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Our gonzo tourism adventures in Paris continue. This morning we set off to explore an often-hidden and seldom-mentioned face of modern France: traditionalist Catholicism and the practice of the Tridentine Mass.

The church of St Nicolas du Chardonnet is located in the 5th arrondissement, in between rue des Ecoles and the eastern end of boulevard St German. It would just be another typical parish church in Paris, were it not for the fact that since 1977 it has been illegally occupied by the Society of St Pius X, a conservative Catholic organisation that rejects the reforms of Vatican II.

Performing the Tridentine Mass – Image: Lawrence OP (Creative Commons)

Without going deeply into ecclesiastical arcana, essentially St Nicolas du Chardonnet is the only place in Paris where the Mass is still said in Latin in its “Extraordinary Form” as laid out by the Council of Trent of 1563.  Unfortunately, the parish is also associated with extreme right-wing politics.

So it was with some trepidation that we turned up on Sunday morning for the 10.30 Grand-Messe Paroissale. We hoped an attitude of  respectful curiousity would see us through.

Image: Joethelion (Creative Commons)

The service itself was solemnly executed and very beautiful, requiring a robed contingent of about 20 priests, acolytes, and altar servers. Even in Latin the service was largely recognisable to anyone familiar with the Eucharist in French or English, (although the “extra bits” such as the sung Asperges Me with the priest sprinkling the congregation with holy water were novel to us).

The choral singing was generally fairly good, bar some wobbly bits. Unless you brought with you your own copy of the Latin Missal, there was no order of service: the people were clearly expected to know the Mass by heart and respond in Latin (with kneeling and standing and sitting and crossing themselves at appropriate moments).  It was as if the regular attendees were members of a special club with secret handshakes and nods and winks that rapidly distiguished those of “true faith” from the curious interlopers.

Tridentine Rite at Oxford Blackfriars – Image: Lawrence OP (Creative Commons)

The sermons and Bible readings were the only parts of the service in French, and the sermon was particularly robust – a 32 minute admonition to chastity and “mastery of one’s body“, with frequent reference to papal encycicals and the lives of saints. Hell was mentioned as a consequence of bodily sin. Not only was the tone marginally threatening, the message seemed explicitly intolerant and offered a very narrow view of the world we actually live in.

The overall impression of the morning was that we had travelled back sixty years in time: even the few children and families at the service looked like they were dressed out of a Jean Renoir film. Outside the church after the service, we emerged blinking into the bright spring sunlight.  A man was distributing FN tracts denouncing the European Union, another was selling copies of the royalist newspaper Action Française.

We decided we had had enough, and quickly repaired up the hill to a café for a quick lunch of croques-monsieur. Our brief encounter with radical Catholicism and narrow religiosity was deeply fascinating, but unlikely to repeated.  Sometimes, there are better things to do on a Sunday morning.

About ten years ago when I first lived in France, my friend Yann lent me a lot of his collection bandes dessinées, or BD. Of course I’d grown up with Astérix and Tintin (and even Lucky Luke) in English, and had even read most of these in French, but there were gaping holes in my knowledge.

It’s hard for anglo-saxons to fully comprehend the importance of BD in francophone culture until you’ve lived in France or Belgium. It’s a multi-million Euro industry, and there are many masterpieces that will never (and probably could never) cross the linguistic and cultural divide into English.

By far my favourite of the series I borrowed from Yann was Le Génie des Alpages by F’Murr. The series of 14 albums recounts the lives of a flock of sheep, their shepherd and sheepdog in the French Alps (apparently the pastures of the Drôme département.)

A simple description makes Le Génie des Alpages sound like a French version of Footroot Flats. But the alpine setting is just a backdrop for a neverending series of absurdist comedy, surreal sight-gags and loopy stories that barely make sense even to the hard-core fan.

The shepherd, Athanase Perceval, is most notable for his endless wardrobe of colourful pullovers. He is barely able to control his flock, who run off to the local bar (La Buvette des Cimes) at any opportunity, stage bowdlerised versions of plays by Corneille or pole-vault from one hillside to the next. The sheep are ostensibly led by Romuald the black ram, whose vanity knows few boundaries.

The Dog, (who has no name), is a novelist and inventor and generally spends more time philosophising than looking after the sheep.

