CHAPTER TEN

Mistresses, Marriage, and Mystery

Whoever has loved, knows all that life contains of sorrow and joy.

—GEORGE SAND

I OFTEN THINK ABOUT THAT OLD DIXIE CUPS song “Going to the Chapel of Love.” The lyrics are all about going to the chapel, getting married—and most important, the idea that “we’ll love until the end of time and we’ll never be lonely anymore.”

It’s true, we all want to feel safe. We want reassurances that we will love and be loved and that nothing will ever interfere with this moment and that everything will always stay exactly the same. Perfect. Forever.

But we all know that nothing stays the same. Life changes. People change.

People leave you. People you thought you’d never see again, suddenly return. People surprise you in the most unexpected way. Life brings you great joy, but life also brings with it great sadness, even tragedy and loss.

Honestly, I am a mere child compared to my French sisters. I simply assume I am entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I take for granted there will be love and joy and delicious meals and romantic nights by the fireplace with Dr. Thompson. Perhaps I don’t assume, as in the song, that now that I’ve gone to “the chapel of love” I will never be lonely anymore, but you know what? Maybe deep down, I do.

French women most definitely do not make these assumptions. Ever. They’re a whole lot more existential about life and love, and they also seem to live in the present a whole lot more than the rest of us do.

THE MUSEUM OF LOST THINGS

I do believe that this existentialism comes out of a history of countless invasions over the years into the tiny country of France and, in particular, their experiences during World War I—or as it was known at the time, the Great War, also called the War to End All Wars (only it didn’t).

My good friend Margie moved to France over thirty years ago and lives in the city of Lille. Before moving to Lille, she lived in Morbecque, a little village on the border of Belgium and France. I visited her home about ten years ago and she suggested we drive over to Belgium and visit In Flanders Fields, the World War I museum in the ancient town of Ypres.

We entered the museum and began our tour by first selecting a card from a box. This card was my “person,” and the idea was that we would go through the chronology of the war—the invasion of France and Belgium by the Germans, the trenches, the arrival of the British, the Australians—and see the events through different people’s points of view.

I got the card with a picture of a thirty-seven-year-old French woman who owned a hat shop in a little village outside of Paris. I held on to her card as if it were some kind of talisman, hoping she would survive. As Margie and I circled around the displays of gas masks and red and blue uniforms, photographs and letters, I kept looking at her face—her dark eyes with her serious expression and pursed lips. I hoped that she would make it through to the end of the war. And then maybe I would find out whether she was still alive today. That would have made her nearly one hundred years old at the time of our visit, but you never know.

Truthfully, the tour was rough. There were some heart-wrenching photographs of young men in cornflower-blue uniforms marching off to war from all over France and Belgium—from the cities and the villages—only to find themselves dying terrible deaths in trenches filled with frozen mud.

This was during the advent of chemical warfare, so there was mustard gas that pretty much guaranteed a horrific death, and if you survived, you were left disfigured for life. Back in Paris, the government rationed bread and coal and grain—this during one of the coldest winters on record. And then there was the Spanish influenza, killing 1,778 civilians in one week.

And when it was all over, France lost almost 5 percent of its entire population, leaving behind a devastated and traumatized country. Those who survived would become known as the Lost Generation.

And my French shop lady? Well, I left the shadows of the World War I exhibition and entered the sunlit room of the gift shop, I opened up my envelope to find that, no, she did not survive the war.

IN FLANDERS FIELD, A POPPY GROWS

If she had survived, she would find herself living in a country where there were simply not enough men to go around. In addition to this unhappy development, the men who actually did survive the war were often disfigured and maimed, and literally as well as psychically scarred beyond repair. In fact, over half the men died or were maimed. Madame M. still remembers the streets of Paris being filled with such men, legless, rolling about on wooden pallets. This was before prosthetics and plastic surgery.

France became a country with limited food resources, filled with widows and orphans. Marrying and starting a family was simply not possible. This is one of the underlying reasons why the French may be a little less judgmental when it comes to the role of the mistress in their society.

So what did French women—many of them young widows with children—do after the trauma of war, surrounded by crippled men and orphans? Well, they didn’t crumble and fold. They put on a brave face. They mended their old dresses. They put newspaper in the soles of their worn shoes. They got creative with a bit of lace or a new set of buttons. They brushed their hair and put on a bit of lipstick. They developed gifts that cost nothing—the art of clever conversation, dancing, and, most assuredly, charm, because charm will go a long, long way in the land of loss.

