Adventures with Marianna

Lila and Rene warned us against an excursion to St Denis as being too hazardous a trip for two ladies. This particular ban lieu had its share of riots and car burnings protesting the unfairness of the French educational system or the like. Mari and I approached the trip with the same sense of adventure and appetite we had approached our excursios when we were twenty.

The Metro was direct from Jussieu to St Denis. We ascended into an large square bright with sun shine. There was an open air market shaded by awnings on one side of the square Marianna shopped for a steamer. There were no bargains, but open air markets have a charm for those of us who do not experience them at home. The occupants of the quarter passed the fabulous church without looking to the left or the right; it was so familiar it had no existence for them. Here for centuries was the burial place of the kings and queens of France. This first of the great “gothic” structures, the chef d’oeuvre of Abbot Suger.

Suger was the rare and perfect combination of brilliance, good taste, great connections an excellent education and an open mind. He had the good fortune to be a class mate of Louis VI, he who married Eleanor of Aquitaine. (Suger approved) and later divorced her, (Suger disapproved). Suger was right but that is a whole different story.

The Abbot took it upon himself to modernize and expand the church at St Denis, already ancient and full of history in the twelfth century, where the sepulchers of the Kings and Queens of France reside.

The theory of the flying buttress was at that moment nascent and Suger saw it as the possibility to allow light to fill the church for the glory of the Divine and rescue it from its dark enclosed Romanesque beginning. As he was very well connected with the aristocracy finding the money for the enterprise was not as difficult as it might have been for a lesser person. The story goes that although he begged for money for the nave and rose window which would have made the church useable, he delayed the restoration of that part of the building until the end fearing the money would dry up once the impressive front of the church was complete.

He understood the physics and applied geometry of the pointed arch with keystone and the flying buttress as the methods by which the weight of the building would rest on an exterior skeleton allowing the interior to be filled with light filtered through stained glass. St Denis was the beginning of what would be the most fabulous works of man ever to be raised to God.

Mari and I completed our visit and enquired about a restaurant for lunch. We found a working class Algerian local. We were welcomed by the maitre d’ and waiter who treated us like royalty. We ate the best Algerian couscous I have ever eaten, covered with lamb gravy. And we were surrounded by happy noisy natives..

Bread and Roses I

Publishers Clearing House was a paternalistic company, flowers delivered on Mondays, corn festival in August, turkeys distributed on Thanksgiving, ice skating and cocoa when the pond froze in the winter champagne parties for the contest winners to which the whole building was invited and especially a haven for the Port Washington ducks. If a duck were spotted downtown the police would call for Tommy to catch it and return it to its rightful pond at PCH.

As part of its benevolence retirement lectures were afforded the hoi poloi no matter that most of us were many years from retirement. The lectures were free so Elliot and I participated. The third lecturer gave each of us a sum of money and asked how we would spend it to further our retirement plans. I invested part of mine in the stock market and with the remainder I bought a bed and breakfast in the Berkshires. The lecturer did not laugh rather he opined that if the Berkshires was a likely tourist destination a bed and breakfast might be a good thing. For the first time in my daydreaming someone said “not a bad idea.”

Serendipitously we had a staff meeting the next day where my boss banged on the table and pronounced “make your plan, work your plan.” I would have paid attention without the table banging as the boss was over six feet in all his dimensions.

I trotted home and announced to Elliot we should make our plan and work our plan for the B&B as the oracle had declared. He answered so what’s your plan? My plan was simple enough; open a bank account for the B&B and throw all the loose money in it. Elliot did this the next day.

Connie was working in the reinvestment department of a large bank in New York City. Under her tutelage we learned how to arbitrage Bank of New England stock buying at 95 percent of market and selling at market. For more details you would have to ask Connie. This scheme worked exceedingly well, so well my very conservative husband was seen carrying one hundred thousand dollars in hundreds from one bank in Mineola to another to make the investment date.

We soon had enough money to shop for the B&B.

A Room With A View

When I had the apartment in New York for the winter people would ask me why would I spend a winter in the city. I always replied that I went south for the winter just not as far south as the other people. Once I replied I would go to Paris except for the language problem. It suddenly occurred to me I had no language problem, I was bilingual or could be again with a little effort.

