Notre pain de ce jour

Warning: a long essay on bread ahead

Breakfast, according to the French.

I have recently discovered Meudon’s sixth artisan boulanger.  Hidden away though it may be in the rue des Marais, and small though be its size, the baguettes I bought there were better than any bread sold anywhere in Britain.  By their piping heat, I judged that they had still been in the oven when I left the house, where, on my return, I subjected them immediately to an appropriately rigorous examination which largely took the form of lunch.  With jubilation I found the quality of this new boulanger’s handiwork entirely consistent with that of the other five’s: the radiance with warm earthy gold, the dying glowings of the oven, the perfection of the patterns sculpted by the craftsman’s hand, the structural poise of the whole, the pale underbelly below, the copper-crowned ridge above, and the crust, delicate enough to crumble exquisitely under pressure, but robust enough to protect the rich mellifluous dough (la mie) within!  And the smell (the smell, dear reader!), the scent of the French field!  The scope of the written word is transcended, almost even in French.  And this is only a baguette – I have not even mentioned the other loaves, nor the croissant, nor indeed the pâtisseries, stacked on high shelves and glittering along luminous counters.

Another gratuitous croissant photo.

Kneading my bread in my bakehouse...

If you feel, as you read this, that I have become a ‘bread snob’ (well-picked words used to describe me recently!), or alternatively very hungry all of a sudden, you do either with good reason.  The purple prose above is only slightly hyperbolic (see the view from Reims here), and bread-wise I shall be at a loss on my return to G.B.  On the other hand, it must be realised that such an attitude towards bread is entirely natural by French standards.  The Englishman becomes like a child in a sweet-shop (in a bakery), but the Frenchman expects nothing less than what I have just described.  He expects several panary establishments in a single town; he expects to find them (in Paris at least) with the official website (whose existence I have discovered far too late); he expects it even to be subsidised by the state.  One of the boulangeries has recently had its entrance refurbished jointly by the town council and by the FISAC, (the Fonds d’intervention pour les services, l’artisanat et les commerces), that is, a body which offers grants to maintain the institution of the artisan.  Now of course, he must pay for this in his taxes, but the situation reflects an element of government which is peculiarly French.

Never enough gratuitous croissant photos!.

And also a gratuitous photo of a pépito

'The front of this shop has been modernised thanks to the financial support of Meudon's Town Council and the FISAC, the Service, Artisan and Business Fund.'

 St Honorius, not perhaps at his saintliest

 Those of us in Britain who eat impatiently and without thought, who deliberately pare the meal down to its essential function, who discard anything lacking immediate material reward, and who seldom eat as families, have much to learn from the French, in this and in other things, who (far from being snobbish) express their appreciation of their daily bread by making of it an art, and by merging it with culture (The poet Francis Ponge disagrees, or does he?).  The paper bags which cradle the commonplace manna prove this: they draw the client’s attention to the baker’s adherence to tradition and to craftsmanship: ‘je pétris mon pain dans mon fournil’ (‘kneading my bread in the bakehouse’), assure him that  ‘le pain, c’est la santé!’ (Bread is health!), or regale him with the tale of St Honoré’s announcement, as a boy, of his vocation to the priesthood, of the scoffing of his nurse and of her assertion that her dough-spatula would be just as likely to burst into leaf – which of course it duly did.  Sometimes they instruct him simply, ‘À déguster sans modération!’ to enjoy without moderation, an entirely superfluous suggestion.  It is all beauty, thriving miraculously even in this age, and springing not from snobbery, but from the recognition that, once given our daily bread, we are to treat it with respect.

'Did you know?  St Honorius (Honoré) is the patron saint of bakers.  When the unruly young fellow announced to his nurse that he wanted to become a priest, she was in the middle of baking her bread.  The good woman scoffed.  "You'll be a bishop when my spatula grows leaves!"  Before her astonished eyes, the spatula began to bud with greenery.'

Jour de l'Armistice

I break my fortnight-long silence (for which I apologise) because of today's date and its commemoration in Meudon.  The Armistice which ended the First World War has been remembered first with a Mass in Meudon's parish church of Saint-Martin (St Martin of Tours, whose feast-day is also on the eleventh of November), and then with a parade from the hôtel de ville to the cemetery to the south of town.

The congregation outside Saint-Martin

Having set off from the town hall down the hill and on the left, the parade turns into the rue de la République.

The parade approaches the cemetery.

The parade enters the cemetery.

All of this was done with calm and unaffected dignity.  A similar impression was given by the Tricolore flags fixed to the cab of every bus:

The Tricolore (just above the driver's cab).

The sobering thought has not escaped me that those of my age a century ago were sent to France not to enrich their lives, studying the luminous subtlety of man's art and being, but to have their lives ruined or ended in the calamity of industrialised warfare: requiescant in pace; qu'ils reposent en paix.

C'est parti!

First floor, centre Censier (Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Lectures and seminars have just set off at full steam, in full-speed French, and full of knowledge, at the Sorbonne Nouvelle.  In my folly, I had believed that my capabilities in French were already being healthily stretched, but, as it turns out, this was only a prelude.  Seminars last for at least ninety minutes and sometimes for as long as three hours, and the lecturers make no linguistic concession to foreign students.  I feel like a 2CV at Le Mans as I try to block out the booming lecturer next door (in English, of all languages!), to figure out what that was that came after 'Il faut absolument...' or 'Vous êtes obligés de...',  and to conceal the steam hissing from my ears!   In comparison to one-hour lectures generally delivered in English - and here come two words which are, with good reason, not usually juxtaposed - Cambridge seems almost easy.  (The word 'almost' is important).  The apparent confusion of some of the French students is some consolation, although turning to ask me if I understood does not improve matters!

