Fontainebleau and Vaux-le-Vicomte

                I finally made it to two French chateaux in Ile-de-France I should have visited months ago.  I got out of bed a little before 7:00, and bought an all-day Ile-de-France transportation pass from the Gare de Lyon, in central Paris.  I took the RER southeast, well outside the city limits, and after about 40 minutes of Kindle-bliss, I hopped off the train, into a light drizzle at the town of Fontainebleau.  I easily found the bus waiting outside the station, jumped on, riding for just a few stops, and piling out with the rest of the riders at the stop aptly named “chateau.” 

                From the outside, Fontainebleau doesn’t look particularly impressive.  It has a fairly broad park (it was raining, so I didn’t explore too much), but except for its size, and a particularly fancy entry staircase in the shape of a broad horseshoe, it could be just another 17^th-  or 18^th-century bourgeois mansion, kind of like Cheverney.  But no, the Chateau de Fontainebleau is a royal residence, and an impressive one, too.  Although the original keep on the site dates from the 12^th century, the current edifice dates mostly from the time of Francois I (i.e. from the early 16^th century), and is the only French royal residence left entirely intact.  It isn’t as monstrous as Versailles, as grand as the Louvre, as picturesque as Chenonceau, or as imposing as Chambord, but it’s certainly one of the most interesting castles I’ve visited, and all the more worth the visit after seeing how the Italians preserve their historic monuments.

                The tour of the chateau begins with the apartments of Napoleon I, who made the castle his principal residence.  For this reason, they have a lot of his junk: one begins to wonder who conserved all of it, all of these years, and why it was not all lost.  The man certainly had a lot of ornamental swords, ceremonial outfits, and sets of shaving supplies.  He even had one of those cool forks which have joints in the handle, so that campers can stick them in their backpacks without impaling themselves on the tines -- except that Napoleon’s were made of gold, and campers’ aren’t.  Some Napoleon fan even saved his traveling chamber pot.  No, there was some pretty cool stuff there, that made me think of my Mother, the costume historian -- the suit that Napoleon wore to his imperial anointing, as seen in David’s famous painting, for instance.  Later in the tour of the museum, I was also surprised to find his throneroom -- complete with a throne, the identical twin of which I’ve seen in the Napoleon III apartments in the Louvre, golden bees and all.  Napoleon was into these bees: you can see them embroidered onto many of his royal outfits, if you look closely enough at paintings of him.  The irony is that these golden bees were symbols of French royalty; the French Revolution really had come full circle!  One of the greatest ironies was in the commemorative book made for his anointing ceremony (a lot like the programs for college graduations, but in hardcover), which gave the date of the ceremony as Frimaire, Year XII of the Republic, using the Revolutionary calendar to date the ascension of the Consul to his status as Emperor, and thus the end of the French First Republic.  Now we’re on the Fifth, which still hasn’t exceeded the length of the Third, even… What form of government will the French have when our grandchildren are our age?

                Despite the Napoleonic aspects of the visit, there is a very literal royal (Vallois as well as Bourbon) stamp upon the house -- because the various residents literally stamped and carved their initials onto all available space, wall and ceiling!  Francois I loved the letter F, and placed it, along with his other personal symbols of the salamander and the triple fleur-de-lis, all over his house.  His son and successor, Henri II, made the finishing touches on certain rooms, including one of the main dining rooms, and had the prerogative, therefore, of covering the surfaces with the letter H, with interlocking crescent moons (his own personal emblem), and the initials C and D, for his wife and mistress, respectively (just like at Chenonceau).  There was also an AA who made her mark at Fontainebleau (no, not you AA, but feel better!), namely Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV, especially in one of the two chapels (she was a deeply religious woman, after all).  I saw just a few back-to-back block Ls, too, characteristic of the biggest L of them all.  His successor, Louis XV, left a completely different kind of royal L behind: cursive, and, when paired, facing the other L head-on.  Although it seems as if I’m rambling, I’ve never seen so many royal initials displayed so prominently in any chateau.  I think that all of these people were trying to make a point: they owned this space.

                Only a small portion of the chateau is on display to visitors, but there is a great deal of art and furniture, even in this section.  The collections also have a historic dimension: I saw the table where, according to lore, Napoleon signed his resignation in 1814.  I did not see where Louis XIV issued the Edict of Fontainebleau, which revoked the famous Edict of Nantes of his grandfather, Henri IV, (it had given legal recognition and protection to Huguenots).  To be honest, that was the only event I had previously associated with Fontainebleau, so missing this, wherever it might have been, was a slight disappointment.  Nevertheless, there was so much to see at Fontainebleau!  There is the same array of royal bedchambers, chapels, wall and ceiling paintings, fine furniture, art objects, dining rooms, dancing halls, busts of famous Roman dudes, allegorical art, biblical art, classical art, seasonally-themed art, etc., at Versailles: for better or for worse, my eyes are just beginning to glaze over.  I

                It was nearly 3:00 pm by the time I left Fontainebleau.  I boarded the train in the direction of Paris, uncertain of whether or not I would stay on or get off when the train stopped at Melun, the closest railway station to Vaux-le-Vicomte.  I hadn’t eaten, and was tired from my visit to Fontainebleau; then I realized that I might never visit France again for years, and I thought about what I know certain friends and Mothers I know would do if they were in such a situation had such an opportunity to visit another chateau, and I felt my legs, of their own accord, stand me up and walk me to door, when the train stopped at Melun. 

                One reason for my hesitation was that I knew that the only ways to access Vaux-le-Vicomte are 1) by car, 2) by shuttle, and 3) by taxi.  I don’t have my own car here, and the shuttle only runs on Sunday, so I knew that I would need to take a taxi, in order to make it across the highway, and reach Vaux-le-Vicomte.  It was a 20-euro ride each way, according to the taxi driver waiting by the train station, a cost which I would normally not pay to access a single castle (this was in addition to the cost of my train ticket and of the entrance fee itself), but I reminded myself that I would kick myself for years for passing up the opportunity if I didn’t jump for it now, and that I had swallowed many such fees in Italy.  Louis would have taken a taxi, had he been around today.