Finding the Paris apartment took two phone calls to an agent listed in a brochure at the French tourist bureau. The first apartment in the Marais was not light enough. We passed on the chic eighth arrondissement and settled for the Latin Quarter which afforded us a light and bright duplex. The top floor encompassed a living room, dining area, kitchen, bedroom and bath, below two bedrooms and a bath. It was decorated flawlessly in beiges and Thai silk pillows and lots of books in various languages.

The building had once been a monastery and was built around a court which made the apartment very quiet although we were but steps from the market on Rue Mouffetard. In the Spring the trees in the courtyard put forth cherry blossoms.

I find it most amusing to hear the know nothings condemn the French health care system. When Mariana and I had the apartment in Paris I transferred my care to the French health care system. The transfer was facilitated by Connie who was living in Switzerland at the time. She sent an e-mail to the American Women’s Club in Zurich saying I needed care, I would be in Paris I spoke French. By return e-mail I had a doctor who would enter me into the system,

Every three weeks I took the metro from Place Monge to Ballard the end of the lilac line. I walked the four blocks to the brand new fabulous building , Hopital Europeen Georges Pompidou. Within the three story atrium were grown trees, restaurants and of course the hospital.

In the private room in which they treated me everything ran off a remote control wand. The blinds went up and down the bed went up and down etc. If I arrived before eleven AM the French cheerfully provided me with breakfast. After 11 one was served lunch. Breakfast was better than lunch. A Breton nurse took care of me swiftly and pleasantly. When the treatment was over I spoke with the billing people. On one occasion I forgot my credit card and they waved me on saying I could pay next time. Just like in America.

Annals of Iceland

Some time ago The New York Times travel section ran an ad for a long weekend in Iceland. Elliot and I packed our carzinkas and went off to that exotic if not tropical island. We landed at the airport in Keflavik and rode from there through a moonscape of black volcanic rock for miles to Reykjavik,. The airport was very impressive for such a small island, built I believe by the US Army for World War II and probably maintained by the CIA.

Reykjavik was small for a capital and wooden. We were used to the stone of the Mediterranean. We visited the Parliament building and a nearby Viking dig as well as a buggy ride into the surrounding area. The Icelanders have the oldest democracy in the world still called the Althing as it was in Viking days.

The people were large and friendly much like the Scots we had encountered before. Actually Iceland was colonized by Vikings and their Irish slaves. They are all related and the phone book produces perhaps a dozen family names.

Everything ran on geothermal energy. The hotel was steam heated and then the hot water was run into the pipes for washing. The temperature for March was friendly if damp. The Gulf stream which is a moderating influence flows close to the Southern coast of Iceland keeping the harbors open all year.

We visited the wild north face of the island. Noone lives there mostly geysers, mountains, water falls and birds. In the south there were greenhouses everywhere heated of course by the underground geothermal energy. We had fresh tomatoes and salad at dinner which was mostly fruit of the sea. Fishing is important in Iceland, but surprisingly so was the transformation of bauxite from Jamaica into aluminum, again the cheap energy source.

Reykjavik abounded with swimming pools Everyone from 3 to 93 swam almost every day. I actually went swimming in the famous Blue Lagoon on one trip. The water was quite warm although the air was still March.

There were no erupting volcanos nor were any new islands born while we were there. Fish, lamb, good food and woolen sweaters abounded.

Greek Myths

Greece is back on the front pages and a tragedy again, where is Midas and his golden touch?

When I was a little girl I was handed The Bible Stories, The Arabian Nights and The Greek Myths. It was obvious to me that I was a Greek. In Latin class all the stories started “erat olim in Graecia” Once upon a time in Greece.

As an adult I looked forward to visiting the monuments and the shrines I had only seen in history books or in the case of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum ripped from Praxiteles’ frieze and carted off for “:safekeeping “ in a northern clime, or the Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo ensconced in the Louvre.

I lied to Elliot and told him that the Mediterranean would be like a lake in March. No stories of Ulysses taking ten years to return home on storm tossed seas. We were drawn to the Shrine at Delphi to see the Omphalos of the ancient world where the Oracle sitting on a three legged stool predicted the fate of Oedipus. We visited Corinth and stood on the bema where St Paul preached to the unruly crowds. It was said that in ancient Corinth one could hear a dozen tongues spoken in the agora. One could see a neolithic shrine still here 6000 years later or the Corinth Canal where British airmen had jumped to their death hoping to escape from German occupied Greece.

