On 11 December, a fashion auction closed in Paris.

Model and muse Farida Khelfa sold off her entire archive—200 pieces spanning 40 years, including 92 Alaïa pieces. Museums had been circling. Collectors were salivating. But here’s what made me sit up straight: she donated half the proceeds to the RIACE Fund, which helps refugees and unaccompanied minors.

Why does that matter? Because in 1976, at sixteen, Farida ran away from her traditional Muslim home in suburban Lyon and hitchhiked to Paris with absolutely nothing.

The place she fled? Les Minguettes in Vénissieux, which would become ground zero for France’s first large-scale suburban riots. It was the first place where cars were burned in protest in France. That neighbourhood launched the 1983 March for Equality and Against Racism, where over 100,000 people marched through Paris demanding dignity.

But by then, Farida was already on the runways.

Lightning Strikes

When Farida arrived in Paris, a fifteen-year-old named Christian Louboutin invited her to live with him and his mother. Yes, that Christian Louboutin. She fell in with the crowd at Le Palace—Paris’s answer to Studio 54—where she ran the door, deciding who was cool enough to enter.

One night, Jean Paul Gaultier met her. He later recalled: “It was as if a lightning bolt had struck us. Instant love.”

Here’s what kills me: Farida didn’t just model his clothes—she literally was the inspiration. Her style—ski pants with high heels, American Marines jackets, massive earrings—became Gaultier’s aesthetic. When he put her in his first show, he told her to walk like she was on the street. So she did. Chewing gum. Looking like the badass she was.

Gaultier described her as having “long, black curly hair, puffed up on top, like a banana, her relaxed gait and her Algerian heritage”—she reflected the new diversity in French fashion. One journalist wrote that she walked casually down the runway chewing gum, and it was audacious, shocking, utterly modern.

Years later, travelling with Gaultier to Japan for a show, she laughed, discovering every model had been made up to look like her.

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Have you been to Paris a few times and are looking for something new and different to see? I’d highly recommend a visit to the Grande Mosquée or Grand Mosque of Paris.

Evidence of multicultural Paris

If you know me, you know I love different cultures, especially when different cultures exist together. For this reason, I really love the Paris Mosque, one of the largest in France. It was built in the 1920s and is located in the 5th arrondissement. In other words, it’s on a nice piece of real estate near the famous Rue Mouffetard and Jardin des Plantes on the eastern side of the Left Bank.

This is interesting to me because you’re taking something relatively new — in terms of construction as well as culturally to France back then — and putting it in the middle of a very old part of Paris. I love that.

A few years ago, I was walking in the neighborhood and saw Muslim worshippers (men in this case) leaving the mosque after their prayers. Many of them wore traditional gowns/robes of different colors — representing different regions of the Muslim world. By this point I had already lived in a Muslim country and enjoyed seeing a little piece of that culture again, this time in France.

However, it’s worth noting that I have never heard the call to prayer at the mosque — and I believe it’s because of France’s policy of laïcité, which puts limits on some expressions of religion in public spaces (this is a thorny issue).

However, I found a 1927 photo of a man named Mahmed Teskoub doing the call the prayer from the minaret of the mosque.

The restaurant and bakery

Something I’d recommend to anyone looking for a good meal in Paris is the restaurant at the mosque. A few years ago, my friend Jean and I had a meal there. The weather was very good, so we sat in the enclosed, open-air courtyard.

It was packed with people that day, a testament to the good prices and excellent food. Their main offerings are meat or vegetables with couscous or cooked in a tagine.

There is also the salon de thé or tearoom where you can choose from all kinds of tasty little cookies, baklava, and other baked goods.

The women’s hammam (sorry fellas)

Finally, one of the big draws of the mosque — for me, anyway — is the hammam. Years ago, on one of my visits to Paris, my friend Ruth suggested I check it out. This was long before I knew much about Islam and the first time I ever tried a hammam — a (largely) Middle Eastern/North African-style public bathhouse.

I had a lovely — and funny — experience.

When I arrived, I paid the fee for entrance, which included use of the hammam, a towel, and tea afterwards in the relaxation room. The hammam is open every day and is only for women.

For anyone who is not acquainted with naked steam/sauna/spas/hammams, you must leave your modesty at the door. I learned this after that first visit to the hammam and years visiting various hot springs — co-ed hot springs nonetheless — in Bavaria, where everyone was nekkid. (The middle-schooler in me thought people might point and laugh or stare but they don’t do that.)

Once I got myself situated in the hammam, sans clothing, I entered the space where women were taking in the steam and scrubbing their skin with a special glove used for exfoliation. This was so long ago — but I have a vivid memory of sitting on a slab where a lovely French woman was sitting and scrubbing away at her skin. I must have asked her what I was supposed to do because before I knew it, she started to scrub me down with her glove to show me how it’s done. (In French, the exfoliation is called gommage - a key word!) This was not a woman who worked there, but rather a fellow steam-room patronne and I appreciated her for taking me under her wing!

After that, I put on a robe and went into the relaxation room, which was a quiet space with ornamental cushions on the floor to sit on. A woman came by to offer me a cup of tea in an ornate Arabic-style glass tea glass. It was a delicious, sweet mint tea. I felt rejuvenated.

You can wander the grounds of the mosque if you’re not up for a meal or the hammam — it truly is a unique cultural experience in Paris if you’re looking for something different.

À bientôt

Jenn

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Sources:
Paris je t’aime: Paris Mosque
Mosquée Paris website (in French)
Wanderwiles blog on the hammam

Introducing Contributor, Jenn Bragg

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

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Eileen Gray was a pioneer in the world of design and architecture, at a time when very few women were able to make their mark in either field. Long before the Second World War, she had already made a name for herself with her distinctive designs and furniture. But Gray was more than a designer. On the Côte d’Azur, she also created one of the most remarkable modernist houses of the twentieth century: Villa E-1027. How did she manage to carve out such an exceptional place for herself? And what about Le Corbusier: did he play a part in her success, or is that a misunderstanding that has lingered for far too long?

Just a ‘functional holiday home’

Not far from Monaco, in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, stands Villa E-1027. Construction began in 1926 under the direction of designer Eileen Gray, marking her first venture into architecture. That same year, Gray and her mentor and companion, the architect and critic Jean Badovici, fell in love with the landscape of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. Together, they envisioned a functional holiday home: a retreat perched on a cliff above the Mediterranean, far removed from the bustle of Paris. The villa’s unusual name is a code combining their initials: E for Eileen, 10 for the J of Jean, the tenth letter of the alphabet, 2 for the B of Badovici and 7 for the G of Gray.

Modern villas were still a rarity in the 1920s, particularly along the Mediterranean coast. Encouraged by Badovici, Gray spent three years developing the plans, designing the furniture and overseeing the construction. The result? A new architectural language that placed her well ahead of her time. The villa was completed in 1929, but the couple did not enjoy it together for long. Gray and Badovici separated in 1932. Fortunately, the end of their relationship did not mean the end of their collaboration. They continued to work together, and Gray remained a regular visitor to Cap-Martin, while Badovici retained ownership of the villa until he died in 1956.

In an artistic world largely dominated by men, Gray embodied a distinctly avant-garde femininity. It may be hard for design and architecture enthusiasts to imagine today, but she struggled to establish herself within the cultural establishment of her time. This even though her tubular steel furniture, including the Transat and Bibendum chairs, and the Centimetre rug, are now regarded as design icons. Villa E-1027 was her own interpretation of modernist architecture and today forms part of Cap Moderne. The site also includes Le Corbusier’s Cabanon and L’Étoile de Mer, the restaurant once run by Thomas Rebutato, where Le Corbusier was a regular visitor.

But who exactly was Eileen Gray?

What shaped her early life, and why did a Dutch artistic movement end up having such a profound influence on her work?

From Smith to Gray

Eileen Gray was born Eileen Smith in Ireland in 1878.

Raised in a wealthy Protestant family that divided its time between a country estate in Ireland and Kensington in London, she grew up with art and culture close at hand. Although her parents eventually separated, the influence of her artistic father remained strong. When her mother inherited a noble title, the family took on the name Gray.

A first visit to Paris with her mother for the 1900 Exposition Universelle made a deep impression on the young, artistically minded Gray. Back in London, she knew exactly where she was heading: into the arts. Her first great love was Oriental lacquerwork, a demanding craft she set out to master in the years before the First World War. Travel, too, had been part of her world from the start. As a young woman, she saw Africa and many corners of Europe, and later developed a taste for the freedom and speed of motoring. During the 1920s, Gray lived a strikingly free and modern life, never hiding her bisexuality. She was independent, determined and remarkably adept at sidestepping the social expectations of her time, including marriage, which she avoided all her life. That same spirit ran through her work. Before turning to design and architecture, she explored a wide range of artistic techniques. In 1922, she discovered De Stijl, the pioneering Dutch movement founded in 1917 that sought harmony through radical abstraction, using geometric forms, straight lines and a limited palette of primary colours, and black and white. De Stijl would fascinate her deeply for years to come.

Her move towards modernism was sealed in 1923, when she met Jean Badovici. Gray and the young Romanian architect, editor of L’Architecture Vivante, soon became a couple. Through him, she encountered the ideas and projects of early modern architects such as Adolph Loos, Gerrit Rietveld and Le Corbusier. Gray eagerly took up their fascination with geometric abstraction and their rejection of frivolous, unnecessary ornament. In 1926, she bought a plot of land in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in Badovici’s name for her first architectural project: Maison pour un ingénieur.

Architecture totale

Villa E-1027 still feels remarkably modern today, making it easy to forget just how unusual it must have seemed in 1929. The grounds are arranged in terraces planted with lemon trees and cypresses, while the house itself, tucked slightly away from the road, looks out towards the Cap de Monaco. Yet despite its imposing presence, it was conceived as a true holiday home, designed for:

un homme aimant le travail, le sport et aimant recevoir des amis.”.

When designing the villa, Gray drew inspiration from the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, who would later leave an even greater mark on both the house and its surroundings. Le Corbusier influenced Gray with the ideas he set out in his “Five Points of Architecture”. The main structure of a building, for instance, should be lifted off the ground on columns, known as les pilotis. The flat roof was to be used as an outdoor space, often as a roof garden, or le toit-jardin. A structural frame then allowed for an open layout on each level, le plan libre. The façades were no longer load-bearing walls, la façade libre, and horizontal ribbon windows, la fenêtre à longueur, brought in generous stretches of light and views. In Villa E-1027, these principles can be seen in the use of columns, the roof terrace and the horizontal bay window. Modern materials such as reinforced concrete were also used. But Gray did not only design the house itself. She also created the entire interior. This approach is known as architecture totale: from the first sketch to the final door handle, everything was designed by Gray.

