Spring has sprung in Versailles

It's spring, it's spring! (jumping, jumping!!!) Spring has finally arrived in Versailles (which explains why people spend most of their time in totally other places than sitting at their computer to write for their Versailles blog - I'm not talking about anyone in particular here...). And to top it off, there is still light outside, at 9pm, which is just amazing and makes the winter feel so far away, youu-hooo! Oh, and since I'm never happy (I'm about to become too Frenchie I'm afraid) we don't have leaves in the trees yet, which is a turn-off, but despite this major drawback we survived and could take a magic walk today to rediscover the charms of the Versailles' Sunday market, under a splendid sun.

It was a perfect day, finally!

 

Versailles' hunter-gatherer population

My refusal to write about chocolate mustn't fool you, dear reader: chocolate is ubiquitous in here and if ever in doubt over what to bring to a French host, or a meeting, party, funeral or other human get-together in France, the doubt should cease right this moment, because the solution is very straight forward: just bring some chocolate! (not sure about the funeral, though, never been to a French one actually :P)

And if you thought that after all this infatuation over it there's no official chocolate day to celebrate it properly just because I didn't mention it before, it's now time to correct this omission. Happy Easter, everyone, today is the chocolate day in France! Now, let me tell you how Easter is related with chocolate, because it might not be that obvious when you get to think about it.

Extreme gardening in Versailles

April is around the corner, but there's no use whatsoever in trying to change my wardrobe and wear something lighter for the spring, because it's not going to happen yet. Nope. It's officially spring here in Versailles, starting with the 20th of March equinox, but outside it's still completely freezing and only about a week ago we had a day of snow that wreaked havoc in the entire France. Yes, those little tiny 20 centimeters of snow stopped trains from working, closed whole institutions and provoked desperate announcemnts at the radio practically begging people not to go to Paris!...

But freezing or not, it's now the time to plant our gardens, balconies and terraces, or pots and jardinieres for some less fortunate (like me). The trees are starting to bloom (I have no idea how they manage to do it with these polar temperatures) and the camellia in front of my building is even starting to fade away (the blame goes again to that one day of snow). So I head to the local gardening festival, Esprit Jardin, braving the cold, wearing a light, springtime scarf. Big mistake!!!

The Poets's Spring - Versailles

Versailles, tu n’es plus qu’un spectre de cité ; Comme Venise au fond de son Adriatique, Tu traînes lentement ton corps paralytique, Chancelant sous le poids de ton manteau sculpté. Quel appauvrissement ! quelle caducité ! Tu n’es que surannée et tu n’es pas antique, Et nulle herbe pieuse au long de ton portique Ne grimpe pour voiler ta pâle nudité. Comme une délaissée, à l’écart, sous ton arbre, Sur ton sein douloureux croisant tes bras de marbre, Tu guettes le retour de ton royal amant. Le rival du soleil dort sous son monument ; Les eaux de tes jardins à jamais se sont tues, Et tu n’auras bientôt qu’un peuple de statues.

Versailles, you're only a spectre of a former city; Like Venice at the bottom of her Adriatic Sea, You're slowly dragging around your paralytic body, Tottering under the weight of your sculpted cape. What exhaustion! How decaying! You are but outdated and you are not antique, And no devout herb along your portico Climbs to veil your pale nudity. Like a neglected wife, out of the way, under your tree, Folding your arms on your sore breasts, You lie in wait for your royal lover's return. The sun's rival sleeps under his shrine; The waters of your gardens silenced themselves for good, And you will soon have but a people of statues.

1837, Théophile Gautier, "La Comédie de la Mort" (The Death Comedy)

Crossing the croissant chasm

There are two items that are the culinary symbols of France and I doubt they will be able to detach themselves from this ménage à trois any time sooner, they will surely have to live together happily ever after: the croissant and the baguette. Versailles too had two things to celebrate yesterday (the 400th anniversary of Le Nôtre and a new winter in spring with the assorted snow, traffic jams and paralyzed institutions) so I thought we should mark the moment properly with some freshly baked croissants, since I couldn't get out of the house.

