I passed the Panth é on where Rousseau and other Grands Hommes , famous men, of France are buried and then I was back in the rue St Jacques walking down by the buildings of the Sorbonne, quiet now with all the students away for the summer. Even the street was empty of traffic. It was hot and still. I suddenly felt that I was the only person out in Paris, that everyone had gone somewhere they all knew about and were laughing and talking under shady chestnuts by the water. Somewhere along the Seine out in the country. Or by a beach under sunshades. No-one knew I was here in this street. In this city of millions I didnât know anyone at all, not even a casual acquaintance, certainly no-one who needed to tell me what they were doing or where they had gone. Iâd thought I was absorbing daily life but this was all show and the real people had gone elsewhere. I was standing in a street where people had walked with donkeys and ridden in coaches for more than a thousand years, where scholars and poets and musicians, medieval François Villon and Rabelais and twentieth-century Serge Gainsbourg and Coluche had laughed and drunk wine, and where travellers from the south came to see the great capital, but now I was the only one here. I wasnât part of this place. I was like a ghost, unseen. My imaginary world had become real and solid â I could feel the cobbles under my feet â but I had become invisible. Had I come so far to disappear?
*
When Jean-Jacques Rousseau first saw these streets on his way into Paris from the south, he didnât like them at all: âI saw nothing but dirty, stinking little streets, ugly black houses, a general air of squalor and poverty, beggars, carters, menders of clothes, sellers of herb-drinks and old hats.â That was nearly 300 years ago, and most of the buildings were still medieval, crooked and falling down, with no sanitation, and it was a much poorer area than it is now, but Rousseau wasnât keen on towns anyway. He was more of a hippie really â the original hopeless romantic. He was happiest when he lived with Madame de Warens in the country near Chamb é ry in the Alps, wandering through the woods and wildflower meadows, gardening, making honey, taking care of chooks and pigeons and cows: âI strolled through the woods and over the hills, I wandered in the valleys, I read, I lazed, I worked on the garden, I picked the fruit, I helped in the household and happiness followed me everywhere.â
In Paris, like me, he was an outsider. He came from Switzerland and he was a Protestant â although he converted to Catholicism for a while â and it was difficult to find his way in. He recognised that ânothing is achieved in Paris except by the help of ladiesâ and was regularly received at their homes, but he was often slow in conversation, and, unfortunately for him, the essence of French society for a long time had been quick and witty conversation. Madame de Sévigné, a hundred years before Rousseau, was a mistress of the art and mixed in all the highest circles, but Rousseau was afraid of quick wit and âwomen who prided themselves on their brainsâ, especially those who employed the âtrickâ of asking lots of questions without giving anything away of themselves. I donât think Rousseau would have liked de Sévignéâs famous account of an investiture at Versailles where two courtiers got their ribbons and swords and lace so tangled up with each other, âthey had to be torn apart by force and the stronger man wonâ, and, even less, her brutally amused tone as she tells the story of Vatel, the chef at Chantilly who killed himself because the fish he had ordered for the kingâs banquet had not arrived.
But Rousseau did love France: âMy continuous reading, always confined to French authors, nurtured my affection for France and finally transformed it into so blind a passion that nothing has
*
When Jean-Jacques Rousseau first saw these streets on his way into Paris from the south, he didnât like them at all: âI saw nothing but dirty, stinking little streets, ugly black houses, a general air of squalor and poverty, beggars, carters, menders of clothes, sellers of herb-drinks and old hats.â That was nearly 300 years ago, and most of the buildings were still medieval, crooked and falling down, with no sanitation, and it was a much poorer area than it is now, but Rousseau wasnât keen on towns anyway. He was more of a hippie really â the original hopeless romantic. He was happiest when he lived with Madame de Warens in the country near Chamb é ry in the Alps, wandering through the woods and wildflower meadows, gardening, making honey, taking care of chooks and pigeons and cows: âI strolled through the woods and over the hills, I wandered in the valleys, I read, I lazed, I worked on the garden, I picked the fruit, I helped in the household and happiness followed me everywhere.â
In Paris, like me, he was an outsider. He came from Switzerland and he was a Protestant â although he converted to Catholicism for a while â and it was difficult to find his way in. He recognised that ânothing is achieved in Paris except by the help of ladiesâ and was regularly received at their homes, but he was often slow in conversation, and, unfortunately for him, the essence of French society for a long time had been quick and witty conversation. Madame de Sévigné, a hundred years before Rousseau, was a mistress of the art and mixed in all the highest circles, but Rousseau was afraid of quick wit and âwomen who prided themselves on their brainsâ, especially those who employed the âtrickâ of asking lots of questions without giving anything away of themselves. I donât think Rousseau would have liked de Sévignéâs famous account of an investiture at Versailles where two courtiers got their ribbons and swords and lace so tangled up with each other, âthey had to be torn apart by force and the stronger man wonâ, and, even less, her brutally amused tone as she tells the story of Vatel, the chef at Chantilly who killed himself because the fish he had ordered for the kingâs banquet had not arrived.
But Rousseau did love France: âMy continuous reading, always confined to French authors, nurtured my affection for France and finally transformed it into so blind a passion that nothing has
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