The French Journal

Encore, encore...

A long weekend is being recognized in the U.S., so the boss gave me the day off. Feeling dutiful, however, I will offer for your entertainment some links to stories about subjects that I have recently written about: fresh articles, old topics.

• Lourdes, this time visited by The Boston Globe. The reporter tries to find religion behind the water bottles shaped like the Virgin Mary.
• Nancy, also courtesy of The Globe, a day trip from Paris, with its Art Deco splendors. Vive la Pologne!
• How to Talk about Books You Haven't Read- The NY Times really likes the premise of this book by French intellectual Pierre Bayard, because they reviewed it TWICE yesterday: once in the Style section, and another time in the book review. All this is in addition to an interview with the author last week. (Won't speculate why this idea has so much appeal to The Times...)
• Big events on the DVD scene. Three of the most popular French-flavored films of the year are out on DVD: La Vie en Rose/La Môme, Paris, Je T'aime, and Ratatouille. La Vie en Rose is available in an "extended" edition, which I presume means that Piaf will have a few more death bed scenes.

À demain!

You are there: Raon l'Étape -- November, 1944

Sunday is Veteran's Day in the U.S., so please permit me to guide you to an article that may lean more to the American side of the Franco-American equation. An intern at the Concord Monitor, a newspaper in New Hampshire, has helped to shape diary entries of the late Herbert Church, Jr. who served in France in 1944. The lengthy eight-day chronicle of the fight for and the liberation of Raon l'Étape, a town in Lorraine, has a remarkable immediacy to it. There's little pumped-up heroism; it's simply there between the lines.

"Then a funny thing happened. For the moment, we actually seemed safe. You could see the strain drop from the fellows' faces. We laughed hard at loudly told reminiscences of past dangers, and laughed harder, self-consciously, at ourselves for laughing. Then Joe came across with a good one. He said that our doings had become practically a legend back at the battalion, and that we were going to get the Bronze Star.

"What the Hell for?" I was frankly amused."

And for the end, as the soldiers enter the town:

"I have always admired France, and frequently laughed at her. But I never loved her until tonight. Our weary, dirty company got a hero's welcome from people standing before wrecked homes. We were "les liberateurs." A lady saw me staggering along (that hill-climbing we had been doing had given me a red-hot blister) and asked, "You etes fatigué?" I must have looked it, and sure as Hell was, but managed to choke out, "Pas trop!" Before a roofless gutted house stood a little pudgy old man. He saw me looking at him, and gave me the French Army salute. The highball I gave him back was my special, usually reserved for 2-star Generals and higher. Everywhere we saw wrecked houses, but unbroken spirits and brave smiles. The soul of France was in Raon l'Étape this evening."

A cemetery amid the battlefields of World War I

Like many Americans, I have been to the American cemetery in Normandy to pay respects to my compatriots who died during World War II. On the sunny day of my visit last year, many other French and American visitors were there as well. In a long article, The New York Times points out that more American soldiers are buried in the Meuse-Argonne cemetery, in the northeast area of the country, where many bloody battles of World War I were fought, including one on the site of the cemetery itself. Less well known than its Normandy counterpart, it is the largest American cemetery in Europe.

The article offers many "painful" details. Often, combat was hand-to-hand; soldiers frequently used shovels instead of bayonets in their fights, finding them to be more effective weapons. Many of the nearby towns were leveled by German, American, or French forces; now rebuilt, they "look much the way they did in the golden summer of 1914 (prior to the war). Yet it's hard to believe that these replicas feel the same. Perhaps it was my imagination, but even in fine spring weather, I sensed a pervasive melancholy clinging like fog to the tidy streets and garden plots."

Read the article, if you can. It's a sad, enlightening trip to an overlooked part of recent history. The cemetery's official site has information and booklets for downloading, and there's a two-minute video tour of the grounds.

Meet me in Metz, mate.

The city of Metz is becoming more and more of a tourist stop because the high speed TGV has made it an easy day trip from Paris. At least, that's the thesis offered by David Whitley of The Sydney Morning Herald. Good Australian that he is, one-third of the article is spent analyzing the Oz Bar which he has found there; he concludes that whatever the pub lacks in authentic Aussie spirit, it has the virtue of offering Foster's.

Since most of us wouldn't visit Metz in hope of finding a Fuzzy Wombat, the city has other attractions. There's the Musée de la Cour d'Or, which -- according to Whitley -- has a great collection and a bewildering layout, and the beautiful Cathedral Saint Etienne, "(b)uilt in the bright yellow Jaumont stone that characterizes much of the city." (The Michelin Guide says Jaumont stone "is a golden rock with many different shades, still today extracted from a quarry nine miles out of town.")  A special sight: walking around at night, when every notable edifice in Metz is illuminated: Metz en habit de lumière. And coming up is a spectacular new museum, an offshoot of Paris's Centre Pompidou, which Metz believes will transform it into a destination like Bilboa in Spain with its Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Museum.

NYT #2: Nancy and Art Nouveau

In the spirit of the book The Secret, I put out a request to the universe a few months ago for a travel article about Nancy, and presto! Last Sunday's Travel section in the NYT had a story about a day trip to Nancy, which is now about an hour and a half from Paris, thanks to high speed trains. What I hadn't known before the article is that a primary attraction of the city is that it was a center for the Art Nouveau movement of the early 20th century and Belle Epoque: "Nancy artists were experimenting with natural shapes — flowers, vines, birds, insects — and the idea of using industrial techniques and materials to create beauty." (Of course, I wouldn't know...that's why I wanted someone to write about the place.)

Regions of France: Lorraine

It's been awhile since I've written up a region of France, but the truth is that these things are exhausting: they take a lot of time (relatively). Nevertheless, I soldier on, this time to cover sweet Lorraine. Often married in my head with Alsace, Lorraine has many unique facets, so let's bake its namesake quiche and take a look.

Three for the TGV: Reims, Metz, Strasbourg

Metz

Anthony Peregrine, The U.K. Telegraph's sly ex-pat, explores the possibilities for excursions that have opened up thanks to the TGV's new high speed trains. In the kind of travel article about France that I love (because it goes somewhere other than the usual spots), Peregrine offers his advice on three cities:

• Reims, which was damaged considerably in WWI, but which still has its dazzling cathedral and links to the champagne trade.
• Metz, in Lorraine, proudly retaining its German heritage and managing to use mirabelle plums in a million different ways.
• Strasbourg, much more than the seat of the EU, with a "formidable identity born not only of suffering but also of medieval democracy and independence, trading wealth from the Rhine, humanism, Reform, beer, wine and pickled cabbage. "

Any town that inspires using "humanism" and "pickled cabbage" in the same sentence is okay by me.