Once you've tasted a croissant you've made with your own hands, your universe will radically change and you will think twice before buying one again, in case you can find it in your part of the world to begin with. It is quite complicated to get it right and have that crispiness that is absolutely mandatory in a good croissant, but I wrote you the recipe in small quantities so it doesn't feel that overwhelming and, more importantly, not to feel sorry if you have to throw everything in the bin (hopefully you won't). See how many precautions I take for those thingies? And they're not even invented by the French (but by a Viennese baker, that's why it's also called a viennoiserie)... Make sure you have enough butter and jam in da house for them, 'cause you will see that you will want to repeat the experience, and that asap!

Time Travel to Versailles: Mars 1913

The Versailles Journal - Mars 1913

Versailles Union of Industry and Trade - of the Versailles district

The Versailles Union of Industry and Trade sent to Monsieur the Mayor of Versailles the following letter:

Versailles, February 22, 1913

Monsieur the Mayor, Sir,

We have the honor, in the name of the Versailles Union of Industry and Trade, to demand your attention on a fact liable to cause prejudice to the local trade and, more specifically, to the Versailles alimentation. Following the very recent decision of the Monsieur the Undersecretary of State to the Fine Arts, the palaces of Versailles won't open their doors to visitors on Wednesdays but at one o'clock in the afternoon, due to cleaning out - Mondays being exclusively reserved for the weekly break.

We are not contesting the utility of cleaning; however, we are surprised that on that occasion there is a need to cut off two visiting hours every week in order to accomplish cleaning works, especially if we take into account that the opening hour is already very late.

This measure causes, as a consequence, real losses to the trade, especially as the foreigners will not come to have lunch in Versailles on Wednesdays anymore. Furthermore, the daily excursions organized by the Cook's American Express agencies and the others, whose itinerary is Versailles, Saint-Germain and Malmaison, are obliged to make their return trip and given that these excursions plan to go to Paris for dinner, it will follow that there will be no place left for having a meal in our town.

We do know that a procedure will soon be ensued with the view to ask Monsieur the Undersecretary of State to the Fine Arts to postpone his decision.
This is why we dare to hope that the Municipality will want to grant us its support in sustaining the legitimacy of our protest.

Confident in your solicitude, please accept, Monsieur the Mayor, the very respectful homages of your devoted citizens

For the Versailles Union of Industry and Trade,
The first Vice-president,
L. Yger

Price-less: Welcome to my castle!

Today I have finally opened the doors of *my* Versailles castle (for the first time on my blog) and it's only because today the access to it is free and follows the rule of my series about things to do for free in Versailles! Every first Sunday of the month, from November to Mars, everyone can freely visit the castle and the gardens at no cost. Even more, the access won't cost you a dime the other days either, if you're under 18yo or under 26yo and coming from a country member of the EU. You-hoo!!! (I'm only happy for you, 'cause, in my case, I've long passed both deadlines...)

Today I've also ordered a nice (almost) blue sky to come along with you and a big gold sun to wonderfully keep an eye on you while you have to leave the place full of regrets: I should've woke up earlier to have enough time to see everything!

Rest assured, you will never have time to visit the castle and the gardens in one day, you will definitely have to come back!

White Versailles

Being the respectable immigrant that I am, I am regularly bitching about the Versailles' weather and some of my blog readers haven't escaped from reading it in the past either. Everyone who comes from a sunny or a continental temperate country is hit by the same difficulty in getting used with the eternal grey, sad sky and in every respect the desolate weather we have in here - not counting in the rain (119 days of rain a year on average, tells us Météo France, that is about one in three days!). But I need blue sky and sun and starry nights: it's in my genes and there's nothing I can do about it! One must possess a great dose of natural optimism, a loving entourage and a busy life if they want to escape the inescapable weather blues (which will add up to the inescapable culture shock eventually).