Eileen’s body of work reveals a great deal about the way she moved through the world. She was a modern woman who readily embraced her freedom, but also someone who valued her privacy and liked to withdraw. The same spirit runs through the open plan of Villa E-1027, with its almost uninterrupted views of the Mediterranean and its many small corners where you can briefly retreat. Autonomous, yet still connected to the whole: that was Gray’s vision. Here and there, she borrowed from other traditions, such as the wooden shutters that open in the Italian style, keeping out the sun while letting in the light.

An interior by Eileen Gray

While Villa E-1027 was Gray’s first venture into architecture, the same could certainly not be said of the design inside. Thanks to her successful career as a designer, she had no trouble making the furniture and objects fit seamlessly into the villa’s spatial concept. Every room in the house is autonomous, and each has access to a small terrace. The strength of the interior lies in the built-in furniture, designed by Gray herself. As a result, the living room, for example, can be easily reconfigured, while the kitchen even has movable partitions.

Gray once summed up her vision as follows:

Everyone, even in a small house, needs to feel free and independent. They must have the feeling they are alone.”

To achieve this, she used pieces that were already for sale in her Paris gallery, Jean Désert. Jean Désert was not a real person but a fictional male persona invented by Eileen, partly because a man’s name carried more authority in the male-dominated design world of the 1920s.

Gray also designed clever, functional furniture especially for the villa, which would later become iconic. Among the best-known pieces are the Transat and Bibendum chairs, as well as the ingenious round bedside table known as the Table E-1027. In the bedroom, the tall, narrow mirrored cabinet acts as a screen between the washbasin and the studio, while a rotating chest of drawers stands in one corner. The furniture she created for the villa was designed for different, and often more complex, uses than traditional furniture. Gray often experimented with industrial materials, too: tabletops made of glass or metal, cork coverings, and frames made from nickel-plated metal tubing or lacquered wood.

Le Corbusier

It is a persistent myth that Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier, was in fact behind the design and concept of Villa E-1027. The fact that he denied this several times during his lifetime did little to stop the story from spreading. Although his actual contribution to the villa was limited to several frescoes, the presence of those rare murals did play a real part in the building’s preservation and recent restoration. In that sense, Gray does owe something to Le Corbusier after all.

Le Corbusier discovered Cap-Martin in the 1930s and went on to spend almost every holiday there. In April 1938, he stayed at the villa at the invitation of his close friend Jean Badovici. During that visit, he painted the frescoes that, according to the story, Gray disliked intensely: they were said to clash completely with her architectural vision. During another stay in August 1939, he painted five more. The murals were damaged during the war, but in 1949, it was Le Corbusier himself who restored them.

Enchanted by the place, Le Corbusier built his “château sur la Côte d’Azur” in 1952 on a plot of land right beside the villa and the restaurant L’Étoile de Mer. He became a regular at the restaurant and, over the years, painted several murals inside. Today, L’Étoile de Mer is a must-see for lovers of modern architecture. As for his own “château”, his wife certainly would not have called it that. In reality, this Spartan cabanon, designed according to his famous Modulor system, measured less than fifteen square metres (161 square feet) and was sparsely furnished. Le Corbusier had long been fascinated by fishermen’s huts, a modest form he combined here with the functionalism of modern architecture. The result was a success, and one that helped feed his myth. By the end of his life, Le Corbusier was living here almost exclusively. His story at Cap-Martin came to an end nearby, on the beach at Cabbé, where he drowned during his daily swim on 27 August 1965.

Recognition at last

After Villa E-1027 in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, Gray built several other houses for her own use, including:
- Villa Tempe à Païa in Menton (1931-1934) and
- Villa Lou Pérou in Saint-Tropez (1954-1958).

After the war, she moved back to Paris and was seen on the Côte d’Azur only rarely. In 1968, Gray returned to the spotlight thanks to an article by the architectural historian Joseph Rykwert in the influential magazine Domus. This led to several distribution deals and recognition from the Royal Society of Arts in London. Gray died in Paris in 1976, at the age of 98.

Over the past twenty years or so, there has been renewed interest in Eileen Gray, her life and her remarkably varied body of work. In 2009, her Fauteuil aux Dragons went under the hammer in Paris and sold for €21.9 million. A major retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris followed in 2013; in 2015, her paintings were shown in London; and in 2020, the Bard Graduate Center in New York turned its attention to Gray’s extraordinary career. Since then, smaller exhibitions and projects, from Roquebrune-Cap-Martin to Milan and Paris, have continued to revisit her work and legacy.

Cap Moderne

Not only Villa E-1027 but also the other buildings on the site, including Le Corbusier’s Cabanon and the restaurant L’Étoile de Mer, fell into decline in the second half of the twentieth century. And although these buildings were gradually restored over the years, the same could not be said for the villa where the story had begun.

That changed in 2014 with the creation of Cap Moderne.

Thanks to this association, Villa E-1027 has been almost entirely restored to its former glory and can now be visited. Visits must be booked in advance; more information can be found at capmoderne.com.

Have you ever visited Villa E-1027 or seen any other of Eileen Gray’s work? Let me know in the comments.

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Introducing Contributor Suzanne Rietmeijer

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A reminder that this is a series where we enjoy the expertise that Eveline brings, and really delve into French wine. Each contribution is a few articles around a theme, enabling you to gain a greater understanding… This one is “Bourgogne and Beaujolais”.

Bonne Lecture
Judy MacMahon

The Bourgogne (aka Burgundy) and Beaujolais wine regions share a lot of history, although they have very different characters today. Discover the important elements that make them unique.

Bonjour Bourgogne

Burgundy (Bourgogne) is a region renowned for its prestigious and often expensive wines. The area primarily produces Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, offering red and white wines covering the full range of styles. Understanding Burgundy’s four-tier system—Regional, Village, Premier Cru, and Grand Cru—helps you select the appropriate quality and price for the occasion.

Read the entire article

Beaujolais’ Main Squeeze – Gamay

The Beaujolais wine region is nestled between Burgundy and the Rhône Valley. Gamay, the region’s main grape, has a long history, including how it was controversially banned in Burgundy by Philip the Bold. While Beaujolais gained prestige in the 19th century, the region’s reputation faltered due to overproduction. Today, there’s a renewed focus on quality, especially in the Beaujolais Crus and Beaujolais-Villages wines.

Read the entire article

Beaujolais – Beyond Gamay

Did you know Beaujolais grows a little Chardonnay? Chardonnay, a native of France, is a versatile grape that can produce styles ranging from light and crisp to rich and buttery, depending on the growing region and winemaking techniques. Explore how winemakers consider Chardonnay a blank slate and vary its style with the use of oak aging and malolactic fermentation, among others. There is truly a Chardonnay for everyone.

Read the entire article

Is Bourgogne your favourite wine region in France? Which is your favourite wine from that region? Please share in the comments below.

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Introducing Contributor, Eveline Chartier:

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In the Marais, history hides behind window displays and museum doors. The sign Rue des Francs-Bourgeois might seem ordinary, yet it tells of charity, nobility, and revolution. Between the hôtel particuliers and trendy boutiques, the street still balances its two souls — grandeur and generosity.

At the heart of the Marais, Rue des Francs-Bourgeois feels like a bridge between eras. Its curious name comes from a charitable institution founded in the fifteenth century to house impoverished citizens, who were thus made “francs d’impôts” — free from taxation. From this small act of charity grew a street whose stones now tell a far grander story.

By the seventeenth century, the Marais had become the fashionable quarter of Paris. Aristocrats and wealthy magistrates built their hôtels particuliers here, grand mansions with hidden courtyards and ornate façades. Many of these still stand today, sheltering museums such as Carnavalet or stylish boutiques that make the street a Sunday-shopping favourite.

Walking down Rue des Francs-Bourgeois is to move through layers of Parisian life: medieval charity, Baroque elegance, revolutionary turmoil, and the vibrant cosmopolitanism of today.

It is both a museum without walls and a living artery of commerce, humming with people while whispering of a time when to live here meant privilege, prestige, and proximity to power.

How well do you know Rue des Francs-Bourgeois:? Do you think about it differently now? Do you have anything to add?

Introducing Contributor, Pierre Guernier:

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I was sitting on a sofa at my co-working space the other day, half working, half annoyed at someone loudly taking a call in the common area (why do y’all do that?) when I myself got a call from an unknown number. In the past I never answered these because they meant I was due to have a humbling phone conversation in French with a telemarketer or Amazon delivery guy. But now that I have a child and all I can’t ignore the unknown number calls in case that child has a fever or fell off of something or other. So I answered it.

It was worse than a call from the daycare nurse: it was the Prefecture de Police calling about my citizenship request.

The woman on the other end of the phone verified that I was Shelby Chambers, the Shelby Chambers who currently has an open request for naturalization, asked if I was currently working and if I have a CAF account. I replied “uh, oui, uh, comment? uh oui, a ce moment ou en general? Uh oui, I guess.” After getting my answers to all of these, she speedily informed me that I needed to attend an interview for my citizenship the following Wednesday at 9am and I would need to bring a bunch of work and social security-related documents. I tried to ask her if this was AN interview just to do with the documents she had asked for, or if it was THE interview, the big interview for my citizenship, the interview that was also a French language test, a French history test, and a stealthy analysis of whether or not my husband and I are actually in a relationship or if we’re in passport situationship. She sternly replied that it was an interview as part of my open citizenship request. When I tried to clarify in mediocre French, she just repeated herself and said have a good day, byeeeee. Click.

After I panic-texted my husband and all of my friends, I started to get my dossier in order and to make flash cards of French history facts, presidents, kings, rivers/fleuves, and cities I’ve visited. I also practiced conjugating some verbs I’m not used to using to try to dazzle whoever it was that would be evaluating my Frenchness. That’s what this interview is about after all—to see if the documents, the French language exam results, all that I’ve been doing the past five years, together prove that I am integrated into French culture. (To do this, the French government also for some reason needs newly issued, actual versions of my parents’ American birth certificates and their notarized translations.)

