Fete Nationale

Bon jour, mes amies, and a Happy Bastille Day to you!

Vive le Republique!  Now I approve of republics.  It just look France a while (and with apologies to my host country it did take until the middle of the twentieth century) to get it right and reject emperors. On July 14, 1789 the same year the United States gained our lovely Constitution, the people of Paris rose against a symbol of oppression--the fortress Bastille widely believed to hold political prisoners.  The attack was bloody, royalist forces being hampered by royal indecision and incompetence.  Poor old Louis XVI--so well meaning and so unfit to be a leader in a crisis.  I don't hate him with the burning passion that I reserve for Charles I of Britain.  The latter did NOT mean well, but the two men shared an attitude than led to their doom.  Both of them believed that he was the one, the one and only, who mattered and not the people they should have served.
By French law most stores are closed on holidays and Sundays (We French say Dimanche).  We French think leisure is important.  But here's the real French Paradox: some rules are important--those to do with food and interpersonal relationships--and other rules?  Ha ha what rules?  For example, when in France I regularly cross the street against a red light unless a car or bus is coming.  The French (and they are not the only guilty Europeans) litter.  Did you know that in Paris alone 20K tons of cigarette butts--the French word is megots--are discarded annually?  I believe it, too.  Everywhere I got I find discarded butts by the hundreds at least, and Europeans puff away notwithstanding the blunt message on the packages.  Smoking kills!
I decided to give myself an easy and green day.  I feel very confident using the metro--the suburban railway or RER or Transilian not so much.  I did manage to buy my tickets for the RER from the machine rather than face the gang of angry French folk in front of the information desk.  I had an easy trip out by metro and RER to Parc Sceaux.  I had been here before on the last Bastille Day I spent in Paris but I had a longer walk to the park and so was too tired to see much.  Sceaux was the estate to the Colbert Family chief among the servants of Louis XIV.  Most of the buildings of the chateau are gone, but the grounds are extensive and wonderful--the perfect destination for the Fete Nationale.
There are formal gardens, canals, fountains, statutes--the works.  But I took joy in a long woodland walk where the only sound was the breeze in the leaves and birdsong--and oh yeah--the thump of the joggers who shared the paths.  How I loved this!  I felt the soft dirt under my feet and smelled the plants.  Sunlight filtering through the leaves turned greenish.  Some of the park is nature reserve, but it is so large that as long as I walked I hardly encompassed it all.  But a lot of families arrived to enjoy the open space or have a Bastille Day picnic.
So here's my dilemma.  That Valencay goat cheese is Really, and I mean Really Good.  Of course I want some more, but on the other hand I wish to try other cheeses.  So I think I need to go on and try a variety.  I know I'll come back to France, but I don't know when, and I do so love cheese.
Dessert is the last of those wonderful macarons from Laduree.  First the pistachio.  Ahhh!  First crisp and then creamy and the lovely burst of sweet flavor.  The ganache, which I would have thought would take first place is background to the almond cookie.  I mean it's just a little cookie.  But whoa does it deliver the intense pleasure of taste.  The last one I have (for now) is abricot.  It's nice.  Much liking.  I don't know how well these things translate.  You may have to come here to eat them, which would be worth the plane fare, and then you can have cheese, too!
A demain