Price-less: The Lambinet Museum on a wintry Sunday afternoon

It's really hard to believe that there are other museums in Versailles - that is, other than the Château(and, in a broader sense, that there is any life out there other than the Château...) - but there ARE!!! I mean, there is, because there's only one: the Musée Lambinet, the city museum. Quite neglected by tourists (just like almost all the rest of the city - thing that started to become a bit of a problem for officials lately, btw, and for easy-to-understand reasons...) this 18th century building turned into museum is a small jewel well worth the detour off Versailles' one and only beaten path.

The museum proudly presents artifacts tracing the history of Versailles after it became the city of kings and, even if it's a relatively young city (the first citation of its name in an official document was in 1038, something about a guy named "Hugo de Versaliis"), Versailles was nonetheless the theatre of big historical decisions and dramatic situation reversals deserving a museum in its own right. You already know from my previous posts how the people of Versailles are perfect, so, logically, they made a city history museum and this is the Musée Lambinet!

The Versailler's Paradox

I already had an idea of how Versaillers were viewed by their French fellows, then I have given you more than enough samples of my own personal views in the matter, but now I stumbled upon a French article about it, I mean a real one - written, admittedly, some time ago in 2006 in the leftist journal Libération but nonetheless still valid (as prejudices usually die hard).

And I thought it would be interesting to translate it in here so you can have other viewpoints at hand. Hopefully I'll find some more articles like these in the future (written by a rightist journalist maybe?) so we can try to obtain a broader picture about this whole Versailles thing. I, at least, I find it fascinating and it helped me find out that not only the French have their paradoxes, but so have the Versaillers, which endows me with one too, by extension. Here you go:

"The Versailler's Paradox
by Sibylle Vincendon

Price-less: Rock me, Versailles!

Versailles isn't a city easily associated to rock music, that's why I've been more than curious to go see the concert of three local rock bands, in my quest for things to do in Versailles at a low (or no) price.

This is the second year when the municipality organizes the rock contest "Les vendredis du rock" (=The Rock Fridays) in a somewhat sterile, closely supervised space at the sports center Richard Mique - and I can tell you that I deeply felt that arid environment: I so missed a beer to go with the music and drown my teenage memories! But since the event is specifically aimed to teenagers I had to go cold turkey and was forced to admire those (more or less) teenagers in all their splendor and awkwardness. Without even being able to blame it all on the alcohol!...

Would you be my Russian doll?

I've been writing about Russians in Versailles more than once on my blog, but today, despite the post title, I'll write about French men. B.I.G. subject!!! Valentine's day is almost here so, sistah', if you haven't find your French soulmate yet, it's time for me to send you to the movies.

Specifically to "Russian Dolls" by Cédric Klapisch because I strongly believe that the character played by Romain Duris is a perfect illustration of a type of French man that I often see around here and I think it's more typical to this part of the world, making it a kind of a new species: homo francesicus.

Price-less: Versailles Conservatory

Every now and then I get *the look* when I tell someone that I live in Versailles. A look of profound respect and deep consideration, which stopped to take me by surprise eventually because I learnt to know the cause: the interlocutor associates right away Versailles with the French royal house and reckons by extension that everyone who lives in Versailles has to be either a descendant of blue blood or at least a magnate who just bought half of the château (that's right: our castle - which, of course, is better than yours! - is magic! It must have at least 86110 halves, to follow the widespread prejudice with dignity...).

The town's reputation is really hard to break, and, while it's true that sometimes you have to spend a small fortune to go to the Opera House, people think that the residents are some overly rich bourgeois who live in castles and whose women are dressed in Chanel suits with Peter Pan collars.

Smoke on the water - Time Travel to Versailles: February 1913

The Versailles Chronicle - February 1913

"Good finds and curiosities

Afternoon tea. A whiff of the weed

Just imagine! A new fashion is to be established in France and all is due because we so much love to imitate our neighbors. Lately, the "Gazette médicale de Paris" reported that in New York and the main cities of the United States, the young ladies have now begun to ask to their jeweler for the cigarette or cigar holders made of gold and inlaid with precious stones. They carry these objects at their wrists, attached with a small chain.