But wtf does it mean exactly to be integrated into a culture? As a retired teacher’s pet, I’m curious what kind of answers they are looking for. Do they want me to list out the number of chateaux and historical sites I’ve been to, or how much I know about French cheese, or how many manifestations I’ve attended? The whole thing got me thinking about the experiences I’ve enjoyed (or suffered through) that have made me, petit a petit, a little more French.

If my Prefecture agent does indeed ask me what I have done to integrate into French life, I don’t want to give her an Emily In Paris list of superficial experiences that makes her roll her eyes. I want her to see that I’m the real deal, I’m becoming French AF, I “get” and appreciate what they have going on here. So I’m brainstorming a list of the less romanticized cultural experiences, the B-sides that you don’t get into on your first, second, or even third trip to France. The stuff you experience on your way to integration, whatever that actually is.

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Attending A Manif

I did this the second day after moving to Paris. I didn’t mean to, but it does frequently happen that way. My husband and I were strolling near our Airbnb, saw a lot of people walking with posters, followed them to Place de la Nation, and ended up in the middle of a climate protest. We lived near Bastille for four years, so there was a march or manifestation scooching by our apartment every other week, which is convenient when you’re aligned with the cause. Less so when you come home from dinner to your street being on fire and tear gas being thrown like water balloons.

Protesting is a big part of the culture here, which sometimes makes it the butt of jokes. If you do it too much, it does lose some of the edge after a while. But no matter, it’s a form of expression that all people can use, which is nice to be a part of. I like that it doesn’t have the negative connotation it does in the US, that protesting is just something that young idealists do that has no impact, or that it’s simply a front for vandalism. Here, vandalism is just as rampant, but so is ire for the banks and huge global brands who typically take the brunt of the broken windows.

There’s also a lot of creativity in protests here that I love to see. From the guys who make rolling BBQs so they can sell sausages as they march, to the farmers who block highways with their tractors or drop off hay and dung at government buildings, there is an art to French protest that I am always in awe of.

Doing La Rentrée

In the US we have “back to school” which still makes me shudder—the thought of Office Depot school supply ads can still have me reaching for my Ativan. In France, there is la rentrée, still governed by the school calendar, but it applies to literally everyone and is a bigger cultural reset than the new calendar year. When I first arrived in Paris, having no children and no major vacation plans for August, I had no idea why everyone was talking about it so much. Oh la rentrée, we’ll do that after la rentrée, let’s hang out after la rentrée. There was a whole cultural shift, almost like a nationally recognized holiday, that I had never even heard of.

But now I get it. Even if they don’t necessarily go on a long vacation, enough folks take some kind of pause in August for it to be known as the month when nothing will get done, nothing will be open, and you won’t see your friends because they’re all gone. Necessarily then, come September 1 when the rentrée rolls around, it’s kind of a big deal. You have to be like “ohhh, how’s your rentrée going?” “ca va la rentrée?” acknowledging the tough transition from sun and leisure to creche drop off and work meetings now that we’re all re-entering real life. It can also be energizing; you just had a break from your routine, maybe travelled somewhere new, and now you’re going to hit the ground running because la rentrée! I’m assuming, however, that the word has the same effect on little French kids that “back to school” has on me which is the opposite of energizing.

Sampling The Cold Weather Cheese Trifecta

“YOU’VE NEVER HAD RACLETTE BEFORE?” I was asked the first time I had raclette on a ski trip in 2019, before moving to France. I hadn’t even heard of it. I didn’t know it was a critical part of French winter, especially if you’re anywhere near a mountain or snow (every Airbnb you’ll rent will always have one on hand). I didn’t know that 50% of the point of a ski trip was to eat the cheese trifecta of the mountain: fondue, raclette, and croziflette (some people will say tartiflette, but I prefer the little sarrasin pasta squares to the potatoes, the way they crisp at the edges and create doughy cheese clumps).

On my first ski trip to the Alps I made the mistake of offering to cook dinner one night and choosing to serve a large lentil stew with veggies and sausage to a party of three grown guys who had been skiing all day. I thought the warm, rich lentils and vegetables would be just the thing to fill everyone up while remaining relatively healthy. I later realized that I had broken a rule of the ski trip and that this crew only wanted melted cheese-related food even if it meant their intestines turned to solid dairy. Lesson learned, no fiber in the Alps. I hope my Prefecture agent appreciates that I actually just bought a raclette machine for our house, and sees it as a symbol for how serious I am about becoming French.

Enjoying the Network of French Rest Stops

I freaking love French rest stops. They’re just so convenient, enjoyable, and adequately delicious, which is more than can be said of American rest stops. Pulling into one on a holiday weekend, you get to see people from every region and every walk of life together taking the necessary pauses one must do as a human, specifically a French human.

There is necessarily a large space for buying and drinking coffee, usually a designated area with tons of coffee machines and high tables. There is of course the picnic area and loads of food options because even though we’re traveling, we are still going to eat relatively well, at a real table, slowly. You can buy bread and cheese and pâte for a picnic, a ham and cheese sandwich of course, or sometimes salad or a burger if the rest stop has a real restaurant built in. Of course you will eat with real silverware. Of course you will still have dessert. Of course the bathroom stall doors will go all the way down to the ground. You may be on the road, but you’re on the road in France.

Going To Someone’s Ancient Family House

I never knew how many times I’d be invited to someone’s family house in this or that corner of France for a long weekend. How does everyone’s family have an empty bonus house just laying around? It’s only logical that a lot of people whose families have always lived in France should have old houses they can go spend the weekend in. If your family never immigrated and they managed to pay the death duties, they may as well hang on to that cool old property in the countryside for the family (and me) to use.

I come from a country where everyone is relatively new there (lest we forget that), and unless you’re dumb rich, the properties aren’t old or cool enough to hang onto, so there was no popping over to the old family house for the Fourth of July. Sure, this is happening on the East Coast, but not Long Beach, California. In France, I literally can’t even count the number of times my husband has said “oh we’re invited to so-and-so’s family house” and it’s literally a mini castle or a winding stone tower or some other historic edifice. And only sometimes is it because the family is in fact dumb rich. Most often, their great grandpa was able to buy a cool building for like 35 francs and a chicken after a war and the family figured out how to keep the property. The funny catch is that you always have to bring your own sheets and towels but that’s a fair compromise.

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Internalizing The Small Town Schedule

It’s well known that in France, including Paris to an extent, things are closed. Businesses close at the same time you get out of work. Lunch is from like noon to 1:30pm in small towns, then they close until dinner. Grocery stores even close at 6:00 or 7:00 pm sometimes. So if you’re off enjoying some sights or are slow to get out the door to get groceries for dinner, you can totally miss your window for food.

You only do this once before you learn better. You try a place that says it will be open for ten more minutes, but they turn you away because the kitchen is already closed if the doors are not. Then you wander around the village looking for another restaurant, there must be one, what are hungry people supposed to do? But there isn’t one. So you eat an old sandwich or whatever you can scrounge at the grocery store and try to plan better for dinner. Eventually, you don’t even think about it, you just know you need to eat at noon sharp or get your groceries well before 5:00pm or else you aren’t eating. Sometimes you just assume everything will be closed so you can at least feel happy if you do by chance get to eat.

Joining French Wedding Dance Floor Hijinks

I made the mistake of learning many of these at my own wedding, which wasn’t ideal for a control freak like myself. I had even been to a few French weddings before hosting my own, but those only taught me about the food (very good) and duration (very long) of French weddings, not necessarily about the dance floor situation. I’m accustomed to American wedding hijinks: short ceremony, short cocktail “hour” where you can’t get your hands on a single hors-d’œuvre, short crappy dinner, an hour of dancing then GTFO. I prepared myself and my guests for the French version with detailed explanations on our wedding website (not that anyone read it): dinner would go until midnight. Dancing would go until dawn. Be prepared.

What no one was prepared for, least of all I, was all of the organized dancing that was going to be happening. I forgot to put “Cotton Eyed Joe” on my no-go list because I didn’t even know anyone knew that awful song in France. All of a sudden, I heard the familiar banjo riff and was instantly mortified that such a loathsome and tacky song would be playing at a wedding of mine. I began to run to the DJ booth and that’s when I saw it. The entire dance floor was swimming with our French guests dancing in formation. One second they were square dancing, the next they were doing a human tunnel and all running through it. They actually liked the song. I thought better of killing their fun, as much as that song grated my sensibilities. Later in the night they all began sitting down in a long line on the dance floor. American guests asked me what was going on but I had no clue. Suddenly, someone ran and jumped directly at the line of sitting people and they caught him then passed him backwards over their heads. I went from shocked, to concerned for their safety, to impressed, to jumping in and being passed down the line myself. It made for some really good photos.

Some Additional Quick Hits

• Discussing the difference between a rivière and a fleuve

• Knowing that “actuellement” doesn’t mean “actually”

• Eating several galettes de roi each January

• Knowing that “pas mal” means “freaking amazing” and “pas terrible” means “the absolute worst”

• Peeling your fruit with a knife before you eat it. Even peaches.

Now, as much as these are the moments that truly integrate you into the French culture, they are not the moments I’ll mention in my interview. Mostly because I want to say what I think she wants to hear so as to get a gold star.

• I’ll tell her that I’ve taken hours of French classes,

• I’ve seen plays and films in French,

• I speak only French with my in-laws (less ever since I gave birth because I’m somehow always tired),

• I listen to the news in French, and

• I’ve visited as many corners of France as I can.

• Oh, and I have a French baby; that’s a real good one. I think that will satisfy her report much more than explaining to her that I know which direction to cut a Roquefort or that I can give the bise without panicking.

And frankly, she may not even ask me about how I’m integrating. She might ask me for a random date, like the start and end of the Third Republic. She might say I’m missing enough proof of my current address and cancel my application. Also I should have been studying the dates of each French Republic instead of writing this, but oh well.

Wish me luck.

Do you share any of Shelby’s experiences? Let her know in the comments below

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Introducing Contributor, Selby Chambers

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

We were rolling along nicely in France, in our old Renault Twingo, living the dream, as many of our friends reminded us. And they were right, especially if you could overlook the bureaucratic challenges.

Grasping the fundamentals of the French enjoyment of life, la joie de vivre, was something that took a bit longer to understand and to admire.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we were confined to our homes like everyone else. We had a lot of free time during the day, and discussions around the kitchen table were more leisurely, often lasting until lunchtime.

