter ‘‘16.18 - France Gets Under Your Skin. These Writers Show You How→here, on Saturday.

Warm regards
Judy - 9.5.2026

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Today at a Glance: Your FREE weekly newsletter

Bonjour mes ami(e)s !

It’s wonderful to have you back here with me today. Bienvenue !

1. A New Chapter for MyFrenchLife™ Magazine Contributors

2. In this newsletter, you’ll find these wonderful fresh articles taking you to France beyond the cliché,

3. Don’t miss the PAID subscriber edition of le Bulletin in your inbox: “16.18.a - They Found Us. And France Has Never Been More Inexhaustible.. It’s not too late to upgrade & read it←

   À bientôt !
   Warmly,
   Judy - 9.5.2026
   

1. A New Chapter for MyFrenchLife™ Magazine Contributors - check out these new profiles

Profile #3 - Shelby Chambers

• To Find THE LIST of MyFrenchLife™ Magazine CONTRIBUTORS:
  [https://myfrenchlife.org/p/contributors-myfrenchlife-zine ]

• TO FIND SHELBY CHAMBERS’ WORK:
  [https://www.myfrenchlife.org/t/shelby-chambers ]

2. MyFrenchLife™ Magazine: new articles

→Introducing New Contributor Elizabeth Joubert

I’m a Californian who was a marine biologist before moving to France and trading my wetsuit for pen and paper. “

After three years in Limoges, we made the Paris area home. We have two daughters, who speak perfect Franglais. Thanks to frequent school holidays, I’m an expert at entertaining kids in Paris.”

I love the ballet, opera, and museums; my carte blanche for the Musée d’Orsay is a treasured possession. My writing, which focuses on culture and identity, has appeared in Newsweek, Zibby Mag, The Haven, and my Substack, This Week in France. “

A nature lover, I like to explore the parks and green spaces around Paris where I live with my husband and two daughters. I spend several weeks a year hiking and skiing in the Alps.”

In the land of bread and cheese, I am both gluten- and dairy-free, curse the heavens,” said Elizabeth Joubert.

It’s now my pleasure to ask you to join me in welcoming Elizabeth and learning more about her and her life through her beautiful first article with us: “Finding Nature in the Heart of Paris.”

a) Finding Nature in the Heart of Paris
by Elizabeth Joubert

I’m fanatical about our abundant parks and green spaces, which were an unexpected gift of our move to Greater Paris. When we came to the city from the rural outskirts of Limoges, we knew we’d have more access to culture, but were delighted to realize we’d increased our access to nature, too.”

My French husband and I started our lives together in California, but I had the bright idea to move to France when we had our first baby, so we could all be bilingual (it worked out in the long run, but boy, was that a transition). We’d hoped to go to Paris, but ended up in an agricultural community that was the definition of bucolic. I worked to appreciate the local character, which included lots of farm animals…” wrote Elizabeth.

Read the full story→

Leave a comment

b) Everything You Always Wanted to Know About French Herb & Spice Blends
by Laura Washburn Hutton

There were two choices: fill in the forms for my French taxes or clean the spice cabinet. No prizes for guessing what happened.”

There were the usual duplicate spice jars and a few out-of-date items for keeping, because you never know. And, a surprising number of blends, given that I’m not a huge fan of spice blends.”

Surprisingly, also, hardly any are French.”

There are always exceptions…” wrote Laura Washburn Hutton

Read the full story→

Leave a comment

c) Little French Joys That Keep Me Going
by Shelby Chambers

…I’m not sure if it’s due to age, motherhood, or desperate times, but I’m on a corny and earnest mission of late to try to appreciate the little things in life. “

Maybe some appreciation will make this year a tad more bearable until the midterm elections, until work picks up, until the sun comes out again, both figuratively and literally…” writes Shelby Chambers.

Read the full story→

Leave a comment

d) Four Notes and a Nation
by Judy MacMahon

The man at the centre of the story is Michaël Boumendil, founder of a Paris-based sound branding agency called Sixième Son. In 2004, the SNCF came to him with a problem. The SNCF had always used a jingle, but it was the old one, the Do-Me-Sol of the 1990s, and it had gone stale. The company was going through a full rebrand, new logo and all, and the sonic identity needed to keep pace. Boumendil’s brief was simple: give France’s national railway a sound that people would actually feel something about.”

Before a single note was composed, Sixième Son did something quite unusual…”

Read the full story→

Leave a comment

3. Merci mille fois

“Thank you for subscribing to ‘le Bulletin’, the newsletter of MyFrenchLife™ Magazine.”
Judy MacMahon

Merci mille fois d’être ici, mes ami(e)s. Thanks for being here.

This week feels like a proper gathering.

Elizabeth Joubert joins our community as a new contributor, bringing nature, Paris, and a perspective that’s entirely her own.

Laura Washburn Hutton turns a spice cabinet into a rabbit hole — as they tend to do. Shelby Chambers gives small joys the attention they deserve.

And in Four Notes and a Nation, I was digging deep. I went looking for the story behind the most heard sound in France. I loved writing that piece. Sound is such an intimate thing, and this story took me somewhere unexpected. I hope it does the same for you.

Merci à toutes. To Elizabeth, Laura, and Shelby — thank you for taking our readers deeper into France, beyond the cliché, exactly where we love to be.

À bientôt.
Judy
judy@myfrenchlife.org

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No prizes for guessing what happened.

There were the usual duplicate spice jars and a few out-of-date items for keeping, because you never know. And, a surprising number of blends, given that I’m not a huge fan of spice blends.

Surprisingly, also, that hardly any are French.

There are always exceptions.

Épices Rabelais, a spontaneous supermarket purchase, was on the shelf. I had no idea what it was, I bought it purely because the box is so fabulous.

The Essential French Herb & Spice Blends

• Herbes de Provence

• Fines Herbes

• Quatres Épices

• Bouquet garni

None of these are in my possession. Blends, for almost any cuisine, rely on someone else to decide the exact balance of flavours. Plus, recipes vary between manufacturers and they can sometimes contain fillers, like cornstarch. The quality of the ingredients is also questionable. I have no faith that what ends up in a blend is the same quality as buying a single herb or spice from a reputable source.

Herbes de Provence

Do you have one of those ceramic jars of Herbes de Provence lurking in your pantry? ¹

If you do, does it say what goes into the blend and in what amounts?

The genuine article will have a Label Rouge from France.² This is a government decree to identify and certify food products that are deemed to be of superior quality. It does not have to be organic, it does not even have to be from France. It just has to conform to what has been identified as the good stuff. Confusingly, this may or may not include conforming to a standard preparation.

Since the Label Rouge can be applied to many things, what quality means varies across the certification, but it is meant to be an indication of above-par, according to someone. This is not to be confused with other more rigorous French certifications such as AOP, AOC, IGP, AB: all topics for another day.

For Herbes de Provence, a Label Rouge is also said to guarantee the percentages of each ingredient, thus a precise blend.

The Label Rouge percentages for Herbes de Provence are 19 % thyme and 27 % each of rosemary, winter savory and oregano. These proportions are based, as far as I can tell, on an age-old provençal recipe.

A non-certified Herbes de Provence blend may also include marjoram, bay leaf, fennel seed, lavender, sage, basil… If you have a jar in your spice cabinet, have a look and let me know what it says.

An online search for a Label Rouge Herbes de Provence in your country may reveal a place to buy some. At the time of going to press, I could not find an online source in the USA. The closest I came was from this supplier³ HOWEVER, their blend has 26% (not the genuine 27%) of each of the three main herbs and an extra 3% basil. Yet it has the Label Rouge! There is so much wrong in the world and now we also need to worry about the authenticity of authentification?

What irks me most is they have chosen to adulterate the traditional blend with basil. Of all things! Dried basil is an aberration. Use it fresh or do not bother. Adding it because this is supposed to be provençal is beyond acceptable.

Fines Herbes

In English, this translates as fines herbes.

So, what exactly does it mean.

The most consistent explanation is that fines herbes are all the herbs that grow in kitchen gardens, or potagers. This seems plausible, but the danger of the internet is we all just repeat the same misinformation.

Wikipedia, the French version, is my source of choice for explaining this culinary term. It says that fines herbes were defined by Auguste Escoffier in the early 1900s, in a recipe for an omelette aux fines herbes, and the herbs were mainly parsley and chives, with a little bit of chervil and tarragon.⁴ Julia Child has a recipe for this too.

No proportions are given but that mixture is about as French as they get. The other thing to notice is these are all soft-leaved herbs; herb blends are always dried and these herbs in particular do not dry well. There is no reference to a dried herb blend, so my assumption is Wikipedia is referring to fresh herbs.

Not all herbs take well to drying. Thyme, rosemary, sage, oregano—for example—are herbs that dry well. The soft-leaved kind, all of the plants mentioned for fines herbes, rarely survive this process with their flavour intact. Tarragon, at a stretch, otherwise these herbs should be used fresh or not at all, because the taste of dried is so inferior.

In conclusion, fines herbes refers to what you have growing on your windowsill or near the garden door, soft-leaved plants for the most part. Best to include at least parsley and chives and prefer fresh to dried.

Quatres Épices

The spice blend, Quatres Épices, is a French ingredient and it is most often a combination of pepper, clove, nutmeg and ginger. Sometimes cinnamon is used to replace the ginger but there are no hard and fast rules about the mixture. It is meant to mimic ground allspice.