The most exciting if unplanned and unpleasant was our stay in Athens. The first day or two were fine, even though a general strike had been announced. By Friday the strikers were full to the brim with ouzo and antipathy, many “Americans go home” chants. We went about our tourist business in all innocence., We had no idea what a general strike meant. Our bus downtown stopped running and we learned of another a few blocks further from the hotel. We arrived at the Binacki Museum. They let us in and locked the door behind us which was comforting, sort of entering a safe womb. When we had finished viewing the fabulous gold we left the museum..and they locked the doors behind us which was less than comforting. The street was eerily empty although one could hear the strikers in the distance and see the gray painted school bus full of gray uniformed soldiers. Then they tear gassed us. Our friend the professor knew we were being tear gassed because he had been at Kent State. Then it was bedlam, no buses no transport at all. A taxi pulled up and I got in with another couple. We were six and I assumed another cab would come and take the remaining three. The cabs only held three passengers. I had the passport. Elliot arrived at the hotel three hours later much the worse for wear. No passport, no Greek language he walked back to the hotel through the street fires and tear gas. When he arrived he was furious I had deserted him in his three hours of need.

Paris in the Springtime

Yvonne and David are going to Paris next week. He for a business meeting she because she lucked out on the dates of Spring vacation and was "added on". Poor child I have been bombarding her with ancient tips and information probably none of it age appropriate for that matter century appropriate.

When Marianna and I rented the apartment in the fifth arondissement several years ago we glimpsed the lights of the Eiffel tower from the restaurant we ate in the first night of our stay. It was reminiscent of the first time we had seen the lights from our balcony when we came to Paris as green teenagers to spend our junior year.

We lived in the eighteenth in a very residential pre-World War II building. The elevator was to be used to go up. Walk down the five flights please. The hall lights were on a timer and one raced from floor to floor to push the button to illuminate the stairwell to descend further.

We lived with the family Mullander: Madame, Monsieur, Grand Pere, the daughter and son-in-law just returned from North Africa and Bruno who was four years old. If anyone spoke English they kept it to themselves. Our major communication difficulty was with Bruno as we had no vocabulary suitable for dealing with a four year old. Although we did exclaim at dinner on the wonderful carrion we had just eaten. Most of our vocabulary came from Verlaine and Beaudelaire. Grandpere had traveled in the States at the turn of the century and had carried a gun with him for fear of the redskins and the gangsters. He always asked us about our war, the Korean war, as if we were in control, or even knowledgeable.

Madame was a wonderful cook. I sent home recipes for the exotic lunches she made for us. My mother resented this thoroughly. Madame opened each spice tin in turn so we could smell and learn the French name. We had wine with every meal Bruno also had wine watered by more than half. Monsieur Mullander was an insomniac given to painting things like the toilet seat in the middle of the night. Each morning we went off to school at 4 rue de Chatreuse for lessons in grammar and reading and writing proper French. We translated Churchill into French, De Gaulle into English. We returned after lunch for culture lectures. As soon as the light went off for the slides I fell asleep so I missed much of the culture.

On days when there were no lectures we had a map and instructions on exploring Paris century by century starting on the Ile de la Cite an expanding each week into a larger concentric circle. These adventures are for another day.

Ancient Greek Women

The course I am taking in Greek drama has taken over my life. My heroine Joan of Arc is so straight forward, pious and innocent compared to these twisted agonized souls. Where Joan killed reluctantly for a holy cause, the Greeks commit matricide, murder and mayhem. The Bible differentiates between killing and murder. The commandment really says thou shalt not murder.

Clytemnestra waits ten years for Agamemnon to return victorious from Troy. She has already filled his place in her bed with Aegisthus. Agamemnon returns and violating all the rules of Greek hospitality she welcomes him to the house slays him and Cassandra his new wife and expects to live happily ever after. A cursed family, and the family Atreus is cursed, never lives on without revenge. Electra daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra mourns her father's death to the point of psychosis waiting only for the return of her brother Orestes to kill their mother and her paramour. Of course Agamemnon is not without guilt having killed his daughter Iphigenia in order to insure a good wind for the voyage to conquer Troy. Oh the collateral damage of the great wars.

Trickery, cunning and deception are held in great esteem as personified by Odysseus. And yet here is the beginning of Western democracy. Is matricide a worse crime than the murder of a non relative? Is revenging one's father's death more important than living? In the golden age of Greece we have the beginning of a jury system with twelve jurors. The barbaric stands side by side with the civilized. I guess as it still does.