The appetite for tobacco is nowadays generalized on the other side of the ocean and women are particularly fanatical about cigarettes, and even about cigars and pipes. On the programs of the many feminine get-togethers, we can frequently read:

'Afternoon tea. A whiff of the weed.'
That is:
'Thé d'après-midi. Une bouffée de tabac' (Afternoon tea. A puff of tobacco)

These ladies smoke at table, lunch and dinner, when desert is served. And men have no excuse left to isolate themselves in the smoking room.

So many women made a habit of smoking in England that one of the most important railway companies, the 'London and North Western Railway' had to reserve a first-class car for women who smoke, 'lady smokers', in every train.

Lastly, we know that, in Europe, a great number of women of the upper class didn't disdain the cigarette, to say the least. The sovereign ladies themselves have been their example: the Queen Margherita of Italy, the dowager Empress of Russia, the ex-Queen Amélia of Portugal, the Queen Maria-Christina are among the known smokers."

The Versailles Chronicle - February 1913

Happy Chandeleur Day!

Today is the Chandeleur, aka the crêpes holiday, which means that I will be stuffing myself with sweet crêpes - and I invite you to do the same - all with the same excuse: La fête de la Chandeleur. The origins and the pagan (then Christian) meaning of this holiday are lost in the misty darkness of the past, but the name suggests candles so just take your beautiful darling, light some candles on the table and prepare for a gustatory bliss.

These thin, light and flavored pancakes, that only the French know how to make properly, are one of my favorite desserts ever and can be filled with whatever fancies the happy owner: the sweeter the better (I actually like them even better without filling, but don't listen to me, I'm weird!).

Here's the crêpe recipe:

Our Versailles gardens are better than yours

Generally speaking, our (Le Nôtre) is better than yours (Le Vôtre) and if you don't believe me you should go read this book written by a cool psychology professor from Harvard. But Versailles already knew that, ages before Daniel Gilbert, and, to prove it, it organizes with great pomp this year the L'année Le Nôtre (The Le Nôtre year).

Exhibitions, colloquies, spectacles, prizes and much more will come celebrate the 400th anniversary of the birth of Monsieur Le Nôtre. So who was this Le Nôtre and what did he do better than anyone else? He was the most famous landscape designer of the Grand Siècle (the Great Century) and, of course, he designed the famous gardens of the Versailles Castle in what later became known as the à la française (French) style.

The main principle that follows a French style garden is that human intelligence and knowledge and physical power in particular can transform the nature at its will and the fearful destruction forces of the nature will have to obey the human master. That's why the French style garden is an endless succession of disciplined (and sometimes quite ridiculously looking) trees and bushes: because they have obeyed! A treetop in shape of a cube? Done! The whole alley of trees with the same shape? No problem!! A pyramid bush? Easy!!! The nature becomes a green empty canvas waiting for the genius human artist to create a masterpiece, with complicate perspective calculations, intricate designs and carefully staged dynamic.

It doesn't matter who will have the last laugh, the 'here' and the 'now' prevails.

The ninth art in Versailles

If you didn't know that there are nine arts in this world, now it's the perfect time to update your hesitating memory with a thorough recap. Don't worry, you are not alone in your innocent ignorance: my knowledge had stopped at the seventh one and on second thought I'm not even sure I can recall the first six... But with a little help of our friend, the Internet, here they are, all nine, in disciplined order: 1. Architecture, 2. Sculpture, 3. Painting, 4. Music, 5. Poetry, 6. Dance, 7. Theater/Cinema, 8. Photography and 9. Comics. That's it, we can now brag about our distinguished erudition at some elevated French parties. If we ever get invited, that is.

I already knew what great buildings, sculptures, paintings and other artsy things Versailles possessed, but comics... this one still had progresses to make if it were to enter the public consciousness in this association. But since it's inconceivable that not all arts are represented in Versailles, this situation should have changed: every year since 2009 a comics exhibition of a guest star artist is organized in the superb settings of the City Hall's great room.

