Memorials

My eye caught three of the very numerous memorials in St Pancras Old Church

The brother of the oddly spelled earl

The family inscription

The annoying feminist

Wollstonecraft is the name of a trendy lower North Shore Sydney suburb; on googling it emerges that it was named for a nephew of the famous Mary who came to the Colony to escape identification with his notorious feminist  aunt,  and her views. As might be expected he flourished in Sydney town with a partner (Berry) and a land grant of 500 acres in the area in 1821 and lots more elsewhere with Berry (10,000 acres on the Shoalhaven in 1822) and  free convict labour . 
They built Australia's first canal, with the assistance of Hamilton Hume. The 209 yard long canal was completed in 12 days. The crops farmed at Shoalhaven included native cedar and tobacco, which were sold at considerable profit both to the growing colony at Sydney and for export. The property at Shoalhaven grew to 40,000 acres (162 km²) under Berry's management, while Wollstonecraft looked after business in Sydney.(Wikipedia )

What makes this of passing interest to me is that aforementioned 2nd great grandmother reached Jamberoo, a little north of the Shoalhaven, in the late 1830s as the young wife of a cedar cutter. She had 2 children baptised but did not last to the first census in 1841.

Excelsior

We left Paris by the Eurostar on Sunday. Since it was the weekend there were line works which sent us via Lille and added an hour and a quarter to the journey.

On arrival at St Pancras we were met by a cousin of W’s. Since  all of us were toting bags we didn’t want to go far, but I was keen to visit St Pancras Old Church, as courtesy ancestry.co.uk I have discovered that a second great- grandmother was baptised there in November 1818. The church is actually quite a find: it claims to have been a site of Christian worship since the 4th century, although most of the oldest bits visible now are Norman, and it got an exterior makeover in the mid nineteenth century when it had ceased to be the main parish church ( hence “old”). 

There is an etching dated 1815, so we know more or less what 3rd great grandmother saw outside in 1818-

A young Thomas Hardy was given the job of moving graves and stones to make way for civic works. The available  mortal remains got shifted I think, but TH decided to arrange surplus gravestones around a tree, which has swallowed some as it grew.

It was pleasing that the cultural guide identified the font cover as 17th century and font itself matched ancient Norman style; even the stone stand inscribed in English and Latin may have been around in 1818, so the whole bit is likely to be where baby 2nd great grandmother was presented.

We took the Piccadilly line to Heathrow 5 and walked to the Sofitel for a very comfortable overnight stay. Next morning we were bound for Rome and had the gold trophy worst ever experience in international travel in my 57 years of flying experience, spoiled by airport bureaucracy and a barebones airline (BA, done by Iberian, ). Memo:  never leave by Heathrow again if possible ( not possible for us) the pip was the security delightfully micro unpacking suitcases and in my case removing small toothpaste stored with toothbrush to a clear plastic bag, and binning my Cancer Council 110ml tube of sunscreen. Nearby passengers experiencing worse. BA needlessly cancelled the published carryon limit at the boarding gate because the plane was 

full    (there was ample overhead stowage at our seat) and my bag with water was whisked away to the hold. No water or anything else on the plane except their £1.80 bottles, so the three hours were sat out until we fell into the melée of Rome. Perhaps we missed a sign, but it seemed only 2 choices, (Europe or toutes passports),  but it took more than an hour of queuing in toutes to sight passport control in the distance, and would have been much longer had not an official eventually waved us to the European queue. Memo: don’t fly BA, don’t disembark at Rome.

Cultural Experiences

Alerted by a paragraph in the travel section of the Weekend Australian last month, we went to the Atelier-des-lumières light and sound installation, which focussed mainly on works of Klimt. We had to queue about 35 minutes, but then the hour and a bit of entrancement was  worth almost the cost of our stay!

It was immersion in light beyond photography, but there are some You Tube clips (including promos), that give an idea. We were in a warehouse on one floor with internal  balcony on one side, and were free to wander round the inside the pictures ever changing and surrounding us, on all 6 surfaces.

Here are a couple of YouTube links to part of the presentations, which are of course as different as any photography may be from actually being there, (the blue colour text of the  links is difficult to discern against the blog background, - I will try to alter default colour later,  but click and see anyway:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbd6j28s7To#fauxfullscreen

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RNeVKTrqT3Y. (17 minutes)

Next day we went west to the Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris. It is down by the Pont Alma, and it’s 20th century collection seems minimalist in  comparison to the larger Museums closer centre of the city. Three handsome Bonnards, some Matisse, Fauve and other post-impressionist works provided a pleasant morning, and unlike most Paris musées, free entry to the permanent collection.

