Au Revoir… Adieu… Good Bye

It's about 3:30pm, on Thursday. I've been out. This is probably my last entry from Paris. I decided to do one last piece of research. I went to the address of the Farrenc publishing house on Boulevard Poissonniere. What I found was well worth the journey. First of all, the building was the original. Secondly, I was able to get into the courtyard that's behind the storefront and I found shop doors back there that felt like the business wrapped around the courtyard, like it was a place for delivers or something.

I feel like I got a sharp clear sense of what it was like and it's quite different than what was in my head. So. It's good I came. The more I sit with everything, the more I'm convinced that this is where the Farrenc family lived, where Tori grew up. It especially seemed so after seeing it. Nothing else really makes sense. If they'd had so much money they could own a publishing business and own a hôtel, they wouldn't of had a publishing business. They would of been aristocrats. It would have been beneath them to earn a living.

Furthermore, it just looks like a they lived there—or maybe the word is feels. I don't know exactly how to explain it, but there's something about the place. It's kind of like seeing the Versailles stables and realizing that the whole second floor was living quarters for the people who staffed the place. That's what this feels like—like the second floor is for living in. It fits the picture I had somehow too. It's the courtyard, I guess. A carriage could have, and would have come into that courtyard.

It's a little courtyard, but when I stood in the middle of it, looking up, I felt like I could see Tori up there in the window, looking down. Just like I wrote it. It made sense. I fit. It made me happy. And the windows above Tori's, in the eaves—that's obviously where their serving girl, Bette, lived. This picture is taken from the courtyard, looking north, away from the street front.

From there, I went to this covered passageway that is just a couple blocks from the publishing shop. It's a covered shopping street, 19th century style. I think even then they might have called it a mall. It was, and is, full of shops, very narrow, for pedestrians only. Passage Des Panoramas, it's called. All of this was just south of where I walked last Saturday.

What makes Passage Des Panoramas so interesting is that it was built in about 1800 and had gas lights by 1817. The Stern's Engraving's sign in the photo has been hanging there since 1834 (a restored version). The shop only recently changed and now days in Paris when shops change, for historical reasons they leave the old signs up. I really like that. Apparently a lot of the wood paneling has been restored as well and the glass ceilings are mostly the originals. This is one of the few passages that as survived more or less in it's original.

I stopped for lunch at a delightful little place that looked like it had the original woodwork and "decoration." It was one of those places where the tables are so close together, it's like you're sitting at someone else's table. Paris is this incredible blend of extremes, from the huge palaces to these tiny little shops.

Anyway, it had ceiling paintings along a panel on an overhang outside. It was remarkable. I didn't get a very good picture of it, unfortunately, but I was sitting right under these wonderful 18th century-looking paintings, kind of Rococo. The bright light is the heaters, which were nice because they made it cozy. I had an excellent salad.

And then, I stumbled on to my extra credit reward, a carved horse. For anyone who has read any of The Appassionata, they know that Tori has a rocking horse in bedroom that plays an important role—and there it was, right in front of me, Tori's rocking horse. The look in its eyes is so wonderful. Horses are a motif—and there it was again. Tori's horse.

I ended my day by going to L'église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine where Chopin's funeral was held to a performance of Mozart's Requiem Mass. I lit a candle. It seemed a fitting good-bye to Paris.