St. Sulpice, Market And Church, Vavin/Brea Flea Market, And An Organ Concert

Our major task for June 5th was getting Penelope to CDG to rejoin her parents and begin their week-long tour of the Loire and then Normandy. That accomplished, we returned home and crashed. The next few days we stayed close to home, doing the brocante/antiques market at Saint Sulpice, the church itself, the Vavin/Brea vide grenier pop-up flea market, more of the Louvre couture show, and then a couple days later, an organ concert at St. Sulpice.

Nearby, en route to St. Sulpice, a high-end watch manufacturer...
the old-fashioned Swiss way...don't even ask about the prices

At the St. Sulpice brocante market...Grandma's eyeball collection

A worn but beautifully carved meerschaum; apart from the eyeballs,
it's really a formidable market...sometimes books, sometimes art, 
sometimes collectibles

And if you don't have time to reload...

Now in the church...one of the most evangelically-
in your face Catholic churches we've seen; and one
we've visited many times before; this is a traveling
Shroud of Turin show we've seen in countless churches
on the Continent; I've always thought the St. Veronica
Turin Shroud would make a great tea towel...

Blessings for every budget, price range...

Main altar

Above: they only did swirlers in the Renaissance

Chapel of the Virgin

We'll be back: St. Sulpice has one of the great symphonic
organs

The Gnomon Astronomique: read Dan Brown for the
more interesting story

St. Sulpice's flying pulpit: don't go up the downstairs

Now at the Vavin/Brea pop-up flea market

A street barricade, not for sale

Most interesting St. Sebastian yet

Now back at St. Sulpice for the organ concert, a guest organist from
Bordeaux; note, it takes three to play this monster, with its five manuals
and more than a hundred stops; the two assistants are pulling out and pushing
in the various stops; this is Charles Marie Widor's organ; my favorite organ
 composer, after Bach and Buxtehude, of course; played it at St. Sulpice for
sixty-three years; sitting in the church, your back is to the organ, and of
course, the organist and team are completely out of (natural) view; but the
miracle of TV allows you to see what's going on

Intricate footwork; never mind the non-matching socks; if you watch
organ recitals on YouTube, like I do, you know that it's no longer 
just about the sound, but also the keyboard, the footwork, the performer's
body language and facial expressions; gives a whole new meaning to
"organ videos," and you don't have to be eighteen to watch

Taking a well-deserved bow

Conciergerie, 2025

As you walk from the right bank to the Cite, to see Notre Dame and Sainte-Chapelle and other stuff, the Conciergerie is the imposing building on your right, often sporting no few heavily-armed police. (The Palais de Justice is next on your right, and that's where the highest-profile criminal trials are going on). If you happen to look up, you'll see the great clock on the Clock Tower. The Conciergerie is a major part of the royal palace complex that was situated on the Ile de la Cite back in the high Middle Ages. (Sainte-Chapelle was the royal chapel for this complex.) When the royal palace complex moved across the river to what is now the Louvre complex, the Conciergerie became, for a few centuries, the storehouse for royal possessions not in use, overseen buy a Concierge. Get it? When the Revolution came along, the Conciergerie became a prison, a holding tank for those accused, and a court of justice ("justice"). Most of those accused went on to the (now) Place de la Concorde to meet with Mssr. Guillotine. After the Revolution, the Conciergerie became an expiatory sort of place, with monuments to the king and queen and others who did some time here. Now it's an historical tourist destination. In any case, there's a lot of history to be seen at the Conciergerie.

The Conciergerie, from the Pont au Change, one of Paris' most familiar
sights, although I suspect few foreign tourists actually visit; Vicki says
we did in the 70s, 80s, or 90s, but I have no memory of the place; we're
here this day (June 4th) because of our desire to see to Penelope's 
education and also because with our Passion Monuments pass it was free

Each of the towers has a name, but I'll hold you only to

the Clock Tower

Now inside the vast Great Hall, said to be at one time the largest secular building in France; it certainly
has the footprint of the great cathedrals, if not the height

Stairs to one of the towers

Now in the kitchen, looking at one of the four humongous fireplaces...
twenty or so feet wide

Great Hall again, aft to bow

Appropriately huge gift shoppe

Now in the hall where the men-at-arms hung out, looking
at interesting photos and models...here an aerial of the
Ile de la Cite, and, trailing behind, the Ile of St. Louis;
you can plainly make out Notre Dame, Sainte-Chapelle,
and the Conciergerie

Heplful model of the complex

Fast forward: we are now in the Revolution part of the Conciergerie,
in the Salle des Noms, the Room of Names, wherein are inscribed the
names of all who were imprisoned and/or tried in the Conciergerie...
some thousands...

A few of the biggies, not a few of which were themselves
Revolutionaries as the Revolution split into factions...
Girondists vs. Jacobins...

Typical cell

"Justice" was swift and certain

Monsieur Guillotine's invention

No escape; no breaking in, either

Robespierre, head of the Jacobins, head of The Terror

Spent his last moments here, before losing his...; I can't resist 
observing that the Revolution renamed all the months and restarted
the calendar from year one..."Thermidor" was the hot month, July-
August...

Vicki and Penelope take in one of the many multi-media exhibits

Now we are in the expiatory section, where the royals who
came to power after Napoleon erected various monuments
to their predecessors, mourning them, apologizing for the
Revolution, etc.

Shrine for Marie Antoinette; built approximately where her cell was...

For Louis XVI

The expiatory chapel

Marie Antoinette relics

Famous painting, original in the Carnavalet, of the Queen leaving
the Conciergerie (George Cain)

The visit ends with a large display on the women of the
Revolution...

Personal favorite, Charlotte Corday, Girondist, who
assassinated the Jacobin Marat, stabbing him in his bathtub,
giving rise to one of David's greatest hits, The Death of Marat

Return To Sainte-Chapelle, Again, 2025

Our next stop June 3rd was Sainte-Chapelle, the famed chapel of Louis IX, back in the 12th century when the royal palace was on the Il de la Cite itself. We've been to it many times, starting in 1979--look for "chapelle" in the search box for many posts on it and similar nearby royal chapels--but wanted Penelope to see it, now that she's of an age and learning to appreciate it. I was right behind her when she stepped into the upper chapel itself, and can attest she was knocked out, as any aesthetically- or historically-inclined person would be. It's a breath-taking experience, no matter how many times you've seen it. 

This was the line we skipped with our Passion Monuments pass

The downstairs bit, where mere nobility could worship; now
mostly the gift shoppe

What you see upon entering...only more brilliant: you are surrounded by brilliance and color

Elevation and vaulting; there are no walls...only windows...

Just a few of the many windows...see other posts for far more

Rose window

On the porch, a Judgment, of course

Refreshments At The Sarah Bernhardt Cafe

En route from the Arc de Triumphe to our next sight, the Sainte-Chappelle, we decided we needed a rest and some refreshment. Penelope is an aspiring thespian, among her many other interests and undertakings, and I thought...where better rest and refresh than Le Sarah Bernhardt, the cafe in the old Theater Sarah Bernhardt?

Her most recent role, the Wicked Witch, in a Raleigh
young persons' theater production of The Wizard of Oz

Bernhardt leased the theater for some years in the twilight of her long
career, already the greatest actress of her time, or perhaps any time; she
was also a writer (8 plays and books), a painter, a sculptor, the model
for my favorite Madeline (Alfred Stevens); a feminist; a vegetarian; a
collector of exotic animals, a world traveler...reading even a short biography
of her is like a who's-who of the later 19th century...