Musée de la Grande Guerre

in English under the line _________
Ce n'est pas si nouveau que ça. Ouvert depuis prèsque trois ans, déjà, le Musée de la Grande Guerre a reçu une couverture médiatique récemment. C'est vrai que cette année marque le 100è anniversaire du début de la guerre de 14-18 et la bataille de la Marne marquera son centenaire dans quelques semaines. En tout cas, nous avons décidé, il y a deux semaines, lors d'un matinée un peu maussade, d'y aller.Ce n'est pas loin de chez nous, juste au nord de Meaux, à peine 40 minutes de route.
Le bâtiment n'est pas beau. Je ne dirai pas qu'il est moche. C'est une boite, pas tout à fait régulier, posée sur des piliers d'hauteurs différent, donc en porte-à-faux, sur une parterre en béton, qui ressemble à une carte régionale. Le bâtiment est entouré d'un grand jardin. Dès l'entrée de l'espace, on entend des bruits de chevaux et à l'approche du bâtiment, il y a des bruits de canons. Le rez-de-chaussée par lequel on entre est le niveau technique: toilettes, consigne, snack-bar, ascenseurs. On monte au premier par un grand escalier pour arriver devant la billetterie et la boutique.
La visite commence avec un court film pour remonter le temps jusqu'à la guerre de '70, car pour les français, c'est ça le début. Il y a deux parcours: chronologique et thématique. Les deux sont bien fait et à la porté des écoliers comme des adultes. On montre bien l'indoctrination de revanche du côté français, l'industrialisation en vue d'une guerre de tous, les alliances qui liaient les uns et les autres. C'est déprimant tellement on voit des choses similaires encore aujourd'hui. Il y a des petits films, des présentations vidéo qui montre le rapide engrenage à partir de l'assassinât de l'archiduc à Sarajevo. Il y a des mises en scène de tranchées. Il y a des armes, des avions, des transports, y compris un taxi de la Marne. Il y a, à la fin, un épilogue qui montre comment la fin de cette guerre a alimenté la suivante. Dans les salles thématiques, on voit comment les civiles et les militaires on vécu cette guerre. J'étais très impressionnée par la créativité artistique des soldats -- fabrication des instruments de musique, transformation des pièces métalliques (douilles d'obus qui deviennent chopes, par exemple) et la gravure. Il y avait aussi la salle des soldats des colonies, la salle de l'engagement américain, la salle de la médecine....
Il y a, en ce moment, une exposition temporaire sur les troupes Britanniques (du pays et des colonies ou du Commonwealth).
Ceci complète les visites que nous avons faits l'année dernière sur des sites de bataille, et le fort et l'ossuaire à Douaumont. C'est une visite à faire.
________________

 
________________
About two weeks ago, on a gray day (and we've had almost nothing but that since we got home), Paul and I decided to visit the Musée de la Grande Guerre, which is not far from us, about 40 minutes away, just north of Meaux. It's been getting a fair amount of press recently. It opened on November 11, 2011, fittingly, but this year marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I, or what the British call, the Great War. France has been spotlighting this anniversary and next month is the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Marne, which took place, at this spot.
The building is not particularly beautiful, nor ugly, for that matter. It's a sort of box, not quite rectangular, set on pillars that are not all the same height over a concrete map. There's a garden, like a field, around it. As you enter from the parking lot, you hear horses and, as you get closer, cannons. The ground floor is the technical level, with the toilets, cloakroom, elevator access, and snack bar. The stairs lead to the ticket and boutique on the first floor.
The visit starts with a short film to take you back in time to the beginning. The beginning, for the French, at least, lies in the disastrous Franco-Prussian war, which they lost. Alsace and Lorraine were annexed by Germany and the French were bent on revenge. This is well-documented, here. As you meander through the rooms building up to the war, you can see the propaganda, the training, the industrial build-up. From there, the museum splits into two paths: you can go through the war chronologically or step into the rooms on the side for a thematic visit. There are short films and maps to show the rapid entry into combat after the assassination of the archduke in Sarajevo. There are tanks and trucks and a Marne taxi (a brigade of Parisian taxis was sent to the front.), planes and so on. They've set up some trenches so you can see what that was like. At the end, there's a bit of epilogue, showing how the end of WWI set the stage for WWII. In the thematic rooms, they showed the medical care, the gas masks, and just the daily life of civilians and soldiers. I was quite impressed by the soldiers' artistic creativity in the trenches. They recovered shell casings and transformed them into drinking mugs with elegant engravings. They made musical instruments from helmets. They drew and painted. There are also rooms dedicated to the soldiers sent from the colonies and a room for the American engagement, although I was disappointed not to see any mention of the Escadrille Lafayette of American volunteers; the room starts with the official entrance of the US.
Currently, there is a temporary exhibit that goes into more detail on the British soldiers -- how they were recruited village-by-village, the ones sent from the colonies and the Commonwealth.
This museum is a perfect complement to the battle site and Douaumont fort and ossuary visits we did last year, in June.

