A Christmas Walk

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Our walk will begin at the Samaritaine department store, opposite the Pont Neuf, Paris’s oldest bridge. To many graying Parisians the store is associated with its deliberately eccentric commercials, notably the one starring King Kong storming the shop through its top-floor windows. Its celebrated catch-phrase On trouve tout à la Samaritaine (‘One can find everything at the Samaritaine’) has been changed since into On trouve Tout-Paris à la Samaritaine, aiming to add a ‘showbiz’ touch to a store whose shoppers until recently were notoriously provincial and outdated. But things have changed of late. At present you will see inside the biggest Christmas tree ever displayed in a department store. Besides, the 7th-floor restaurant, Le Toupary (pun on Tout Paris) affords one of the city’s most splendid views, and very good food at a reasonable price. (It is one of my most enthusiastic recommendations in my forthcoming book). You can also get the view from the terrace, but only during opening hours, and without the snug atmosphere and background, unobtrusive music you will get at Le Toupary….Besides, La Samaritaine is well worth a visit for its Art Nouveau and Art Deco decorations. When Ernest Cognacq, a former draper’s assistant at La Rochelle, first set up shop on rue du Pont-Neuf in 1867, he called it La Samaritaine in memory of the old water pump situated at the Pont Neuf until the early 19th centruy. Thirty years later he commissioned Franz Jourdain to put up a building to house a full-size department store, a structure of steel and glass in keeping with the progressive spirit of the time. In 1926 Franz Jourdain and Henri Sauvage built the façade on the quai du Louvre, one of the best examples of Art Deco in Paris. In 1930 a new building was added on the corner of rue de Rivoli and rue Boucher, boasting an interesting frieze around it and an impressive staircase inside. All these bear witness to the golden age of department stores, which enabled modest men of genius to build small empires with a few decades. With the help of his dynamic wife, Louise Jay, also a draper’s assistant, from rue Rambuteau, Cognacq used his meteoric success to build up a fabulous art collection, now housed in the Musée Cognacq-Jay in the Marais. Walk along the quai du Louvre and turn right on rue de l’Amiral de Coligny and right into place du Louvre. On your right are the church of Saint Germain l’Auxerrois and the Mairie of the 1st arrondissement. On 24 August 1572, at the stroke of midnight, began one of the bloodiest pages in French history: the massacre of Saint-Bartholomew, ordered by Charles IX but instigated by his mother, Catherine de Medici, during which 3,000 Protestants perished. Of the three bells that had signaled the onset of the carnage – Marie, Germain and Vincent, only Marie has survived. It dates from 1527 and is one of the oldest bells in Paris. Saint Germain l’Auxerrois was the royal parish church, just opposite the Louvre, and the royal pew can still be seen inside. When Catherine de Medici was told by her astrologer, Ruggieri, that she would die ‘by Saint Germain’, she moved out of the Palais des Tuileries, her newly built residence west of the Louvre, so as to attend mass elsewhere. She settled in the Hôtel de Soissons, on the site of the present Bourse de Commerce, the round building on the western edge of the Forum des Halles, adjoining the column from where Ruggieri scrutinised the stars, which still stands. The Queen never returned to her residence at Saint-Germain-en-laye either, but there is no escaping one’s destiny: while in Blois in the Loire Valley, some 16 years later, she took ill, never to recover. A young priest was called to her bedside on 15 January 1589 to give her the last sacrament. The Queen asked his name: ‘Julien de Saint Germain,’ replied the holy stranger. The original Saint Germain, the Bishop of Auxerre in Burgundy in the 6th century, is said to have journeyed all the way to England to combat heresy. At the end of the 7th century a primitive church was in all likelihood erected on this site, where the Saint had allegedly performed some extraordinary deed. It was probably demolished during the Norman invasions of the 9th century, like all the other churches of Paris. A Merovingian cemetery discovered near by in the 19th century, supports this assumption. The present church was built in the 12th and 13th centuries and the Saint’s supposedly preserved relics were laid within. Little is left of this church, greatly altered over the years, particularly in the 18th century. During the Revolution it became the Temple de la Reconnaissance and after the Revolution was used for storing fodder. Napoleon’s arrival threatened to be more fatal than the Revolution: among his spectacular projects was a regal thoroughfare from the Louvre to place de la Bastille and on to place de la Nation. This would have opened a new vista from the Louvre with an impregnable view of the Elephant of the Bastille, an extravagant, colossal statue he had intended for place de la Bastille, the model of which actually stood on the site of the present Opera House until 1847. Napoleon’s project would have entailed the demolition of the church, which fortunately he did not have the time to do, but in 1831 there was question once more of demolishing it and only the relentless efforts of the outraged writer Chateaubriand prevented this disastrous outcome. Lassus and Baltard were called upon to undertake its restoration and give it its present aspect. Inside can still be seen the 14th-century chapel, the 15-th century wooden polychrome triptych and stained-glass windows, the early 16th-century Flemish retable, the 17th-century organ case (brought over from the Sainte Chapelle) and the 18th-century wrought-iron grille around the choir. In front of it are two 15th-century polychrome statues of Saint Germain and Saint Vincent, while a 13th-century statue of Saint Germain can be seen in the chapel. On this occasion of the Christmas season, the church is well worth your visit and is a good place for meditating. Around and About Paris by Thirza Vallois is published by Iliad Books, UK. Thirza Vallois is the author of Around and About Paris, Vol. 1, 2, and 3.Her video, “Three Perfect Days in Paris,” aired on all United…
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