                Vaux-le-Vicomte, like so many other chateaux in Paris, boasts that it inspired Versailles.  In my honest opinion, very few of these claims are sincere this, and, what’s more, encourage teleological thinking in the history of architecture and landscape architecture.  Vaux has a very real claim to inspiring Versailles, though.  For those of you unfamiliar with the story, Nicolas Fouquet, superintendant of finances under Louis XIV during the Sun King’s minority, hired the architect Vau to design him a splendid mansion.  The place had extensive gardens, which Fouquet hired the most important gardener (what we would now call a landscape architect), André Le Notre, to design, and included the world’s first fountains that shot the water upward in a jet (you need good engineering for that).  Fouquet was the friend, patron, and protector of many of the artists and intellectuals of the day, most famously, of La Fontaine and Moliere.  The Cardinal de Mazarin, who called the shots for the young king much as the Cardinal de Richelieu called the shots under Louis XIII (think The Three Musketeers) died in 1661, and Louis eagerly rose to take the reins of the kingdom fully in hand.  At this time, Fouquet’s job gave him immense power over the finances of the kingdom: every single bill approving the use of royal funds required his signature, thus giving him a tremendous veto power.  He had also been close to Mazarin.  In 1661, he invited the king, and everyone who was anyone in the French court, to a gigantic party at his house, a kind of open house.  Moliere had even prepared a new comedy-ballet especially for the occasion, Les Fâcheux (and by “prepare” I mean “write, direct, choreograph, and lead in”).   Louis didn’t take the party the way Fouquet had intended -- though it was nominally in honor of him, Louis considered such an evident display of wealth and power to be a threat.  Also somewhat in fear of seeing Fouquet become a new Mazarin or Richelieu, Louis had him arrested by none other than the Sieur d’Artagnan (yes, back to The Three Musketeers again -- he was a real person), and belligerently pursued his trial.  It was no longer a time when a king could straightaway order the execution of an innocent man, and so, the trial dragged on.  During this time, papers were discovered in Fouquet’s possession, indicating that Fouquet had fortified his fortress of Belle-Ile, to withdraw to, with his family, should fall from favor, as he did.  After three years or so, he was imprisoned, too few judges having voted for execution, and he died in prison in 1680.  Louis got his wish, and the post of superintendant of finances was abolished, and Louis had to sign every spending bill -- every one -- himself.  Fouquet’s job was unofficially taken by highly-efficient and quasi-despotic Jean-Baptist Colbert, who became Comptroller-General of Finances.  My Mother can tell you all about this guy, and his economic policy, and how he kidnapped lacemakers. 

                But Vaux-le-Vicomte lives on.  Unfortunately, the dome was under construction, but I could visit Fouquet’s private quarters, as well as the main castle, and the very extensive gardens.  Although they have some decent historical background, and some OK art, the visits are neither particularly informative, nor do they offer particularly memorable artwork.  Still, in many ways, it is easy to see how, if you took Vaux, and stretched it out until it was the size of Chambord, it would turn out looking something like Versailles.  The castle has good background information on Fouquet’s trial, and has done a good job identifying all of the artists, mathematicians, playwrights, poets, etc., who depended upon him.  The Fouquet family emblem was a squirrel rampant, which is depicted in painting and tapestry across the house.  Apparently, when Colbert seized some of Fouquet’s tapestry’s after the latter’s disgrace, arrest, and imprisonment, he had the embroidery of the squirrels removed, and his own emblem, that of a snake, replace it.  The ceilings and walls of the house were painted by Charles Le Brun, who went on to work at Versailles, just like Le Notre.  Not all of the ceiling paintings are finished, though: in one case, there’s nothing but an oval with clouds.  Perhaps some muse or allegory was planned to actually feature in the painting, but Le Brun never had the opportunity, because Fouquet was arrested first?  It seems likely.

                The castle also had a temporary exhibit on Le Notre, and the various gardens he designed.  He ended up being ennobled by Louis, and even had the opportunity to design his own coat of arms.  His design featured a cabbage, and three silver snails.  He was a very modest guy, and everyone at court liked and admired him -- he had no enemies.  I really wish someone who studies landscape architecture and such had been with me to appreciate (and explain to me) the 3D models. 

                It was nearly 6:00 pm when I finally left the castle proper, and walked out to the gardens.  I had a nice walk around the statues, which are, unfortunately, not in good repair.  Lack of maintenance has caused some of them to become so covered with moss and lichen that that they are no longer recognizable as the figures from Greco-Roman mythology which they once represented.  It would be a good place to have an enormous royal party, which was probably the point.

                When I left the castle, at about 6:40 pm, I realized that there were no taxis waiting.  I don’t think that there was any way for visitors who hadn’t driven to Vaux to make it home.  I realized that I either had to ask another tour group for a ride, or be stranded.  The group leaving right behind me was speaking English, and I asked me if they could drop me off in a town with a train station, it didn’t matter where, exactly, on their way back.  I realize that this probably wasn’t the safest thing to do, but they were friendly, and didn’t begrudge me the seat, or, as far as I can tell, redirect much from their route (they were driving in the opposite direction of Melun, which was only 10 minutes away).  I took the train back to Paris, took the Metro back to the d’Artagnan, and, the next morning (i.e. today, Tuesday), took the SNCF train back to Tours, to stay at the hostel there until  I leave on August 8^th.

                I’m sorry that I’ve relocated again, but I was not entirely safe in my hostel in the 20^th arrondissement, according to what the Rabbi’s wife told me on Shabbat.  So now, I have 8 days to relax, read… and write!  I’ve got about 19 pages of my thesis written, and hope to have finished the 1^st draft by the time I arrive back home in Ithaca.

                I’m thinking of you all!

~JD

“Every man, in the state of nature, has a power to kill a murderer, both to deter others from doing the like injury, which no reparation can compensate, by the example of the punishment that attends it from every body, and also to secure men from the attempts of a criminal, who having renounced reason, the common rule and measure G-d hath given to [hu]mankind, hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war against all [hu]mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or a tyger, one of those wild savage beasts, with whom men can have no society or security” (John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 2.11).

In Paris, Thinking of Ithaca

Hello cool people!

It’s been a very quiet week for me, here in the booming metropolis of Paris.  I arrived at the d’Artagnan hostel late on Monday night, after a fairly uneventful train ride from Florence, via Zürich, during which Henry James (and others) kept me entertained.

