house overlooking the park occupied by Aristide Saccard, there are gilded
railings, gold panelling, vast mirrors, gold upholstery and gold ceiling roses. The descriptive passages are constant, heavy and filled with so much gold you feel almost assaulted by it. I find
myself imagining a sort of nineteenth-century version of Roberto Cavalli’s yacht, all life-sized gilded porcelain panthers and circular beds covered in animal pelts on an inlaid Carrera
marble floor.
Leached of its original
nouveau riche
glitz, the Plaine Monceau feels chilly to me, even in the warmth of spring, even under the blossom-heavy trees in the park. Because if we turn left
out of the front door and walk for two minutes, which we do most days, we reach the heart of the Plaine, the Parc Monceau, which is the reason we chose the flat. The park entrance is marked with a
slate-topped rotunda and vast black and gilt gates, and beyond the gates is classic Parisian park territory, dusty gravel paths and neat flowerbeds, the lawns mined with sternly worded notices
about what is and is not acceptable. There are two children’s playgrounds, a sandpit, a string of fat ponies who walk slowly up and down the central alley bearing tiny children, a carousel, a
pond full of overfed Barbary ducks and a kiosk that sells sweets and balloons and crêpes. It is a wonderland of delights and we go almost every day. Within a couple of weeks I loathe the
place with the heat of a thousand suns. When I find out it was used for mass executions in the repression of the Paris Commune revolt in 1870, I just nod, with a complete absence of surprise.
The Parc, which also contains a profusion of weird statuary and follies, was originally designed by Philippe, Duc d’Orléans, the aristocrat whose passion for the Jacobin cause in
the Revolution caused him to change his name to ‘Philippe Egalité’, sit in the revolutionary National Convention and vote in favour of the execution of Louis XVI. For all his
republican fervour, Philippe was unable to escape the implacable, twisted logic of the Terror and faced the guillotine in 1793. Sometimes, on my gloomier days walking the sandy alleys and dodging
the uniformed guards when Theo escapes onto the outlawed lawns, I think about Philippe Egalité, complicit in, furthering even, his own downfall. Loving Paris feels a little like this at
times.
It is a warm spring, but there is no warmth, either literal or figurative, in the playground, which catches the wind and makes me anxious. We don’t fit in. I thought Theo’s yellow
oilcloth Petit Bateau coat was perfectly Parisian, but all the children here look like they have escaped from a nineteenth-century etching: they are exquisitely dressed in Bonpoint poplin and tweed
and none of them is coated in drool or breakfast. Their games are quite neat and orderly: they go the right way up the slide, then slide down, then do it again, and they make neatly levelled sand
pies. Theo is anarchic and fanciful and he tries to talk to them in English: none of this wins him any playground points and he ends up alone and frustrated most of the time. I have the advantage
over him in speaking French, but I am wearing Gap jeans, an old winter coat and trainers. I don’t even know where my make-up is: did it even make it through the move? It’s not as if I
need it. I have two tiny children and it’s the playground, for god’s sake, not a catwalk show, but Paris is worse than Leeds for dressing up, it turns out. Everyone has their face on,
shoes are shiny, the West African nannies are draped in immaculate outsized fake Louis Vuitton and Chanel shawls and no one, not even the grandparents in green loden coats reading
Le Nouvel
Observateur
, ever talks to me. The only consolation is that they do not talk to each other either. Usually my only interactions are in negotiating the return and fair distribution of toys,
which all the other adults ignore entirely. Once, though, a grandmother
railings, gold panelling, vast mirrors, gold upholstery and gold ceiling roses. The descriptive passages are constant, heavy and filled with so much gold you feel almost assaulted by it. I find
myself imagining a sort of nineteenth-century version of Roberto Cavalli’s yacht, all life-sized gilded porcelain panthers and circular beds covered in animal pelts on an inlaid Carrera
marble floor.
Leached of its original
nouveau riche
glitz, the Plaine Monceau feels chilly to me, even in the warmth of spring, even under the blossom-heavy trees in the park. Because if we turn left
out of the front door and walk for two minutes, which we do most days, we reach the heart of the Plaine, the Parc Monceau, which is the reason we chose the flat. The park entrance is marked with a
slate-topped rotunda and vast black and gilt gates, and beyond the gates is classic Parisian park territory, dusty gravel paths and neat flowerbeds, the lawns mined with sternly worded notices
about what is and is not acceptable. There are two children’s playgrounds, a sandpit, a string of fat ponies who walk slowly up and down the central alley bearing tiny children, a carousel, a
pond full of overfed Barbary ducks and a kiosk that sells sweets and balloons and crêpes. It is a wonderland of delights and we go almost every day. Within a couple of weeks I loathe the
place with the heat of a thousand suns. When I find out it was used for mass executions in the repression of the Paris Commune revolt in 1870, I just nod, with a complete absence of surprise.
The Parc, which also contains a profusion of weird statuary and follies, was originally designed by Philippe, Duc d’Orléans, the aristocrat whose passion for the Jacobin cause in
the Revolution caused him to change his name to ‘Philippe Egalité’, sit in the revolutionary National Convention and vote in favour of the execution of Louis XVI. For all his
republican fervour, Philippe was unable to escape the implacable, twisted logic of the Terror and faced the guillotine in 1793. Sometimes, on my gloomier days walking the sandy alleys and dodging
the uniformed guards when Theo escapes onto the outlawed lawns, I think about Philippe Egalité, complicit in, furthering even, his own downfall. Loving Paris feels a little like this at
times.
It is a warm spring, but there is no warmth, either literal or figurative, in the playground, which catches the wind and makes me anxious. We don’t fit in. I thought Theo’s yellow
oilcloth Petit Bateau coat was perfectly Parisian, but all the children here look like they have escaped from a nineteenth-century etching: they are exquisitely dressed in Bonpoint poplin and tweed
and none of them is coated in drool or breakfast. Their games are quite neat and orderly: they go the right way up the slide, then slide down, then do it again, and they make neatly levelled sand
pies. Theo is anarchic and fanciful and he tries to talk to them in English: none of this wins him any playground points and he ends up alone and frustrated most of the time. I have the advantage
over him in speaking French, but I am wearing Gap jeans, an old winter coat and trainers. I don’t even know where my make-up is: did it even make it through the move? It’s not as if I
need it. I have two tiny children and it’s the playground, for god’s sake, not a catwalk show, but Paris is worse than Leeds for dressing up, it turns out. Everyone has their face on,
shoes are shiny, the West African nannies are draped in immaculate outsized fake Louis Vuitton and Chanel shawls and no one, not even the grandparents in green loden coats reading
Le Nouvel
Observateur
, ever talks to me. The only consolation is that they do not talk to each other either. Usually my only interactions are in negotiating the return and fair distribution of toys,
which all the other adults ignore entirely. Once, though, a grandmother
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