Of course, none of this is really translatable, and it’s almost impossible to explain (even in French) why these books are so much fun. Everything in the Alpages is flexible, fluid and bends to the whims of F’Murr’s imagination. Even the landscape itself is impermanent: best illustrated by the episode in which a bear shows Athanase how to rearrange the countryside by flapping it up and down:

The shepherd and his flock receive visits from hapless tourists, foolhardy aviators, a sphinx, various mythological deities, a bus that suspends itself in mid-air between the 8th to the 13th album, and F’Murr fills the frames with all the usual wildlife of the mountains: snakes, marmots, bears, ladybugs, foxes, wolves, elephants, talking letterboxes, whales and extraterrestrials.

In short, life in the mountains is exhausting, and never dull. No wonder the sheep head off to the pub at the end of the day.

Finally I got out of town today: I caught the RER C to the end of the line at Dourdan, and then (with the help of an IGN carte de randonnée) walked across the fields to Saint-Chéron: 14 kilometres of sunshine, snow and open space.

I love winter days like this.

Mixed tracks in the snow

The pylons had cold feet

The bees seemed to be asleep…

A wonderful day to be out beneath a big sky!

Michel Drucker and friend

From our Own Correspondent is a venerable BBC institution that allows their journalists to spend 5 minutes of airtime speculating and reflecting on experiences and observations beyond the headlines.

Sometimes FOOC provides some stunning radio, (Fergal Kean writing his dispatch with his new son in his arms “learning the art of one-handed typing” is one of the BBC’s most famous broadcast moments).

But often the reporters let their hair down by talking meandering tripe and indulging in stale liberal truisms. Which is not fair at all, because that’s my job on this blog. BBC journalists are paid to know better.

Hugh Schofield’s contribution this week seemed particularly silly: basically a complaint about how crap French television is, how it’s dominated by sycophantic talk shows, and how culturally conservative is French society in general.

Mr Schofield seems to have forgotten TV is mostly crap everywhere, celebrity culture is by its nature sycophantic, and most societies display some level of chauvanism in celebrating their own artists.

So, (I can’t quite believe I’m saying this) let me put in a positive word for French TV.

Seriously, in terms of trading on middle-of-the-road popular culture and cosily flattering their guests, where are the differences between Michel Drucker and Sir Michael Parkinson?

Le plus grand cabaret du monde and N’oubliez pas les paroles may seem kitsch and bizarre to anglo-saxons, but having seen Ant and Dec’s Christmas Special this year on ITV, I can testify that the French do not hold a monopoly on kitsch. Bruce Forsyth, anyone?

Yes, there are a lot of talk shows on French TV, but for an amateur student of the language and culture (even one as inexpert as myself), these shows are a goldmine of ethnological detail. As I mentioned a while back, On n’est pas couché might be regarded as the Rosetta Stone of the French media mainstream, and I still hold that opinion, even if Laurent Ruquier gets on my nerves these days.

Jean-Michel Aphatie

And there are some hidden gems – C’est pas sorcier is one of the best popular science shows I’ve ever seen. Arte constantly throws up little delights (I’ve previously raved about Himalaya Terre des Femmes), Manu Katché’s music show One Shot Not has a talent roster that rivals Jools Holland, and if I get homesick for the smokey forests of the Vosges, I can just tune into Rund Um: the magazine show in Alsatian.

But the only TV show I watch here regularly is Le Grand Journal (19.05-20.00 weeknights on Canal+), because there’s nothing better than coming home from work to a good argument between a female cabinet minister (normally Valérie Pécresse or Rosalyne Bachelot) and Jean-Michel Aphatie, whose combination of southwest accent and trenchant opinions make him France’s  most entertaining political journalist.

French TV may be crap, but at least it lays on some quality shouting about tertiary education reform while I’m making dinner. And I’ll take that over Shortland Street, MTV Cribs or Dancing with the Stars any day.

Something to watch out for in 2010: Brèves de trottoirs is a new web-documentary project lead by journalist Olivier Lambert and photographer Thomas Salva. The objective is to bring together a collection of short documentaries focused on personalities met on the streets of Paris.

Their first subject was Elie, the famous “Papy Dance” who dances outside the Italie 2 shopping centre in the 13th arrondissement. His performances have made him an internet star, but his life story is far more poignant… (this video is subtitled in English)

Also recently released is the next short film, an interview with Violette, a florist on Place Monge in the 5th arrondissement.