Since then, I have been procrastinating, and, to be fair, not really getting much done.  I’ve written a little bit more than eleven pages of the thesis that I’m required to submit to the Einaudi Center as the result of my research.  I’ve also met my friend Margo, who I met on Birthright, whose family just moved to Paris.  Other than that, and a quick trip to Victor Hugo’s house, I haven’t accomplished much, either in the way of work or pleasure.  Over the next few days, I’m planning to visit the royal chateau of Fontainbleau, and, if possible, the chateau of Vaux-le-Vicompte (the latter is difficult to access).  I’d also like to try to see Bruno at least once before I return overseas.  Other than that, I don’t really have any concrete plans for people or places on this side of the Atlantic.  That’s why I’m itching to get home, because I have so many commitments there!  I’m worried that the semester will begin without my having had enough time to spend time with my parents and my friends in Ithaca, or without my having had enough time to prepare for the dozens of commitments I have (studying for the GRE, getting back in shape after all of my lack of exercise in Europe and Israel, planning High Holidays, picking blueberries with my Mother, sitting down and talking to my Father, translating a French book for a friend of mine, de-squirreling the CJL, finishing certain books, etc.).  I’m living in a hostel room with half-a-dozen other men, at least one of whom is sleeping in the room, whenever I either leave or return, no matter what the time.  I’m living out of my suitcase, have no cooking facilities or even a refrigerator, and have no privacy.  My best workplace, the Mémorial de la Shoah, doesn’t have Wi-Fi, and doesn’t even allow me to drink from my water bottle while I work.  There’s no atmosphere that isn’t tense, where I can relax and unwind.  That being said, if one of you is willing to Skype, please let me know!  There’s a large enough lobby in the hostel such that our conversation won’t necessarily be overheard, especially if the time you choose is late in the evening.

So that’s where I am right now, and why I haven’t updated my blog recently.

Shabbat Shalom!

~JD

“I was by the strangest of chances wondering how I should meet him when the revolution unmistakably occurred.  I call it a revolution because I now see how, with the word he spoke, the curtain rose on the last act of my dreadful drama, and the catastrophe precipitated.  ‘Look here, my dear, you know,’ he charmingly said, ‘when in the world, please, am I going back to school?’” (Henry James, The Turn of the Screw, ch. XIV).

Milano!

I left Florence this morning, but I haven't yet left Italy.  I came to Italy with the intent to visit three cities: Florence, Rome, and Venice.  I realized, however, that other than the Doge's palace, there really isn't any particular site in Venice that I wanted to see.  The history of Venice is fascinating, throughout the age of the Crusades and into the Renaissance, boasting such famous figures as Marco Polo and Titian, but the city itself didn't really attract me.  At least, not now.  If I were with someone, things might be different, but on my own, I am mostly interested in the concrete history and art history around me.

For those of you who don't pay excruciating detail to my travel schedule, on my way to Florence, I changed trains in Milan, en route from Paris (by way of Zürich).  I don't know too much about the history of Milan, and my main source of knowledge about the city is from Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad.  Although it's been a while since I've mentioned Mark Twain, just as was the case when I arrived in Europe a year ago, I constantly think about how he considered and portrayed his European excursion (were it not for him, the word "beggar" would never appear in any of my blog entries), and I've tried to make this blog a 21st-century version of the Quaker City Letters, of which The Innocents Abroad is mostly a redaction.

So, why not stop in Milan?  With my Hosteling International card, a night in Milan is the same cost as a night in Paris, and I fly out of CDG Airport on August 8th no matter what, so why not spend a day in Milan?

So I took a 2-hour train ride, purchased a map and a 24-hours unlimited public transportation card, took the Metro to the suburbs, dropped my bags off at the Youth Hostel, and went to explore the city.

My first stop was, of course, the Cathedral.  It was the only tourist attraction I knew of before I arrived, and it's also where all of the other tourists were flocking.  It's Sunday, meaning the real flock is also flocking, for Sunday Mass.  Before I even entered, I circled the building once, very slowly.  The exterior ornamentation is so intricate!  It has a very Renaissance feel: there are no flying buttresses, the entire building is built of shining white marble, and the statues everywhere -- everywhere on the outside, are both realistic and highly expressive.  There is almost no empty space, no place where there isn't a gargoyle with a pipe in its mouth, a tormented saint, or a churchman raising his hands in blessing.  Even in the complex veins of the great stained-glass rose on the apse side of the cathedral, statues are seated, with parts of their bodies on the inside, others on the outside, the window pane cutting a dorsoventral axis down their upper bodies (their legs hang down on the inside).  The pointed arches, however, have all the accessories of Gothic Flamboyant architecture: all the tufts, points, and blossoms.  The central tower, above the apse, is currently covered in metal scaffolding, but you can still see a golden bishop hanging on to the steeple.

Because Mass was in session when I visited, tourists such as myself were cordoned off from actual attendees.  Relegated to the edges of the nave, I could see the stained glass and the architecture of the ceiling without disrupting the bishop's sermon.  Perfect.  The inside is also very ornate, although not nearly to the degree that the outside is.  The stained-glass windows looked as if they had all been constructed in different eras: they seemed to vary not only by historic style, but by budget: in several frames, more panes than necessary seemed to have been left colorless.

I left the cathedral, and walked northwest, on my way to the city's second major landmark.  On my way, I passed a mounted statue of Garibaldi, honoring the Risorgimento.  I've seen many such monuments in my brief stay in Italy, it's given me insight into how Italians think about their history.  As I've mentioned, in France, I was surprised to see that the war most commonly honored with monuments was the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, followed by World War I.  There are very few statues in memory of World War II (with the exception of the Shoah Memorial in Paris), although there is monument to the French soldiers killed in Vietnam, in Paris, if you know where to look.  Likewise, in Italy, both Milan and Rome have had gargantuan memorials in honor of Victor Emanuel II, the first king of a united Italy, and Florence, too, has a decent-sized memorial to him (he is also one of the few people with the honor to have been interred in the Pantheon in Rome).  The critical years of Italy's political (though by no means cultural or economic) unification, at the end of the 19th century seem to be regarded as the most illustrious days of contemporary Italian history.  French historians define "contemporary history" as "after 1789;" perhaps in Italian historiography, "contemporary" means "after 1870?"

I arrived at the Palazzo Sforzesco.  This is exactly what it sounds like: a palace formerly owned by the Sforza family, including the infamous Ludovico "Il Moro," active in the late 15th century.  It's a real military fortress, well-fortified with towers, a moat, crenelations, etc.  It was built in the first half of the 14th century, and as Milan was serially occupied from the 16th until the 19th century, various foreign powers controlled it, although the architecture and decoration always remained distinctly Lombard.  The story of the fortress's occupants helped refresh me on this contested region of Italy.  The Spanish invaded Milan in the 16th century, and remained there until the early 18th century, when the Austrians (i.e. the former Holy Roman Empire) kicked them out; in 1796, the French, in their early post-revolutionary zeal, seized control, but lost it after the fall of Napoleon in 1814.  The Austrian Empire remained in control, in spite of the Revolutionary hiccup of 1848, nearly right up until the official unification of Italy in 1870.

