Place de la Concorde, Paris 8me. May 2017. 6 a.m. 10°C. As fountains splash and wet cobbles gleam in the slanting morning sun, tankers painted the somber green of all Paris sanitation vehicles trundle around its largest square, flushing its gutters as if in hopes of sluicing away the blood of those thousands of victims of La Terreur, a king and queen included, who died here. For a year after, not even dogs would cross it, so overpowering was the stench.
THAT MARIE–DOMINIQUE SHOULD, IN HER THIRTIES, HAVE DECIDED to marry and, in doing so, chosen a foreigner surprised and, in some cases, alarmed the people around her.
After a number of near misses over the years, her family and friends had decided that buzzing around the world as she did on assignment as a journalist, she was far too busy to settle down. They had her categorized as the glamorous aunt or niece, always good for a generous gift at a wedding or christening and free at a moment’s notice to join a Tuscan house party or help crew a yacht sailing to the Bahamas.
Who was I, an unknown, to have caught this highflier and coaxed her back to earth? Invitations to their home aren’t something the French make lightly, but during my first few months in Paris we were guests at several dinners where eating and drinking took second place to sizing me up.
Christmas with my new family had alerted me of what to expect. Fortunately, that went off well because I told a story about the misadventures of an Australian friend, the writer George Johnston, in the vineyards of Bordeaux just after World War II. Watching them smile at his floundering—and my own, in trying to tell the story in my fumbling French—taught me that the rules governing social life in Los Angeles would not do for France.
The passport to social acceptance in most societies is novelty. In California I played the slightly disoriented Englishman, increasing the broadness of my vowels and saying, when offered coffee, “I don’t suppose you have any tea?”
That would never do in France, where all things and people are judged according to the degree with which they share French values and ideals. Fortunately I had learned enough about both to, if not contribute, then at least nod in the right places.
At one such dinner party, the conversation turned to honeymoons and the fact that Marie–Dominique and I were too busy to have one.
“There’s a good story,” I said, “in the memoirs of Giscard d’Estaing . . .”
The autobiography of the former French president had just been translated into English, and my knowledge of it extended only as far as an extract published by one of the British papers. In it, he described his first meeting with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. It took place in Paris, at the Hôtel de Crillon, which looks out on Place de la Concorde.
Not sure with what kind of woman he was dealing, the urbane Giscard let her lecture him about Franco–British relations. As she did so, his mind wandered. Looking out on the sunlit fountains of Concorde, he wondered how many young couples had enjoyed this view on the first morning of their marriage. Why, he himself—
Seized by surprise, he interrupted Thatcher in mid–discourse.
“Forgive me, Madame Prime Minister,” he said. “I was just thinking how many young couples spent the first night of their honeymoon at the Crillon. I did so myself, but it’s only in this instant that I realized it was in this very suite!”
If he expected an answering smile, some sentimental response, he was disappointed. Raising one eyebrow in irritation, Mrs. Thatcher continued her recital. Clearly, the nickname “the Iron Lady” was well earned, an insight that affected all Giscard’s subsequent negotiations with her.
“Well, here is a surprise,” said our host when I finished the story. “A visitor who knows something of our country that, in my case at least, is quite new.”
Said over a dinner in Australia, a society preoccupied with equality, this would almost certainly have been sarcastic, and intended as an insult. In that egalitarian society, nobody was less appreciated than the know–it–all who soiled the garden of ignorance with an unwelcome factoid. In France, however, it was said with sincerity, even respect.
After that, I felt a lot easier about playing the heritage card, which is how I found myself on a balcony one night overlooking the Canal Saint–Martin, chatting about calendars with a man I’d only just met.
Inside, the party was getting noisy, but out here the air was heavy with odors of vegetal decay from the sluggish water of the canal—what the British poet Rupert Brooke called “the thrilling, sweet and rotten, / Unforgettable, unforgotten / River–smell.” They blended seamlessly with the cigar being smoked by someone a few meters along the balcony.
“It is too early for heat like this,” the smoker said from the darkness. “Every year, the summer comes earlier and stays longer.”
Groping for something more than bland agreement, I remembered a conversation with Céline years before, about how during the French Revolution, someone had the idea of renaming the months of the year. Thermidor was one; Brumaire was another, and what was the Month of Fruit . . . ?
“I know what you mean,” I said. “This is Fructidor, but it’s more like Vendémiaire.”
The red coal of the burning cigar moved closer, faintly illuminating the face of the smoker. Glasses, a beard . . . and, unexpectedly, a clerical collar.
“I knew you were a cinéaste, m’sieur. Are you also an historian?”
“No. Just interested.”
“In the Calendrier républicain?” He chuckled. “Believe me, my friend, you are in the minority. Hardly any of my own countrymen have ever heard of it. Or of Fabre d’Églantine.”
The name was new to me too, but I risked a bluff. “Not exactly a name one forgets.”
“So he thought,” said the man. He shifted his cigar and held out his hand. “Adrian de Grandpré. Of course, you know he faked it.”
Backpedaling, I said hurriedly, “I’m really no expert . . .” But it was too late.
Some time later, as I stepped back into the room, Marie–Dominique joined me. “What were you talking about on the terrace? You were out there for an hour.”
“The weather, as a matter of fact.”
I transferred to the pocket of my jacket the two pages of scribbled notes dictated by my new acquaintance and his list of books for further reading,
“What’s all that?” she asked.
“Would you believe . . . homework?”