Women in the Middle Ages

One might ask what were the other women doing while Joan was leading an army to success and her doom? Contrary to the image vaunted by the Church of woman as virgin or whore subject to her master, the real women had very active and varied lives. By and large their lives were lived within the confines of their class. Farm women farmed, planted, gathered, fed the animals, raised children and lived the same life as the farmer they had married. They could appear for themselves in court as Joan had. They could refuse to marry an obnoxious suitor, as Joan had. They sheared and carded and wove wool. They raised silk worms and un-wound the cocoons. Silk was much in demand both for sumptuous outer wear and as an undergarment for those knights who could afford it. Silk does not suppurate in a wound so offers protection against gangrene. When their husbands were pressed in to service they had full responsibility for the farm.

The bourgeoise lived in a town in the rising middle class. She might keep shop, and was admitted to a guild if necessary as a widow there being no male to carry on the function. Women were mid-wives, and nurses. To pretend to be a doctor was to invite accusations of sorcery. They sculpted stone, painted portraits and frescoes, played musical instruments, there are even representations of women miners. The wealthier girls were often sent to a nunnery for an education before marriage. Those women could read, write keep books and compose poetry.

The lady of the castle had full responsibility for defending it when the lord was gone. She oversaw the veritable village of people necessary to keep a castle functioning, from the fish in the moat to the geese in the yard. In many circumstances women could inherit. Our most famous example would be Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of two kings, Louis VII of France and Henry II of England mother of two kings, Richard the Lionhearted and John Lackland he of the Magna Carta..

Eleanor was heiress to the Aquitaine, one of the richest provinces in all France. When her father was certain he was about to die Eleanor a girl of twelve or so was secreted at night to the most powerful man in France, the King. Eleanor's father knew this would keep her safe from hungry barons. While married to Louis she went with him on Crusade to Jerusaleem. When she left Louis she took the Aquitaine with her. When she married young Henry she made him the most powerful ruler in France as he was both King of England, Duke of Normandy and Brittany and Duke of Auitaine and Anjou. although vassal to the King of France.

One tends to believe that later in time means progress or a better life. This is not necessarily true. One has only to contrast the roaring twenties with the depression thirties. In the Middle Ages unlike the cultures in non Christian lands, baby girls were cherished and taken care of like their male counterparts.

Rehabilitation

Over the thirty years between Joan's condemnation and her trial of rehabilitation treaties were made, alliances refigured battles won and eventually the English were gone everywhere except the pas de Calais which they controlled into the eighteenth century. A new Pope ordered a new Inquisitor to look into the first trial. Witnesses came forth who could not for reasons of safety or politics present themselves earlier.

Both her former colleagues in war, La Hire and Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans testified as to her virtue and prowess. King Charles VII sent a royal letter to the tribunal. Joan's father, her brother, her childhood friends all spoke in her behalf. Clerics who had actually participated in the first trial testified. The Inquisition exonerated Joan and stated she was no longer considered a heretic. They passed over the crime of wearing men's clothing that which had damned her to the pyre. The Church rehabilitated her but it could not unburn her. Sainthood was still 500 years away.

This was the last trial by the Inquisition in France. The populace was so horrified by its lack of justice and ready compliance with the politics of the moment that a trial by the Inquisition never happened again in France. Pity poor Spain where the last trial by the Inquisition took place in 1835. Spain's continuing allegiance to the Inquisition resulted in the loss of its intellectual class and its relegation to the fringes of history for centuries.

Joan, the Maiden

We don't know what Joan looked like. Certainly she bore no resemblance to Ingrid Bergman in feature or in character. Bergman took the part to burnish her much tarnished image as the woman who had run off with Roberto Rossellini although still married to her Swedish doctor husband. Joan was slight in stature more reminiscent of Julie Harris in the Anouilh play about Joan, The Lark. None of her companions ever mentioned a pretty face. It is probably fair to conclude she was not pretty. Probably she was sturdy and sun bronzed. Undoubtedly she could ride a horse as horses were part of farm life in Lorraine. Joan's father was a well-to-do farmer and land owner. She was very religious. Her entire education was learned on the farm and in the church. She could not read or write, but this was not uncommon. Her days and seasons were regulated by the church day and calendar. She began to hear her voices when she was about thirteen. They were accompanied by an aura. She did not see her saints until she was captured and half starved. In the Middle Ages and earlier people heard voices and interpreted them according to their state in life. In the Bible Abraham, Moses and Deborah all heard the voice of God. Jacob wrestled with an angel. No one counted Joan as crazy because she heard voices. However she acted upon what she heard.