Vacation?

Somehow, I think of vacations as being longer. I'd call this a long weekend, except the weekend part of it was short; we got home early on Sunday. It's going to be a long post, though, and I'm linking sites and towns to the Wikipedia entries (sometimes in French, sometimes in English) to keep it a bit shorter.
We managed to keep almost a week free of volunteer duties and doctors' appointments, babysitting, dinners out and other nice or not-so-nice obligations. We almost went to England, but the family, there, had other obligations -- very nice obligations -- congratulations to Nigel and Valérie! The big question was "where?" We've had such a horrible spring; should we head south? Or go see friends?

Well, we called P and J in Basel and they were home from their trip and we called M and K in Freiburg-im-Breisgau, so that settled it. We headed east; I programmed the GPS to not authorize highways, so that forced us to a leisurely pace on our way to Metz, where we planned to spend the first night. Our route took us through the village of Epine, which has a basilica. This is a village of 700 inhabitants in the Department of the Marne, near Châlons en Champagne, with an enormous church! It's a Gothic church; it didn't get its basilica status until 1914. The name of the church, Notre Dame de L'Epine, and the town, does not come from the crown of thorns; the legend is that the statue of the virgin was miraculously saved from a burning thorn bush. What surprised me most, aside from its cathedral size, was that the statues all had their heads. In France, most church statues lost their heads during the French revolution. The next thing was the gargoyles, which are in incredibly good condition, too. There's a plaque near the entrance, honoring Captain Louis d'Hangouwart, who, it seems, single-handedly saved the basilica from destruction on Sept. 9, 1914. That was very close to the beginning of World War 1, and very far west already! There is, of course, also, the miraculous well, over which the church was built.
We were on the WWI battlefield road and made a stop at the Butte de Vauquois. There was once a village at the top of this hill. There was a city hall and a church separated by the street. It was a battle of mines. The deep mine crater line what was the street. The French trenches are on one side and the German trenches on the other. The German trenches are permanent structures, in stone; the French ones are more basic mud with walls made of woven branches and sandbags. The whole hill is pitted with mine craters. The forest has grown back, but you can still see the craters; you can't walk off the paths.
After that, we went to Verdun,  the Douaumont Ossuary, which on the site of the demolished village of Douaumont. There's the fort dug into the hill just before you get to the ossuary and walked on the hill/roof, full of shell holes. Military cemeteries are impressive, especially the big ones. So many graves for the ones identified; so many bones of the unknown.
It was a fairly short drive to Metz after Verdun. P-F and N lived in Metz about 20 years ago and loved it. Now we know why. It's a beautiful city, with a vibrant city center. I guess it helped that the weather was nice and people were out. Not tourist people, but local people. The cafés set up on the plazas and sidewalks were packed. The shops were busy. I could live here.
The next morning turned south towards Mulhouse. We stopped to take a look at the Château de Lunéville, a kind of mini-Versailles, built by Léopold, Duke of Lorraine early in the 18th century, but his son had to give it up to Stanislas, the exiled Polish king, who was Louis XVth's father-in-law. They are in the midst of restoring the building that was pretty much destroyed by a fire in 2003. The gardens will be the last part to be restored; there is currently a contemporary sculpture exhibit, there.