The allspice berry is native to the French West Indies, so you will find it, or the quatres épices spice blend, used in dishes from these islands. In traditional French cuisine, it is used in recipes for pâtés, terrines, charcuteries and game dishes, in general.

I found one US source⁵, offering a good selection of products, which says the blend is born out of the 17th-century French colonization of North Africa and that the French use quatres épices to season the North African speciality of couscous. I am simply the messenger and this needs to be backed up with more evidence. I will start asking around.

To make things more confusing, there is also a French spice blend called Cinq Épices, which is Chinese Five Spice in English.

Bouquet Garni

An outlier in this category, because whole herbs and whole sprigs of the plant are used, this is technically a blend because the purpose of it in French cooking is to use these herbs in combination and not add them as separate ingredients.

Another distinction is that a bouquet garni can be either fresh or dried, or both at the same time, which is why I have no bouquet garni jars in the cupboard. If one is needed, I make it, and it will always have fresh parsley stems in it. Furthermore, I may wrap the whole thing in a leek green or two before tying it together. Bouquet garni means different things to different people.

The point of using a bouquet garni is that you want the flavour to seep out from the aromatics during cooking but you do not want bits to remain in the dish. By tying together in a tidy parcel, it is easier to fish the bundle out at the end. Think bay leaf; you add one and remove it before serving. If you do this with a few thyme sprigs, good luck fishing them out at the end. I speak from experience. Thus, the genius of the bouquet garni.

There is a version of bouquet garni which consists of dried herbs enclosed in a little muslin parcel. A useless purchase, at the risk of repeating myself, because this will be a random mix of varying quality, as are all bought blends.

Below is a useful short video on how to assemble a bouquet garni. This is the fresh kind, using leek, and string to help you remove it from the pot. He does say to tie it to the handle of the pot if you like. Plus, he adds a nifty bonus bouquet involving garlic cloves and toothpicks. This is in French but easily understood with the visuals. If anything is unclear, ask me what you need to know in the comments.

Épices Rabelais

Back to the tantalizingly packaged mystery spice blend.

Legend, and the company website, have it that this spice blend was created in Marseille in 1880 by Raynaud de Mazan, a man of curious disposition and culinary skill, who had the idea to bring together spices from North Africa with herbs from the Provençal hillsides.

The premise—of combining flavours from the cuisine of southern France with that of North Africa—makes perfect sense since they face one another on opposing shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

Naturally, the exact recipe for this blend is a highly guarded secret, even to this day. The composition is described thus:

« Rosemary, Coriander, Bay Leaf, Marjoram, Fennel, Aniseed, Herb Blend, Cloves, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Spice Blend… and a few mystery ingredients »

Is it legal, in this era of rampant food allergies, to say that ‘spice blend’ and ‘herb blend’ and ‘mystery ingredients’ are used? Surely they are simply amping up the intrigue by repeating these magical words. The whole thing is a spice and herb blend, so that bit is factual.

Upon opening the box, the ingredients are not in a plastic packet but encased in a charming and eco-friendly white paper bag, folded over not even sealed. Cute on the inside too, but the overwhelming aroma was of cloves. It’s a good thing the box is so decorative and the brand storytelling is so convincing, otherwise, I’m not sure I would have persisted.

Once opened, you will need to transfer this to a sealed container to keep it fresh; the paper bag is not ideal.

Do have a look at the website. They have many more products and some fun merch. I am not sure how it works for shipping outside the EU but there are international sources of Épices Rableais, minus the stuff. Other online French food suppliers sell Épices Rabelais too, all the links are at the end.⁶

Recipe:

On the box, there is a recipe for pot-au-feu. I was unsure of what exactly to cook with the stuff so following the box seemed a good idea. It was. Pot-au-feu uses different cuts of beef but I had chicken pieces that needed eating, so a chicken pot-au-feu/braise of sorts was born.

In case you are unfamiliar, pot-au-feu is meat and bones simmered for hours in a vegetable-rich liquid. It is a meal in itself: the broth is served on its own to start, then a platter with the meat is presented, alongside or with, a platter of the vegetables and everyone helps themselves. Marrow bones are included and these can be served on their own with slices of grilled bread for spreading the marrow. Coarse grain mustard and cornichons are de rigeur as accompaniments.

A whole chicken, cut in pieces, would be ideal for my version but I had bone-in thigh and breast portions. Whatever you use, it must have bones. For flavour.

Vegetables can vary but please include leeks, carrots, and onions. I also used rutabaga plus separately cooked small potatoes. Slender branches of celery with leaves were added more as an aromatic than a vegetable, but they are for eating too. Turnips would have been great.

I cooked the potatoes separately and added them about 30 minutes before the end because there was no room in the pan! If you have room, add the potatoes about 1 hour before the end of cooking.

The Épices Rabelais lent a surprisingly good flavour to this otherwise unadorned dish. Cooking softened the the taste of the cloves so it mingled rather than dominated and the finished taste was certainly more all the spices.

Pot-au-feu is a subtle dish and I am highlighting this to manage expectations. No chilli or miso or umami blast of any kind, as is so often the case these days. Just simple fare, simply cooked. A reason why good quality ingredients at the outset are important; good stuff tastes good without the need for lots of flourishes.

This is easy to put together but cooking time takes a few hours so start well in advance or cook a day ahead and refrigerate until needed.

A perfect dish for early spring, when we are ready for warmer days but we do not always have them.

Chicken Pot-au-Feu aux Épices Rabelais

Serves 4 -6

• 2-3 bone-in chicken breast portions

• 6 bone-in chicken thighs

• Sunflower oil

• 1-2 TBSP épices Rabelais

• Table salt

• 1 large leek, cut into pieces

• 2 large carrots, peeled and cut into pieces

• 1 large onion, thickly sliced

• 1 rutabaga/swede, peeled and cut into chunks

• 2 inner celery branches

• 2-3 large garlic cloves, peeled and smashed

• 1 bay leaf

• Small potatoes, allow 4-6 per person depending, peeled or not as you prefer

• Baking parchment

• Coarse-grain mustard and cornichons, to serve

Trim excess fat from the chicken pieces.

Put the chicken in a large mixing bowl, add just enough oil to coat lightly and toss well. Season the pieces all over with salt, then add the Épices Rabelais and toss again, using your hands to massage everything in. Let stand at least 30 minutes, covered.

Preheat the oven to 160ºC.

Heat a large ovenproof skillet, it needs to have a lid for later, and when hot, add the chicken pieces, skin-side down, and cook until golden brown. Turn and cook the other side until browned.

Add everything else except the potatoes, season the vegetable layer with some salt and add water to come up about two-thirds of the way.

Bring just to the boil, then lower the heat.

Cut a piece of parchment just larger than your pan, crumple it under some running water and squeeze out the excess; this makes it easier to fit in the pan. Set on top of the veg and tuck in lightly around the edges. Cover with a lid and transfer to the oven.

Cook slowly for about 1 hour, then remove and, using tongs, swap it around so the chicken pieces are on top of the veg. If you have room and are adding raw potatoes do it now and then tuck it all back in under the parchment and lid and return to the oven for another 45 minutes.

Check all is cooked, it may need another 20-30 minutes. And taste the broth before serving, you may need to salt a bit more.

To serve, arrange the chicken pieces on one platter, the vegetables on another and divide the broth between bowls to start. Accompany with coarse-grain mustard and cornichons.

NOTE: If you want to make this but do not want to get any Épices Rabelais, you could try replacing the spices with a good coating of dried thyme at the outset, to which you could add a tsp or 2 or 3 of ground cumin. And a generous grinding of black pepper. Another substitution that might be nice is ras el hanout, the Moroccan spice blend.

Don’t forget to look at your jars of French spice blends and tell me what the ingredients are!

Links and Further Reading

I’m fanatical about our abundant parks and green spaces, which were an unexpected gift of our move to Greater Paris. When we came to the city from the rural outskirts of Limoges, we knew we’d have more access to culture, but were delighted to realize we’d increased our access to nature, too.

My French husband and I started our lives together in California, but I had the bright idea to move to France when we had our first baby, so we could all be bilingual (it worked out in the long run, but boy, was that a transition). We’d hoped to go to Paris, but ended up in an agricultural community that was the definition of bucolic. I worked to appreciate the local character, which included lots of farm animals.

Limousine cattle pastured across our narrow street, and I greeted them each morning when I opened our shutters, then listened to the clucking of our neighbors’ chickens and the hissing of their hateful geese. The moos and squawks were not exactly dreamy, early-morning birdsong, but they were, at least, animal sounds. As a landlocked marine biologist, I leaned on what fauna I could.

At first, we were enamored with the lush greenery as we explored Limoges. A bike loop took us past rolling green cattle and sheep pastures, along mossy forest roads, and finally emerged into a golden colombage village built around a thirteenth-century abbey. 1

On my runs, I admired the sheep, the old stone barns, and the gnarled apple trees. In summer, I fueled my runs with blackberries picked from bushes that covered pasture fences, and in autumn, we hiked alongside chestnut foragers.

Over time, we realized our connection to nature was constrained. There were only two hiking trails, and both included sections through neighborhoods and around farms. Cattle pastured in the woods. Farmland encroached. There were no great tracts of wild space. While I initially ran all directions around our house, I eventually learned how dangerous the sinuous roads were for pedestrians. I was left with one route, which I ran every day. We had a lovely yard, as did everyone; nobody went for an evening walk, and few families used the local playground.