The ordinary costume for a girl her age was a loose red dress. By the time Joan arrived in the court of the Dauphin she had undergone a complete transformation from farm girl to leader of men. She cut her hair in to the bowl cut worn by soldiers and put off the red dress for a soldier's costume. The change was not purely cosmetic. We know that growing hair and cutting hair as a vow to the Almighty has a long biblical history. Even today there are modern sects who neither shave nor cut their hair and whose women cover their hair so no outsider may see it. Hair is powerful and sexual. To drain Samson of his strength Delilah cuts his hair. To protect his soldiers from the enemy's grasp Alexander the Great,commanded that all his soldiers have military haircuts and shaven chins. In the sixties growing hair long was the youth anti-war protest against a status quo it had not created.

Donning man's clothing was expressly forbidden in Deuteronomy; it is as an abomination. Joan insisted that her voices had commanded her to wear the uniform of a soldier. She was being obedient to God. It is this point that the Grand Inquisitor holds fast over and over again. Joan is not being obedient to to the Church. Joan thought God and the Church were the same thing. The learned clerics who condemned her knew better. Why was wearing men's clothing such a crime? Sumptuary laws have been with us forever. They are intended to keep the inferiors in their place. If a slave wore a toga with a stripe he might be taken for a senator.

Lectures on Joan

Some time ago my friend Ellie Chandler, who was on the curriculum committee of BILL, now OLLI asked me if I would lecture on the French Revolution. Knowing my limitations and how complicated the French Revolution was in its causes and results I demurred. I did say that I probably could lecture on Joan of Arc. The committee was as usual short on lecturers and was happy to have me sign on.

Now I had to actually learn enough about the woman, the place, the times and the customs to do six one and a half hour lectures. I assumed that my audience would know nothing about the Middle Ages in France. Probably nothing about France. Taking the good witch's advice to Dorothy I decided to start at the beginning. Well 15,000 years ago seemed far enough back for one to get the idea that France has been pretty continuously inhabited.

We had visited the Caves at Lascaux whose walls were painted with ancient animals. These were executed as well as any French painter in the future could hope to match. Protuberances in the wall became the shoulders of ancient bison. The colors were ground from minerals and blown with some kind of pipe onto a surface that had been coated with oil. But what was the source of the light needed to execute these paintings? In another cave was a very moving grave of a woman buried with her jewelry and cooking utensils which dated from that era. Obviously these early people had our same emotions. For the lectures I skipped through the prehistory to the first Greek settlement about 500B.C. at Marseilles. The trade was as today in olive oil and wine. Above the port was a settlement protected from marauders containing amphorae and fibulae (yesterday's storage pots and safety pins).

Gaul before the Roman invasion was the home of a tall, blond, blue eyed fair skinned people. They were careful of their appearance, both men and women. They had invented a soap which contained a natural bleach and kept their hair blond. They had an affinity for glass bracelets and gold earrings and necklaces,. Pottery and minerals were exported as far away as Greece. The religion of choice was worship of the mother goddess. Women were treated as equals in war and peace and were known to take up arms and fight next to their husbands. Wives were consulted when war was contemplated.

When Julius Caesar appears on the stage of history Gaul becomes important as a colony of Rome, to be subdued and exploited. Caesar famously divided Gaul into three parts, praising the Belgian tribes for their bravery. None of the tribes had the population or organization to withstand the juggernaut of Caesar's armies. Nor were they prepared for the false promises made to them for their cooperation. Poor Vercingetorix, the noblest of Caesar's adversaries was promised peace for cooperation. Instead he was chained to a wagon and paraded through the streets of Rome as a disgraced slave. An exquisite marble statue of The Dying Gaul is preserved in the Capitol Museum in Rome. Gaul became a province of Rome, linked by roads, canals and aqueducts and soon enough a common language. The ancient religion of druids and forest gods was subsumed under the umbrella of the Olympians. In the distant provinces like Brittany the old ways lasted longer. Henceforth the land would be Gallo-Roman until the empire fell to the barbarian hordes of the east.