Remember my observation about how contemporary Florentines milk their city's history for all that it is worth, even charging tourists to enter church interiors?  In Milan, entry to the Palace, its grounds and gardens, and all of its museums, is entirely free of charge.  Also in contrast to Florence, Milan has included detailed descriptions of all of its items on display, sometimes to an overwhelming degree.  Its collections are extensive: everything of historic interest in Lombardy seems to make its way to this single palace, even fragments of wall frescoes.  For this reason, it has several permanent collections, of prehistory, Italian painting, ancient Egypt, 

Seeing the mummies on display on an Italian museum reminded me of one of the most memorable scenes in The Innocents Abroad, in which Mark Twain and his friends decide to annoy their tour guide by pretending to be incredibly stupid.  Allow me to share it with you:

The guide was bewildered-- non-plussed. He walked his legs off, nearly, hunting up extraordinary things, and exhausted all his ingenuity on us, but it was a failure; we never showed any interest in any thing. He had reserved what he considered to be his greatest wonder till the last--a royal Egyptian mummy, the best preserved in the world, perhaps. He took us there. He felt so sure, this time, that some of his old enthusiasm came back to him:

"See, genteelmen!--Mummy! Mummy!"

The eye-glass came up as calmly, as deliberately as ever.

"Ah,--Ferguson--what did I understand you to say the gentleman's name was?"

"Name?--he got no name!--Mummy!--'Gyptian mummy!"

"Yes, yes. Born here?"

"No! 'Gyptian mummy!"

"Ah, just so. Frenchman, I presume?"

"No!--not Frenchman, not Roman!--born in Egypta!"

"Born in Egypta. Never heard of Egypta before. Foreign locality, likely. Mummy--mummy. How calm he is--how self-possessed. Is, ah--is he dead?"

"Oh, sacre bleu, been dead three thousan' year!"

The doctor turned on him savagely:

"Here, now, what do you mean by such conduct as this! Playing us for Chinamen because we are strangers and trying to learn! Trying to impose your vile second-hand carcasses on us!--thunder and lightning, I've a notion to--to--if you've got a nice fresh corpse, fetch him out!--or by George we'll brain you!"

I really, really wish that I could write like that.

Anyway, the Palazzo at Milan is well worth visiting, and still has the personal collections of some of the Sforzas.  They are incredibly proud of having what looks like Ludovico's cocktail glass, as well as numerous chests, coffers, and cabinets, which somehow always manage to survive (perhaps because, unlike metal, they can't be melted down?).  They also have the world's best collection of the artist.  Bramante, a contemporary and acquaintance of Leonardo da Vinci.  The Palace has numerous paintings and engravings by him, and even a series of 12 tapestries, representing the seasons, begun in 1501, prepared for a wedding which Louis XII attended.  Yes, even in Italy, there are two French monarchs I can't seem to escape from: Louis XII and Francois I.  For instance, back in Florence, I saw a wonderful wall-painting of Francois I kneeling in supplication before Pope Leo X. In any case, the curators of the Palazzo Sforzesco had painstakingly organized the 27 rooms of exhibition by chronology and medium.  They have some very well-preserved late-medieval painted wooden sculptures, which is very rare: too many people of "good taste" in later eras decided that painting on wooden sculptures was crass and vulgar, and made no effort to preserve it.  I saw a good collection of 16th- and 17th-century wonderkammer objects, of the kind I've grown used to, visiting so many French mansions.  Although the Italians are not as absolutely obsessed with furniture collection and classification as the French are, I saw a few disgustingly-ornate 17th- and 18th-century tables in Louis-Quatorze and Louis-Quinze styles, although they don't assign them these names.

Then, I noticed that it was about to rain, and I still had a train to book for tomorrow (not to mention food to find) and I left the museum, in a room with austere 17th-century Flemish paintings.

I am thinking of you all!  Love to each and every one of you!

~JD

"Naught displeas'd was she, but smil'd thereat so joyously, that of her laughing eyes the radiance brake and scatter'd my collected mind abroad" (Dante, Divine Comedy, Paradise, Canto X).

Roma!