We continued on down through the Vosges mountains. We stopped in Gerardmer for lunch and remembered our vacation there more than 20 years ago. Our route took us past Xonrupt, where we stayed. The Linvosges textile factory is one of the very few textile works still functioning and we visited the factory shop. The rest of the afternoon was taken up driving along the crest line from the Col de la Schlucht to Mulhouse. As we came down on the Alsacien side of the mountains, the weather was hot and sunny and we had time to walk around Mulhouse a bit. It's a dying city. On entering the city, you drive through the same warehouse-style shopping centers that surround almost all French cities, and in the city center, you see the closed shops and restaurants. There were people, but not nearly as many were out and about as in Metz. Our hotel was an old hotel near the train station, very nice and friendlier than a chain. We were next to the Museum of Printed Textiles, which we visited not the next morning, but the morning after. It's an interesting visit, because as in Manchester, you see how much was invented for the textile industry. In Manchester, it's the creation of the fabric, in Mulhouse, it's the chemical industry for fixed colors in printing. There's a bit of the history of dyeing fabrics, which was copied from the Indian tradition of tie-dyeing and batik, before creating stamps and then engraved cylinders.
The trip to Basel was to see P and J. We saw them last year, when they were in Paris. For Paul that was the first time in over 40 years and for me, it was the first time. They are delightful. The urban heating infrastructure is in upheaval in Basel, so the GPS had to work very hard to find their apartment building, but we did find it. They have a sumptuous apartment with a beautiful view, lots of greenery and tall trees, and they are a short block away from the tram that gets them into the city center in just two stops, no more than 5 minutes! It's perfect. We took the tram and connected to another to go to up to the other side of the city to the restaurant, where we were lucky to eat on the terrace, in the sun. We had an excellent basque chicken and then ambled down the hill, through what seemed more like a village than a city center, down to the city hall and the church and the old streets, to the other side, where we got a tram back to the apartment. The city was packed with people visiting for ArtBasel, the contemporary art sale. On our return to the apartment house, we got in the car and went over the border into Germany to visit the Vitra production site at Weil am Rhein. Like the industrialists of the 18th and 19th century, the site is an architectural showpiece of contemporary architecture: Jean Prouvé, Frank Gehry, Buckminster Fuller, to name a few. This is where they make the famous Eames chair
and so many other pieces that have become iconic, like the Panton chair.
Back to the apartment for more conversation and a great dinner of asparagus and ham before heading back to Mulhouse for the night.
The next morning, after visiting the Museum of Printed Textiles, we went to see the Schlumpf collection, which is now the National Museum of Automobiles -- acres and acres of cars. Interesting, but a bit too much of a good thing.
Back into the mountains to take the high road to Colmar, via Munster. Colmat is lively, clean and filled with tourists. Like all these pretty Alsacian towns, it's Disneyesque, maybe a bit more so than the other towns. We took the little train around the old town. The hero of Colmar is Bartholdi, the sculptor who did the Statue of Liberty. Everything is named for Bartholdi.
On Saturday morning, we took the slow route to Freiburg, in Germany, to see M and K. Their daughter, S, was there with her baby girl, so that was a treat. We had a short visit all together and then S left and we went into town for lunch. Lunch was taken as we walked around the market in front of the cathedral, first stop at one of the sausage stands for the main dish, followed by the lightest, creamiest cheesecake I've ever had. Having filled up with food, we went to a beer garden for some beer. There was a band playing. The town was bursting with people happy to be out in good weather on the weekend. We walked around a bit and then went up to one of the restaurants on the mountain for coffee and a slice of Black Forest cake before going back to the apartment. We had dinner -- asparagus and ham -- at a restaurant just down the street.
Sunday, we were getting tired of taking just the country roads, so we allowed highways, but spent most of the morning on the country road about half the distance back to Paris, and this took us right through Ronchamp, where we saw a modern-looking church on a hill, which I remembered (from a documentary) as a Le Corbusier, so we went up there to see it. There is a whole Clarisse community up there, but you can't see anything except the chapel from below. Renzo Piano did the new convent and oratory, also invisible from below.
As this is not vacation season and the road was empty for the return to Paris, so we got back in time to see Dominique Weil's exhibit at La Charpente.
.