It must be added, even in the midst of the madness, that this is how it ought to be.  Among the very important things which this year abroad is designed to teach me (by fire, it seems), and which I must learn now if I am ever to do so, is the true and authentic use of French.  If this be at ninety miles an hour (perhaps I mean 144,8 kilomètres par heure), I must say 'So be it' through gritted teeth!

At any rate, if henceforward there is a slight decline in my posting frequency (wherefore on the Internet there shall be much gladness and rejoicing) it will be either because I am in a lecture, or because I am recovering from it.

Trouver un second chez moi...

'Se loger à Paris est très difficile.' 

Guide Paris III pour la recherche de logement 2012   

With its very first words, the Sorbonne Nouvelle's accommodation guide neatly dispels any optimistic fancies about the subject. It could hardly be otherwise: a far-from-exhaustive search suggests that the number of students who need Parisian roofs over their heads is near a quarter of a million, and of course, other people than students must also live and work in the city. 

The Maison Internationale at the 'Cité-U'

In this light, the university's counsel to seek accommodation in good time seemed indisputably sound.  Having nevertheless had to await nomination to the Erasmus scheme, and then inexcusably dawdled, I applied to the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, which might be described as a campus in the 14th arrondissement.  10,000 students live there in 40 maisons, most of which correspond to a nationality administratively, but which, in practice, accommodate students of all countries side-by-side.  Unfortunately, I underestimated the length of time (a month) before their reply, which was a curt negative.  (I bear no grudge, however: I still think this worth considering for prospective students).

More maisons at the Cité.

Thus abruptly removed to square one, I once more had recourse to the estimable Guide Paris III pour la recherche de logement.  The suggested foyers seemed appealing but inconveniently were also full.  In other student housing, little choice remained available from the CROUS, and a high rent was charged by independent résidences.  That left independent accommodation, in the search for which www.lokaviz.fr was invaluable.  This accommodation service caters exclusively for students, requires only electronic proof of academic status, facilitates access to proprietors' details, and is the reason why I am inflicting this blog-post upon the world from a room in Meudon, a suburb south-west of Paris (Hauts-de-Seine 92) - photographs of and waffle about which I will produce soon.

Now with the weary air of experience, but aware that I have been fortunate in finding a solution, I will join the chorus of exhortation of anybody who intends to study in Paris to begin the search in plenty of time and in several places.  It is more important than it seems to remain alert - yea, even (as it turns out) in the grimmest hour of the shadow of exam term - to the practical aspects of the Year Abroad.  Nevertheless, there is no cause for utter despair: all students find somewhere in the end.  After all, even the Guide pour la recherche de logement leaves some hope: the search is not impossible; it is merely difficile.

À nous deux maintenant!

It is already the end of my first week in Paris.  Probably I ought to have known that I would not have time, nor be calm enough, to produce any prose pretentious enough for this blog's pretentious title before now! 

 It is exhausting to arrive in an unfamiliar city: bus tickets and pedestrian crossings hurl the newcomer into consternation.  He wonders what use it was looking up the French for 'anvil' when he can't ask for a filled sandwich on the top shelf.*  He makes a public nuisance of himself trying to see what everyone else does as they glide through ticket barriers, without going through himself.  He (literally) cannot get his head around looking in the right direction as he crosses the road.  However, the question mark hovering above my head is at last beginning to fade and I think I have recovered enough to record my first and raw impressions...

1. This is real! Here am I, not merely staying but living and (soon) studying in Paris!  The great slabs of parchment-coloured apartment blocks with their cast-iron balconies are real;  the broad straight corridors of the avenues penetrating through the city are real; and, outside the classroom and lecture theatre, the French language is real.                                
2. Some of what the British imagine about the French is actually true!  They really do carry baguettes down the street, for instance  (and who can blame them: heavenly manna or some other celestial panary essence falls daily from Heaven onto the shelves of a million boulangeries).  Another example is the proliferation of paperwork involved in the opening of a bank account (just in case any worldly riches come my way – one never knows!) which testifies to the famous French bureaucracy.  Motorists give the impression of making up the rules as they go along,  though I feel that Parisian driving is no more aggressive than London's for the greater reliance upon motorists’ discretion.
3. There is more graffiti in Paris than in London: a warning which drivers of pristine white vans should heed.
4. The French are not slaves to their mobile phones.  There are plenty around and in use, but in public they are no more evident than books or newspapers.
5. More people – and certainly more young people – smoke in Paris than in London. 
6. Plenty of time is taken over meals.  The sort of food which, in Britain, is beyond the powers of the average wallet and palate, is in France expected, duly received and savoured in the company of one's beloved, one's friend or one's newspaper.
7. The French language is supremely beautiful (and therefore deserves its own blog-post!).
8. There are moments of euphoria when I feel that France is better than Britain.  No!  No!  I didn’t mean that!  I think this the general effect of arriving in a foreign culture: that certain particularly noticeable novelties make the whole seem better or worse, even though it is always composed of the currents of goodness and corruption.  In the same way that turning a kaleidoscope produces a new pattern (that might be called better or worse) but does not alter its nature, the human condition is borne here in slightly different ways, in some ways better, in some ways worse, even though the human condition is invariable.

I shall write soon about Meudon, the town to the south-west of the city where I am living.  Here is a panorama of Paris from the Observatoire at the top of the town: visible are the Tour Eiffel, the Tour Montparnasse, les Invalides, the Seine and La Défense.  Eugène de Rastignac had a view like this (from the north-east) at the end of Le Père Goriot.  He too was a student unfamiliar with Parisian society (though he was also fictional): so like him I can say, ‘À nous deux maintenant!’

Click to enlarge... I Spy 20 points for each landmark.

*enclume (f).  One of these days it will come in useful, mark my words!