Oh, those Romans...
I got up around 6:30 this morning.  After my morning routine, and my now-habitual ritual of throwing of a few more postcards in the mail, I took the fast train to Rome (Italy's stamps are so much cooler than France's!), which left from Florence at 8:14.  My reading material on construction was fascinating, but, as usual, I passed out on the train.  Nothing new.  Then, the ticket machine in the Roman train station wouldn't accept my money, and I needed to travel by foot.  Again, nothing new: it just made me nostalgic for my long, rainy, 2-hour walks in Paris.
I had bought a quality tourist map in the station, and I decided that, first of all, I should visit the Colosseum.  It seemed like a good place to start.  For those of you used to the grid of streets that compose New York City, the streets of Rome are confusing and disorienting: like Paris, which also has confusing streets, human history, not rational city planning, designed the town; unlike Paris, Rome did not receive a major rationalizing makeover in the mid-18th century (Haussmann).  So it was nearly noon by the time I arrived at the Colosseum, even with the help of a map.  And I should add: Italy is blazing hot at this time of the year.  Even late in the day, I read a thermometer indicating that it was 34 degrees centigrade outside (that's over 93 degrees Fahrenheit).  For most of midday, you can see tourists hiding in every available patch of shadow, anywhere, trying to cool off.  It's understandable why the practice of a midday siesta is so common in the Mediterranean world.  The city of Rome has kindly decided to liberally scatter public fountains of cold, cold water across the city, which are always a welcome sight.  Even with a water bottle and the fountains, though, it's easy to become dehydrated, and there are street vendors across the city selling bottled water, straw hats, and cheap parasols.
The Colosseum, despite its name, is much smaller than I had imagined.  Although it has a very wide circumference, it is really not very high, by 21st-century standards, and does not stand out on the skyline.  I didn't see that I was approaching it until I was only about two blocks away from it.  It's fenced off so that tourists can only enter via the ticket office, and there was an enormous mob (I can't even call it a line) waiting to enter, by this late in the day.  In addition to aforementioned vendors, there were also Italian men dressed as centurions skulking in the premises, offering to take photographs with tourists.  I consciously avoided these guys.
Although the Colosseum is big and famous, I realized that I didn't have much desire to see the interior.  The Colosseum was a place of execution for those considered the scum of Roman society, Emperor Caligula made a fool of himself in the arena a few dozen times, and lions devoured a few early Christians.  The interior just wasn't worth the wait, when time was so precious.  So I decided to cross the street to the ancient Roman Forum instead: that is real history.
The Roman Forum and the famous Palatine Hill (the most famous of Rome's seven hills), and the ancient ruins which remain, have been set aside and preserved, as a museum.  I had no more than a 5-minute wait at the ticket office (and yet, I managed to meet another French couple in this short period of time), and began to explore what was, in my mind, a much more interesting site than the Colosseum.  Sadly, there was very little by means historical explanation of the various sites (no leaflets or paper maps), and the next guided tour in English was not until 4:30 pm.  So I did my best to explore what was available, with my feeble knowledge of the Roman classics.  I wished that my friend Sam Pell were there with me, to gush about the Romans, and explain the significance of the monuments to the emperors, and the temples to the various deities.  There were a lot of them, and although I knew a little bit about a few of the figures with whom they are associated (Augustus, Severus, Nero, etc.), I only outright recognized a single landmark: the Arch of Titus.
I actually hadn't known exactly where the Arch of Titus was located.  However, when I saw it indicated on one of the maps, I checked it out immediately.  Sure enough, what I looked for was there: the frieze decorating is a wonderful illustration of the Romans carrying the spoils of the Second Temple.  When Roman generals returned from successful campaigns, they celebrated with a triumph, which is a sort of military parade through the capital (there were also lesser versions of triumphs which followed less important military achievements, but I really don't know much about these).  The Arch of Titus depicts the triumph of 71 C.E., after the all-too-successful war against Judea, and for details of this event, I refer you to my good friend Josephus Flavius.
Other buildings by the Forum and Palatine I visited included the houses of Augustus and his wife Livia, a temple  to the sun god Sol, the building which Emperor Diocletian built for the Senate, a building full of Roman glassware (some of it from Pompeii and Herculaneum), and some reconstructed Roman gardens.  The gardens were part of a temporary exhibit on the Roman hortus (cognate with "horticulture"), and I really wish that my Dad had been there.  It was the only part of the whole site that was presented in an interesting, informative, coherent manner, and drew upon the classical literary sources (Titus Livy, Cicero, all those dudes) to describe the phenomenon of the hortus of the Roman aristocracy.
I left after about two hours, and headed northwest in the direction of the Roman Pantheon (not to be confused with the Parthenon, which is in Athens, and which I find much more historically interesting).  I stopped at the Victor Emmanuel II memorial on the way, which also houses the tomb of the unknown soldier (Milite Ignoto).  It's big, showy, and not very interesting.
The Pantheon, on the other hand, is fascinating: the structure is the result of the renovations, including a 180-degree rotation, made by the Emperor Hadrian, but the former structure dates to the first half of the 2nd century C.E.  Since then, the building has become a church, but it's still magnificent.  The floor has a fantastic multicolored checkerboard design, and the high dome has a circular skylight at the top.  There used to be a legend that it never rained in the interior of the Pantheon, that rain miraculously avoided the church.  In fact, in the building's early use, there were dozens of candles burning at all times in the church: they produced acurrent of hot air, which rose, and evaporated raindrops that entered the building.  Now, the floor in the center does get a little bit wet, but water doesn't coat the entire floor: the Romans built 24 small, almost invisible drainage holes in the floor, allowing water to flow out without causing any harm to anyone not standing directly under the center of the dome.
The tomb of Raphael is also in the Pantheon, and he has an amazing epitaph: Ille hic est Raffael, timuit quo sospite vinci, rerum magna parens et moriente mori, or, in English "Here lies that famous Raphael by whom Nature feared to be conquered while he lived, and when he was dying, feared herself to die."  Pretty cool, don't you think?  Also, for those of you paying attention to this sort of thing, you'll notice that I visited Leonardo's tomb with my brother Sam (Middle Davis) while at Amboise, Michelangelo's and Donatello's tombs on my second day (Wednesday) in Florence, and Rafael's tomb today.  Thus, I have visited the final resting places of all four of the Renaissance artists named after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  There should be a t-shirt with that logo.
I walked from the Pantheon westward.  There is no efficient way of walking from the Pantheon to across the Tiber River.  I just had to navigate by the sun, walking in the opposite direction from which shadows peeled off of objects.  I made it to the river, across it, and arrived in a different country, the one with the highest proportion of Catholic residents in the world...
If I hadn't already been to Versailles and to the Louvre, I probably would have been bowled over by the size of the Vatican.  Even in spite of the overweening French monarchs' megalomania, I was quite impressed by the size of the plaza in front of the Vatican, surrounded by marble columns and statues of famous churchmen.  There was a gargantuan line, which I think might have been as much as 300 meters long, which disappeared very quickly in fact, once I stood in it.  I saw several Swiss guards: to be honest, I really don't envy their jobs.  They don't even get a chance to read: they just stand and stare straight ahead with their halberds.  It was apparently too late in the day to visit the Sistine Chapel, and see either the ceiling or the altarpiece painted by Michelangelo (the former is more famous; the latter, more esteemed among art historians).  However, I could enter the Basilica, and climb up the Cupola.  By foot (you can also take an elevator halfway up), it's a 520-step climb (significantly more than the Eiffel Tower), and more than three times as many as are in the Cornell clocktower.  They come in several different sets: the long, shallow, spiral is at the beginning, followed by alternating straight and spiral staircases, with occasional roofs and landings: it's quite an adventure.  The initial climb gives a fantastic view of the dome's interior, with mosaics of crossed keys and of cherubs' faces.  Around the main girdle of the dome is written TU ES PETRUS ET SUPER HANC PETRAM AEDIFICABO ECCLESIAM MEAM, a verse from the Vulgate translation book of Matthew, which I recognized from all of my conversations with Sam and Shea.  The pun works in Latin (Petrus), Greek (Πέτρος ), French (Pierre), but I have no idea if it works in Aramaic, which is the language which those guys were probably all speaking. 
The final, steepest, helical staircase has a vertical rope hanging down the center, for use as a banister.  Anyway, the view is quite good, but not amazing.  You can see the strip of the Tiber, the monument to Victor Emmanuel II, and a few other monuments, but it's nothing like the Parisian skyline (sorry!) where, from the right place, you can recognize every dome and pillar.  Maybe that's just because I've spent 4 months in Paris, and 10 hours in Rome, though.  Sam, it's your job to tell me, after your semester abroad, if you can recognize the Roman skyline when standing on the rim of the Vatican's cupola!
I climbed down, exited the Basilica, and stopped by the post office.  There are three addresses which need to have postcards sent to them from every country I visit (all for different reasons), and so I paid the overpriced postage, wrote three quick notes, and dropped them in the mail.
I took the Metro back to the main train station, and, at 8:45, after finding various ways to occupy myself for the 90-minute wait, I took the train back to Florence.
I'm thinking of you all, whether you know it or not!  Shabbat Shalom, v'Rosh Chodesh Tov!