Joan at the Stake

One hardly needs an excuse to visit Normandy. Elliot wished to see the invasion beaches.In World War II his brother, Jerry, had landed on D-Day in Normandy at Sword beach and then taken part in the bloody battle to reclaim St.Lo.

On our way north, we visited Monet's passion, the gardens at Giverny. We saw a late Summer garden , a Norman Close crammed with annuals especially nasturims creeping across the gravel walks. The pink and white stucco house was envelopped in ivy. As we proceeded toward the beaches farmstands proclaiming cidre bouche beckoned us. The cider was cool and refreshing, not until half hour later did we realize bouche meant hard cider. We giggled our was along the narrow Norman roads, on each side the vegetation loomed above us as if were were in a twenty foot ditch. These were the famous hedgerows which had given the enemy tanks such difficulty.

The white sand invasion beaches were all marked for the visitor either British or American. At low tide the landing craft would have been hundreds of yards from hard dry sand. We thought of our accountant friend Bernie Berkowitz who landed here during the invasion. He had carried his weapon high above his head, his back carried his pack. Each step was a journey into hell as the Germans had the high ground and were shooting at our oncoming soldiers. Pointe du Hoc was something out of a Douglas Fairbanks movie script. The only way to reach the top of the point was to throw an anchor up and climb the rope. This is what the Rangers did.

After lunch we visited the American Cemetery. No one buries the way the military does, perfect rows in all directions, horizontal, vertical, diagonal and almost all the fallen younger than twenty-one. If you informed the office of your visit a garland of flowers would be placed on the grave of your loved one for your visit. Never before or since have I cried for people I did not know.

In the morning we went to the great cathedral at Rouen. Monet had painted it many times st different hours of the day. In the market place where the platform had stood which held Joan tied to the stake, people were shopping for the days provisions.

Joan In Reims

Our first French adventure started with five days in Paris. Elliot suffered a bout of vertigo on our second day in the city of light. He soldiered on nobly but refused to drive out of the city. We picked up the car at the rental agent just north of the Arc de Triomphe at the Etoile. The traffic was stupefying. I spotted a huge tractor trailer truck and followed it closely onto the perferique or beltway out of the city and we were launched.

An hour or so into the countryside and there was a clumpha clumpa sound emanating from the car. Elliot informed me I had a flat. Of course I had the flat as I was driving. We stopped and I searched the manual for the jack (le cric) and the spare tire (le pneu). The one was hidden under the bonnet which I couldn't open and the other was just hidden. A kindly motorist stopped and found the aforementioned items and wished us luck. We needed more than luck as the lug nuts were tightened beyond our ability to dislodge them. I stood on the roadway and waved at on-coming traffic. A grand routier an over the road truck driver stopped changed the tire wished us well would take no tip and was on his way, as were we.

We arrived in Reims at the car rental agent in time to dump the car have lunch and visit the great cathedral. It was here that Joan dragged the unwilling Dauphin for his investiture as King of France. As they progressed from Bourges eastward one town after another surrendered and offered the keys of the city to their heroine Joan, la Pucelle, and by exrension to Charles. Joan was anxious that Charles be anointed at Reims as traditionally all French kings were invested here and this would make him the legitimate king, as opposed to Henry VI th boy-king of England who claimed the throne for the invaders.

In the fifteenth century the cathedral was almost three hundred years old, except for the spires whch were added later, quite complete in its Gothic majesty. I never go into a medieval Gothic cathedral without wondering how did they do it. To create such an edifice from stone and glass with their bare hands and hand tools was a true miracle.

Charles complained that the anointing oil was rancid. This was probably true as legend held it was the same flask which held the oil for Charlemagne's investiture. He also muttered about the weight of the robes. The cathedral was full of knights and barons and dignitaries. Joan stood next to the Dauphin dressed in full armor and carrying her banner which had painted on it Jehus Maria.

The oath was administered flocks of doves were released and the crowd yelled Noel! Noel!. France once again had a king.

We went on to visit the Champagne caves.

Second Joan

When I was thirty-four I found myself virtually penniless and in dire need of a job. My friend Bobbie Liebert informed me of an opening teaching kindergarten at the Woodmere Academy. I had a year of helping at Connie's nursery school so with the courage of ignorance I made an appointment with Dr. Ren for a Thursday afternoon.