One yard, one running path, two hiking trails, one bike route. Desperate for new territory, I started jogging through undeveloped lots, untended fields, and pastures, always running into fences, fences, fences. That’s the deception of rural places: they look green and open, but the land is privately owned.

Cities play the opposite trick. They are made of concrete and their natural areas can feel forced—a tree here, a pocket park there—but cities can also contain wonderful green spaces, created by officials who know their citizens need to stand under the trees. I’ve visited impressive city parks: Vondelpark in Amsterdam, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, and the massive Central Park in New York, which I mistakenly thought I could walk around in an afternoon after hoofing it there from lower Manhattan (I made it to the far side of the reservoir before pooping out). My trek in New York exemplifies the freedom of cities: the streets are public, the green spaces are public, the riverbanks and oceanside…you get the idea. In a city, you can start from almost any place and walk as far as you like in any direction. Even if you see only concrete, there is an openness that rural and suburban places tend to lack. And anyway, you won’t see only concrete.

Paris is not the greenest city in the world, but it does contain a reported 500 parks and gardens. 2

Once we’d decided rural living was definitely not for us, we moved to Issy-les-Moulineaux, a city bordered by Paris and the Seine, and, as we’d discover, it is a great place to live outdoors.

"In the country, I had the experience of an ever-contracting world. 
In the city, my world is ever expanding — the park is the entrance to a forest, which is part of an expanse of nature so vast, a person could get lost out there for days and days."

Over our first weeks here, when my husband came home from work, I’d leave him with the kids and go for a run. It was the end of summer, and the days were long—I’d jog along the tree-lined bords de Seine during the golden hour. One evening, as I came back over the Pont de Billancourt, I slowed to look over the water. The setting sun glinted off the metal bridge, and houseboats rocked on the shore, and the sky fell raspberry and peach with that signature Parisian pale blue above.

The Eiffel Tower was straight ahead, and beyond it, the Basilica de Sacré-Cœur. I knew I could run all the way to Montmartre if I wanted to, and I was overwhelmed by a sense of freedom, like all those pasture fences came tumbling down. It was in that moment that I felt I’d found my French home.

We have lived here for more than ten years now, and I’ve slowly learned about the history of our area as I’ve set out walking and exploring. Since we’re on the axis between the capital and Versailles, our area was once dominated by châteaux. The palaces of Meudon, Saint-Cloud, and Marley have been lost to history, and those of Versailles and Saint-Germain-en-Laye have been transformed into national museums, but their gardens and woods remain and have been opened to us commoners.

My daughter’s gym class walks to the terrace of the Château de Bellevue, the former residence of the Dauphin of Louis XIV, to play ultimate frisbee. Every weekend, my husband runs twenty kilometers through the woods of Saint-Cloud, a former residence of Henri III, Marie Antoinette, and Napoleon I. What’s more, these parks connect. The year I ran the Paris Versailles half-marathon, I was delighted to discover most of the racecourse was through the forest—we started at the Eiffel Tower, went along the Seine and past our house, then headed into the forest of Meudon, and we stayed under the trees until we reached the Château de Versailles.

In the country, I had the experience of an ever-contracting world—running routes taken by cars, woods being chopped down for pastures. In the city, my world is ever expanding—the park is the entrance to a forest, which is part of an expanse of nature so vast that a person could get lost out there for days and days. In these now urban forests, I am constantly stumbling upon wild creatures.

In the span of two days last week, my kids and I saw tadpoles swimming in the man-made pond at the Parc de l’Île Saint Germain, and we discovered a blanket of frog eggs covering a mud puddle in the Forest of Meudon. Yesterday, I saw a swan from one of our local mating pairs in the water on his own for the first time this spring, so I suspect his partner is sitting on her eggs.

We know the nesting sites of two pairs of swans, two sets of kingfishers, and a great heron.

During Covid times, when we only had access to a small piece of riverfront, we knew a half-dozen clutches of ducklings by sight and tracked their daily dramas, including watching a lost, if not ugly, duckling try to find his mother among the gathered families.

Each spring, we welcome the appearance of fish fry in the shallows of the Seine, the baby water hens with their skinny toes, and the chirping of baby blue tits in the nest box. We eat wild blackberries in the park in August, and collect chestnuts in the forest in October. Once, a baby hedgehog zipped along the river walk as I followed behind, amazed. Another time, a large turtle cruised down the middle of the Seine. On a recent run in the park, two other women and I stopped to watch a baby fox trot across our paths. All of this, we can reach on our own two feet.

Because everything is proximal in the city, I feel like I experience nature every time I step out of my front door. Yes, the parks and forests can get crowded, but I enjoy that, too. Lots of people go into nature for solitude, but I write from home and have solitude aplenty. I love to be surrounded by other people who are enjoying the outdoors, to exclaim alongside strangers at the sudden appearance of a fox, a kingfisher diving for its dinner. Plus, now that we’ve lived here for more than a decade, I’ll usually see someone I know when I’m out.

I’m in better communication with our local flora and fauna—human neighbors included—here in the “grand couronne” of Paris than I was in rustic Limoges, where I mostly saw farm animals.

What a gift to have had heaped upon me, in addition to the ballet and the opera and the Japanese restaurants we came for.

Meanwhile, the region is only getting better as mayors push for the installation of more green space—pulling up concrete and laying down mulch wherever possible. In Paris and its suburbs, the transformation of many paved spaces into parks and urban forests has been gathering pace for years. Biologists are beginning to wonder if a city can become a nature refuge.3

For me, one already is.

Have you discovered that a city surprised you with its wildness — a fox crossing your path, a kingfisher, something you didn’t expect to find outside your front door? Tell me in the comments.

Elizabeth

Citations:

I’d like to kick this off by saying I feel like a real asshole writing about mundane or silly observations about life in France when my home country is buckling under the weight of its own poor decisions. (Nice way to say that fascism is popping off and it’s horrific.) I’ve been spending too many nights watching videos of violations of due process, the Constitution, and general human decency, and then crying. More recently, I’ve been watching even more videos of my fellow Americans fighting back, protecting their neighbors, chanting “shame” at people who need to hear it, which also makes me cry.

Meanwhile, I’m way over here, 6-9 hours ahead of North America, enjoying a galette de rois, with an option to tune out reality for a while if I so choose. Once again, the guilt of being far away, unable to help except by clicking donation buttons. It’s almost like my penance is to watch the news, stay up to date on every atrocity across multiple frontlines; at least if I’m not there, I won’t close my eyes. But someone, someone who lives in the US, told me to keep living my life and finding reasons to be happy if I’m able, for my own sake and for others. So I guess that’s what I’ll do, even if I might still be an asshole.

I’m not sure if it’s due to age, motherhood, or desperate times, but I’m on a corny and earnest mission of late to try to appreciate the little things in life. Maybe some appreciation will make this year a tad more bearable until the midterm elections, until work picks up, until the sun comes out again, both figuratively and literally. I’m also in the middle of writing about something that is kind of a downer, but I want to sandwich it with upbeat posts so that you don’t associate seeing “Franchement” in your inbox with bummer thoughts (even if that’s kind of the state of the world right now).

These are the types of appreciations I chant to myself to counteract the effects of a rude driver, a cramped metro, or when my child feels the need to point out every morsel of fecal matter we encounter on the street. Yeah, it’s literally shitty here sometimes, but at least the bread is good. As trite as the wisdom might be, appreciating the little things does make me feel better, so maybe I can pass it on and make at least one other person’s day a little brighter. I mean, figuratively brighter, because it’s mid-January in Paris; I can’t make any promises of sun.

Alors, a few of the little joys of French life that keep me going in winter, hard days, transport strikes, or dark times back home.

• The joy of doing a boulangerie run entirely in French, not messing up the gender of a type of bread, not having to repeat your order, and getting out of there with your pride intact.

• The first galette de rois of the year, and you find the fève.

• Walking through any town, village, or neighborhood, no matter the size, on market day.

• The fact that my phone plan with Free has been 19.99 for six years, including international data, unlimited internet, etc. Every year, I anticipate an email stating that my monthly rate is going to go up, as it used to back in the US. This has never happened, so I continue to pay in a year what I used to pay in a month for cell service. Bless the phone companies in Europe.

• Cheese distributeurs, aka cheese ATMs. Sometimes in cheese-focused regions, you can find cheese ATMs so that you can buy cheese when the cheese shops are closed, which is often, because this is France. These are also great if you don’t feel like interacting with a human. I’ve also bought potatoes, bread, pâté, and shrimp from an ATM here with varying results.

• Passing by castles and Medieval villages on road trips.

• No billboards on road trips.

• My child’s crèche. I freaking love his daycare, and not just because they take my child off my hands for 8 hours a day. I love that he eats better and more balanced lunches than I could make for him, usually three courses like beet salad, fish, and camembert. Last week,I saw a cheese mousse on the menu. He recently went to the opera on a field trip. And while it is not free by any means, it’s fairly priced based on income, and far less than I’d be paying back home.

• The Salon International de l’Agriculture (mark your calendars, it begins end of February!)

• Frankly, French cows in any setting.

• Quiet mornings because North America is asleep, so no one can bother me with emails or calls until after lunch.

• Crowded train stations on a Friday afternoon, when the SNCF “Beem, bomp, bomp bomp” sound plays before an announcement

• When vendors at the market give my son a little treat like an apple or morsel of cheese or a chouquette, just because he’s little and cute.

