Emily in France 🇫🇷 Do You Hear the People Sing?

Égalité, égalité, égalité.

I was almost born during Les Misérables.

That's what family lore claims, anyway. Two days before my birth (and on the actual 155th anniversary of the June Rebellion), my mother, father, and grandparents saw the musical on Broadway. My mother says that following the show, her feet were so swollen she had to wear her father's shoes out of the theater – I've always loved the image of my otherwise immaculately dressed grandfather walking down the dark avenue in argyle socks.

I was born two days later, seemingly destined to love Les Misérables – and I did. From the first time I saw the musical, I loved the story, the rebelliousness and pride it represented. I immediately set about absorbing whatever versions of it I could – the 1998 film featuring Liam Neeson, the 2000 mini-series starring Gérard Depardieu – with one exception:

In 2010, when I moved to Paris for the second time, I had yet to read Victor Hugo's massive two-volume tome.

This all convalesced on my first day of my pre-Master's program at the Sorbonne when, to my surprise, my research director looked around the room of 20 people, opened a notebook, and said,

"Right. What is everyone planning on writing their thesis on?"

And then she looked at me.

I have always been a reader, a lover of stories. But in that moment, I could think of no project I wanted to work on for the next year. I could barely think of a French author I knew. And so my brain went straight to the man himself: Victor Hugo. (He's one of two 19th century authors I've built up to hero status in my head – more on the other next week.)

I mumbled something about Les Misérables, about the values of the French republic. She nodded and jotted it down before moving on to the next person.

"Oh, I don't know yet," he said. So echoed everyone else in the room.

*headdesk*

But despite coming up with my thesis topic on a whim, I stuck with it. Over the course of the next three years, I would delve ever-more deeply into the work I so loved, finally settling, in year three, on defending my thesis comparing Victor Hugo and Mark Twain's evocations of the defining values of both nascent republics: equality and liberty.

As my thesis posited, while both values were essential in both America and France, there was a slight preference for one over the other that has followed both societies through to the present: America for freedom, France for equality. It's one contributing factor to why in America, we have freedom of religion, and in France, freedom from religion. It's an element contributing to the importance of saying bonjour in France. It's an element of America's obsession with hyphenated identities and France's repulsion towards them.

To unpack this dichotomy in its entirety would take a long time (it took me 120 pages). Perhaps I'll explore it further at a later date. Until then, I'll leave you with this quote from Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, which is one of the clearest evocations of what the French seek from their famous three-part motto:

"People want equality in liberty, and if they cannot have it, they want it, still, in slavery."

Where I'm Eating

The avant-garde dishes at A.T. seem to me to be first and foremost works of art. Flavor takes a close second; the idea of feeding a diner, however, comes in third. It's an intriguing approach that I've explored in more detail in my review.

And as always, you can find my ever-evolving list of my favorite Paris restaurants here.
 

Where I'm Going

1. I'm a massive fan of Van Gogh, so I'm really looking forward to this interactive exhibit at the Carrière des Lumières. The one on Klimt got rave reviews, so I'm sure this new exhibit will be fantastic!

2. I've got a particular affinity for sharks (in fact, one of my 2019 goals is to hang out with one). In the meantime, I'm going to check out this Oceans exhibit at the Natural History Museum.

3. I'm going to be spending this evening at the American Library in Paris, which isn't a rarity. What is is that I'm going to be listening to author Ann Mah speak about her experience at the vendanges in Champagne and her new novel, The Lost Vintage.
 

What I'm Writing

1. An oldie but a goodie – while in Leipzig, I delved into a unique tart named for a tiny bird for Paste Magazine.

2. I've been working on lists of my favorite Paris restaurants in different neighborhoods for years, but I've only just put them all in one easy-to-find place on my blog, Tomato Kumato.

3. It may be February (and, from what I understand, exceedingly cold in most of the U.S.), but it's been positively springlike in Paris, so here are 17 of my favorite places to soak up the sun, for Fodor's.
 

What I'm Reading

I am a writer and a reader of children's literature. The Percy Jackson books have been on my radar for a long time, but I put off delving in (maybe because I knew how voraciously I would want to consume them!) I've shared my thoughts on the blog.

A bientôt !
Emily in France