All together now:
"Allons enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé!"
(Read all about "La Marseillaise" here.)
July 14 will always be a jour de gloire for me. Twelve years ago today, Darling Husband and I were married in Portland, Maine. Our wedding cake was inscribed Liberté, Fraternité, Félicité. (I didn't think Fraternité was quite the thing.)
Too bad THE BLACK TOWER by Louis Bayard won't be out till August 26, because it would be the perfect book to read today. Set in 1818 Paris, it's a mystery about the not-so-pretty aftermath of the French Revolution. Bayard has a marvelous gift for bringing other times and places to pulsing life. You'd swear he'd lived in Dickens's London (Mr. Timothy, which I reviewed for People), trained at West Point in 1830 (The Pale Blue Eye) and consorted with legendary French detective Vidocq. As in The Pale Blue Eye (featuring a young Edgar Allen Poe), THE BLACK TOWER has a terrific triple-whammy at the end. No way you'll see it coming.
French movies to watch tonight (or anytime):
- Paris Je t'Aime -- made me laugh, made me cry; with Gérard Depardieu
- La Vie en Rose (La Môme) -- with Academy Award-winnier Marion Clotillard and Gérard Depardieu
- Cyrano de Bergerac -- with Gérard Depardieu; rhyming subtitles by Anthony Burgess (!)
- Jean de Florette -- with (quelle surprise!) Gérard Depardieu*
- Manon of the Spring (Manon des Sources) -- sequel to "Jean de Florette" (Depardieu isn't in it, but it's a spoiler to explain why)
- Les Enfants du Paradis -- still heartbreaking after 63 years
Moi: "I like Gérard Depardieu!"
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