clear and sunny, and after a half hour our toes and fingers stung with numbness. At the Palais Royal, we ducked into a restaurant for coffee and croissants and visited several shops. Mama bought each of us a wool shawl and herself a fox-fur pelisse. Then we boarded an omnibus headed in the direction of the Couvent des Dames Anglaises.
We were on our way to talk to Mother Superior about my reenrollment. At first, Mama had insisted I attend Sacré-Coeur, the most fashionable girls’ school in Paris. She thought hobnobbing with the mothers of little nobles would make her more elegant. But I had put up such a storm of protest at the idea of a new school that she finally agreed to send me back to the English nuns.
The omnibus clattered along the new asphalt boulevards, past the old, crooked side streets with their small shops and high shuttered houses. Fifteen minutes later, we arrived at rue des Fossés-Saint-Victor. We stepped to the curb and walked a block north. My eyes darted up and down the street in search of the convent’s entrance. Gone. In place of the dear old buildings was a vast triangular lot filled with rubble. Next to it, at the spot I gauged to have been the nuns’ mint garden, was a circular pit—what I later learned was the ruins of an ancient arena, the Arènes de Lutèce. The site had been buried for twelve centuries; no one knew it existed until the convent was destroyed.
I ran toward a group of men who were bowed under heavy coats, their breath steaming in the cold. They stood in the rubble, consulting a long scroll.
“What happened to the convent?” I cried.
“It was razed last month on orders from Baron Haussmann,” said one man. “We’re putting a street through here.”
“Where are the nuns?”
“I’m not sure,” said the man through his ice-spangled mustache. “I heard they were relocated outside Paris.”
The thought of never seeing Sister Emily-Jean again, of never playing in the lovely garden with the old wishing well and the statue of the Virgin, triggered a fresh sorrow, and tears sprang from my eyes. As I stumbled away, a shard of red glass flashed in the rubble beneath my feet—a piece of one of the chapel windows. I picked it up and put it in my jacket pocket.
Mama was standing on the corner with her small fists digging into her hips. “Well, I guess you’re going to Sacré-Coeur after all,” she said triumphantly.
“I’m not!” I shouted.
“You will do as I say, Mademoiselle.”
“I will not. You can’t force me.”
I ran toward the tree-dotted place de la Contrescarpe, past the flower sellers and the dingy cafés. I ran and ran, down the steep pitch of the rue Mouffetard, dodging pedestrians and baby prams. Two stocky matrons who were walking with linked arms cried, “ Mon Dieu!” as I sped toward them, and they swooped apart to let me pass.
“Mimi! Mimi!” Mama called after me. I turned and saw her about a block behind. She was running, holding her skirt up with one hand while she held on to her feathered hat with the other. I picked up my pace but tripped on my hem and stumbled in front of Plessy’s tobacco shop. A second later, Mama caught up to me and grabbed my jacket sleeve. She slapped me hard across the face. I slapped her back.
A few passersby, appalled at the sight of a mother and daughter publicly fighting, stopped and whispered to one another behind gloved hands. A tear rolled down one of the red stripes that blotched Mama’s left cheek. Her eyes burned into mine, and she spat her words: “I used to have a daughter.”
Over the next few weeks, Mama and I saw little of each other. Most days, I would stay in our tiny room, reading and writing letters to the family at Parlange. Mama wandered Paris in search of a permanent home for us. Eventually she settled on a large, elegant three-story house—a hôtel particulier —at 44, rue de Luxembourg, in the heart of the faubourg Saint-Honoré, a gleaming neighborhood of freshly paved
We were on our way to talk to Mother Superior about my reenrollment. At first, Mama had insisted I attend Sacré-Coeur, the most fashionable girls’ school in Paris. She thought hobnobbing with the mothers of little nobles would make her more elegant. But I had put up such a storm of protest at the idea of a new school that she finally agreed to send me back to the English nuns.
The omnibus clattered along the new asphalt boulevards, past the old, crooked side streets with their small shops and high shuttered houses. Fifteen minutes later, we arrived at rue des Fossés-Saint-Victor. We stepped to the curb and walked a block north. My eyes darted up and down the street in search of the convent’s entrance. Gone. In place of the dear old buildings was a vast triangular lot filled with rubble. Next to it, at the spot I gauged to have been the nuns’ mint garden, was a circular pit—what I later learned was the ruins of an ancient arena, the Arènes de Lutèce. The site had been buried for twelve centuries; no one knew it existed until the convent was destroyed.
I ran toward a group of men who were bowed under heavy coats, their breath steaming in the cold. They stood in the rubble, consulting a long scroll.
“What happened to the convent?” I cried.
“It was razed last month on orders from Baron Haussmann,” said one man. “We’re putting a street through here.”
“Where are the nuns?”
“I’m not sure,” said the man through his ice-spangled mustache. “I heard they were relocated outside Paris.”
The thought of never seeing Sister Emily-Jean again, of never playing in the lovely garden with the old wishing well and the statue of the Virgin, triggered a fresh sorrow, and tears sprang from my eyes. As I stumbled away, a shard of red glass flashed in the rubble beneath my feet—a piece of one of the chapel windows. I picked it up and put it in my jacket pocket.
Mama was standing on the corner with her small fists digging into her hips. “Well, I guess you’re going to Sacré-Coeur after all,” she said triumphantly.
“I’m not!” I shouted.
“You will do as I say, Mademoiselle.”
“I will not. You can’t force me.”
I ran toward the tree-dotted place de la Contrescarpe, past the flower sellers and the dingy cafés. I ran and ran, down the steep pitch of the rue Mouffetard, dodging pedestrians and baby prams. Two stocky matrons who were walking with linked arms cried, “ Mon Dieu!” as I sped toward them, and they swooped apart to let me pass.
“Mimi! Mimi!” Mama called after me. I turned and saw her about a block behind. She was running, holding her skirt up with one hand while she held on to her feathered hat with the other. I picked up my pace but tripped on my hem and stumbled in front of Plessy’s tobacco shop. A second later, Mama caught up to me and grabbed my jacket sleeve. She slapped me hard across the face. I slapped her back.
A few passersby, appalled at the sight of a mother and daughter publicly fighting, stopped and whispered to one another behind gloved hands. A tear rolled down one of the red stripes that blotched Mama’s left cheek. Her eyes burned into mine, and she spat her words: “I used to have a daughter.”
Over the next few weeks, Mama and I saw little of each other. Most days, I would stay in our tiny room, reading and writing letters to the family at Parlange. Mama wandered Paris in search of a permanent home for us. Eventually she settled on a large, elegant three-story house—a hôtel particulier —at 44, rue de Luxembourg, in the heart of the faubourg Saint-Honoré, a gleaming neighborhood of freshly paved
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