Brèves de Trottoirs provides an interesting example of how journalism, film-making and internet are coming together to create new modes story-telling. It’ll be fascinating to watch the project develop during the year. You can follow their Twitter feed or their blog.

My blogging has been sparse lately – work has been very busy, and these past few days I’ve been taking visitors around Paris to see the sights. It’s been an interesting experience becoming a tourist again – Paris is a VERY beautiful city, we’re lucky to have the chance to live here.

To all the readers and visitors here, have a wonderful, peaceful and happy Christmas, and all the best for a prosperous and fulfilling 2010.

Ferris wheel on Place de la Concorde

Christmas lights on the Champs-Elysées

Exploring other corners of Montmartre, still in the footsteps of Robert Sabatier

Ice-skating outside the Hôtel de Ville

Saturday dawned bright and largely cloudless, an invitation to explore the city with a camera. However, by the time the necessary haircuts and shoe-shopping were complete, a more typical winter greyness had descended over everything. Nevertheless, after lunch I set out for The North, where, I was reliably informed, Paris had hills.

Télégraphe, on line 11, is one of the deepest métro stations in Paris, mainly because it’s right underneath one of these hills. After a steep ascent by escalator, the station deposits passengers a vertiginous 128 metres above sea level, next to the Cimitière de Belleville. Here, in the 19th and 20th arrondissements, you feel a long way from the Paris of the grands boulevards. The unemployment rate in the 19th is 16%, and 40% of residences are state-funded habitations à loyer modéré (HLM).

But on the slopes below the massive tower blocks are some surprises: rows of semi-detached villas dating from the late 19th century, each with its own garden. As Paris expanded after 1860, these tracts of land were bought up by bourgeois Parisians looking for cheaper and more spacious accommodation than could be found in the central districts. Here, among the working classes, they attempted to create a rural idyll on the outskirts of the metropolis.

These arts-and-crafts houses clinging to the sides of the hill are all individually designed, a striking contrast to the uniform Hausmannien style of architecture elsewhere in Paris. A timid cat dodged between garden gates on the cobbled walkway.

Further down the hill, place Rhin et Danube felt more like the quiet square of a provincial town than a part of Paris.

By the time I reached the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, the light was beginning to fade. The park’s fanciful theme-park feel (cliffs topped with a 19th Century re-imagining of a pagan temple and a concrete grotto complete with waterfall) somehow seemed less charming in the afternoon gloom.  Within the park, a footbridge crosses a railway cutting where a small length of the mysteriously abandoned Ligne de Petite Ceinture disappears into a tunnel.

The only remaining spots of colour in the day seemed to be chalk drawings left on the damp asphalt: birds, elephants and hopscotch tracks. The metro line back to my part of town was still a long way off, so as dusk settled in, I continued down the hill and back into the flatlands of everday Paris.

Today, we headed up to the Arc de Triomphe today for the Armistice ceremony.

It was the first 11th November since 1918 that German soldiers and the German Chancellor were present on the Champs Elysées.

Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy AND Carla were there…

…the French got to wear silly hats (these are students of the Ecole Polytechnique)…

…and the Germans got to stand in long, organised rows, in order of height…

…so, all in all, a rather satisfying celebration of Franco-German cooperation!

Today, there’s plenty being written elsewhere about the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I’ll leave all that for better-informed and better writers to get busy with, and just stick to some of my own memories.

Potsdamerplatz, Berlin

In April 1989, when my family booked tickets to fly to England and Europe the following November, we had no idea that we would arrive in time to celebrate the fall of communism. My English grandfather had just had a stroke, and the long NZ summer holidays of December/January offered the last chance that the family could travel to visit him while I was still a child airfare.

My sister and I, who had never been overseas before, spent an excited few months preparing for the trip: reading up about the sights of London, learning little phrases in German and poring over Mum’s Collins University Atlas, tracing train routes that would take us through unknown countries called France, Holland and Switzerland.

After Christmas in England, we crossed the Channel in the dead of winter and by way of Oostend and Amsterdam, found ourselves in Germany to visit Mum’s old friends in the Ruhr valley. The Wall had been down less than two months at that point, but the ripples of the fall seemed evident everywhere we went: the trains were stuffed full of East Germans, perhaps visiting family or simply enjoying spending Christmas in the West for the first time.