• Seeing a metro or train full of people reading. Well, yeah, a lot of them are still on their phones, but I’m always happy to see more than a few commuters reading actual paper books every day.

• Seeing a metro arrive with barely any people at all. Hell yeah, quiet metro, with our pick of seats.

• The Metro.

• French rest stops. I love seeing everyone crowded around the tall coffee-drinking tables and espresso machines, the only time you’ll see French folks enjoying a quick, standing coffee. The bathrooms are spacious and generally humane (clean-ish, useful, baby changing stations). You can buy essentials like baguettes and cheese and pâté and Haribos.

• A cheese-based meal of raclette or croziflette after a long day of skiing or ski-related activity (like reading next to the slopes from the safety of a bar or cafe).

• Walking out of your home to find out there’s a brocante or vide grenier taking place on your block, full of old treasures.

• Becoming pals with a butcher or baker or bar owner, knowing I’ve become a regular, enjoying the odd free drink or treat because we’re pals now.

• Making friends with other customers because I’m a regular, especially if they’re nothing like me, especially if they tell me my French is good.

• When I’m at a French function, and a song comes on or someone references a well-known jingle, and everyone at the function joins in singing because they all know it, and I’m happy for them even though I have no idea what they’re singing or where it’s from, but they all seem so happy, so it’s still a nice moment.

• Enjoying oysters and white wine at a market even though it’s not even noon yet, and despite the fact that the last time I had oysters, I became so sick, I thought I saw god.

• The prevalence of small book shops. The smell of these book shops (it’s what book stores smelled like in the US before Barnes & Nobel eradicated that model and scent). The way the book shops will wrap your book in beautiful paper, usually for free.

• When the waiter leaves you alone.

• When the waiter notices you need bread and brings it without you needing to ask.

• Manifestations. Yeah, they can be annoying if you need to get to the other side of one. But the right to assemble and disagree with the powers that be is looking mighty fine at the moment.

• Pharmacie visits that end without even having to reach for my wallet (well, except for my Carte Vitale, but you know what I mean).

• Same for Doctor’s appointments.

• Same for giving birth, having surgery, having an emergency.

• You know that day that always comes in March, the first day when the sun is out but you can actually feel the heat on your skin? The day when the cold no longer sneaks past your coat and into your heart? Everyone flocks to the terraces and basks in the rays, no matter that the high is only like 62 F. Even if you’re not out at a cafe, if you happen to walk or ride by, the joy is intoxicating and for a few moments, all is right with the world. I freaking live for that day each year. Also, yes, this is a metaphor.

If you take a step back, most of these little moments of joy are all thanks to food and socialism, with a little sunshine tucked in here and there. Could that be the secret to happiness? Food, socialism, and sunshine? One could do much worse. But let’s not think about that right now.

Let me know what I missed. Let’s crowdsource a big list to draw from when we’re feeling down.

Shelby

IMAGE CREDIT: all photos copyright Shelby Chambers

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Introducing Contributor, Selby Chambers

Immerse yourself in all of Selby’s articles on his Contributor page.

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Do. Sol. La. Mi.

Four notes. Less than three seconds. And yet, if you have ever stood on a platform in a French train station, waiting for an announcement about your train, your delayed train, your train that has inexplicably decided to go somewhere else entirely, those four notes are already inside you. They are the sound of France in transit. The sound of attends (wait). The sound of something about to happen.

I was listening to a BBC4 programme recently about the man who made them, and I have been thinking about it ever since. Because the story of those four notes turns out to be one of the more extraordinary tales in French cultural life. It involves a sound designer, a railway company willing to back him, two anonymous female singers who have kept their secret for twenty years, a rock legend holding his iPhone up to a train station speaker, a houseboat studio on the Thames, and eventually, inevitably, a lawsuit in Paris. Not bad for three seconds of audio.

The brief: give France’s railway a sound people will feel something about

The man at the centre of the story is Michaël Boumendil, founder of a Paris-based sound branding agency called Sixième Son. In 2004, the SNCF came to him with a problem. The SNCF had always used a jingle, but it was the old one, the Do-Me-Sol of the 1990s, and it had gone stale. The company was going through a full rebrand, new logo and all, and the sonic identity needed to keep pace. Boumendil’s brief was simple: give France’s national railway a sound that people would actually feel something about.

Before a single note was composed, Sixième Son did something quite unusual. According to The Beauty of Transport, the agency put SNCF’s own officials through a kind of mental retraining, pushing them to think about ‘identity’ rather than music. What does this company stand for? What should it feel like to travel with us? Only once those questions had been answered did the composition begin.

Boumendil later told Canal+ that what he wanted was simplicity: “four notes, with a rather feminine voice, would make a strong impression.” He was reportedly inspired by a Calogero song, “En apesanteur,” which means weightlessness, and has a floating, suspended quality to it. You can hear that in the final result, if you listen for it. There is something unresolved about those four notes, something that leans forward, that makes you pay attention. Which is, of course, exactly the point.

The notes were recorded using two female voices. To this day, nobody knows who those women are. They chose anonymity from the start, and in twenty years neither has ever come forward. Which, if you think about it, is its own kind of discipline.

The new jingle launched on 15 March 2005. France simply took it in, without fanfare, without fuss. It became, very quickly, part of the furniture of daily life.

Listen via video below:

One decision, no focus groups, and a man willing to carry the can

What most people don’t know is how close it came to never happening. The man who brought Boumendil in was Bernard Emsellem, SNCF’s director of communications, and the decision of what to do with Boumendil’s proposal rested entirely with him. He realised that something this innovative would almost certainly be killed by a focus group. The rail industry is conservative by nature, and asking a room full of people whether they’d like to replace a familiar chime with a human voice singing four notes in a minor key was unlikely to produce a standing ovation.

So Emsellem simply decided. No user testing, no research on acceptability, no committee. Just a single person putting himself out on a limb, knowing that if it went wrong, he would be carrying the can entirely alone. As The Beauty of Transport puts it, sometimes you have to lead opinion, not follow it.

It did not go wrong.

The almost absurd numbers

Here is what twenty years of four notes will do for you. According to Sixième Son’s own research, 98% of French people recognise the SNCF jingle. Ninety-four per cent associate it correctly with the brand. Eighty-one per cent say they feel genuinely ‘attached’ to it. Attached. To a train station sound logo.

It plays between 100,000 and 150,000 times a day, roughly 2.3 times per second, somewhere in France, right now as you read this. Do. Sol. La. Mi. It has been updated three times (in 2005, 2009 and 2013), each time modernising the production while leaving those four notes completely intact. It has won more sonic branding awards than any other sound identity in the world. It is, by any measure, the most recognised piece of French audio that isn’t the Marseillaise.

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Bonjour mes ami(e)s !

It’s wonderful to have you back here with me today. Bienvenue !

1. In this newsletter, you’ll find these wonderful fresh articles taking you to France beyond the cliché

2. Don’t miss our new Contributor focus feature - Victor Coutard this week.

3. Don’t miss the PAID subscriber edition of le Bulletin in your inbox: “16.17.a - The Long Way to Paris“ It’s not too late to upgrade & read it←

   À bientôt !
   Warmly,
   Judy - 2.5.2026
   

1. This week’s Contributor: Victor Coutard

We’re adding Contributor profiles to the list of the Contributor Page on MyFrenchLife.org — one by one.

Profile #3 - Victor Coutard

Victor Coutard — bilingual writer, Paris-born, but Loire Valley at heart, and the voice behind How to Read France, a Substack devoted to the France that exists beyond the showcase.

Ready to find his work? Come with me…

1. Head to MyFrenchLife.org and select Zine from the menu.

2. Click “READ THIS FIRST” and find our full list of contributors.

3. Scroll to Victor. Click Explore.

You’ll find his full profile there — and everything he’s written for us.

Bonne lecture,
Judy

PS: Any difficulty navigating? DM me or leave a comment below.

Victor’s Substack is: How to Get Lost→

2. MyFrenchLife™ Magazine: new articles

a) Interview: Tilar Mazzeo — Part One
by Judy MacMahon

This interview was conducted face-to-face and is now being republished due to reader request.

Tilar Mazzeo is a cultural historian who has thrown her heart and expertise into uncovering the stories of French luxury brands and the people behind them.”

Her first book,
-The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It, made the New York Times best-selling list.
- She has also written The Secret of Chanel No. 5: The Intimate History of the World’s Most Famous Perfume and is working on
- The Ritz at War: Luxury in Occupied Paris…”

Tilar researches the historical period, the brand, its industry, and its technology and science, and weaves this information effortlessly into a narrative. Her elegant writing helps bring the characters alive and evokes a true sense of time and place.

Tilar has also written guidebooks on California wine country and is an associate professor of English at Colby College, Maine…”

Read the full article→

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b) Interview: Tilar Mazzeo — Part Two
by Judy MacMahon

Part Two - the continuation of my interview with Tilar:

How did you start writing The Secret of Number 5 and The Ritz?

It’s funny how one thing leads to another as a writer. So I had just written The Widow Clicquot and two guidebooks: one on the back lane wineries of California, one on Napa. I was thinking about what my next project would be.

For the Napa book, I spent three months wine tasting every day, and your nose is something that gets trained with such regular use. At the end of that period, I happened to be at a friend’s house who was an amateur collector of vintage perfumes. He started pulling out really interesting, older, rare perfumes…”

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c) 20 Streets of Paris #4: Boulevard de Sébastopol
by Pierre Guernier

A journey of discovery through Parisian history, one street sign at a time - Let’s go!”