~JD

Florence: Day Two

More Florentine stuff!
My first and main destination today was the Palazzo Uffizi, which had an enormously long line outside it.  I stood outside, ate peaches, wrote postcards, read my Kindle, and spoke with the French couple ahead of me for over 2 hours.  There were some creepy ticket scalpers, and I think I introduced the verb "scalper" into the French language.  Sorry, Academie Francaise.
Finally, I made it inside!  The Palazzo Uffizi reminds me of the Italian wing of the Louvre, only smaller, somewhat less diverse, and not as well organized.  Sorry, Florentines, but that's my judgment.  The wait might not have been worth it, had a group of American Art History students not passed by on a private guided tour.  Unlike in certain similar circumstances in France, nobody chased me off, and I got to hear the guide expostulate, at length, on Botticelli, whose work is the 3rd most important reason that I'm even in Florence (he also spoke about Lippi, Titian, and Leonardo, but not as much).  The Birth (really the arrival) of Venus and Primavera are Botticelli's two most famous pieces, and they are both out on display.  The guide described six different levels of interpretation of Primavera: to fully understand all of the ins and outs of the picture, the viewer needs to know Ovid, Platonic philosophy (specifically, the Symposium), botany, ancient Greek homophones (Ζέφυρος), and the latest gossip of the Florentine aristocracy.  So, so Renaissance...
Also interesting to see was how much this differed from Titian's depiction of Venus.  While the Florentines were beating their brains out over Neoplatonism, the Venetian school of painting maintained a much more sensual orientation: the model for Titian's Venus was a well-known Venetian prostitute.  In fact, in his own letter describing the painting, he merely refers to it as a drawing of a nude woman; it is Vasari who assigned it the name Venus, and everyone has accepted this interpretation.
I saw at least two paintings that I could have sworn that I saw at the Louvre (one of them was the famous painting of Gabrielle d'Estrees, Henri IV's mistress).  Looking online, I found that in fact there are two, very similar, paintings, of   I also saw one of a three-part series of paintings depicting a famous Florentine battle, and I recognized one of the other two pieces from the Louvre.  Perhaps it's not fair that I not use the Louvre as my standard by which to judge other museums, but I know it better than any other, even the Johnson in Ithaca.
I left, quite worn out, and trudged my way across Florence, until I arrived at St. Croce Church.  For my purposes, it was kind of a Florentine equivalent of the Pantheon in Paris.  Many of my friends are buried there: Machiavelli, Galileo, Donatello, Ghiberti, Michelangelo, Dante (actually, I looked online, and his body is elsewhere).  My definitive not-friend Giovanni Gentile is also buried there (he was Mussolini's pet philosopher), and there were also monuments to two Italian physicists which weren't getting nearly as much attention as they deserved: Guglielmo Marconi  and Enrico Fermi (sorry, Dawson).  As with everywhere else in Florence, there was very little information available, and if I hadn't entered knowing a little bit about the occupants, I would not have known the significance of the monuments erected in their honor.  That being said, my ignorance of art history meant that I didn't know anything about any of the other Italians buried at St. Croce.
At this point, it was nearly 6:00 pm, and I didn't have time for anything else, except another pass by my favorite doors, blog, and, of course plan for the trip from which I just returned, to another well-known Italian city...