We passed the time by discussing the world news or a book we’d recently read. We often shared stories.

One day, Kim said:

Why not tell me more about your life as a kid in Chicago? Your world was so different from today. What about the time you held up a train? That should be in a book, don’t you think? You know, a memoir!”

I was thinking that not many folks would want to read about a quiet kid living in the best of times (for me at least) in a quiet suburb north of Chicago. Most of the memoirs I’d read had a strong protagonist who had suffered greatly or had overcome some obstacle on their road to adulthood.

I mentioned my hesitation to Kim, hoping she would agree.

Well, you did stop a train once, that was pretty big.”

I know, but there wouldn’t be any graphic violence or anxiety-inducing suspense in my memoir. And no romance whatsoever.”

Oh, come on. I love your stories. So will everyone else.”

I could see that Kim meant business, that quick flash in her green eyes. So, I gave up and began, without any plans or outlines, retelling all the stories from long ago that I could remember.

Most days, we would be at our old kitchen table, a beat-up relic with years of food stains we never could remove from the surface. After lunch, Kim would prompt me with a question or two. Once I got going, it all came out. One memory would lead to another, and Kim would listen, laugh, and keep me motivated. I would take notes and, later, flesh them out, with Kim editing out the boring bits after I’d thought it was in pretty good shape.

And she kept me on track. Which is a talent because I do love a good backstory.

This is a cozy coming-of-age story, not your whole life,” was her reminder.

This went on for several months during the confinement. Kim would help me polish each story into a short stand-alone essay. And when we had 37 essays, we realized it could become a book.

It’s not bad,” admitted Kim one day. “There’s your gentle humor, a lot of engaging characters, and interesting places.”

Kim thought it would make a great summer read, not only for older folks like me but also for younger readers who might enjoy a glimpse into another, less complicated world.

A World Long Gone?

Left: The end of the line terminal as it looked in the 1950s.
Right: The End of the Line, the terminal for the CTA commuter line at 4^th and Linden Ave. in Wilmette, Illinois. Now a protected historic building.

I grew up in the 1950s near what we called “the end of the line”, a small train station and suburban terminal where the commuter line to Chicago began, or ended, depending on where you were headed. For me, it was never the end of anything; it was just the beginning.

Even as a kid, I always looked for a quieter, more agreeable way to live. I avoided competitive sports or gangs of friends. I was much more of a loner, and I sought out people of any age who seemed like me. Like the Auschwitz survivor, Leo, who ran the newspaper/candy stand inside the station. Or Garrett, the disabled WW II vet who taught me how to raise and lower the crossing gates for the trains.

And my buddy, Bob Lewis, who talked Leo into selling us illegal fireworks like snakes and car bombs, that he kept in a box hidden away under the candy counter at the station.

I’ve never forgotten the long summer days at the beach, the evening concerts overlooking Lake Michigan, or the quiet picnics at Gillson Park, surrounded by a community of gentle people enjoying life. Those memories all came back in my new book, The End of the Line, which Kim and I completed recently in France.

The book is a fun look back at my life in the 1950s, but it was also a reminder of why we love our life so much here in France. The pace, civility, humanity, and community, though not perfect, were so much like the life I had long ago in Wilmette.

That feeling of being surrounded once again with the pure and simple enjoyments of life. When kids were taught to behave and respect others. When you had the time. When you said hello to the man who ran the local deli, or the checkout lady at the grocery store.

When Kim and I moved to the south of France nearly 20 years ago, we discovered that not only was it beautiful and sunny year-round, but there were still open fields filled with red poppies in May, and pastures filled with sheep in the early spring. Tiny roads led up to medieval villages where families and friends were busy, enjoying life. Grandparents, teens, and little kids, all together at a local dance or on market day. And yes, there were problems, even big box stores and fast-food outlets, and Black Friday sales in the shops.

But somehow it all worked.

France, at least where we lived, was working hard. Not just to make money but to also enjoy life.

You’d have to read a copy of my memoir yourself to get a better feel for the similarities we often see today in France to those days back in the 1950s. It’s available on Amazon.

I’d also be interested in what it is about France that keeps you here. What to you is so rewarding? Or so annoying! I look forward to your comments. I’ll read them all, pick what I think is the best one, and send that person a free copy of my new book.

Introducing Contributor, Mark Jespersen

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

So there’s this refrigerator in Versailles. The temperature was held at exactly 12 degrees. And inside it, something that shouldn’t exist anymore: Chanel No 5 as it actually smelled in 1921.

Not the version in duty-free. Not even close. The real thing—Ernest Beaux’s original formula, reconstructed ingredient by ingredient, molecule by molecule. It sits there alongside nearly 6,000 other perfumes at a place called the Osmothèque, which is essentially a library for smells.

Last year, an original 1921 bottle of No. 5 sold for $72,000. The collectors weren’t buying it for what was inside—time had murdered those last drops. They wanted the object itself, the history. Because perfume doesn’t age like wine, mon ami. It just dies.

Which is precisely why the Osmothèque exists.

Un Musée Que l’On Peut Sentir

Picture yourself in central Versailles, not far from the château, holding a small strip of paper. You’ve just dabbed it with Napoleon’s personal cologne—the one he wore on Saint Helena during his final exile. Lemon, bergamot, neroli. Surprisingly fresh for a man in such dire circumstances.

The formula comes from notes left by his valet, Louis-Étienne Saint-Denis. The perfumers at the Osmothèque hunted down every ingredient to recreate it exactly as it would have been mixed in 1815.

Now try this one: Le Parfum Royale, reconstructed from a formula that Pliny the Elder recorded in the 1st century. Yes, that Pliny—the one who died watching Vesuvius erupt. You’re literally smelling ancient Rome.

This is what the Osmothèque does. It makes history breathable.

The archive opened in 1990, founded by legendary perfumers Jean Kerléo, Guy Robert, and Jean-Claude Ellena.[1] Last September, it moved into expanded premises to house a collection that keeps growing—around 1,000 “lost” perfumes reconstructed, fragrances everyone assumed had vanished forever.

Thomas Fontaine, the current president and perfumer, moves between these temperature-controlled refrigerators with the care of someone handling something irreplaceable. Which, of course, he is. These bottles aren’t meant to be sold or worn. They’re meant to be remembered. Studied. Understood as the œuvres d’art they are.

Except here’s the maddening thing: French law doesn’t recognise perfume as art.

The rest of this essay explores the strange legal paradox at the heart of French perfume:

How one of France’s greatest art forms became classified as cosmetics, what regulations were erased from historic fragrances, and why the Osmothèque may be fighting for the survival of perfume itself.

→ Consider upgrading to continue reading The Immortality Factory

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Locate Moulins on a map.

However, it reveals fascinating vestiges of a showy Belle Epoque past.

A truly grand Grand Café

Considered one of the most beautiful cafés in France, Le Grand Café was built in 1899. Coco Chanel, who lived and worked in Moulins from 1900 to 1906, was a confirmed regular customer.

Local legend has it that while she was still plain old Gabrielle Chasnel, she once sang “Qui qu’a vu Coco dans l’Trocadero” here — thus her nickname. (Not to rain on anyone’s parade, but the town’s Service du Patrimoine affirms that this performance took place elsewhere.)

In Coco’s Moulins days, the balcony, now reserved for dining with a view, hosted orchestras:

The ceiling, decorated by the little-known and long-forgotten painter Auguste Sauroy, who spent his life livening up large expanses while this was in vogue, adds allegory to your espresso.

Extremely modern for its time, one can only imagine the excitement that the opening of such a fine establishment brought at the turn of the 20th century.

At the time, Moulins was a bustling hub of activity. As the wealthy administrative capital of a major agricultural department, the city hosted 17 major agricultural fairs per year, fueling a lively hotel and restaurant business that Le Grand Café certainly benefited from.

More Moulins traces of La Belle Epoque

Le Café Américain

Like Le Grand Café, Le Café Américain is an official historical monument.

Unlike Le Grand Café, Le Café Américain, opened in 1903 and likely so named to evoke modernity, is “permanently closed”.

Its sad inactivity piqued my interest.

An August 2013 article from La Montagne briefly profiled its manager, Pascal Florentin.

An obituary just one month later refers to the passing of a Pascal Florentin from Moulins…as in the same? I can’t be sure.

What I can be sure of, partly thanks to my paralegal sleuthing abilities, is that the Café Américain business in Moulins was officially removed from French registers in December 2015, and that an undated article from the Société d’Emulation Bourbonnaise expresses a wish for a rapid reopening.

I wish for a rapid reopening too.

Les Nouvelles Galeries

Moulins was also home to one of small-town France’s first Nouvelles Galeries, the department stores that later morphed into Les Galeries Lafayette or, in some cities, Monoprix. The nicely-preserved art nouveau façade is all that remains.

Designed in 1894, expanded in 1898, and remodeled in 1914, this former four-floor store reduced in size and became a Monoprix in the late 1990s. But Monop’ eventually left the site, leaving the town’s main street without its largest commercial draw.

La Chocolaterie Les Palets d’Or

Another example of Moulins’ Belle Epoque snazz is La Chocolaterie Les Palets d’Or.

Located in an otherwise drab quarter, you can’t miss it — and definitely shouldn’t.

Bernard Serardy took over his family’s modest sweet shop in 1898, but he had grand plans, and engaged the city’s Ecole des Beaux-Arts to give his boutique a fancier look, inside and out.

Sadly, Bernard did not reap the fruits of his investment for long, swept away by the Great War. His widow sold the shop in 1916, but it has continued its sweet vocation ever since.

If Bernard is looking down, I’m sure he’s pleased to see the store still bearing his name and doing brisk business.

Sources

Laissez-vous conter Moulins à la Belle Epoque, Service du Patrimoine de la Ville de Moulins (PDF)
La maison – Les Palets d’Or – Moulins
À la redécouverte de l’American Cinéma, Société d’Emulation Bourbonnaise

Introducing Contributor Betty Carlson

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

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Even though I was born and raised in France and lived there until I was 23 years old, and returned to my native country many times after I had moved to the USA permanently in 1975, I was never aware of the existence of the American Library in Paris until four years ago or so.

A great friend of mine, Claudette Boudreaux, told me about a novel that she had just read and loved. This book, The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles, was “based on the true story of the heroic librarians at the American Library in Paris during World War II.” This story, which was featured recently in MyFrenchLife™ – MaVieFrançaise® in an article titled “The Woman Who Stayed” – that woman being Dorothy Reeder, the American Library in Paris Director during WWII, who “kept it open, ran an underground book network to Jewish readers banned from entering,” and returned to America “without making a fuss” when the war was over.