Stand at Place du Châtelet and look north: a long, straight boulevard cuts through Paris like a knife.

This is Boulevard de Sébastopol, one of Baron Haussmann’s grand creations of the mid-nineteenth century. Its name honours the capture of Sevastopol in 1855 during the Crimean War, a victory inscribed not in marble but into the very geography of the city.”

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d) Ce n’est pas une Librairie, Part Two
by Judy MacMahon

Dynasties are one answer (see Part One - last week). But Paris isn’t only about dynasties. There’s another kind of bookshop story happening right now, and it’s just as radical.”

It starts with a law. The law nobody talks about.”

Here is the thing about France that the rest of the world tends to miss, partly because France itself doesn’t shout about it. In 1981, the Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, pushed through a piece of legislation so quietly audacious that its consequences are still reverberating forty-odd years later…”

Read the full story→

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e) The Hidden Chapel of Cluny
by Patricia Russo

Most people walk right past it - or don’t even know it exists.”

Even inside the Musée de Cluny, with its soaring Lady and the Unicorn tapestries and the ancient Roman baths, this little chamber sits tucked away like a secret - a quiet pause, a pocket of stillness and breath.”

I found it several years ago as Paris continued to reveal herself to me - or it found me. The air changed when I stepped inside. The room was small, quiet, almost shy. And yet the space felt full, as if the stones themselves remembered every prayer ever whispered into them. Oh my goodness, do I love discovering spaces that feel like this.”

This is the hidden chapel of Cluny…” wrote Patricia Russo

Read the full story→

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3. Merci mille fois

“Thank you so much for supporting my work and reading ‘le Bulletin’.

Merci mille fois d’être ici, mes ami(e)s. Thanks for being here.

This week I’ve been thinking about my republished interview with Tilar Mazzeo — a cultural historian who researches French luxury the way a detective works a case, following the scent until the whole story opens up. Both parts are here today, and worth a slow read with a good coffee.

Then there’s Pierre Guernier on Boulevard de Sébastopol — one street, one Crimean victory pressed into the geography of Paris forever. And Patricia Russo, who found a tiny medieval chapel tucked inside the Musée de Cluny — a room so quiet, she says the stones themselves remember every prayer. I love that Patricia finds these places and brings them to us.

Victor Coutard is this week’s contributor focus — Paris-born, Loire Valley at heart, writing the France that exists beyond the showcase. If you don’t know his work yet, I think you’ll be glad you found it.

And if you’re curious about the 1981 law that quietly saved the French bookshop — that piece, along with a great deal more, is waiting for you in the paid edition. Whenever you’re ready.

À bientôt,
Judy x
judy@myfrenchlife.org

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Bonjour, my dear friends and subscribers, both new and long-time.

Un grand merci (a big thank you) for being part of this wonderful global family of Francophiles. Your support enables me to continue growing and improving MyFrenchLife™ Magazine and the le Bulletin newsletter, offering more to this growing global community.

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Here’s what you’ll find today:

1. The Writers’ Room - MyFrenchLife Magazine Contributor Profiles, where you’ll learn more about our contributors than others know!
   + find The Writers’ Room Archive - now, 11 Contributors exposed :)

2. This week’s ‘What’s happening in ‘MyFrenchLife™ Magazine’ - a selection of fresh articles.

3. You can also find the free newsletter ‘‘16.17 - →here, on Saturday.

Warm regards
Judy - 2.5.2026

1. THE WRITERS’ ROOM #12:

Meet the MyFrenchLife™ Magazine Contributors one by one…

The Writers’ Room is where storytellers become the story. Each week, one MyFrenchLife™ Magazine Contributor shares what shaped them, then hands the microphone to another Contributor colleague—building a chain of conversations exclusively for you, our committed supporters.
Bonne lecture.

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Most people walk right past it - or don’t even know it exists.

Even inside the Musée de Cluny, with its soaring Lady and the Unicorn tapestries and the ancient Roman baths, this little chamber sits tucked away like a secret - a quiet pause, a pocket of stillness and breath.

I found it several years ago as Paris continued to reveal herself to me - or it found me. The air changed when I stepped inside. The room was small, quiet, almost shy. And yet the space felt full, as if the stones themselves remembered every prayer ever whispered into them. Oh my goodness, do I love discovering spaces that feel like this.

This is the hidden chapel of Cluny.

A medieval fragment, intimate and unassuming, is offered to anyone who happens to fall into its orbit.

Below is the story I gathered: the history, the symbolism, and the subtle thread of legend that still lingers there. It is my hope that you will bookmark this post or add this sacred place to your list when you visit Paris. And should you want a direct path, I’d love to guide you there. (You can request a three-hour tour of Paris here.)

A Chapel Built for Silence

The chapel was created in the late fifteenth century, during the transformation of the Cluny town house into a residence for the abbots of Cluny. Though small in scale, it was designed as a private oratory, a place where the abbot could pray alone, away from the life of the court and the sounds of the city.

It is sometimes called the Chapel of the Holy Spirit, and once held a small altar and devotional objects that accompanied the abbot’s daily rhythm of prayer.

Its stone vaulting is carved with angels, flowers, and vegetal motifs, all whispering of the medieval belief that the divine could be found in every corner of life, in leaves, in archways, in the sacred geometry of the ceiling just above one’s gaze.

If you stand there long enough, the whole room begins to feel like a cup: a vessel carved for quiet.

A Sanctuary Imagined from Ruins

Much of the Cluny Museum is layered with time, Roman, medieval, Renaissance, and the chapel is part of this tenderness.

After the French Revolution, the building lost its religious function. The chapel suffered neglect, the altar disappeared, and the little room became just another architectural curiosity.

But when the museum was restored in the nineteenth century, the chapel was brought back to life with care and devotion. The starry vaulting was carefully reconstructed. The carved capitals were cleaned. And suddenly this forgotten room became a sanctuary again, even without a priest or liturgy.

The only thing added was light.

The Legend of Cluny’s “Breathing Walls”

There is a small legend associated with the chapel, not an official one, but one cherished by Cluny guides and medievalists.

It is said that the monks believed the walls of this place “breathed.”

The idea was not literal but symbolic: that when a person entered with sincerity, with a burden, or a question, or a feeling too heavy to name, the stones would absorb it. That the room itself was a kind of gentle keeper, a vessel that held the weight for you so you could walk out lighter.

This was common in medieval spirituality: the belief that sacred architecture worked in partnership with the soul.

A chapel was never just a room.
It was a participant.

A Small Blessing Hidden in the Middle of Paris

What moves me most is how simple it is.
No grand altar. No gilded icons. No choir.

Just a room that feels like a held breath.

A little sanctuary waiting in the middle of the city.
And perhaps that is the gift of Cluny’s hidden chapel: that holiness doesn’t always announce itself.

Sometimes it waits quietly, tucked between a staircase and a stone arch, hoping someone will wander in and recognize themselves.

Every time I step inside, I feel as if I’m touching the memory of devotion.

A Gentle Invitation

If you visit the Cluny Museum, pause when you find it.

Stand in the center.

Let your eyes soften.

Let your breath slow.

And imagine the centuries of seekers who came before you, abbots and travelers, pilgrims and poets, each leaving a small trace of their longing in the air.

The room still holds them.

And it will hold you, too.

Patricia

Introducing Contributor, Patricia Russo

Immerse yourself in all of Patricia’s articles on her Contributor page.

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MyFrenchLife™ – MaVieFrançaise® is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Stand at Place du Châtelet and look north: a long, straight boulevard cuts through Paris like a knife. This is Boulevard de Sébastopol, one of Baron Haussmann’s grand creations of the mid-nineteenth century. Its name honours the capture of Sevastopol in 1855 during the Crimean War, a victory inscribed not in marble but into the very geography of the city.

More than just a military memory, the boulevard was designed for movement — wide enough for traffic, straight enough for troops. It slices cleanly between Les Halles and the Marais, dividing old neighbourhoods with its airy scale. Shops and cafés line its pavements, yet the sense of power in its geometry is unmistakable.

Walking along it today, you feel the imprint of Haussmann’s Paris: order imposed on medieval chaos, light and perspective triumphing over twisting alleys. It is a boulevard that still carries both the weight of history and the everyday bustle of twenty-first-century life.

How well do you know Boulevard de Sébastopol? Do you think about it differently now? Do you have anything to add?

Introducing Contributor, Pierre Guernier:

Visit his Contributor Page — Explore more of Pierre’s work

Leave a comment

It starts with a law.

The law nobody talks about

Here is the thing about France that the rest of the world tends to miss, partly because France itself doesn’t shout about it. In 1981, the Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, pushed through a piece of legislation so quietly audacious that its consequences are still reverberating forty-odd years later.

The Loi Lang capped book discounts at five per cent. Supermarkets, big-box retailers, Amazon: all of them are legally prevented from undercutting the independent bookseller on the corner. Three-for-two deals, so beloved in the UK, are simply illegal in France. The government looked at a librairie and said, in effect: this is not a hardware store. This is not a commodity. This is a cultural institution, and we are going to protect it as one.

The result, if you want a single statistic to carry: France has around 3,500 independent bookshops. The UK, similar in population, has roughly 1,063. The USA, with five times France’s population, has around 2,500. France, in other words, has approximately as many independent bookshops as Britain and America combined. And the number is rising, not falling: 142 new ones opened in France in 2022 alone.