When the good headmaster saw the year of university in Switzerland he inquired if I thought I could teach French to little children. After all it was not philosophy. I agreed with alacrity. I would have agreed to teach Greek, such was my need for money. He set an appointment for Monday with the head of the French department. It was up to me in this weekend to bring back what I had known fifteen years earlier. I watched French movies, practiced my pronunciation read aloud and memorized a little speech which anticipated what I believed would be asked by the head of department.

In September I met my first classes. We started in third grade the oral-aural approach. Kind of monkey-see monkey-do. It took about fifteen repetitions of a phrase for a child, even a very backward child to learn the phrase. One must always remember that the town idiot in places like Alsace speaks both French and German.

In fourth fifth and sixth grades the philosophy had been set at an earlier time and the children read and wrote French. They were also introduced to French culture. We ate French cheese and drank French hot chocolate until the principal accused me of bribing the children with food. I acknowledged a little "Skinner M and M" psychology and said I found nothing wrong with equating French with food. The whole world equates French with food.

As part of the culture lessons we talked of Guillaume le Conquerant, and Richard Coeur de Lion. We spoke of 1066 and all That. I encouraged them to think of all those French nouns and verbs swimming across the Channel and in so doing losing their French accent and becoming English. One could add hundreds of vocabulary words by putting the accent on a different syllable. Some of them got it and tried the French accent whenever they were short of learned vocabulary.

One day I told my fifth grade class all about the burning of Joan at the stake. Children love gore. A child in the front row asked "Had I known her well?" Yes I had known her well.

My Friend Joan of Arc

When I was 19 years old and a student at the Universite de Geneve in Switzerland I first encountered Joan. Unlike my studies at Smith which were broad and all encompassing this course dealt solely with the trial of Joan of Arc. In the nineteenth century the trial minutes were published in Latin and Old French. It was our task to translate the medieval French into modern French. The first semester we had done the same with The Enterprises of the Duke of Burgundy Against the Swiss.

By second semester medieval French was almost a no-brainer. Instead of accent marks which were the tombstones of dead letters we had the actual dead letters, alive and well, if unpronounced. The French Academy would freeze the language in the 17th and 18th century regularizing the spelling and pronunciation. What we had were the Trial minutes reported each day in Latin and translated into French both copies signed by a notary to guarantee the accuracy of the reportage.

Joan was the youngest commander of a royal army, younger than Alexander the Great. She appeared at a time in France when all hope had disappeared. The English had devastated the countryside. The English army laid siege to Orleans. No goods or persons entered or left Orleans For a very fine picture from the British point of view one might watch Kenneth Branagh in Shakespeare's Henry V. Unlike Henry the French Dauphin was a terrified little man holed up at his court in Chinon south of Paris. Joan through a series of adventures presented herself to Charles and convinced him to outfit her as a Captain with an army, her purpose to end the blockade of Orleans.

After she had accomplished the end of the siege, had the Dauphin crowned and anointed King at Reims, she became an embarrassment to the French Court. The voices which she heard were no longer of use to Charles. The politics of the Court found Joan too strict too religious at odds with the mores of high society. She went on several other missions less successful than the siege of Orleans eventually was captured and sold to the British who were at home in Rouen, in Normandy.

Joan demanded an ecclesiastical trial. Actually she wanted the Pope (which one Avignon or Rome?) to hear her case. She was accused of wearing men's clothing and being a witch. Half starved on a diet of bread and weak wine she defended herself nobly and without counsel against a tribunal of the eminent clerics of the day. For weeks they asked her questions out of context worded to catch her in a lie. Eventually on the promise of freedom she recanted her testimony and denied her voices. At this point the vultures announced she would be incarcerated the rest of her life. Not to see the sun or hear the birds was more that she could tolerate and she denied her abjuration and was handed over to the British to be burned at the stake.

The Tyranny of Technology

It was never my intention to buy a new computer, but suddenly the old one took sick and died. Luckily John was able to plug a little thigamajig into it and download my past. This endeavor was not without its problems. Armed with the little history gadget and a credit card we went to Staples to buy a new machine.

"Sorry", replied Staples, "we have no machine to sell to you."

We looked around and there appeared to be an abundance of computers, printers and monitors. All of which we would have to replace as the old ones would be incompatible. Microsoft was releasing Windows7 on Thursday and we would have to wait.

