When I was finally ready to go, it was early afternoon...just a bit off schedule. I headed for the Cluny, whose formal name is le Musée National du Moyen Age et Thermes de Cluny (National Museum of the Middle Ages and Cluny Thermal Baths). It is a late 15th-century city mansion of the abbots of Cluny (which is in central France), today used as a museum. But the original mansion was built adjacent to baths built during the Roman period (1st-3rd century AD), and those are open in part for viewing, and in more depth if one goes on a guided tour of the underground service passages. Unfortunately, they didn't think about accessibility much in in the 3rd century, and that lack of forethought extended at least to the 15th century, so the building is really not wheelchair accessible.
I decided to buy more métro tickets on my way there rather than the way back, as it might be rush hour on the way back. (That said, in some stations, there are nice machines now that sell metro tickets and some of them even take bills!) The young man at the head of the line got upset with the cashier about something (either a policy you had to show I.D. with certain payment types, or that the fares had gone up, or both) and told her not to yell at him (she wasn't yelling--and he even had headphones on for the exchange--maybe someone's hearing was off due to too much headphone use). A woman who had arrived after me in line said to me in French, "What is it about today? I was on the bus and this big argument broke out, and I just couldn't take it, I got off and waited for the next bus. I wasn't the only one who got off, either." I suggested perhaps it being Monday or the moon being full.
My route on the metro was: Line 8, Bastille to Gare d'Austerlitz, then Line 10 to Cluny-La Sorbonne. I wasted a bit of time at Gare d'Austerlitz trying to figure out which way to take Line 10 (only one direction was labeled) when I realized Line 10 starts at Gare d'Austerlitz, so of course there was only one direction. I did use my confused state to take pictures of some ads that I thought were interesting.
(The cell phone has a 'monstruous'ly-big touch screen; and there's an exposition on world languages next week.)
When you come out of the Cluny station, you're right on the same block as the museum, on a corner by the gardens. When I was a child and we lived in France, I remember on a visit to Paris there was a street vendor selling fresh coconut on that corner. He had a little fountain that kept the cut chunks of coconut moist and cool. He wasn't there, but then the Cluny station wasn't there when he was: it was closed during the war and only reopened in the late 1980s, with new connections built to the RER trains that are within block. Even the metro stations are dense here: from the platform at Cluny, you do not even need to lean over the tracks to see the next station, Maubert-Mutualité. (The photo on the wikipedia page above appears to allow you to see the lights of that station down the tunnel, also.)
A press kiosk was selling 10 postcards for 1 EUR, and I seem to remember this particular kiosk having a good price, so I agonized over which 10 were the right ones to send to various nieces and nephews and kids.
Finally, I made it to the museum. The courtyard with the stone well was full of French kids--talk about a school field trip! After one class exited the single carved wood and leaded glass entry/exit door, I made it in. I had made one small mistake--the exhibit on Rayonnant Gothic doesn't start until February 10. But there's plenty to see at the Cluny.
And there's always something new, it seems, despite the museum's specialty in objects from about the year 400 to 1500. This tapestry was in one of the first 2 rooms, of newly displayed or refurbished items, and features "Giorhargius (?) and Tubalcain" and the invention of weighing and forging. The text is actually French and says "Giiorhargiiius trouva l'art de passer aus pois [aux poids]" and "Tebaqain trouva l'art de forger en tous metauls [metaux, sorry, there really was an "-auls" ending that got chopped off]".
The amateur art historian in me, regarding this Virgin and Child, thought it was more likely to be a sculpture of Saint John the Baptist as a baby with his mother. (OK, that's a not funny joke.)
There's a room of stained glass window-lets from the 12th and 13th century, many of which are from the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. Apparently after renovations they had some extra windows (?). I'm assuming they were not salvageable due to some structural problems, but I'm not sure about that. It is neat to be up close to the windows to be able to see why they look the way they do from 20-30 meters below. The information card in the room explained their manufacture: first, forest artisans made 40cm diameter glass disks of a single color. Second, the artisans on site made drawings but also had to plan for scaling to the size of each window. They eventually cut the glass and leading strips. The drawings on the glass for folds of garments, faces and fingers and other small parts were made with 'grisaille', a mixture of iron and ground glass, that then had to be baked on in order to stick.
The Lady and the Unicorn (La Dame a la Licorne) room had a school group sitting on the floor with a guide doing an age-appropriate explanation of the tapestries, so I listened in. The 6 tapestries represent the 5 physical senses plus a 6th tapestry labeled "A Mon Seul Desir". The guide started explaining the Sixth Sense ("pas le film", she explained, not the film), and pointed out the sixth tapestry, with the lady standing and her servant holding a small chest, and asked what the lady was doing. One kid called out, in French, "she's voting!" which provoked a lot of laughter and the guide said no one had ever called it that, but that no one was voting back then.
Due to Salle 14 being closed for no obvious reason, Salles 15-23 appeared to be inaccessible. I asked the guard and he pointed to a lit corridor behind the unicorn tapestries (literally: running behind the wall they are mounted on) that had tables and chairs stored in it, and led to Salle 17, Hispano-Moorish ceramics and Gothic ivories. One ceramic caught my eye; the star motif reminded me a bit of Cocteau or Van Gogh.
Then there was the treasury, the life of Saint Stephen tapestry series--about 20 of them--which are great fun because they are all labeled with a paragraph of French. Many of the "s" characters look more like "f" and there are other spelling and shorthand variants. But if you read them, and then look at the picture, you figure out more about what is happening.
This particular one is labeled:
Comment le corps [de] St Etienne est delaissé au lieu de son martire;
et exposé au bestes et par la divine puissance preservé.
(How the body of St Stephen was left at the place of his martyr;
and exposed to animals and by divine power preserved.)
I only figured out "divine" because of "puissance" following it. However....I do question a bit the risks that any human remains would be subjected to the animals shown. There are seven: a lion, a monkey, a deer, a porcupine, a bird (a partridge?), and a unicorn. I know lions are carnivores; the monkey's pretty small; and the deer and the bird are probably not going to eat a person. The porcupine might lick him for salt. And the unicorn is probably a pretty light eater.
I am exhausted after doing two blogs in a row. All I would write about is: buying tourist trinkets for relatives; visiting Notre Dame during evening services; and taking a sardine-packed metro train home. Then, hunting for a bakery still open (hint: follow upstream against the people carrying baguettes). And so I close with a photo of dinner: lentils cooked with carrot and onion (from a can), soupe au pistou, spreadable cheese in two flavors, very fresh french bread from the last bakery open at 19h45, and for dessert (sorry, didn't have it out, and now I ate it), a flan nature (custard pie).
Bonne nuit!
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