Some sunny day...
 
 
Streets shops near Montmartre.
Parisian prices?
Some sunny day...
The Chevalier de la Barre before his torture.
La Place de la République, and its Statue of Liberty.
Le jardin du Luxembourg, creation of Marie de Médicis, wife of Henri IV.
Nobility has no charm like that of its own most gracious members.
The palace of Marie de Médicis now houses the Senate of the French government.
M. de Médicis honored great women.  Here, Mary Stewart, Queen of French and of Scots.
Another great woman, Sainte Geneviève, praying in the forest as a child (Panthéon).
Panthéon: Voltaire.
Panthéon: Rousseau.
Panthéon: Emile Zola (my hero).
Panthéon: Alexandre Dumas (creator of the Three Musketeers, and so much more).
Victor Hugo (everybody’s hero...)
Zola, Hugo, Dumas are buried together:   “One for All, and All for One”
Jean Moulin: hero of the French Resistance.
Marie and Pierre Curie.
Sainte Joan of Arc
(Sainte Jeanne d’ Arc)
The Angel of the Montparnasse cemetery.
Serge Gainsbourg
(Google this and buy the music...)
Simone de Beauvoir
and Jean-Paul Sartre.
Jean Seberg: ‘Une Américaine à Paris’.
 
In case you’re wondering about this beach thing, it’s from the template in Apple’s iWeb page maker.  I’m new to the Apple world, so I’m learning by accepting some of the rules that govern that universe.
 
If you saw us in the rain yesterday, you wouldn’t recognize the Paris that surrounded us this morning.  Skies have been blue all day, just perfect for a free day’s visit of Paris.  After a quick organizational meeting this morning, several Vendéens went out on their own.  A few others took a short hike from our hotel up to nearby Montmartre.  On the way we passed through one of the biggest bargain shopping areas of Paris.  You’ll see some prices below.
 
Our morning at Montmartre was just perfect, and the views of and from the Sacré-Coeur were as good as they get.  One figure you’ll see below is the Chevalier de la Barre.  He was accused in the mid-1700’s of not having removed his hat before a procession of monks.   According to the inscription, when he was arrested they pulled out his tongue, cut off his hands, burned him over a slow fire, and then they began the torture....  Voltaire came to the defense of his name, and made him a martyr to the cause of tolerance in his campaigns against religious fanaticism.  
 
Voltaire brings us to our next visit: the Pantheon.  Originally this was the Church of Sainte Genevieve (Jennifer), the patroness of Paris.  In the 400’s she saved the city from Attila and his Huns, she healed many of the ills of the people, and she performed miracles around the city regularly for centuries.  By the time of Voltaire, however, her church was much neglected.  King Louis XV decided to do her the honor of a major renovation, this time in the style of his own age.  Before all the work was finished, however, his age was over.   About the time his son Louis XVI was going to the guillotine, the new Republic confiscated the goods of the Church -- this brand new church was the prize catch.  In the fervor of the Revolution, patriotism was the new religion for many.  Fidelity to the principles of liberty, equality, fraternity was order of the day.  Today, the Pantheon is the resting place of France’s greatest heros of freedom, justice, science, and tolerance. You may recognize this style as one adopted by many republics around the world (and that includes our own in the District of Columbia).
 
I’ll leave our small group at the Pantheon near the end of the day and skip over to the cemetery of Montparnasse for a quick visit there before returning to our hotel for an evening’s rest.
The Day before a Day at the Beach