Caillebotte brothers

 Paul and I just got in from seeing an exhibit at the Musée André-Jacquemart. You might know the name Caillebotte from the famous painting of the floor scrapers. Well, there were two rather wealthy brothers and one, Gustave, was a painter. He exhibited with the Impressionist and was a collector and patron. His brother, Marcel, took up photography. One of the things about Gustave was the way he chose the point of view for many of his paintings -- looking down on the floor scrappers, taking a plunging view from what seems to be a fifth-floor apartment on the Boulevard Haussmann (Marcel's apartment) and almost photographic, modern points of view. Marcel's photos, when you consider how expensive photo development and printing were, are exceptionally banal, everyday photos of family in their activities or at rest, people in the street, street scenes. They are not so different from what catches the eye today, like seeing two guys perched on ladders at the Place de la Concorde would be something I'd take a picture of, too. And this is modern because most 19th century photos were formal productions. Marcel took advantage of the new techniques that allowed for faster shooting. There is a lot of similarity between the two brothers' subject matter. Of course, there's family, but even the boating scenes or the railroad bridges are shared. As you can tell, I enjoyed it.

On the way home, we stopped to eat at Le Relais in Nogent and ate in the courtyard. The prices seem to have gone up there since the change in management, but the food was good, so no complaints. We've had such summer-like weather for the past month, I just know we're going to pay for it one way or another. Might as well take advantage of it, though. Paul is out reading (or sleeping?) in the backyard. The tomato plants are coming up just fine. I should buy more plants for the vegetable garden this weekend.

De Miro à Warhol

Last Saturday I met Oriane, my friend from back when I was preparing the teaching certificate nearly 20 years ago. She lives in Lyons but comes up to Paris every so often to attend seminars in linguistics at the university. Her speciality is in swearing and use of vulgarity, which of course involves shifts in what is considered vulgarity over time, according to age, origins, and class. But now I'm getting off subject.
We had arranged to meet at the Musée de Quai Branly, but Oriane was delayed an hour and after having spent that hour on a bench outside, I no longer wanted to wind my way through the museum. Besides, we wanted to talk. So, we decided to walk to the Musée du Luxembourg, part of the French Senate building in the Luxembourg gardens. Let's say it was about 2 km. from one museum to the other. And we stopped for lunch. So we were still pretty fresh when we got there. There was no line to get in! And the exhibit is great. It's the Berardo collection of 20th century art. It takes you from Surrealisme and its origins (Miro, Magritte, Dali, and more) through Abstraction (Mondrian, Souza-Cardoso, Pollock, Reinhardt, Stella and more), on to Pop Art and beyond (Wesselmann, Indiana, Warhol, Lichtenstein, and so on). There are only 75 pieces and it's a varied collection, so you don't get bored.
We walked through the gardens and had a cup of hot chocolate. Then, down Boul. St. Michel, across Ile de la Cité, to the Beaubourg Museum, where we did not stop (oof!), through the Marais, all the way to Anne's apartment (just to show Oriane where it is) and then to the Gare de Lyons. All in all, with backtracking here and there, I guess we covered about 7 km., not including the museum. Our legs had had it and we managed to talk ourselves out, but it was a wonderful day.
For any of you coming through Paris, there are some great exhibits on:

• De Miro à Warhol until Feb. 22
• Picasso et les maîtres until Feb. 2
• Jackson Pollock et le chamanisme until Feb. 15

and more. Paul went to the Musée André Jaquemard yesterday to see the Van Dyke exhibit. He came back very impressed with Van Dykes portraits, comparing them to hyper-realistic art, and he said the old Italian masters, the mainstay of the museum, were great to see, too.
Also, earlier in the week we attended the Phd. dissertation of our nextdoor neighbor, Rob, on the Ordinance of June 18, 1349, regulating laborer's wages. A result of the plague? The first national regulation of the sort? Wow, I never realized what "defending" a thesis was all about. It's horrendous. But he came through with flying colors.
I left the dissertation ceremony early in order to accompany Anne to her signing for the appartment. It is now hers and she's moving in this weekend!