Intensive Course in French Music

Ever heard an artist rapping in French? I laughed so hard the first time I heard one, I thought I would fall off my chair! To me it was just incompatible that such round vowels and all the burring and the attentively polished pronunciation from the French language could ever be used to slam something in protest. But the French have no fear, and a friend more versed than myself in the matter tells me that the French rappers are actually high on the quality scale in their field, second only to the ones in the United States. Who would've thought?...

Who lit the barbecue in the Versailles Opera House?

Louis XIV must have turned in his grave at the smell of barbecue smoke that slowly embalmed yesterday evening the Opera House of his dreams and I must confess that I didn't like it either. I might have become more versaillaise than I thought being possible, but as much as I love the exuberant and overflowing creativity of Hervé Niquet, I think that his burlesque "King Arthur" didn't fit in the Royal Opera House of Versailles and its magnificent, delicate setting.

Gamers of the world, unite!

The winter holiday vacation is now gone and the French offices are full again with loads of French mouse clickers who just finished to brag about the hangover on the aftermath of the Saint-Sylvestre night. Unfortunately there's simply no excuse left to not getting back to work and, while the settled employees are secretly longing for the traditional spring skiing vacation that is about to arrive in February/March, most of the unemployed French begin to brush up their resumes.

For quite a long time Versailles was the town of small businesses, mom and pop shops with a few employees having to perform several small jobs at a time; but the times are a-changin', gently pushed by the ambitious Versailles mayor who seems to have understood that the town needs new blood, other than the ephemeral tourists. And blood he got monsieur de Mazières - virtual, that is!

Equality, but not for everyone!

One of the 60 promises that the French president Hollande made when he was still candidate against the bling-bling Sarkozy was as clear as crystal: "J’ouvrirai le droit au mariage et à l’adoption aux couples homosexuels" ("I will open the right to marriage and adoption to homosexual partners").

Two fierce election rounds later, François Hollande has won the French presidency with 51.7% of the vote, meaning that when the time came to propose *the* law, even cosmeticized under the more appealing name of "Marriage for everyone", he still had to convince at least the rest 48.3% of the French population. He must know better than anyone that convincing the French of something they're not already convinced proves to be mission impossible, that's why the whole process promises a great show in perspective. Stay tuned!

Ready... Set... Buy!...

In the country that coined the famous laissez-faire idiom and invented the French paradox, the concept of shopping had to have a hard time. It's not because the French don't like buying or are fundamentally different than any other consumer population in the world, it's because they trust more than others their almighty State (and probably less their fellow citizens) that they chose to let the state faire (=do). In the end it's a matter of choice and the French love their paradoxes with a passion.

Let me describe the main principles that rule the sales seasons (les soldes) here in France, with the winter sales season opening today, the second Wednesday of this new year.

Your only chance to be the king. Or the queen...

The French have the privilege to be kings and queens at least once a year so why wouldn't you do the same? It's true, you don't have a castle like the Versaillers, but you can bake the galette des rois (=French king cake) using this simple recipe - courtesy chef Simon - and be king for a day. And slave at the gym for the rest of the week, but that's another, less glamorous, story.

This family sweet pie is traditionally eaten at Epiphany (first Sunday of January), but I've seen it appearing in the stores right after Christmas and I know that some of my French friends make it or buy it and eat it during the whole month of January, so you'll have more than enough time to practice the kinghood, Your Highness!

The youngest child (or any child, after harsh, love-filled, brotherly negotiations) has the honor to hide under the table to tell the adult in charge with cutting the pie who's going to receive which part. A small token is hidden in the pie, la fève (at its origins it must have been a real bean) and the trick is that who's going to find it (if she doesn't choke, in the first place!) will be crowned the king or queen of the day. A factice golden crown is awarded to the lucky one, which is proudly carried on throughout the day and s/he will be able to choose him- herself a queen or a king and sometimes the whole court if the family has enough members.

Bonne année, bonne santé !

Happy New Year 2013 and Dream of Versailles!