John was getting antsy as he had an appointment in the city and had not anticipated a long stay in the Berks waiting for a machine. But wait he did. The computer could not come home on Thursday as it needed to be updated and I was assured that if I did that at home on dial-up it would update itself for many, many hours. For sixty additional dollars Staples would keep the computer an extra day and do the updates at the store.

We returned on Friday picked up the computer and plugged it in at home. All the icons which had been visible at the store had disappeared from the screen. In essence I had a blank screen and no way to change it. John unplugged it and went back to Staples. They mumbled something about it being impossible for the icons to have gone away when they were very much present at the store; and oh yes, it was using 125 percent of the screen so with a click they changed the resolution to 100 percent and I was good to go. John by this time was growing increasingly bored sitting around waiting for the next computer crisis and went home.

I sat down and tried to send out an e-mail to find that Microsoft had not bundled the e-mail program into the Windows7 operating system. For about $100 I could buy one. "Would I like a tech to help me with installation et cetera?" The printer was still in the b ox so I thoughta tech might be a good thing. For about $200 plus $40 for expedited service a tech would come to the house and I would be a happy camper again.

When I went to the car to go on with my day it would not start. I went back inside and asked to use the phone. I had completely forgotten I had a phone in my handbag. AAA came in about 45 minutes.

The expedited service was a figment of someone's imagination but a vey nice tech did come two days later and make everything work. He informed me that my clicking finger was not a quality digit. The machine was very responsive and I needed to click with one hand holding the pointed mouse and the other doing the click or double click. If I continued in my old fashion pages would appear and disappear into the ether randomly.

Connie came to visit and determined that I needed high speed internet and she would make the phone calls to make that happen. Hughes could not come immediately but they would be there Wednesday to mount the new satellite dish. I now have three. I can beam up to the closest asteroid any time I wish.

The installer was very pleasant, but left me with incorrect information so I couldn't register the satellite. I assumed it was my fault or my faulty digits and decided to wait for Connie to come again. Thanksgiving week she came and put me out of my misery. She is infinitely patient and deals with "push one", "push two" better than I.

John kindly set up this blog as following Google's very simple rules made me break out in a rash. The last three days have been spent changing my e-mail address.

Questions you never asked

Hamlet was about 17 at the beginning of the play and about thirty at the end. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Jeremy has just read Hamlet in high school and he wondered about Hamlet's age. The experts are mixed on the answer but the one I like best was that Shakespeare was inconsistent.

No you cannot buy an 8 inch pie pan. Well that is a modified no. You can buy one made in France for about $37. Pyrex no longer makes that size and a metal one was non-existent. The recipes, however, continue to call for eight inch pies.

If you would like to grow an espaliered fruit tree in your yard it is best to go with apple. Figs, peaches, apricots, persimmons and pomegranates may also be espaliered. One needs a sunny wall and good soil. The self pollinating varieties are best for the beginner. Apples lend themselves to many espalier forms hedges, double cordon. vertical cordon, palmetto and Belgian fence. If you are serious now is the time to do your own research.

Julia Ward Howe wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic in one afternoon in a hotel room in Washington, DC. She came from a very prestigious and educated family and was an abolitionist and feminist. It was the two hundredth anniversary of Lincoln's birth so we sang Civil war songs at Thanksgiving dinner. Charles Darwin was also two hundred years old but I lacked songs on evolution.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has come and gone. They came they cooked they ate they cleaned up and they departed to their own abodes. John and I finished putting the house together in no time.

We had turkey, brined according to Alton Brown's recipe, sweet potatoes, squash soup, string beans with arugula, sausage dressing, cranberry sauce and three pies, pumpkin, pecan and apple. We drank much wine. David and Andrew supplied the wine and there was a special bottle gifted to us by Marianna. As if this was not enough feasting we had a Mexican Fiesta on Friday evening.

The grandchildren, except for Rachel who is nine and three -quarters, are all young adults. Eloise (you may remember la principessa) is off to Ghana for interterm. There she will go to school, help in an orphanage, and go on safari. I begged Susan to send me instead but it was no longer my turn to travel.

So ends my first entry.

Grandma Julie

Getting started...

While it rains outside, and with the day's errands completed, I have asked John to set-up my blog, and it is John who is writing this first entry. Please rest assured, fans, that all future entries will be the work of the eponymous Julie.