~JD

Florence: Day One

I couldn't leave the hostel until 9:00 am, because I needed to pay the receptionist, possible only after he arrived.  So with a rather slow start, involving a little bit of luggage management, I set off for possibly the most important site for me to visit in Florence: Ghiberti's doors, called by Michelangelo the "Gates of Paradise."
For those of you who don't know: the Florentines, in 1401, decided to commission a new set of bronze doors for their baptistry (which is full of cool old medieval mosaics).  The doors were meant to be attractive, as was befitting for such an important structure.  The Florentine government held a contest, in which competitors received a year to sculpt, in bronze, a sample panel: the theme for the contest was the binding of Isaac, from the book of Genesis.  The two final contestants were Ghiberti and Brunelleschi (you'll hear more about him in a moment): in the end, Ghiberti's work won.  Some art historians believe that Brunelleschi's scene was too "modern" for the judges, because of the intense level of interaction in the scene, an angel swooping down to grab Abraham's hand, who is tightly grasping a pained-looking Isaac by the throat, with his knife virtually in his son's neck.  Ghiberti's sample version (which won the contest), I'll admit, is far less intense, although the final version which ended up in the doors is between the two.  Anyway, Brunelleschi refused to work together with Ghiberti after losing the contest, claiming that one genius could not work with another.  How modest of him.
When I arrived at the baptistry, which shares a plaza with the cathedral, I was glued in place for about 15-20 minutes, just staring at the gilded doors.  They are breathtaking, and are probably the most famous doors in the world.  I think three or four tours passed by me.
Although I needed to wait in line to enter the cathedral itself it was, unlike almost everything else in Florence, free of charge to enter.  I was happy to wait: it gave me a chance to admire the white, red, and green stripes on the cathedral's exterior.  It's a very colorful building, and stands out as a city landmark because of its colors, even among the other tall buildings of the city.  The inside was surprisingly austere, unlike, say, Notre-Dame de Chartres.  There were statues, pillars, and some modest stained glass, but nothing to write home about.  There were free guided tours in several languages, and I latched on to one being led by a guy from the UK. The reason for the interior simplicity, apparently, is the Republican sentiment which the Florentines wished to project, as a means of contrasting themselves to the aristocratic Pisans.  The guide also did a fantastic job describing the designs of the interior, the stained glass, etc.
I left the cathedral proper in order to climb the belltower.  It's 400-some steps tall, and would fail every fire-safety test in the book if it were constructed today.  There are several distinct landings, each with a spiral staircase leading up, and another leading down.  Each floor is open on all four sides (kind of like the Cornell clocktower's top floor), giving a good view of the city skyline, and of the neighboring cathedral, whose dome is only slightly higher.  I thought of my camera, abandoned by mistake in my closet, and of various friends (and family members) of mine who are skilled at photography, and I wished they all could have been there with me.
The baptistry interior is also worth visiting, if only to contrast its decoration, stylistically, with that of its doors.  I've actually seen the mosaic of the Final Judgment before, as a case study in medieval art, meant to juxtaposition with the style of the Renaissance.  The figures are unrealistic, frozen in time, and stare blankly outwards.  The gold is gaudy and shiny, but the artist didn't even sign his name: contrast this to the doors of the Baptistry, which actually include a bust of Ghiberti himself!  I craned my neck, and tried to recognize as many scenes as possible; it occurred to me today that religious artwork depicting biblical scenes selects from a relatively small number of possible tableaux.  I've never, for instance, seen a painting or a sculpture of, say, Ruth.
I left the piazza, and began to do what I have learned to be a surprisingly successful strategy in a town such as Florence: I walked until I came to a prominent-looking building selling tickets, and bought a ticket.  I'm oversimplifying, but not by much.
The next buildings to which I bough tickets were the Basilica of San Lorenzo, and the Medici Chapels, which are adjacent to each other.  Everything is filled with what the Medici managed to loot from the rest of the world while they could.  They amassed a surprising amount, and modern clueless tourists, such as myself, derive the benefit.  Oh, well.  Although all of the museums I am visiting in Italy have many treasures, the curation is generally terrible, and quite haphazard.  I guess that I've just been spoiled by the French, who normally do a terrific job.  I don't always know the significance of what I'm seeing, and for this reason, I remember relatively little from both of these locations.  I do remember the apartments of Pope Leo X, and his papal apparel, which was pretty cool.  For those of you who don't know, Leo X was a Medici Pope (I believe that he was Lorenzo the Magnificent's son), the first of two.  There's a very famous painting of him with his nephew and brother (the latter of whom will become Clement VII), which I saw in the original.  Daniel Bomberg also claimed to have received permission from him to print the Talmud.  The chapels also contain the graves of many of the great Medici, including Cosimo the Elder.
The last historical building I visited was the Palazzo Vecchio, the historic city hall of Florence, parts of which are still in use, and only occasionally accessible to tourists.  I didn't see any of those, but I did get to see a great deal of work done by my friend Giorgio Vasari.  Vasari, in addition to being Duke Cosimo I's personal artist, is also remembered as the first art historian, writing The Lives of the Artists, an amazing source of knowledge from which we know a great deal of what we know of Renaissance artists' private lives and circles.  Vasari also coined the term "Renaissance," which people have been using ever since to describe the "rebirth" of art and culture.  Although the term is somewhat deceptive (it implies that nothing in Europe had been dead and in need of revival since the fall of Rome), it's also quite useful.
Anyway, Vasari produced meters and meters of canvas and fresco for the glorification of his patrons.  The great hall's walls depict a successful war waged by the Medici (pure propaganda), and the ceiling tells a story of two Florentine wars: the first, waged over 14 years by the Republic against Pisa, was unsuccessful; the second, waged over 14 months by a monarch against Sienna, was successful.  Get the point?  Florence should be happy to have a duke, and shouldn't complain in the name of its Republican tradition.
There were some excellent paintings of Duke Cosimo-as-philosopher-and-patron, surrounded by many of the artists whose names have gone down in history (and in this blog): Michelangelo, Leonardo, Brunelleschi, Lippi, Ghiberti, Vasari himself, etc.  To be honest, they're more interesting than the Duke.  There are also several funerary monuments designed by Michelangelo.  Very cool.
By this time, it was too late for more museums.  So I wandered over to the tourist trap that is the Ponte Vecchio, a bridge lined with shops on either side, crammed full with visitors from across the world, and people trying to sell them overpriced luxury items.  Florence apparently is a major leather producer, which I hadn't known.
Then I went back, completely beat, to my hostel, with my feet sore.  I stopped by to stare at the historic Synagogue, taking a bit of a detour.  Then I wrote up yesterday's post, and called it a night.
Wow, it seems as if I'm still a full day behind.  I'll try to catch up: there's too much to say, and the mediocre Italian curating is not conducive to recounting one's day!

~JD

From France to...

ITALY!
Yes, somehow I made it to Italy, to Florence, which I've wanted to visit for the whole of my adult life!  I am so incredibly happy that I made it!  I just got back from my first day of touring, and therefore probably don't have enough time to finish this post, but if I need to cut off abruptly (even without a quotation), so be it.
I got up around half-past five on Monday, and made the 7:13 am train from Angers to Paris.  I hadn't slept more than a few hours the night before, and, as I usually do, passed off while reading my Kindle.
I transfered in Paris from Montparnasse-Bienvenue to Gare de Lyon, via Metro.  If I didn't already know the Paris Metro system, I might not have made the tight connection: I don't mention this in order to indicate my astute mastery of public transportation in Paris, but rather, in order to reveal just how clueless I ordinarily am in such affairs.
From there, I took a train across the border to Switzerland, stopping at Zurich.  I was amazed by the Swiss landscape: I've truly never seen anything like the Alps before.  I put down my Kindle, and stared out the window.  I'm used to the mountains of the eastern coast of the United States.  If these look as if they have been molded out of clay, then then the Alps look as if they have been cloven out of rock.  They are sharp, sheer, pointed, thrusting, sky-grating colossi, that rise out of otherwise level valleys and basins.  If I remember my geology correctly, then the Blueridge Mountains (which Thomas Jefferson declared to be the highest mountains in North America) are very very old.  Perhaps the Alps are a newer mountain range, and have therefore not existed long enough to have been blunted and so totally subdued by the elements?  Dad?
The next train was from Zurich to Milan, another historic city I'd like to visit, but which I wasn't stopping in.  As if in order to fulfill national stereotypes, despite my day's trains' punctuality from the departure from Angers, as soon as we crossed the Italian border, the train seemed to begin to run late of its own accord.  It arrived in Milan 30 minutes late.  This was a problem, because I had only had a 20-minute window to change trains in the Milan train station (which is very handsome, as train stations go).  I managed to get my ticket stamped at the station, and was allowed to leave on the 8:20 pm train to Florence instead.  No big change for me: there are generally cute babies on all trains.
By the way, as to my reading material: I spent most of the time reading the book that Harry suggested I read, finished the book that Marissa recommended I read, began the book which Matt suggested I read, finished a work I wish I hadn't read, and began another which I wish I had begun much earlier.
It was long past sunset by the time I arrived in Florence.  I had drawn myself a map to the hostel where I planned to stay, but in the darkness, I took the wrong turn.  I was still in the center with all of the restaurants and hotels for tourists.  I passed by 4- and 3- star places, but Florence was surprisingly quiet: I would have expected a much more lively night scene.  Anyway, I spotted a sign, CIAO HOSTEL, and decided that one hostel was, for at least one night, to prevent any possible dangerous nighttime incidents, equivalent to another.  The receptionist let me in, told me to pay the next morning, and showed me my room, which I was sharing with three other travelers.  I wrote two important e-mails, and called it a night.
OK, I'm going to leave off there.  I'll talk about today's adventures tomorrow!
Ciao!

