| Friday, July 30, 2020

Dear Friend, 

“C’est les soldes!” There is a hairdresser in every woman’s life – and Cyril is mine. And like many a hairdresser, he has some of the answers to life’s questions.
 
In this case, why there are only two customers, including me, at the coiffeur Bleu Comme Bleu (“Blue like blue”) on the very chic avenue Hoche of Paris. 

But, of course…it is the end of July! The soldes, or sales, are going full-throttle!

 
“Elles sont folles,” said Cyril, tossing his head. I don’t know…does he mean the sales are crazy? Or might he mean his customers? He began fluffing up my hair to see how best it would fall to the scissor. He narrowed his eyes, cocking his head. I waited anxiously, trying to gauge his expression in the mirror, feeling like a rabbit being sized up by a fox.
 
Cyril hummed the first bars of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde – or maybe it was Debussy’s Cakewalk. Cyril cuts, trims and blow-dries to classical music, but otherwise he has wide-ranging musical tastes.

It was thanks to Cyril’s influence that, back in the day, I first heard Amy Winehouse and, speaking of “crazy,” Ga-nar-les  (Gnarles) Barclay. Ah! The scissors deftly began to snip. Now, I could relax.
 
Shoppers have been converging on Paris’ big and beautiful department stores for bargains since July 15, and the third round of price cuts has just been announced. Now is the time for a woman serious about her look to strap on her pocketbook, slip on her most comfortable godasses, take along that gauzy petite robe crying out for a petite laine on cool summer evenings…and enter the fray.
 
Les soldes reflect two distinct aspects of French culture. One is the confidant assumption they were invented in France. And specifically, by a shop-keeper from Normandy -- the Normans are reputedly shrewd dealers and money-minded. The other is that the French government must protect citizens from impulse shopping. The dates of les soldes, which take place twice a year and may only last 4 weeks each time, are announced by Bercy, where the Ministry of Finance is based. “Entreprise” is indeed a French word, but “free enterprise” is a concept viewed with deep suspicion.

The enterprising Norman Simon Mannoury and his wife came to Paris in 1830 to set up a shop selling ladies’ hats, clothes, sewing notions and textiles. It was the beginning of the long and fruitful years culminating in la Belle Epoque. France had scraped itself up from the political turbulence of the Revolution. Napoleon’s great victories and shattering defeats were past history. Manufacturing – machinery, textiles, clothes, household wares -- was booming. The country was prospering and Paris was once again the center of the universe and of the latest fashions. 
 
Monsieur and Madame Mannoury prospered in their little shop, but at the end of every season, bits and pieces -- called solde in the slang of the day -- of bolts of cloth and other merchandise accumulated. The couple had the bright idea of holding a special end of season sale – and thus entered les soldes into the annals of commerce and common parlance. 
 
Les soldes were not their only innovation. Back in those days, a customer negotiated for goods, much as you would in a Moroccan bazaar today. The Mannourys put a price tag on everything in their store, and they let their clients walk up and down the aisles looking for just what they wanted – instead of having to ask. Salesgirls, called “midinettes” because they ate their dinner at midi or noon, helped you carry your purchases. And, you could place orders through the mail!  
 
Mannoury understood the power of promotion and of convenience; during les soldes, children could have donkey rides while their mothers shopped.
 
It was surely more than a coincidence that the Mannourys’ junior clerk was none other than Aristide Boucicaut, who with his wife Marguerite went on to found the very first French grand magasin, Le Bon Marché. He, too, was of Norman stock – from right near our own Courtomer in the lovely little town of Bellême. Le Bon Marché was such a stunning example of the new consumer economy that Emile Zola wrote a novel about it, “Au Bonheur des Dames,” meaning “For the pleasure of the ladies.” Unusually for Zola, it has a happy ending.

Le Bon Marché is still a rendez-vous of fashion…the best place in Paris, in my humble opinion, to find everything stylish under one roof – from floor lamps to those red-soled shoes to macaroons…au bonheur de tout le monde!  It’s also a lovely place to have lunch, looking down on the rooftops and leafy canopy of the 6th arrondissement.
 
Shopping and the hairdresser are not the only reasons to be in Paris at the end of July. That other great fixture of French life, les grandes vacances, begins now…and Paris is pleasantly deserted. Everyone, from waiters to hedge-fund managers, exits for la campagne. That’s because most Parisians come from somewhere in the countryside, and that’s where most of them like to spend the sunny days of August. And after the dreary months of le confinement in Paris, le bonheur est dans le pré – “happiness is in the field,” which also happens to be the name of a French film from the ‘90s. Unusually for a French film, it has a happy ending.
 
But for a visitor from the provinces, what a time to be a wanderer in Paris! Enjoying the magnificent architecture of Paris in the long, balmy summer twilight…café au lait and a brioche au sucre at a table outdoors in the freshness of early morning, when you, a few laborers on their way to work, and the pigeons are the only ones sharing the sidewalk…standing alone before the Mona Lisa at the Louvre…or just gazing into shop windows with their beautifully arranged displays and tempting discounts.
 
“Un thé de menthe?” Cyril asked. The salon’s Mahmed, who was born in Algeria, makes an authentic mint tea à la Magreb. He pours it in a perfect curve from a silver teapot down into a glass, and serves it on a silver tray. One of life’s small luxuries – un petit bonheur!

Well, in a couple of days it will be time to leave the metropolis…to catch the train out to L’Aigle, where Monsieur Xavier will be waiting at the quai, ready to carry my packages to the car and drive us back to the Chateau. Les grandes vacances will begin at Chateau de Courtomer, too. As the French poet Théophile Gauthier describes below, a vacation is a time to step out of the rhythm of ordinary days: 
 

Quand je n’ai rien à faire, et qu’à peine un nuage
Dans les champs bleus du ciel, flocon de laine, nage,
J’aime à m’écouter vivre…
Ou j’écoute chanter près de moi la fauvette,
Et là-haut dans l’azur gazouiller l’alouette.
 
When I have nothing to do, and when barely a cloud, 
Swims in the blue fields of the sky,
I like to listen to life…and in the blue heavens 
Above, the burbling song of the lark .

                                                   --Far-Niente                                                

To pleasant summer days, cher ami,  wherever you may be!