My friend Claudette attended a Zoom discussion with Janet Skeslien during the COVID Pandemic, and even visited the ALP with her in late 2022. By then, Claudette had become a member and patron of the Library, and one of its biggest fans. Earlier this year, Claudette came up with the idea of organizing a picnic benefit for the American Library in Paris at a park near her hometown of Frederick, Maryland, under the aegis of the newly formed “Mid-Atlantic Friends of the American Library in Paris.” This event took place on June 20 and was a big success. We have raised at least $7,000 so far to boost the 2026 fundraising campaign of the ALP.

I was a co-organizer of this benefit picnic, very unsure of what I could bring to the table. However, I thought it would be a great time to interview Kristina Vér Foley, the new Executive Director of The American Library in Paris, for MyFrenchLife.org. In an amazing and timely turn of events, Judy MacMahon was just about ready to publish her piece on Dorothy Reeder! She was enthusiastic about the interview. Kristina was very kind to agree to it and to provide wonderful answers to the questions that Claudette and I sent her.

An Introduction to Kristina Vér Foley:

After she graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor’s in History and Literature (Modern France and Germany), she earned a Master’s in Documentary Film and Television News at the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München (HFF München) in Munich, Germany.
She was based in Europe for a great deal of her professional career: in Austria for at least 4 years with SOS Villages International and at the American University in Paris for 4 years.

• She was also in Budapest, Hungary, with Central European University, for one year.

• She was Coordinating Producer for film companies, including CNN (8 years in that field, from 1998 to 2006).

• Before joining the American Library in Paris on April 1, 2026, she was Managing Director (USA) of Salzburg Global, where “she led strategic growth and strengthened engagement with donors, scholars, and cultural leaders.”

Now let’s dive into this interview and hear from Kristina Vér Foley:

1. Please tell us four things that MyFrenchLife™ subscribers might like to know about you.

• I’m half German and half Hungarian, but was born and raised in the United States. I’ve always felt at home on both sides of the Atlantic, so working in bicultural and international institutions feels like a natural fit.

• I’ve spent much of my career working for American and European institutions that were founded in response to periods of conflict and division, including Salzburg Global, The American University of Paris, and the Central European University. What drew me to each of them, and now to the American Library in Paris, was the belief that books and education, dialogue and cultural exchange can help bridge differences and strengthen communities.

• As an only child, books were something like siblings for me: lifelong companions that were always within reach. My parents made sure our home was full of books, and our local public library quickly became one of my favorite places. Growing up with immigrant parents, reading also helped me make sense of the American culture around me. We lived in Lexington, Massachusetts, where the American Revolution quite literally began, so I became fascinated by early American history and the stories that shape a nation’s identity.

• My family has lived in four countries and four American states, so I know firsthand how important places of belonging can be when you’re far from home. That’s one of the reasons I care so deeply about what the Library offers its community.

2. How much did you know about the American Library in Paris before you applied for the Executive Director position? What brought you here?

My family and I were members from 2011 to 2015 when we last lived in Paris. Our son practically grew up at the Library. He attended Story Hours, discovered the joy of reading, and even absorbed a few American traditions, Halloween among them. For us, the Library wasn’t simply a place to borrow books. It was where we found community.

When I learned that the Executive Director position was opening, it felt like a rare opportunity to return to an institution that had already played an important role in our lives. The American Library in Paris occupies a unique space. It is at once a library, a cultural institution, a community gathering place, and a bridge between France and the English-speaking world.

The timing was also remarkably fortunate. Our son had just headed off to college in California, giving my husband and me the flexibility to make a transatlantic move. Paris has always held a special place in my heart. Long before I lived here, I grew up hearing stories about my mother’s years as an au pair in Paris in the 1950s. In many ways, returning to Paris feels like completing a circle.

3. What do you find the most inspiring moments in the 106-year history of the American Library in Paris?

What inspires me most is the Library’s remarkable resilience. Throughout its 106-year history, it has weathered wars, occupations, economic crises, and pandemics, yet it has remained steadfast in its mission to provide access to books, ideas, and community.

During the Second World War, Library staff and supporters found ways to continue serving readers despite extraordinary circumstances. There are countless stories of courage and ingenuity from that period, including efforts to continue delivering books to members who could no longer easily reach the Library.

Another favorite story comes from the 1950s, when the Library found itself unexpectedly caught up in the tensions of the McCarthy era. Whether every detail has grown somewhat legendary over time, the underlying principle remains important: the Library has long stood for intellectual freedom and the freedom to read.

More recently, during the pandemic, the Library once again demonstrated its ability to adapt. It was among the first libraries in Paris to launch a click-and-collect service, ensuring that members could continue accessing books even when the building itself was closed.

4. What have you identified as the key components of your mission as its new director?

I see my role as stewarding a remarkable institution while helping it evolve for the next generation.

That means preserving what makes the Library special: its collections, its intellectual independence, its sense of community, and its unique place in Paris. At the same time, it means ensuring that the Library remains relevant and accessible in a rapidly changing world.

Practically speaking, that involves strengthening membership, expanding engagement with younger generations, supporting writers and researchers, investing in staff and technology, and continuing to position the Library as one of the leading English-language cultural institutions in Europe, including through partnerships and collaboration with other cultural institutions.

Most importantly, it means making sure that the Library remains what it has been for more than a century: a home for the thoughtful and curious.

5. What do you view as the greatest strengths of and opportunities for the American Library in Paris?

Without question, the Library’s greatest strength is its community.

That community includes longtime members, volunteers, trustees, donors, authors, Fellows, and staff. It spans generations and nationalities. One of my favorite examples is our Memoirs Book Group, which has been running continuously for eighteen years and still attracts participants who travel from as far away as Switzerland each month.

Another extraordinary strength is the breadth of what happens under one roof. On any given day, you might encounter toddlers at Story Hour, teenagers practicing public speaking, researchers working in the Reading Room, authors speaking to packed audiences, and retirees exchanging ideas over coffee and the newspaper.

As for opportunities, I see tremendous potential in embracing our full identity as both a library and a cultural center. Paris continues to attract growing numbers of international residents, students, entrepreneurs, creatives, and young professionals. Many are looking for exactly what the Library provides: intellectual community, meaningful connections, and a place to belong.

6. What are the greatest challenges the Library will face in the next few years?

One of the questions I think about most is how institutions like ours can remain places of meaningful encounter in an increasingly fragmented world.

The American Library in Paris has always brought together people who might not otherwise cross paths. At a time when so much of life is mediated through screens and algorithms, creating opportunities for genuine connection may be one of the most important things we do.

Libraries are also helping people navigate a rapidly changing information landscape. We live in a moment when information is abundant, but trust can be scarce. In an era shaped by misinformation and artificial intelligence, the ability to discover, evaluate, and engage thoughtfully with ideas is becoming ever more important.

Interestingly, one of our biggest challenges stems from our success:

• The Library is thriving.

• Membership is growing, attendance at events is strong,

• our children’s and teens’ programs continue to flourish, and

• demand for fellowships and cultural programming remains high.

The question is how we create enough space—both literally and figuratively—for all the people who want to be part of what happens here.

7. The American Library in Paris has some 5,000 members. Who are they? Are they mostly English-speaking, or are there French members?

If Paris is a city of encounters, the American Library in Paris is one of the places where those encounters happen.

Our members come from 105 countries:

• Some are lifelong Parisians.

• Others have just arrived from abroad.

• Some are Americans looking for a connection to home,

• while others are French readers passionate about English-language literature and culture.

We serve diplomats, students, retirees, academics, entrepreneurs, artists, families with young children, and people who simply love books.

In many ways, our membership reflects Paris itself: international, curious, and wonderfully diverse.

8. How do you negotiate the fact that you are an American institution located in France?

I don’t think of it as a tension to negotiate so much as a privilege.

For more than a century, the American Library in Paris has served as a bridge between cultures. While our roots and identity are American, we are also deeply Parisian. We were founded in Paris, have operated continuously here since 1920, and are very much part of the city’s cultural and intellectual life.

One of the things I find most distinctive about the Library is that it doesn’t simply bring America to France; it also helps interpret France to the English-speaking world. Our American Library in Paris Book Award is a wonderful example. Established in 2013, the award celebrates books originally written in English, both fiction and nonfiction, that draw on France as a source of inspiration. In doing so, it continues the Library’s long tradition of fostering dialogue and understanding across cultures and helping readers see France through fresh perspectives.

Operationally, we navigate both American and French frameworks. We are an American nonprofit and a French association, with responsibilities and reporting requirements in both countries. But philosophically, our identity feels remarkably coherent. We embrace the best of both traditions: American openness and civic engagement alongside France’s deep respect for intellectual and cultural life.

9. What would you like people to know about the ALP if they are unfamiliar with this wonderful place?

That it is far more than a library.

Of course, we have books, more than 100,000 of them, and one of Europe’s finest English-language collections. But we are also a gathering place, a literary hub, a research resource, and a cultural institution.

Visitors are always welcome, whether for a history tour, a day pass, or an author event.

Many people are surprised to learn that we hold one of Europe’s most significant archival collections of American fashion magazines and periodicals, a treasure trove for researchers, writers, designers, and students. Emily in Paris definitely missed an opportunity here!

Writers and scholars may be interested in our de Groot Visiting Fellowship program, which brings authors and researchers to Paris and connects with the Library’s collections and community.

Families often discover us through our children’s and teens’ programming, which remains among the most vibrant in the city. In fact, the Library played a pioneering role in introducing children’s library services to France in the early twentieth century, and nurturing young readers remains at the heart of what we do.

Most of all, I’d like people to know that they don’t have to be American to belong here. If you love books, ideas, and good conversation, you’re already part of the family.

10. Now that you are Paris-based again, what is your favorite thing to do in this great city?

Walk.

Paris may be the world’s greatest walking city. Some of my favorite mornings begin with no destination at all, simply wandering through a neighborhood as the city wakes up.

What I love most is that Paris constantly rewards curiosity. You turn a corner and discover a hidden passage, a garden tucked behind a gate, an architectural detail you’ve somehow never noticed before, or a small café that feels entirely your own.

It’s a city that invites you to slow down and pay attention.