~JD

Angers: First 2 Days

I’m currently staying in Angers, in Maine-et-Loire, not far west of Tours.  It’s Erev-Quatorze-Juillet right now, and raining very, very hard outside.  There is supposed to be a fireworks show tonight, to celebrate July 14th (Bastille Day), but I'm not certain how much attendance there will be (I'm not planning on standing outside -- not when it's like this).

Yesterday, I took the noon train from Paris, and, predictably, fell asleep (perhaps I need to start sleeping more at night?).  When I occasionally did open my eyes, and they weren't glued to my Kindle, I saw a very grey, cloudy sky outside, and I was all braced for storms.  It was drizzling when I arrived, and I checked into a hotel -- that's right, a real two-star hotel, not a youth hostel -- dropped my bags off, and walked to the departmental archives of Maine-et-Loire, and only was lost about 30 minutes on the one-kilometer walk (which isn't bad, for me).  I registered, and found that the archives are much larger, more extensive, cleaner, higher-tech, better-staffed, and more comfortable than those at Tours.  I also have free Wi-Fi in the reading room.

Why am I here?  There are two reasons.  The first is that I hope that by studying a neighboring region in France to Indre-et-Loire, I will better be able to evaluate what was typical (when talking about the Holocaust, "typical" is a better word than "normal") in central France, 1940-1945.  This is easy: a local historian has already published a book on the Jews of Maine-et-Loire in this time period, L’eradication tranquille : Le destin des Juifs en Anjou (1940-1944), or in English, Calm Eradication: the Fate of the Jews in Anjou (1940-1944).  There seem to be many similarities, already, between Indre-et-Loire and Maine-et-Loire.  People resisted a lot less than I had expected, in both instances.

But before I begin to wax morbid, I'll get to the second reason why I'm in Angers, instead of, say, Orleans, studying the prefecture of Loiret, which in some ways would have made a better comparative study.  Do you remember the letter from the German soldier to the French woman from the Fourth of July?  The woman's address was in this prefecture, and I had an appointment today at 2:30 pm today at the City Hall, with an archivist whose name I will not disclose, because I received information to which I have no legal access.

I thought that that would get your attention: only parts of the marital registers are fully free and open to the public: others are only released 75 years after the events occur.

The archivist and I opened the register to "Paillard," and found that a woman named Christiane Paillard had indeed been married on August 8th, 1946.  This sounded promising.  

The man she married, however, was named Edward Ciclek.

The first thing I noticed about this name was that it was not "Fritz."  The second think I noticed was that it was not French, either: the French spelling of Edward is "Edouard."  So my initial thought, that the German soldier had died or disappeared, and that Christiane had immediately married a local man, was not necessarily true.

Then the archivist opened the tome of the registers which I'm legally not allowed to see, because the marriage occurred only 66 years ago, as of a month from now.  It included details about the couple.  The archivist thought that my French was a lot worse than it is, and opened the volume widely enough for me to see that Edward Ciclek was of Polish nationality, 26 years old, and a builder.  There was more information, but I didn't see it before the archivist closed the book.

The archivist then told me that when the French refer to the Germans generically, they sometimes call them les Fritz, or "The Fritzes," kind of the way Brits, Canadians, and southerners all call New Yorkers and New Englanders as "Yanks."  The name "Fritz," then, could have been a nickname, or an assumed name.  The marriage occurred in Segré, which is a village just to the west of Angers, in Maine-et-Loire.  I thanked the archivist in the City Hall, promised to send e-mails if I learned anything, and walked back to the departmental archives.

All the way there, in the pouring, miserable rain, I thought about possible solutions to this puzzle.  Was Fritz the same as Edward Ciclek?  The age is right, but the nationality is, seemingly, wrong, even assuming that Fritz was not the soldier's real name.  Here are three possibilities:

1) Fritz and Edward are different people.  Fritz never came back, or Christiane never loved him in the first place (remember, I only found a letter in which he described his love to her, but no corresponding response from her), and she therefore married another man, perhaps a Polish war refugee who wound up in France (there were a lot of them).

2) Edward Ciclek was a German born in Poland, or a Pole who was employed somehow in the Germany (more likely, because his name is not very German), and one way or another found himself in the German military in World War II, although not necessarily as a combatant.  When stationed in France, for some reason, he believed that he would be more sexually appealing to French women if they thought he was German, and thus pretended to be German, using "Fritz" as an assumed name.  To the French, he was just another soldier with an accent, and didn't notice that it was Polish, rather than German.  He didn't tell his future wife that he was really Polish until after the war was over, when he returned to France, in order to marry her.

3) Similar to above, but, lest the German officers find his letters, and court-martial him for playing around with French women, he used a code-name in his love letters.  The name "Fritz" was generic and bland and German enough that nobody would suspect him, but the Paillards would know exactly who had sent them the letter.  This would eliminate the otherwise silly and illogical element of deceit on the part of "Fritz."

Well, I'll try to figure things out next week.  In the meantime, I plan to explore Angers, which has a castle, a cathedral, and various gardens and monuments!

Hey, wait a minute, the sun is out, now!

Shabbat Shalom!

~JD

"'He bores the hell out of me!' Rumfoord replied boomingly.  'All he does in his sleep is quite and surrender and apologize and ask to be left alone.'  Rumfoord was a retired brigadier general in the Air Force Reserve, the official Air Force Historian, a full professor, the author of twenty-six books, and multimillionaire since birth, and one of the great competitive sailors of all time.  His most popular book was about sex and strenuous athletics for men over sixty-five.  Now he quoted Theodore Roosevelt, whom he resembled a lot: 'I could carve a better man out of a banana'" (Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five, ch. 9).