Not just surviving, many of them. Thriving. Inventing. Because the Loi Lang didn’t just protect bookshops from closure. It gave them the breathing room to ask a harder question: what does a bookshop have to become, in this moment, to genuinely justify its existence?

The people in this piece have been working on that question for years. Their answers are all different. All of them stopped me in my tracks.

This piece is part of the MyFrenchLife™ French Culture Deep-Dive Collection, exclusively for Annual Subscribers and Mighty Supporters. The France worth knowing about takes a little longer to tell.

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Today at a Glance: Your FREE weekly newsletter

Bonjour mes ami(e)s !

It’s wonderful to have you back here with me today. Bienvenue !

1. Continuing the new profile features of MyFrenchLife™ Magazine Contributors from last week. This week, get to know: Emily Monaco.

2. In this newsletter, you’ll find these wonderful fresh articles taking you to France beyond the cliché,

3. Don’t miss the PAID subscriber edition of le Bulletin in your inbox: “16.16.a - Édition littéraire: Ce n’est pas une librairie—This is Not a Bookshop. This is France - another whopper … It’s not too late to upgrade & read it←

   À bientôt !
   Warmly,
   Judy - 25.4.2026
   

1. A New Chapter for MyFrenchLife™ Magazine Contributors - check out these new profiles

Profile #2 - Emily Monaco

• To Find THE LIST of MyFrenchLife™ Magazine CONTRIBUTORS:
  [https://myfrenchlife.org/p/contributors-myfrenchlife-zine ]

• TO FIND EMILY MONACO’s WORK:
  [https://www.myfrenchlife.org/t/emily-monaco]

2. MyFrenchLife™ Magazine: new articles

“There are many talented Contributors to MyFrenchLife Magazine and I thank all of you for sharing your experiences with us in such an engaging manner.
You take us right across France & deep into many worm-holes.
We delight in discovering
and learning more about France beyond the cliché”

Judy

Our list of valued Contributors

---

a) A city, Molière, and a chair
by Betty Carlson

Pézenas has worked hard to stake a claim on France’s famous playwright

“Say hello to Jean-Baptiste!” joked my French husband as I headed out the door to Pézenas, Hérault, Occitanie.”

“Ah bon? Molière wasn’t born in Pézenas? I was convinced he was…” said my crestfallen French husband as I broke the news to him upon my return.”

Molière, né Jean-Baptiste Poquelin and considered France’s greatest playwright, was born in Paris in 1622 and died there in 1673.”

But between 1650 and 1656, he and his Théâtre Illustre stayed and played a number of times in Pézenas, where he was supported and protected by Armand de Bourbon, the Prince of Conti…” writes Betty Carlson.

Read the full story→

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b) How long
by Lara L Barkat

How long?”

(Combien de temps?)

How long until I find the just-right thing? And do it in the just-right way? To create the just-right result?”

I wanted to do a photo shoot with ma maman’s little blue Limoges creamer and clusters of grapes (les raisins). But then I got blue on my mind.”

The blue took me to another Wedgwood. A Ralph Lauren “Empire” cup with an image on the bottom, in gold, of a man playing polo.”

These tea niceties have nothing to do with the person for whom I wanted to make these photos. And the person for whom I wanted to make these photos will never see them, can never see them.”

Imagine a world where we made beautiful things for people, just because,… writes Laura L Barkat”

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c) Embracing September
by Kathryn Ivey

This article was originally published in September & republishing here now as we ease into our Spring/Summer ‘26.

How is it almost the last week of September? “

The whirlwind of la rentrée, the official period of back to school and regularly scheduled programming in France, began on September 1 and left me whirling as well. “

The morning rush of getting kids fed, dressed, and out the door has replaced our languid summer mornings of easing into the day with pancakes on a random Wednesday. However, we do try to ease into the weekday mornings by sitting down together for breakfast, even for a quick bowl of yogurt and berries or some speedy scrambled eggs. “

We light the candles on the table in the morning during breakfast, even during the school/work week, as a way to start our day in peace, and our kids love it (and fight over who gets to blow them out!)…” writes Kathryn Ivey.

Read the full story→

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d) Ce n’est pas une Librairie, Part One
by Judy MacMahon

“…In French, a librairie is a bookshop. A bibliothèque is a library. The English speaker wanders into a library expecting to borrow books and leaves having spent a small fortune? This is, depending on your perspective, either a design flaw or the whole point.”

Magritte painted a pipe and wrote beneath it:
- Ceci n’est pas une pipe. This is not a pipe.

The places I’m about to tell you about are not, strictly speaking, librairies.
They are not bibliothèques either.

They are something France has been quietly and with great conviction building for a very long time: places where books are held, loved, argued over, and passed down through families like a form of memory.

Introducing you now to two Paris-based book dynasties…”

Read the full story→

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---

3. Merci mille fois

“Thank you so much for supporting my work and reading ‘le Bulletin’.

Merci mille fois d’être ici, mes ami(e)s. Thanks for being here.

What a gentle, generous edition this has been.

Betty Carlson took herself off to Pézenas with her husband’s cheerful “Say hello to Jean-Baptiste!” ringing in her ears, and came back with a story about a city that has spent four centuries staking its claim on six years of Molière. I love that. The audacity of it, and the devotion. Very French, and very worth the trip.

Laura L Barkat stopped me in my tracks this week. A blue Limoges creamer, clusters of grapes, a Ralph Lauren teacup, and behind it all, a person who will never see the beautiful thing made in their honour. I don’t want to say more than that. Just read it.

And Kathryn Ivey, lighting candles at the breakfast table before the school run, even on a Wednesday, even when everyone is scrambling for their shoes. That lovely image has evocatively stayed with me all week. La rentrée (back to school season) as a philosophy: the belief that even the ordinary morning deserves a little ceremony. I think France understands something about that which the rest of the world is still catching up to... I know that Autumn has passed us by, but we know it’s back with us every year :). However, right now we’re celebrating the early signs of summer!

Thank you, Betty, Laura, and Kathryn, for bringing your France to us this week.

Oh, and not forgetting our new Contributor profile feature - looking at you, Emily Monaco - we’re in awe of your energy, skill, and work - félicitations.

And thank you, dear readers, for being here, for reading wth such care, and for being part of this wonderful global community of francophiles. It means more than you know.

À bientôt,
Judy x
judy@myfrenchlife.org

PS: Oh, and there’s an article from our French Culture Deep Dive Collection, Part One of a two-part series exclusively for Annual Subscribers and Mighty Supporters. It’s all about two Paris-based book Dynasties. I loved researching and putting this one together. …and next Wednesday you’ll receive Part Two.
Are you ready?

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Copyright © MaVieFrancaise®- MyFrenchLife™️. All Rights Reserved. -
le Bulletin is the Newsletter of MyFrenchLife.org

MyFrenchLife.org - Come with us to experience France beyond the cliché.
*Photo in the le Bulletin banner at the top of each newsletter © Annewill Stroo

Bonjour, my dear friends and subscribers, both new and long-time.

Un grand merci (a big thank you) for being part of this wonderful global family of Francophiles. Your support enables me to continue growing and improving MyFrenchLife™ Magazine and the le Bulletin newsletter, offering more to this growing global community.

Consider upgrading your subscription

Here’s what you’ll find today:

1. Writers, Books, and the People Who Never Stopped Believing in Both.

2. The Writers’ Room - MyFrenchLife Magazine Contributor Profiles, where you’ll learn more about our contributors than others know!
   + find The Writers’ Room Archive - 10 Contributors exposed :)

3. This week’s ‘What’s happening in ‘MyFrenchLife™ Magazine’ - a selection of fresh articles.

4. You can also find the free newsletter ‘‘16.16 - →here, on Saturday.

Warm regards
Judy - 25.4.2026
PS: These PAID EDITIONS of le Bulletin are chock full of interesting writing from France, so make sure you read right to the end… some of the best gems are there- really :)

Read more

“Ah bon? Molière wasn’t born in Pézenas? I was convinced he was…” said my crestfallen French husband as I broke the news to him upon my return.

Molière, né Jean-Baptiste Poquelin and considered France’s greatest playwright, was born in Paris in 1622 and died there in 1673.

But between 1650 and 1656, he and his Théâtre Illustre stayed and played a number of times in Pézenas, where he was supported and protected by Armand de Bourbon, the Prince of Conti.

Their tight relationship ended badly when the prince turned to strict Catholicism, calling the theater “an evil pleasure”¹, and forcing Piscenois into more pious activities than watching rollicking stage shows.

That Molière’s company also performed in cities all over the south of France is beside the point today — at least in Pézenas, the self-proclaimed Cité de Molière.

Locate Pézénas on a map

Meeting up with Molière

Other than the hotel receptionist, Molière was the first person I ran into, but many more encounters were to come.

The playwright was something of a cult figure in his time, and still is in today’s Pézenas; one shop was selling “The Imaginary Oracle, inspired by Molière.”

I don’t know what this is, and I’m not sure I want to know, but it — or he? —“reveals itself like an oracle, linking mystery and pedagogy,” for only 39 euros.

The same image showed up above a cider bar:

These were my first Molièresque encounters in Pézenas, and they rather gave me the creeps.

But one easily finds more traditional reminders of the French dramatist’s presence.