GDR-era Mural, Federal Finance Building

The Silvesternacht we spent in Germany was one I’ll never forget… we kids were allowed to let off fireworks across the cul-de-sac, drink sekt and participate in the inexplicably German tradition of Bleigießen. At midnight we gathered around the television, watching crowds of East and West Germans celebrating together at the Brandenburg Gate.

A piece of history arrived, quite literally, a couple of days later: a package arrived at the door, containing lumps of asbestos-laden concrete. The brother of Mum’s German friend was in Berlin, and had hacked off enough pieces of the wall so that we New Zealanders would have something to take home with us.

The Reichstag Dome

That trip to Europe happened at an impressionable age, and probably sparked my ongoing interest and love of that continent. We played in the snow on the Jungfrau; I chased my sister around borderstones on the frontier of France and Switzerland; and when on a cold January morning 1990 we stared up into the mist on the Champs de Mars to try and spy the top of the Eiffel Tower that was missing in the gloom, I had little idea that twenty years later I would be able to speak French and live in Paris.

In their wisdom, our parents made me and my sister write a diary during our trip. So I can still read what I thought at the time (I was mostly interested in playing with Lego and running around borderstones). And I still have that piece of the Berlin Wall, although it’s currently sitting in storage in Birmingham.

So, just like Nicolas Sarkozy, I was not in Berlin on the 9th of November, 1989. But as a young kid, I did manage to be in Europe right at the end of the 1980s. Ride on Time by Black Box was top of the pops, and it felt like the wheel of history was turning.

Coke ad in East Berlin

(All photos in this post were taken during my March 2008 trip to Berlin)

Charles-Marie Widor – Toccata from Symphony for Organ No. 5 in F Major

St Germain-des-Prés is named for the famous abbey which has stood near the walls of Paris since the 13th century. But this morning, in time for mass on All Saint’s Day, and on the suggestion of my friend William, our destination was the quartier’s other well-known church. The Église Saint-Sulpice is nearly as big as Nôtre-Dame, and almost as famous: it even features prominently in Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, for those who care.

It was nice to celebrate mass on November 1st (although the choir was frankly decrepit and the lack of an order of service made it occasionally difficult for us Protestant-raised anglophones to join in the sung responses in Latin and French).

However our real motivation for visiting St Sulpice was to hear the organ. William is an organist in his other life, so visiting St Sulpice is something of an obligation while he’s living in Paris.

Originally built in 1781, the great organ at St Sulpice is the only intact surviving example of the work of French master organ-builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll.  The organist at St Sulpice from 1870 to 1933 was Charles-Marie Widor, who composed one of the most pieces in the organ repertoire, the Toccata from his Symphony for Organ No.5

After the service, the postludes were an opportunity to hear the instrument in full flight – a Toccata sur Placare Christe servulis by Dupré, Franck’s Choral 1 en mi majeur and Gigout’s Toccata (one of William’s party pieces apparently).

On our way towards the exit, we absently joined a short queue of people who we thought were waiting to climb the church towers. In fact, quite by chance it was the line to visit the organ loft: a fact we discovered by asking the guy in front of us, a rather dapper looking gentleman who apologised for his bad French and turned out to be the organist at Turin Cathedral !

Up the spiral staircase we emerged among the pipes and blowers of one of the most famous organs in the world. It’s at least three storeys high and possibly has its own postcode. In the middle of it all was the saint des saints… the 5-manual organ console where Widor actually composed his Toccata.

Holding court between services was the titular organist, Daniel Roth who before coming to St Sulpice in 1985 was organist at Nôtre-Dame for 12 years. Long tenure is a tradition at St Sulpice. Since 1619, there have only been 12 named organists. Widor himself occupied the seat for 64 years!

William managed to have a chat with Daniel Roth for a few minutes, where apparently they got to geek out about speaking stops and bourdons and jeux de fond.  In among the pipes there was a little lounge containing photos and autographs of organists who have played at St Sulpice, including Albert Schweitzer, (who as well as being an organist managed to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. As you do.)

After our morning’s organ pilgrimage, we emerged into the rain and headed for lunch with William’s fiancée – a superb meal at Le Pré aux Clercs on rue Jacob. We found out later that this bistrot was Ernest Hemingway’s favourite. In St Germain-des-Près it seems you are only ever one wine glass (or an organ stop) away from history…