11. Inspired by Ezra Klein’s famous closing question on his New York Times podcast: What three books would you recommend?

Choosing only three books is nearly impossible for someone who now spends her days surrounded by them, but these are three that have stayed with me.

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner:

A beautiful novel about friendship, loyalty, and the communities that sustain us over a lifetime. As someone who has lived in several countries and moved many times, I’ve come to appreciate how profoundly relationships shape our lives. It’s a book that reminds me that institutions matter largely because of the people they bring together.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi:

This is one of the most ambitious and moving novels I’ve read in recent years – while traveling in Ghana, in fact. Following multiple generations of a family across continents and centuries, it explores memory, migration, identity, and how history continues to echo in the present. It left me thinking differently about how individual stories connect to larger historical forces.

And finally, Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara:

While not a novel, it offers a powerful philosophy of welcome and human connection. At its core is the idea that institutions can create experiences that make people feel seen, valued, and at home. That’s a principle that resonates deeply with me and one that I hope continues to define the American Library in Paris.

Elisabeth Sauvage Callaghan

Introducing Contributor, Elisabeth Sauvage-Callaghan

Visit her Page — Explore more of Elisabeth’s work→

Inspiration

Every river has a soul. Every soul remembers the source.

Before the Seine was lined with stone, she moved freely. Before Paris rose from her banks, there was a woman, a goddess, whose name is nearly lost to time.

Her name was Sequana.

And if you listen closely, beneath the sounds of traffic and tide, you can still hear her - and maybe even feel her too. I’ve been curious about this legend and the source of the Seine for many years; I’m sharing my findings with you in today’s post.

The Goddess Beneath the City

Long before Notre Dame was built, before Paris had kings or cathedrals, the Seine was sacred. And at the spring where the Seine is born, a goddess was once honored with offerings, prayers, and songs.

Her name, Sequana, is almost a whisper now.

But for centuries, she was worshipped as the guardian of the river’s source, a goddess of healing, flow, and feminine grace.

Her sanctuary, Fontes Sequanae, in what is now Burgundy, was a place of pilgrimage. Pilgrims came seeking cures and left votive offerings: small statues of eyes, limbs, lungs, and breasts, tokens of what they hoped she would heal.

Sequana’s presence was embodied in a bronze statue discovered there: a woman standing in a boat shaped like a swan or duck, the vessel of a soul-guide, gently gliding across the liminal waters.

The Hidden Legend

There is no surviving Celtic myth to tell us who she was, no epic tale like those of Brigid or Isis. But in the silence of that absence, something softer emerges: Sequana is a goddess we must remember, not read about.

A deity of felt presence, not fixed mythology.

What we know:

• She reigned at the source of the Seine.

• Her waters were healing, her spring sacred.

• People crossed long distances to pray, bathe, and be made whole.

• She was called on in illness, but also in transition.

As a water goddess, she likely ruled birth and death, dreams and desire, all the thresholds where water flows between worlds.

The River Remembers

Today, the Seine is tamed. It no longer floods as it once did (well, beyond the stone banks that is); it no longer meanders wild. Its edges are dressed in stone, shaped by empire, cleaned for postcards.

And yet… she flows.

She flows beneath the Pont Neuf and beside the bookstalls.

She flows past the Île de la Cité, where sacred temples have come and gone.

She flows with the memory of Sequana, even if Paris has forgotten her name.

Modern Devotion

To walk the Seine with sacred awareness is to enter into an ancient prayer.

To gather water from her fountains is to carry a ritual born of rivers and time.

To speak Sequana’s name aloud is an invocation.

You can still honor her.

Leave a flower or a whisper at the river’s edge

Or toss rose petals in as offering

Collect sacred water and bless your altar

Trace the current with your fingers and ask: What am I ready to heal?

Sit on her banks, close your eyes and feel her presence

Create your own pilgrimage, a return to the source.

The Living Myth

“Once, there was a woman of the waters, cloaked in mist and crowned in silver light.

Her fingers touched the land and springs opened.

People came with broken bodies and heavy hearts.

She did not speak, but she flowed - cool, clear, and pure.

Her name was Sequana. And her gift was the return to Source.”

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A Sacred Paris Practice

As part of my Sacred Waters walking ritual through Paris, we call on Sequana.

We walk not as tourists but as pilgrims, gathering sacred water, offering blessings, remembering the river’s soul.

She is with us.

She is the current beneath the concrete.

She is the wild feminine memory of Paris, still flowing.

Patricia

Introducing Contributor, Patricia Russo

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There was nothing obviously wrong with my life in Seattle.

That was part of the problem.

From the outside, it looked like a well-run production. Lights on. Cues hit. Lines delivered on time. I knew where to stand, what to say, how to move through a room without knocking over anything expensive or emotional.

I had systems. Structure. A calendar that could have qualified as a minor military operation.

I was efficient in a way that made people say things like, “Wow, you really have it together,” which is both a compliment and, in hindsight, a quiet warning.

Because I did have it together.

I just wasn’t entirely sure why.

The thing about staying on the same stage too long is that eventually, you start to notice the set.

The walls don’t move. The props repeat. The conversations circle back like a dog that’s lost the plot.

You begin to recognize your own lines before you say them.

And once that happens, it’s hard to un-hear it.

Leaving didn’t feel brave.

It felt… administrative.

Like I had scheduled my own disruption between two calendar reminders and then color-coded it.

There was paperwork. Of course there was paperwork. There is always paperwork when you attempt to rearrange your existence across international borders.

There were appointments, forms, copies of forms, copies of copies of forms, and at one point, a conversation that strongly suggested my identity depended on a document I had never seen and could not obtain but was expected to produce anyway. At one point I was fairly certain I had photocopied my own soul twice and still needed a notarized version.

I traveled with a cat named Laptop, which felt like either a bold choice or a cry for help. Possibly both.

At no point did it feel cinematic.

It felt like dragging a slightly overfilled suitcase through a series of slightly uncooperative environments while insisting to yourself, “This is fine. This is a good idea. People do this all the time.”

Which, frankly, is how I know I’m alive.

Spain was the transition.

The hallway between acts.

Nothing quite worked, but everything technically existed.

I walked in circles trying to rent a car. I signed contracts that appeared to have been printed during a previous century. I bought groceries like I was preparing for a small but determined siege.

There were moments—brief, flickering—where things felt… unnecessarily complicated.

Not wrong.

Just operating on a system I had not been given access to.

And then France.

Or more specifically, a 1647 house that looked at me the way a cat looks at a new owner: with suspicion, mild disdain, and a clear understanding that I would be doing most of the work.

Nothing about it was neutral.

The floors had opinions. The walls had history. The plumbing had… moods. Not leaks. Moods. It would function beautifully for days and then, without warning, express itself.

Men named Jean-something appeared and disappeared, offering advice that sounded less like instruction and more like folklore.

“Ah yes, the pipe. It must be respected.”

I nodded the way you nod when someone explains a horoscope to you and you decide, for survival purposes, to agree.

There were ducks. There was dust. There was a moment involving a cheese counter that I still consider a personal turning point, though I could not explain why under oath.

Nothing was efficient.

Nothing was predictable.

Nothing resembled the life I had left.

And yet—

I didn’t feel lost.

I felt… unscripted.

Which, it turns out, is a completely different sensation.

Back on the old stage, I knew how things would go.

Here, I know almost nothing.

I don’t always understand what’s happening. I occasionally make decisions that, in retrospect, feel experimental. I have stood in rooms where I am absolutely certain I have misunderstood the assignment.

But I am not repeating myself.

And that, quietly, feels like progress.

People sometimes ask if I “started over.”

I didn’t.

I just stopped performing in a play that had run too long.

The lines were fine. The audience was lovely.

But it wasn’t mine anymore.

So I left the stage.

Not dramatically.

No curtain call. No announcement.

I just… walked off.

And somewhere along the way, without fully realizing it, I found another one.

Smaller. Stranger. Occasionally held together by systems I do not fully understand.

The lighting is inconsistent.

The cast rotates.

Yes, there are ducks.

Someone is always sanding something. I rarely know why.

But the lines?

I haven’t heard them before.

And for the first time in a long time—

I don’t know what I’m going to say next.

Have you ever walked off a stage that looked perfectly fine from the outside? Tell me in the comments.

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The suburb is called Pantin. You won’t find it in most travel guides. It sits just outside the périphérique, northeast of Paris, in that particular zone of France that has a canal, a car park, and light industrial units that, on closer inspection, turn out to house the silk atelier of Hermès and the headquarters of Chanel.

France does this. It puts its most extraordinary things in unremarkable places and waits to see who notices. It has been doing this for centuries. The patience is almost a provocation.

I found out about Pantin the way I find out about a lot of things, (if you read my work regularly you’ll know what I’m about to say): a magazine, left in the pocket of an aeroplane seat, my sort of magazine, and a feature about two people in their eighties still working, still weaving — literally weaving — tapestries by hand in a business park northeast of Paris.

Eight hundred tapestries over fifty years. Man Ray. Basquiat. Steel threads woven into wool.

I kept turning the pages back, re-reading. The world was larger than I’d thought. And France, as usual, had been keeping secrets. [Ha! How often do I say that?]

Frédérique Bachellerie and Péter Schönwald founded Atelier 3 in 1972. She is now eighty-three. He is eighty-two. They are still taking commissions.

What they do — and the distinction matters more than it might first seem — isn’t really reproduction. It is interpretation. At Atelier 3, the weaver works from the front of the loom, watching the piece develop in real time. This is not the Gobelins method. At that great state manufactory in the 13th arrondissement, weavers have worked from the reverse of the fabric, executing numbered cartoons, for four hundred years. The outcome is decided before the first thread is laid. At Atelier 3, the weaver brings herself to the work the way a musician brings herself to a score — never playing it exactly the same way twice, the piece alive in the making of it.

Bachellerie and Schönwald rejected the reverse-loom tradition. Quietly, without a manifesto, in a business park in Pantin.

Their stories are as unlikely as their work.

→Bachellerie was born in France, raised in Hungary during the Communist era, and went to Chile in 1961 to study textiles at the School of Applied Arts in Santiago. South American folklore entered her bones and never left. She returned to Hungary with a diploma nobody recognised, made her way eventually to Paris, and kept pushing at the edges of a medium the art world had largely decided was finished.
→Schönwald arrived in Paris from Budapest, worked as a TV producer, as a bookseller, and had yet to weave a single thread when they met. He learned. They founded the studio together.