In an early effort at crowdfunding, the city financed this grand statue in 1895.

The Office de Tourisme brochure told me where to find key sites Molièresques, such as the now privately-owned Hôtel d’Alfonce, where the troupe played and resided.

I was not on a Molière pilgrimage in Pézenas, but his presence is everywhere, including in modern-day establishments.

The brasserie looked a bit long in the tooth, leaving me to wonder if the Molière brand could be losing its luster.

The chair, the chair!

Legend has it that during Molière’s stays, he spent hours, if not weeks, sitting in a chair at a local barber’s, and that his observations of local Piscénois life, made from that very chair, inspired some of his famous characters.

The amount of inspiration generated while on the chair is not historically quantifiable, or even proven, but through years of oral tradition, le fauteuil de Molière took on primordial importance in the local collective imagination.

The barber left the much-revered chair to his heirs, who over the centuries cached it away in various countryside or Parisian residences. It made a brief appearance at the Parisian tricentennial of Molière’s birth in 1922, only to disappear into disturbing obscurity, especially for “local erudites” — sometimes referred to as “crazy” Molièristes”² — who wanted that damn chair back in town where it belonged.

In 2003, the object of veneration resurfaced via a thrilling phone call to a member of Les Amis de Pézenas. Thorough investigations were made. The chair was in full possession of all its papers, and the family finally sold it to the city for the tidy sum of 100,000 euros.³

In 2009, le fauteuil de Molière finally took its rightful seat.

Sadly, sitting staring at the chair was an underwhelming experience in the city’s nearly unbelievably run-down, hodgepodge museum:

Perhaps this site has taken a back seat to other municipal projects.

A musical note

Pézenas was also the birthplace of the 20th-century French singer Boby Lapointe, whose complex, pun-filled lyrics are harder for me to understand than Molière’s texts— but then again, nobody made me study Boby Lapointe in college.

In an interesting transition, the barber’s shop dear to Molière has become L’A-Musée Boby Lapointe.

And there, the city’s famous sons now hang out together over a glass of wine.

I wonder if Les Amis de Pézenas, those crazy Molièristes who toiled so hard to recover the sacred chair, would approve?

All images copyright Betty Carlson, the author

Sources:

Les amis de Pézenas – Molière & Pézenas
Les amis de Pézenas - Le Fauteuil de Molière entra au Musée
Retour du fauteuil de Molière à Pézenas — Hérault Tribune, April 19 2007
1. Les Princes de Conti, Seigneurs de Pézenas, F.C. Mougel, 1971, p. 9
2. Les Tréteaux de Pézenas Molière — Josyane Savigneau, Le Monde, June 7th 1986
3. Retour du fauteuil de Molière à Pézenas — Hérault Tribune, April 19 2007

Introducing Contributor Betty Carlson

Visit her Contributor Page — Explore more of Betty’s work

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Thanks for reading MyFrenchLife™ – MaVieFrançaise®! This fabulous article by Betty Carlson is public, and we encourage you to share it.

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I noticed I had an uptick in new followers after I posted this popular photo I snapped while waiting in line at my local grocery store.

I couldn’t believe it myself, but it’s true, the French love a good stripe, and the stripe does not discriminate against age. But thank you for hitting subscribe and hello to you, new readers. Maybe I should send every new reader a striped shirt in the mail to say merci.

I thought I’d give a bit of an update to share what I’m working on for both subscribers and new readers, and to announce a second new newsletter!

With what feels like the start of the new year even though we have about three months left of 2025, I have plunged into various projects, both creative and personal, that are keeping my plate pleasantly full. I have several posts in my draft folder for this newsletter that I am looking forward to wrapping up and posting soon. In my next post, I will share about my language learning journey as I’m often asked, “you must be fluent by now, right?” And I will be diving more into interior design -related posts as I am slowly stepping back into design projects after taking a hard pause while growing our family.

I am also excited to share that I have co-created a second newsletter with my brilliant friend, Maddy Odom. We created En Bref as a space to have a more editorial and curated newsletter that focuses on European lifestyle and culture, design, travel, and a personal look into our own lives as American mothers raising our families in Paris. We hope you will check it out and pass it along to friends who may enjoy reading it!

En Bref

Welcome to En Bref

Hello, bonjour, and welcome to En Bref: Your pocket guide to culture, design, travel & more - edited from Paris. We are two creative American mothers, Kathryn Ivey and Maddy Odom, living, working, and raising our little ones in the City of Light…

Read more

8 months ago · 20 likes · Kathryn Ivey and Maddy Odom

The leaves are slowly beginning to turn here in Paris, and while I love a sunny day, there is something about a moody, autumnal sky that I happily embrace (maybe it’s the lack of A/C all summer long). I recently restocked my favorite candle, and I’ve started the closet switch from summer to fall/winter clothes. I’m also looking forward to the new expositions at the museums and galleries, especially the John Singer Sargent exposition at Musée D’Orsay-it’s one not to miss if you are in Paris!

Editor note: If you’ve missed that exhibition, there are always so many awesome exhibitions on in Paris - here’s a good place to start searaching→

Thank you again for being here, and I would love to hear from you! Please do reach out if you have something you are curious about or would like to see more of in this newsletter.

À la prochaine,
Kathryn

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Introducing Contributor, Kathryn Ivey:

Visit her Contributor Page — Explore more of Kathryn’s work

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How long?

(Combien de temps?)

How long until I find the just-right thing? And do it in the just-right way? To create the just-right result?

I wanted to do a photo shoot with ma maman’s little blue Limoges creamer and clusters of grapes (les raisins). But then I got blue on my mind.

The blue took me to another Wedgwood. A Ralph Lauren “Empire” cup with an image on the bottom, in gold, of a man playing polo.

These tea niceties have nothing to do with the person for whom I wanted to make these photos. And the person for whom I wanted to make these photos will never see them, can never see them.

Imagine a world where we made beautiful things for people, just because.

Where we left a rose at the door without ringing the bell. Maybe even the wrong door, as if it did not matter. As if a kindness, a gift of beauty given to anyone, would ripple out into the larger world—a gift to all.

I noticed the other day that I love to photograph things in isolation. A white teacup alone in a sea of white. Not lonely. Just alone.

So today I worked with several items at once. All kinds of blue.

Photography and French, both, invite me to explore. To notice where I am, what I do, how I see—and how I might try to do things differently. My tea keeps me company, as I experience le dépaysement.

Exploration can open us to more exploration.

I’ve always wished I could do video. Well, why not try?

So here are three. From decaffing my tea, to pouring it, to watching it steam merrily.

If this were a food humor blog, I could have given you two more videos: the one where I totally poured the tea all over the counter instead of aiming it squarely into the teacup; and the one where I created a truly beautiful video—only to discover I’d had the camera off during the beauty and had only turned it on after the fact.

(So, whoosh went the camera, landing its photographic eye in the sink. Not what I was going for, to say the least :).

How long?

(traduction: as always, L.L. :)

And look at this light… playing on the heart of my daughter’s long-ago sculpture of a sorrowful girl in a pensive mood. Only after more snow shoveling did I come in the house to find this additional study in blue. And I had to give it to you.

Come sip with me. A little tea. A little French. Explorations in photography.

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All images: copyright LL Barkat

Introducing Contributor, Laura L. Barkat:

Visit her Contributor Page — Explore more of Laura’s work

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MyFrenchLife™ – MaVieFrançaise® is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

So when I picked up the FT’s How to Spend It a couple of weeks ago and saw the name Freud staring back at me, there was that small, particular pleasure of recognising a family I’d already been orbiting.

The FT’s headline: “Is Jonah Freud’s Reference Point the sexiest library in the world?”

I read on.

This is part of our French Culture Deep-Dive Collection — long-form pieces on France that don't make the headlines, exclusively for Annual Subscribers and Mighty Supporters. We'd love to have you in the room.

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Today at a Glance: Your FREE weekly newsletter

Bonjour mes ami(e)s !

It’s wonderful to have you back here with me today. Bienvenue !

1. A New Chapter for MyFrenchLife™ Magazine Contributors

2. In this newsletter, you’ll find these wonderful fresh articles taking you to France beyond the cliché,

3. Don’t miss the PAID subscriber edition of le Bulletin in your inbox: “16.15.a - From Cuban Slave to French Clown, Autumn Harvests & the People Who Fill Your Cup. It’s not too late to upgrade & read it←

   À bientôt !
   Warmly,
   Judy - 18.4.2026
   

1. A New Chapter for MyFrenchLife™ Magazine Contributors

You’ve been reading their work for years. Some of you have been reading certain contributors since the very beginning, following them through their adventures, their discoveries, their quietly brilliant observations about France and French life. But apart from their bylines, most of them have remained a little mysterious. Who are they, really? What brought them to France? What keeps them writing about it? Earlier this year, I started a weekly spotlight feature in the PAID edition of le Bulletin called The Writers’ Room, where each contributor stepped out from behind their articles and became the story.

Our paid subscribers loved it. But it always felt like something that deserved a wider audience. So I’m changing that.

From now on, as I build out our Contributors page on the site, each contributor will have a proper profile: who they are, with the best of what they’ve shared about their life and France. And each time I add another contributor, I’ll introduce them here, in the FREE edition.

We’re starting with Suzanne Grosso Vidal, a long-term and generous contributor to MyFrenchLife™ – MaVieFrançaise® whose writing and photographs have brought the South of France to life for our readers for years. Thirty-plus years in France. French citizenship. An American accent she has never lost and long since stopped apologising for.