Outside, at Place Alma around a full size replica of the Statue of Liberty light, is what has become a permanent tribute to the death of Princess Diana.

Wikipedia

Another free visit was made to 59 Rue Rivoli, “Aftersquat”, workplace in 6 floors to artists of a certain contemporary style, and display of their works.

Pierre Bonnard: Le déjeuner

Versailles Chateau & Le petit Trianon

Since in 1986 we had had an unforgettable official dusk and evening visit to Versailles, we decided to make a return, but with emphasis on the quarters of Marie Antoinette. We found on arrival that the tour we picked allowed only an hour there, not nearly enough time, as the buildings are widely spaced and we had a little difficulty finding our way from the petit Trianon to the Hamlet, and the Grand Trianon was not practicable.

The pond held large schools of large carp plainly enjoying a good life for a carp, and the hamlet was certainly as rustic as a peasant village probably never was.

We were then conducted to two hour tour of  the Chateau and its gardens. Security was at airport level (X-rays, men with guns),  and there seemed to be more people there than at the main international airports. The solid crush of humanity oozing through the rooms, punctuated by guide flags and pom-poms , and phones on sticks, was an experience. The grounds were beautiful in flower near the palace, the vistas extended not quite as we remembered them from before, since that late afternoon all the fountains had been conditioning the Spring air.

Emperor Napoléon and the Invalides

We visited Les Invalides, and spent quite a while walking the cloister to read in English a series of posters outlining the tortuous path to peace in the midst of the Great War. I have had no  idea about the multiple treaty attempts from 1916 onwards, and in the end how many armistice and peace treaties were signed.

We visited the austere military Église Saint Louis, and the part of the Army Museum dedicated to history from Louis XIV 1643 to Napoléon III 1870. The chronological arrangement might leave an innocent to think that the point of kingdoms was to have wars. Certainly in those 227 years one would have been fortunate to find a year or two of peaceful interval.

The pièce de résistance is the Dome of the église, entered separately and overwhelmed by the gigantic tomb of Napoléon. His corpse was transferred here in 1840. We expected an imperial presentation, and it certainly is, but in the circle around the tomb Napoléon is depicted in a set of huge marble friezes, not as warrior, but a Roman emperor. In 1840 the French saw him as outshining Justinian -  his simple code of law has done better for France  than all the mass of laws that preceded it, the inscription says. His imperial stance might now be called Putinesque.

In the neighbourhood

Our apartment on the 3rd floor, with primary school underneath

To the right

*

To the left

Around the corner 25 metres

G

Along the road “at 61-63, rue Réaumur, an extraordinary building, which resembles a neo-gothic cathedral. An early example of Art Nouveau, the building was designed by the architects Philippe Jouannin and Edouard Singery and was completed in 1900. A monumental clock graces the façade of the building; the clock is decorated with signs of the zodiac, and designs representing the months and the seasons.”

And  one of a former chain of grands magasins- Felix Potin

 The architect Victor Laloux was a disciple and was inspired by traditional architecture to create this neo-baroque design. The roundabout has decorative details related to trade and consumption, as the cornucopia, fruit garlands, vases and natural details.

Chateau Vaux Le Vicomte

We made a twilight evening trip to this 17th century chateau, about 55k southeast of Paris. It was first owned by Nicolas Fouquet, Minister of Finance to Louis XIV. It seems that he might have done well to study the history of cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII, as his taste and fate bear some similarity. Wikipedia : “The château was lavish, refined and dazzling to behold, but those characteristics proved tragic for its owner: the king had Fouquet arrested shortly after a famous fête that took place on 17 August 1661, where Molière’s play 'Les Fâcheux' debuted. The celebration had been too impressive and the superintendent's home too luxurious...Later, Voltaire was to sum up the famous fête: "On 17 August, at six in the evening Fouquet was the King of France: at two in the morning he was nobody."”

We were delayed by a demonstration that closed the north/south road and forced a long detour to cross the Seine in the west, so arrived at early dusk, about 6.45pm. We boarded a golf car to explore the extensive grounds and gardens.

The chateau resembles Versailles with extensive water engineering

And statues- this is Hercules after tricking Atlas and stealing golden apples, erected to celebrate a victory of Fouquet stopped an uprising against the king.

At about 7.45 pm we had an audio guided tour of the chateau. The windows had been shuttered and the tour was by candlelight.

At 9.00pm we adjourned for  set dinner in the candle lit grounds. The food and wine were very good, but difficult to see without using pocket light to peek. The chateau and grounds were candle lit .

Home shortly before midnight.