Then, in 1973 — one year after they opened — a nearby gallery was showing a lithographic series by Man Ray. The Revolving Doors: geometric coloured collages he had begun in 1919, formal and strange and full of interior logic. Bachellerie persuaded the gallery owner, Françoise Tournier, to let them interpret one. To echo Man Ray’s black pencil, they wove steel threads into wool. Tournier loved it and commissioned nine more.

Then she brought the artist himself to see them.

Man Ray was eighty-three. He couldn’t climb the stairs to the studio, so Schönwald — thirty years old, the bookseller turned weaver — carried him up.

At the top, Man Ray looked at the spinning wheels and said they reminded him of Marcel Duchamp. Then he was quiet for a moment.

“It’s a shame I’m this age,” he said. “We could do some very fun things. We could do some very fun things together.”

He died not long after.

The complete Revolving Doors series — all ten tapestries — was shown recently at Boccara Gallery in New York. Its first presentation in the United States. Fifty-two years after a thirty-year-old carried their maker up a flight of stairs.

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When I push open the gate, the clamor of the 3rd arrondissement vanishes, replaced by a sudden and striking silence. The Passage de l’Ancre is often cited as one of the oldest passages in the city, but to me, it feels more like a private alley in a forgotten village. My photographer’s eye is immediately drawn to the light—even on a gray morning, the shopfronts that line this passage with their shimmering colors seem to hold a soft, inner glow.

I first walked through it years ago. I remember a feeling of being transported to another world right in the heart of the capital. Unlike the grand glass-enclosed arcades of the Right Bank, the Ancre is open to the sky. Ivy vines and bay laurel pots line the cobblestones, creating a verdant, lush sanctuary, vibrant and full of life, even as the surrounding city bustles.

But the soul of this passage lies at number 8: at Pep’s.

It’s the workshop of one of the last umbrella repairers in France. In a world accustomed to disposability, where a broken rib usually means the trash, Pep is an emblem of sustainability and meaning.

One day, I stood in front of the window, watching the craftsman at work. A scent of old silk and machine oil hung in the air. There’s a calm, meditative rhythm to the way he stretched the fabric over the metal frame, a skill that demands both strength and extreme delicacy. It reminded me of my own experience working with a camera—the need to slow down and adjust the focus to capture the value of details.

For a Parisian, a precious umbrella is more than just an object; it’s a companion during the city’s sudden downpours. Entrusting it to the hands of a craftsman in the Passage de l’Ancre is an act of loyalty—not only to the object itself, but also to a way of life that rejects haste.

This quest for rediscovered meaning resonates with another 'mechanics' close to my heart. At number 4, La Mécanique Du Pull — The Mechanics of the Sweater — a third-generation knitwear maker reclaimed her craft from fast fashion in 2019, building limited editions from exceptional yarns. The same philosophy as Pep's: knowing where an object comes from, knowing the hands that made it.

Whether it’s repairing an antique silk in the Parisian rain or knitting a recycled fiber that will last a lifetime, it’s the same gesture: restoring dignity to the object. It is in this respect for time and materials that Paris, and France with it, retains its true elegance.

Leaving the passage and returning to the Church of Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs, I carry this silence with me. It reminds me that in Paris, the most profound experiences are not found in the monuments that everyone photographs, but in these small, unchanging spaces where time seems suspended.

Elisabeth

Have you stumbled upon a hidden passage or forgotten corner in Paris that stopped you in your tracks? Tell me in the comments.

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Americans love to believe the French have some secret formula for beauty. The perfect, undone bun. The smudgy eyeliner that somehow looks intentional. The shutters painted in just the right shade of faded sage green. We copy it, bottle it, and sell it back to ourselves as lifestyle products. Shabby chic furniture. French girl makeup routines. Instagram corners styled to look like they’ve been left alone for a century.

The punchline is that in France, it really was effortless. Just not in the way we mean when we say that word.

Those faded shutters were repainted fifteen years ago and haven’t been touched since, because the owners were busy napping, cooking, or dealing with French admin. The dreamy ivy climbing the wall is there because no one had time to trim it back. The romantic greenhouse with a few missing panes of glass is not a design choice. It’s a budget choice. The French version of effortless chic is often just lack of maintenance - and yet, paradoxically, it’s gorgeous.

Part of this is history. Many of the properties that define French style today were once staffed by entire teams: gardeners, butlers, maids, cooks. Maintaining a large château or manor house was never meant to be a one-family undertaking. Fast forward to the twenty-first century and families are inheriting sprawling estates with stone walls, tiled floors, and gardens the size of three football fields - without the army of hands required to keep them pristine. What’s left is this beautiful in-between. Not polished, not perfect, not optimized, but lived in. Weathered. Slightly undone. And all the more romantic for it.

Though I should say, this doesn’t apply to every French household. Plenty of people here gravitate toward modern, minimalist styles, sometimes as a deliberate rebellion against the burden of old things. If your family spent decades patching ancient shutters or paying through the nose to repair a leaking roof, you might reasonably crave clean lines and furniture that doesn’t collapse if you sneeze near it. The effortless aesthetic I’ve fallen for isn’t universal. It’s just one thread in the tapestry.

The same logic applies to French beauty. Americans obsess over the French girl look - a dab of lipstick, no foundation, perfectly mussed hair. Entire industries have been built on teaching us how to look like we didn’t try. But in France, they really didn’t try. They were too busy at the market. Too busy cooking lunch. Too busy living.

And yet it’s not sloppy. It’s not pajamas in Walmart or yoga pants at Trader Joe’s. There’s still pride in presentation, an unspoken standard of showing up well. French women aren’t spending hours layering products or curling every strand - they pull something together quickly, but with just enough care to look polished and put-together. It’s the difference between effortlessness and neglect, and that fine line is what makes it all look so easy from the outside.

It’s not that Americans are doing it wrong. We come from a culture that prizes polish, productivity, and control. From the moment we’re old enough to decorate our dorm rooms, we’re taught to finish things - repaint the furniture, keep up the yard, patch the cracks, reapply the mascara. I was absolutely swept up in it, too. When I lived in California, I searched for shabby chic finds at flea markets and attempted messy bun tutorials on Instagram that, ironically, took me twice as long as just doing a normal bun.

In France, I’ve realized that the real thing isn’t curated at all - it’s circumstantial. The garden looks romantic because we don’t always have time to cut it back. The kitchen resembles a French country painting, not because of careful styling, but because bay leaves actually are hanging from twine to dry, and apples end up scattered across the old table simply because there’s nowhere else to put them. Makeup goes unworn not because I’ve mastered some minimalist routine, but because there are kids to get to school, meals to cook, work to do, and sometimes - imagine this - rest to be had. What gets carefully staged in America with Pinterest boards and products is, here, the natural byproduct of life itself.

The secret isn’t that the French have some magical eye for beauty. It’s that they live in a culture where imperfection isn’t instantly fixed, where old is allowed to stay old, and where being a little undone isn’t seen as failure. The shutters will fade. The ivy will climb. The eyeliner will smudge.

Maybe that’s where the beauty really begins.

Have you caught yourself staging the effortless look — or finally stopped trying? Tell me in the comments.

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If our own writing doesn’t move us, why do we write?

Yesterday, I shoveled snow again, days after the snow.

But not for my property.

The night before, I’d come home from picking up my daughter from work, and I stepped onto my sidewalk only to see a woman shoveling snow directly onto it. She apparently kept the shovel in her SUV for moments just like this one, to shovel snow anywhere, to help make space for her vehicle.

As I rounded my hedge to come upon this scene, I asked her if she was going to clean the snow off the sidewalk. “Because this isn’t nice,” I said.

She seemed embarrassed (and tired). Apologizing, she hurriedly shoveled the snow off the walk.

As I climbed my stairs, my own writing about leaving roses surfaced in my mind.

In the morning, my arms fatigued after so many days of shoveling snow, I decided to leave this woman (or some other driver) a “rose.”

I shoveled the parking spot as best I could. Considered it exercise for me—and an anonymous gift for whoever found it, even if they didn’t recognize it as such.

The simple cup featured in this post belonged to my grandmother (ma grand-mère), mother of my father (mon père).

I don’t remember what she drank. Coffee? Tea? She was German, and honestly what I mostly remember were her barrels and barrels of Christmas cookies. And the cherry pies she’d make me for my birthday. Always, she called me liebchen (my little love).

When I hold my grandmother’s cup, I recognize what she left me. A picture of courage. She came here when she was fourteen at the end of WWI, knew not a drop of English, made her way into being a seamstress, then a hair salon owner, and eventually ran a yarn shop and framing business well into her 70s.

Long after we are gone, the question is: what did we leave?

I don’t always get it right. But I want to leave roses. Even when what that means is simply cleaning the street.

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

P.S. A note about the subtitle, which more literally could have said “ce que nous transmettons.” Except the echo word “transmit” just wasn’t soft enough or quite what I was hoping for. So I went for something that isn’t a literal translation and brings in the additional sense of “what perpetuates itself.”

P.P.S. The teacup is Harmony House “Starlight,” hand-painted in Japan. What I really love in this set is the little dessert dishes, too many of which have broken, and each time that happens, I feel like I’ve lost a little piece of my grandmother’s life.

Stirring your creative life—with French, tea & photography.

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For four years, the director of the largest English-language lending library on the European continent kept it open through the Occupation, ran an underground book network to Jewish readers banned from entering, and went home to America when it was over without making a fuss. France called the library “an open window on the free world.” It never quite got around to properly thanking the woman who held it open.

At the top of Dorothy Reeder’s emergency supply list, in her own handwriting, was chocolate.

Not medical supplies. Not documents. Not cash. Chocolate. First.

You know what that tells you about her? Everything. Someone who understood, at the level of pure instinct, that keeping people going through something terrible isn’t only a logistical problem. It’s also a question of what makes life feel like life rather than merely survival. She knew that. She wrote it down, put it at the top, and moved on.

Dorothy Reeder was the director of the American Library in Paris from 1937 to 1941 — the largest English-language lending library on the European continent, at 10 rue du Général Camou in the 7th arrondissement. She had come to France alone from Washington, talked her way into a job in the periodicals section, worked her way to the top, and found herself running the whole operation just as the largest war in human history was arriving at the door.