Let’s find her new profile.

Ready? Come with me.

1. Head to MyFrenchLife.org and select Zine from the menu.

2. You’ll see an article marked “READ THIS FIRST.” Click it, and you’ll see this page

3. Inside, you’ll find a link to our full list of contributors, ~35 talented writers, most of whom live in France. Click through…

4. Scroll toward the bottom of the page. There she is.

Click Explore, and you’re in: Discover all of Suzanne’s articles that have been published on MyFrenchLife Magazine - Lots of lovely reading and wonderful photographs as Suzanne tucks you under her arm and invites you into her French life.

”Avec toute ma gratitude, Suzanne”

Bonne lecture

Judy
PS: If you have difficulty navigating, please let me know by DM or a comment below

Leave a comment

2. MyFrenchLife™ Magazine: new articles

a) Domaine Évremond
by Caroline McCormick-Clarke

I began writing this article on the 1st September 2025. Summer has come to an end, and the seasons are changing the season began changing weeks ago. Autumn has definitely arrived, and Harvest is early as I write this.”

Photo: author, Wild Autumn Berries

The blackberries, rose hips, hawthorn and sloe berries on the hedgerows ripened weeks earlier this year; the swallows and swifts began their return journey to Africa much earlier this summer and in suburbia, the leaves were falling on the lawns and pavements far too early.”

In France, some wine growers began harvesting their grapes as early as 19th August this year…” wrote Caroline McCormick-Clarke.

Read the full story→

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b) From Cuban slave to beloved French clown: the story of Chocolat
by Jenn Bragg

As we began March, Black History Month had just come to a close in the U.S. I felt this was a great opportunity to tell you about a man who once entertained the masses in France, mostly Paris, as the clown ‘Chocolat’.”

Young Rafael becomes ‘Chocolat’”

Rafael Padilla was born around 1868, the son of slaves working on a plantation in Cuba. For reasons unknown, he was taken from the plantation to Havana and placed under the care of a woman there. The woman then sold Rafael when he was about 10 years old to a wealthy merchant from Bilbao, Spain. He sailed for Europe and left Cuba behind…” wrote Jenn Bragg.

Read the full story→

Leave a comment

c) How to Become Your Best Self in 2026 (And Why the French Don’t Try So Hard)
by Pamela Clapp

Hopefully, you rolled your eyes when you read the title.”

By now, you’ve already heard how to become your best self in 2026.
In podcasts, on social media, in listicles that promise clarity before the year has even begun.”

With Love From Paris is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.”

In the U.S., this moment comes with a particular intensity. Intentions aren’t just something you hold; they’re something you articulate, share, and sometimes perform. They show up everywhere — promising discipline, transformation, reinvention. As if the new year were a blank slate, waiting for you to start over.”

In France, it doesn’t quite work that way…”

Read the full story→

Leave a comment

4. The Man Who Vouched for the Chairs at Versailles
by Judy MacMahon

A Parisian dynasty. A scandal at the Palace of Versailles. And a very warm welcome from a city that forgot to ask why he left France.

Note: This article is part of our French Culture Deep-Dive Collection…

Read the full story→

Bonne lecture…

Leave a comment

3. Merci mille fois

“Thank you for subscribing to ‘le Bulletin’, the newsletter of MyFrenchLife™ Magazine.”
Judy MacMahon

Merci mille fois d’être ici, mes ami(e)s. Thanks for being here.

This week, something new began, and you’re part of it. Suzanne Grosso Vidal is on the site, properly, with her story and every article she has ever written for MyFrenchLife™ – MaVieFrançaise® waiting for you. She is the first, and other Contributors will follow, every week, right here in the free edition.

Jenn Bragg gave you Rafael Padilla, born into slavery in Cuba, adored across Paris as the clown Chocolat. Caroline McCormick-Clarke took you to Champagne country as the harvest came in early and the swallows left ahead of schedule. And Pamela Clapp made an airtight case for the French art of not trying too hard.

Bonne lecture, mes ami(e)s.
À bientôt.

Judy
judy@myfrenchlife.org

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Please consider upgrading

Thanks for reading ‘le Bulletin’! This post is public, so feel free to share it.

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Subscribe now

‘le Bulletin’ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support us, I personally ask you to consider becoming a free or annual subscriber.

Here’s how you can stay in touch & personalise your le Bulletin experience, and deepen your French connection.

🔓 Here you can UNLOCK EXCLUSIVE FRENCH STORIES:
Become an annual member and save! Enjoy exclusive, intimate glimpses into France and French lives delivered straight to your inbox.

Unlock Exclusive French Stories

⭐ How you can BECOME A CHERISHED MIGHTY SUPPORTER:
If you love le Bulletin, you can help us share more stories of remarkable French women and authentic French experiences. Plus, enjoy special perks!

Become a Mighty Supporter

🎁 Perhaps you’d like to SHARE THE INSPIRATION:
Gift le Bulletin to friends and family who admire the strength and spirit of French women. It’s the perfect way to share your passion for France.

Gift le Bulletin

💡 And don’t forget… you can always EXPLORE THE ARCHIVES:
Discover even more inspiring stories in our complete newsletter archive. Perfect for satisfying your Francophile cravings whenever suits you, wherever you live.

Add us to your address book: info@MyFrenchLife.org -
Copyright © MaVieFrancaise®- MyFrenchLife™️. All Rights Reserved. -
le Bulletin is the Newsletter of MyFrenchLife.org

MyFrenchLife.org - Come with us to experience France beyond the cliché.
*Photo in the le Bulletin banner at the top of each newsletter © Annewill Stroo

Today at a Glance: Your PAID weekly newsletter

Bonjour, my dear friends and subscribers, both new and long-time.

Un grand merci (a big thank you) for being part of this wonderful global family of Francophiles. Your support enables me to continue growing and improving MyFrenchLife™ Magazine and the le Bulletin newsletter, offering more to this growing global community.

Consider upgrading your subscription

Here’s what you’ll find today:

1. Celebrating the energy-givers in my life

2. This week “16.15.a - From Cuban Slave to French Clown, Autumn Harvests & the People Who Fill Your Cup

3. The Writers’ Room returns next week - [MyFrenchLife Magazine Contributor Profiles, where you’ll learn more about our contributors than others know!]

4. This week’s ‘What’s happening in ‘MyFrenchLife™ Magazine’ - a selection of new contributors and fresh articles.

5. You can also find the free newsletter ‘‘16.15 - →here, on Saturday.

Warm regards
Judy - 18.4.2026

Read more

By now, you’ve already heard how to become your best self in 2026.
In podcasts, on social media, in listicles that promise clarity before the year has even begun.

In the U.S., this moment comes with a particular intensity. Intentions aren’t just something you hold; they’re something you articulate, share, and sometimes perform. They show up everywhere — promising discipline, transformation, reinvention. As if the new year were a blank slate, waiting for you to start over.

In France, it doesn’t quite work that way.

Contrary to the cliché, people do take bonnes résolutions. January brings the usual promises: drink less wine, move more, eat better. Dry January exists here, too. So does the familiar vow to “perdre cinq kilos” or finally get back into a regular sports routine.

But there’s also a collective wink. Almost everyone knows these resolutions probably won’t last. And that shared understanding lowers the stakes. It’s accepted — half jokingly, half realistically — that life won’t be overhauled in a few weeks. That who you are on December 31st doesn’t disappear on January 1st.

There’s no expectation of becoming someone else overnight.

In the U.S., the new year often arrives as a rupture: before and after, old self and new self, discipline versus failure. Change is framed as a reset. A chance to fix what didn’t work. And with that framing comes pressure — to optimize, correct, prove seriousness. I’ve written before about this American instinct to fix ourselves — and how living in France shifted my relationship to it.

In France, change is treated as something slower and more pragmatic. Less about declaring a new identity, more about adjusting the way you live. You don’t announce it. You try something. You keep it if it works. You drop it if it doesn’t. No one is tracking your follow-through.

I’ve grown to appreciate that.

As an entrepreneur, I do believe in intention. Direction matters. Knowing what you’re orienting toward — even loosely — is essential. But intention, to me, isn’t a lifestyle overhaul. It’s not green juices or strict routines or forcing yourself into a more disciplined version of who you think you should be.

Its orientation.

Deciding what deserves more space and what deserves less. Choosing what you want to protect.

That’s where the French approach resonates most. Instead of asking What will I change this year? The question becomes: What will I continue to make room for? What already matters — and how do I stay faithful to it?

Living here has taught me that intention doesn’t need to be loud to be real. It doesn’t need a deadline or a declaration. It often works better when it stays private — folded into everyday life rather than staged as reinvention.

Maybe that’s why resolutions don’t carry so much weight in France. They’re not a referendum on your worth. They’re not proof of ambition or discipline. They’re just ideas — held lightly, kept if they stick, abandoned if they don’t.

That feels sustainable.

The sense that you’re allowed to remain yourself. That progress doesn’t have to look like transformation. That a good year doesn’t require a new identity — just a bit more alignment, a bit more honesty, a bit more care.

Intentions, yes.
But without the pressure to become someone else.

Thank you for reading.
À très vite,
Pamela

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Introducing Contributor, Pamela Clapp

Immerse yourself in all of Pamela’s articles on her Contributor page.

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MyFrenchLife™ – MaVieFrançaise® is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.