Learn to enjoy simple pleasures that cost nothing at all.

And with only these things at their disposal, the women of France got to work. They got creative.

A FLOWER IN HER LAPEL

One such woman was Madame Anna Guérin, a French teacher who traveled extensively during and after the war giving talks and raising awareness. She created the “Remembrance Poppy Day.” She organized French widows and orphans to make cloth poppies to be pinned on one’s lapel and sold them on her tours during poppy drives, with the proceeds going to help World War I invalids and their widows and orphans. We still have them today and while you don’t see these so much anymore in America, on November eleventh, Armistice Day, practically everyone in Great Britain, Australia, and Canada wears a red “Remembrance Poppy” on their lapel. The French will wear a blue cornflower, known as Le Bleuet de France, to match the French uniforms during the Great War, to commemorate their loved ones they lost during those terrible years.

Today, we see this idea of wearing a pretty flower pin on your lapel. Whenever we wear a pink ribbon to support breast cancer research or to honor our fallen sisters, we must know that we are part of a grand tradition of women who take a little bit of ribbon or cotton or silk and turn it into something powerful and charming.

FLOWERS ON THE MANTELPIECE

For French women the idea of survival lives on beyond the blue cornflower or the red poppy on the lapel. The legacy lives on in a kind of psychic cultural shift that can be seen in their attitudes toward marriage and guarantees. And so, even getting married is not as important to the French as it is to Americans. They simply don’t believe in guarantees, and they know for certain that even if they go to the “chapel of love,” they will more than likely still find themselves lonely at times.

And perhaps, too, they will turn a blind eye to their husband’s dalliances, because it has only been a few generations since they lost the luxury of complete candor and righteous honesty. They just don’t have the heart to hold a man’s feet to the fire over infidelity. Yes, they forgive and forget some of the details and move on to the important bigger picture of life.

Through years of hardship and uncertainty, French women have developed a way to take care of the glue that keeps the fabric of society together—a handmade dress that’s been repeatedly repaired and well pressed, shoes that may have been reheeled and reheeled again, and pretty lingerie that lasts a long, long time because it’s been lovingly washed by hand. The French woman shows her love and gratitude with a simple but wholesome meal, a humble bouquet of wildflowers placed above the fire on the mantelpiece, a kiss for her husband, her partner, or her lover and a timeless set of rules for her children that have kept her world together and tied the past to the present, with the comforting knowledge that despite the unpredictable nature of life, certain things will never change.

Appreciate the here and now, knowing that everything could change tomorrow.

French women know that the world can go insane tomorrow and we can lose everything, but we have an unspoken agreement that we will put love above all else and we will live in the gray area—that mysterious place where uncertainty resides and forgiveness blooms.

Parisian Charm School Lesson

The French simply do not have the same kind of illusions about the big white wedding dress and the happily ever after. I’ve come to understand that some of their rationality and pragmatism toward the institution of marriage derives from their own tumultuous past.

This is not to say that in today’s France, infidelity is completely accepted. In fact, many French women have told me that if their husband were to stray, it would be the end of the marriage.

Nonetheless, the reality is that the French are not always faithful. But guess what—Americans aren’t always faithful, either! And so, knowing this, it’s up to us to take nothing for granted and to do our very best to create a beautiful life full of romance, mystery, and charm. There are no guarantees in life, so why not seize the day and express love now, in small, ordinary, everyday ways?

Appreciate the mystery hidden inside your own love affair or marriage.

Take a cue from our French sisters and develop your inner strengths, knowing that ultimately, we must be self-reliant. Look for simple moments of joie de vivre—joy in living—knowing that the future is now.

Living in the moment, the “French woman way” means finding everyday happiness, making home-cooked meals, using our good silverware every day, and bringing nature into our homes. Appreciate the mystery hidden inside your own love affair or marriage, not seeking any guarantees, but embracing the unknown. This is truly “the sweet spot”—that place in a relationship where you look at your lover or husband and you realize that you don’t truly know him. And he doesn’t truly know you, and this is what keeps your love story alive and growing and beautiful.

Parisian Charm School Pratique

Consider how we can live better with less. Clear out the excess in your closets and cupboards, so you might rediscover lovely things you’ve put away for “a rainy day.” Once you’ve rediscovered those lovely things, be sure to use them often.

Embrace the idea that less is more.

Make your husband or boyfriend something delicious to eat. Take out your good silver and begin using it every day.

Forgive little transgressions and wear a flower in your lapel.