Paris bulletin 7 2009

Sundays in Paris are different from Sundays in London or Glasgow or any other major UK city in one important respect. The shops are shut. The marchés are open until lunchtime as are the boulangeries, but the supermarkets, the large stores, the fashion and design boutiques all, virtually without exception, are closed. That means there is less traffic on the roads – no delivery lorries for a start (and some bus lines don’t run on a Sunday). It also means people have to find something else to do besides wandering round the shops to fill the time between breakfast and supper.

Do you remember when it used to be like that in the UK too?

One Sunday recently I caught the 43 bus going south-west. You can sit on the 43 all the way from the Gare du nord right down to the Bois de Boulogne, which is what I did, going from the grey and dust of northern Paris where all the colour is in the crowds, to the glossy railed-in gardens and empty pavements of Neuilly.  

My destination was the parc de Bagatelle which I hadn’t visited since I was a teenager. It used to be one of the regular outings I did with Madeleine Mezeix. Madeleine was my expert guide to Paris as well as my stern and demanding teacher. She had been my mother’s pen-pal many years before and still taught French at one of the big Paris lycées. She was also a great lover of flowers and tended the finest collection of African violets I’ve ever seen in her 6^th floor flat on the rue de Castellane.

Bagatelle is renowned not for its African violets but for its roses. The garden and chateau were constructed in 1775, in just 64 days as we are told, for the use of Marie Antoinette, whose brother-in-law, le comte d’Artois owned the property. They were laid out in what was known at the time as ‘le style anglo-chinois’ – sweeping lawns, lakes, fine clumps of trees and shrubs, man-made waterfalls, rustic bridges, pavilions and even a pagoda. Now they are the property of the ville de Paris and are maintained for the delight of the public, and as one of the four big botanical gardens of the capital.

 

 

 

When I was there the peacocks were in full mating regalia. The males were pavanning around with their tails at full cock, making the most frightful screeching racket. Viewed from the rear- back-stage if you like- they are more like pantomime dames than des princes orientaux au plumage ravissant but it’s the front view the ladies get - they don’t know how comical their men look from the back when they’re strutting their stuff..

I didn’t go to the rose garden because I sat in the sun and read my book for an hour or two, visited occasionally by an enquiring little boy. Then I spent too long admiring the fabulous border of peonies which were at their most magnificent. I can tell you though, that the roseraie boasts over 1,200 different species of rose and more than 10,000 plants, so if roses are your thing, Bagatelle’s a good place to visit.

 

 

peony border

 

Paris basks in the sun day after day. The cafes are full from dawn till dusk and the quayside of the canal is dotted with groups déjeuning sur l’herbe but without the herbe – unless they’re smoking it, which some of them must be judging from the aromas which assail you periodically. On se la coule douce par ces journées ensoleillées.