Do the French miss the Americans in Paris?

PARIS, France – The answer to the question above, if you ask a proud Frenchman (they all are), is: "Not at all."

Indeed, Paris is full of tourists, if one judges from the jostling crowds on the Champs Elysées or the dives of Montmarte. The Brasserie Lipp and Aux Deux MaggotS continue to attract their share of customers. Students throng the Boul’ Mich, gourmets go to Montparnasse, and the butte of Montmarte around the Rue Norvins and its plaza are full of attentive artists, ready to do a carbon pencil sketch or oil portrait of tourists.

Some of the painters are Japanese or Chinese. The ready customers, eager to be immortalized by the painters of Montmarte, are chiefly young girls, in the bloom and beauty of youth, roses in their cheeks, their shy smiles self-conscious and entrancing. Many years after this, when they are old and gray, they will be happy that this golden moment was captured in Montmarte by the artist’s brush.

As for me, it’s too late. Oh, well.

To demonstrate that the French don’t give a hoot for tourists, the waiters were more rude than ever Saturday night at the Lido which squats on the Champs Elysées and has always bragged it is le plus célèbre cabaret du monde ("the world’s most celebrated cabaret"). This is B.S., of course – any Las Vegas show puts the Lido in the pale – but some of its shows have been good, and even exciting, like the previous one, C’est Magique (It’s Magic) which ran for almost five years. (Since it was the only thing going, this writer saw it three times over the years).

This year’s show Bonheur (they’ve just changed the revue) is ho-hum and so-so. Sorry. The only good part were the Cambodian-temple cum Indian dancing segments, where they didn’t forget to get those bobbing breasts in (la belle poitrine, indeed), and there was this lady who curled herself into a rope like a snake. Strong men in the audience sobbed a loud, hoping that someday they might get crushed, too, by Snake Lady.

Then there was an elephant who ambled onstage, looking real enough, wagging its ears – and it took a minute before you realized it was electronic.

That sums up Bonheur. It was disappointing. One was never sure whether the breasts were real, but one thing you knew – the pachyderm was false.

As for the waiters, they treated you with Gallic insolence, practically daring you to get up and walk out. But our group fooled them. We stayed. But not before summoning the maitre d’ to express our indignation. In response, he pretended to scold the "erring" waiter. The water pretended to "apologize" (you knew he wasn’t penitent).

In France, with its stubborn unions, the customer is always wrong. As an old-time Francophile, I’ve come to understand that.

Vive la Revolution!

As for the Lido’s clientele, they seemed mostly to come from Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, North Africa, with some Chinese and Japanese. Not the classy black-tie, dinner-jacket set which used to congregate there. The world has changed, indeed.

* * *

In case you’ve the delusion we are the hedonistic type, seeking only pleasure, I’ll have to say that we went to Mass in Sacré-Coeur, that startingly white basilica which lords it over Paris from atop Montmarte. Above, as they say, is the House of the Sacred Heart. A few hundred yards down the same mountain, by winding, cobbled streets are scores of sex shops, peep show emporia, strip joints and sleazy hotels, clustered near another big revue palace, the fabled Moulin Rouge (Red Windmill), immortalized by the painter Henri Toulouse-Lautrec – and the captivating screen siren, Nicole Kidman, who won her Academy Award playing the role of lead singer in the Moulin.

Sus, those snobs at the Lido must have been green with envy when that movie reminded the world that it was the Moulin Rouge which had once been the toast of tout Paris.

Back to sanctity up the mountain, however. The Mass was solemn and well-attended – although I notice most of the churchgoers were foreigners and tourists, while the French don’t seem to be the church-going type anymore.

This towering landmark of the city, Sacré-Coeur, was conceived just after the Franco-Prussian War by two Catholic businessmen, who had vowed that if Paris was saved from German invasion they would erect a church in honor of the Sacred Heart. This came to pass. It took from 1875 to 1914 to complete – but a German invasion this time delayed the church’s consecration until 1919. Its white ovoid dome is the highest in Paris after the Eiffel Tower.

It’s a lucky church. On the night of April 20 to 21, 1944, 13 Allied bombs crashed into the sanctuary but NONE of them exploded, thus sparing every parishioner and priest inside either injury or death.

This miracle is recorded on the wall of the church. Were those 13 bombs simply duds, owing to factory defect, or had God decreed that they would not go off? Two duds you can understand. But 13? If you’re still a cynic about this, I guess you’re a hardliner.

What’s interesting is that behind this imposing basilica, unnoticed because it’s dwarfed by that towering landmark, is a far more ancient little church, the pretty Saint Pierre de Montmarte (St. Peter of Montmarte) which is also the shrine of Notre Dame de Montmarte (Our Lady). This enchanting church was consecrated in 1147.

It belongs to the Benedictine Abbey next to it, founded in 1133 by Queen Adelaide of France, a widow of the French King Edward VI Le Gros. (Hope I got his name right. Just read it off the scribbling on the queen’s grave which is right inside the church.)

In sum, cheek by jowl with sanctity on sacred Montmarte, are sleaze, sex, and the works of the devil. But never fear. On their fine bronze steeds, atop the front facade of the Sacré-Coeur, stand sword in hand, two staunch statues, that of St. Joan of Arc, and Saint Louis. They’re ready to repel all devils, demons, and also welcome sinners like us into the safety of the bosom of this temple, with a colossal and wonderful Byzantine mosaic in its dome of Welcoming Christ.

Sacré-Coeur, in truth, dominates the Paris skyline – vanquishing all thoughts of evil in this City of Light.

* * *

Everytime anything is criticized. I think of the Eiffel Tower.

Nowadays, nobody can think of Paris without envisioning this fantastic tower which has become to all the world the symbol of this metropolis.

Yet, when the engineer Gustave Eiffel erected it between 1887 and May 1899 for the opening of the Universal Exhibition, outraged critics called it a monstrosity, dubbing it "a modern tower of Babel".

It was supposed to be torn down after 20 years – but it stands today, proudly synonymous with Paris itself.

Poets have written about it, painters have set it to canvas, it’s on every postcard. It is now lighted prettily every evening – and even hour on the hour, it begins ten minutes of "diamond sparkle" that are a delight to witness. Daily, 15,000 tourists jostle through the tower’s three levels. Yearly, three million visitors take the lifts (elevators) to the top for a breath-taking view of the city.

And to think that people once reviled Gustave Eiffel for erecting that pile of junk.

There’s a lesson in this for all of us. Including for us, professional critics.