She did not close the doors. She did not run. She stayed in Paris after the fall, kept the building open through four years of Occupation, and went home to America when it was over without writing a memoir or giving interviews or apparently considering herself the kind of person stories get written about.

The American Library in Paris is still there. Still open. Still lending. Dorothy Reeder has a small plaque. She deserves considerably more than that, and France has never quite got around to saying so, which is — when you sit with it — almost perfectly French.

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I came to this story sideways; yes, I know it’s the way I come to most of the stories that end up mattering to me, and you would have noticed that I’m sure.

It was a Saturday morning, and I was reading the weekend papers, the kind of slow reading you do when you’re not really looking for anything, and there was a photograph of a woman laughing. Not smiling for a camera. Actually laughing, head thrown back, pearls catching the light, absolutely unselfconscious. The caption said she was Jeanne Toussaint, photographed by Cecil Beaton in 1962. She was in her mid-seventies. She looked like someone who had never once in her life waited for permission to feel joy.

I put the paper down and thought: “Who is she?”

She was, it turns out, the woman behind nearly everything you think of when you think of Cartier.

Not Louis Cartier. Not the three brothers whose family legend has been so brilliantly excavated by Francesca Cartier Brickell in The Cartiers, the book that finally told the untold story. Not the maharajas or the Hollywood stars or the Duchess of Windsor dripping in jewels on every available occasion.

Jeanne Toussaint.

Belgian-born, Paris-made, officially titled Director of Fine Jewellery at Cartier Paris from 1933.

Unofficially titled something far better: La Panthère.

Louis Cartier gave her the nickname. He said she had what he could never have: the eye of a woman. He was her lover for years, could not marry her because her background was considered unsuitable by his family, and ended the affair in 1918. She stayed at Cartier anyway. She stayed for fifty years.

Think about that for a moment. The man she loved married someone else. She remained, and she shaped the house into something the world had never seen, and she never signed a single thing she made.

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Sitting in our dining room with the balcony door open to the early summer air, I can see straight across the river to La Plage. The old cowbell clangs. Another dish is up. Our local guinguette — one of the festive riverside restaurants that appear along the Dordogne each summer like a seasonal promise — is just coming back to life. The plane trees have fully leafed out now, thick and generous, and whatever wisps of buildings you could see have disappeared behind them.

I have a personal goal of trying three new guinguettes each summer, but I always return to La Plage out of sheer convenience. These festive outdoor restaurants pop up all along the riverside, serving simple food — burgers, confit de canard, the occasional fish. Carafes of cheap wine claim more than their fair share of victims. Some nights there is live music. Is it karaoke or a professional singer? I can’t always tell.

La Plage has emerged from February’s flooding looking spiffed up — new gravel, a new fence. The menu hasn’t changed, but it never needed to. It’s the view that really brings people in. Some regulars plant themselves at the bar, drink in hand, cigarette going, catching up with no apparent intention of sitting down to a meal. On certain Monday nights, there is a cochon feast — a pig day of sorts, which I imagine is something like that scene from Mark Greenside’s I’ll Never Be French (No Matter What I Do), where a bus full of French seniors arrive, and they proceed to eat, drink, and dance until there is nothing left to do but go home. I tell myself that this year, we will check it out.

The markets fill up again as the weather warms, and right now they belong to the strawberry. They’re everywhere — in tarts, in bowls with a little cream, and in one of my favorite drinks: Lillet — blanc, rosé, or rouge, I love them all. It has been made in Podensac, a small village just south of Bordeaux, since 1872. For a while, it had fallen somewhat out of favor. In fact, a French friend told me he associates it with his grandmother’s generation. I served it to him anyway. One sip and he was, to his own surprise, fully converted. Perhaps it’s not just a clever rebrand that’s thrusting it back into the limelight. It deserves to be there, if you ask me.

Fancy one for yourself? You can enjoy it on the rocks, mix with soda water, or do what I do: add a splash of tonic and garnish with whatever you have on hand. Right now, that means a gariguette strawberry — a variety with a distinctive long shape and a berry sweetness that we can’t get enough of.

The thing to know about early summer — and some may call this late spring, but let’s not argue — is that the month of May in France is practically designed for people who enjoy living life to the fullest. There are four public holidays packed into a single month. Taken together, they function less like individual holidays and more like a collective warm-up — France stretching its arms, loosening its shoulders, getting ready for summer.

• May 1st — La Fête du Travail (Labor Day), the one day the French government legally mandates everyone to stop working. No exceptions.

• May 8th — La Victoire 1945 (Victory in Europe Day), honoring the end of World War II.

• Mid-May — L’Ascension (Ascension Day), a Catholic holiday marking the ascent of Christ into heaven, always falls on a Thursday — which is extremely convenient.

• Late May — Le Lundi de Pentecôte (Whit Monday), the day after Pentecost Sunday.

It seems you can’t discuss holidays in France without someone bringing up the term faire le pont — making the bridge. When a holiday falls on a Thursday, you take the Friday off. Tuesday? Take the Monday. Suddenly, a single holiday has stretched itself into a four-day weekend. This, I understand. We did the same thing to make the most of our leave when I served in the Air Force. What was a little more surprising is when I found the Bordeaux préfecture completely closed last Friday. I couldn’t even be upset. My paperwork can wait. C’est la vie.

You can gauge the seriousness of each holiday by whether your grocery store is open. My Intermarché posts signs with a kind of escalating gravity: Fermé toute la journée le 1er mai. Closed all day May 1st. No exceptions, no apologies. May 8th: open until 12:30. The hierarchy is clear.

And on May 1st, something else happens that I find genuinely charming: small booths appear on street corners selling muguet — lily of the valley — tied in little bundles. It’s tradition to offer them as gifts for good luck. I saw them that day while driving through Bordeaux with visitors on the way to Cap Ferret, the stems peeking up from green paper cones, sellers of all ages stationed at intersections like the best kind of pop-up you’ve never seen advertised.

Back home, other things are popping up. The star jasmine is in full bloom. So is the honeysuckle, and the climbing roses — or what’s left of them. Our garden this year is, to put it charitably, a construction zone. We are currently in the midst of a façade overhaul, an attempt to fix the eroding limestone. The scaffolding went up sometime in March, and with each blow of the hammer, bits of stone and sand rain down. I feel naive having planted a whole flat of perennials and a bag of summer bulbs along the perimeter, which I had lovingly tended in the weeks before. I’ve almost made peace with it. Almost.

There is a particular lesson this season seems intent on teaching me, and it has nothing to do with flowers. The masonry work was due to be completed by May 4th. I’ve since adjusted my ambitions: I’m now desperately hoping the scaffolding comes down by July 14th, when we’re planning to have people over for La Fête Nationale. The maçon is so skilled and such a genuinely kind man that the schedule slippage is surprisingly easy to absorb. Have we finally learned to go with the flow? This revelation represents either personal growth or the slow French-ification of our expectations. Possibly both.

Maybe the garden, like us, just needs a reset. A little lavender where the dust has settled. Something in place of the dying palm. It will be better than before, I keep telling myself. I’m starting to believe it.

Early summer in southwest France smells like jasmine and patience. Both take longer than you expect. Both are worth it.

À la prochain,

Valérie

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Once in a while, in doing my research, I discover that some well-known Americans traveled to Paris during my favorite period, between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Recently, I learned that one of my favorite American artists, Edward Hopper, was one of them.

If you haven’t heard of Edward Hopper, he was a Realist painter most known for ‘Nighthawks’, which shows a couple of lonely souls sitting in a late-night diner. He produced it in 1942 when he was around 60 years old.

Decades earlier, a 24-year-old Hopper went to live in Paris. His parents, who lived in the Hudson Valley area of New York, were members of the local Baptist Church. Through the church, they helped arrange for Edward to stay in a building owned by the Evangelical Baptist Church in Paris, at 48 rue de Lille. He stayed there from the fall of 1906 to the spring of 1907. In one letter home, he described how he only needed to walk a short distance to cross the river and end up at the Louvre Museum.

Hopper took his sketch book everywhere as he wandered the streets in the City of Light. He fell in love with the city’s design and architectural details, especially the slate roofs and iconic chimneys. He would paint many major landmarks in Paris, but I prefer his other works that focused in more on smaller images, like these paintings of the scenes at his apartment building:

Hopper produced dozens of gorgeous sketches using charcoal, ink and watercolor. He traveled everywhere, from the banks of the Seine up to Belleville, a neighborhood in the northeastern region of Paris.

He did countless sketches and watercolors of individuals, like the one below, entitled ‘Paris Woman Walking’. I love that it’s just the woman with no scenery around her — it allows my imagination to wonder where she was going and exactly what part of the city she was walking in. And please, look at that hat!

This is a work he did along the Seine River, which was near his apartment. One can go right down to the water’s edge, which he must have done to observe these down-and-out-looking shadowy figures under the bridge:

Hopper also did raw sketches of women’s updos and women’s and men’s clothing, hats, and accessories:

Here’s a watercolor of a man seated at a table, and I could tell that just by looking at the color and style of the table, chair, his carafe d’eau and drink, this surely is Paris:

Then there’s this woman below, seated and with very sparse scenery around her — but just look at that hat, her shoes and the color of her lipstick. I think this also shows that in Paris during that time, women could absolutely have a drink on their own, even though they didn’t have too many legal rights at the time — but cafes were off-limits in terms of patriarchal restriction.

Hopper’s sketches also tell us that he spent time at the opera. There are several drawings of women in the opera with their fancy hats and demure poses.

Finally, may I please draw your attention to this rotund gentleman (who looks like a banker or newspaper editor) seated at a table with his top hat and cane? Again, look at the color of the table.

Dead giveaway: Paris.

Much of Hopper’s later work back in the U.S. was known for depicting images of solitude, whether they were of lone buildings or individuals. I personally can see this style reflected in these early watercolors from Paris. The Whitney Museum in New York has probably the majority (if not all) of Hopper’s sketches from that time.

By the way, I was very happy to hear that during his time in the French capital, he became familiar with the photographs of my very favorite French photographer, Eugène Atget, who similarly captured quiet images of vieux Paris before it was modernized in the late 19th century.

Hopper would go back to Paris a few more times between 1907 and 1910, but after that, he never returned. He would later say it would take him 10 years to get over Europe.

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Sources:

• The Whitney Museum: Edward Hopper collection

• Edward Hopper in Paris | Parisian Fields

• France-Amérique: Hopper in Paris

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