Paris Journal: Basilica of St. Clotilde

The Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, formerly known and the Ministry of Labor, is located in a former stately home called Hôtel Chatelet on the Rue de Grenelle. The front doors of the ediface have wonderful, polished brass door knockers that look like lions with their feet lazily crossed in front of them. In 2011, I photographed the door knockers and included them in my journal. They were in terrible shape then.

Bust of Antoine de Saint-Exupery in the Square Santiago du Chili

Now they look great, but there is always a security guard standing there so I don't feel comfortable photographing them. Here's a photo of one of them, from TripAdvisor.com. Such irony -- having lazy looking lions on the front doors of the labor ministry.

Something significant happened here in 1968. As part of the Grenelle Agreements (named for the street upon which this ministry resides), the minimum wage in France was increased by a whopping 35%! This was part of the strategy for trying to end the rioting.

I passed by those doors a couple times on my morning walk. I thought about the man who had the palatial home built, the Duke of Chatelet.

Looking toward the Eiffel Tower from Les Invalides.

The home was completed in 1776. The Duke was sent to the guillotine in 1793, so he had only 17 years to enjoy living there -- while the vast majority of the French people were suffering miserably.

The income inequality in pre-revolutionary France was staggering. I was doing some research on that topic today when I came across a shocking piece comparing what was happening in 1789 in France with what is happening in America today. This commentary from marketwatch.com was published in 2015, before the last presidential election. Now the economy is shaky. Look out.

The basic cause of the situation? The rich not caring about the poor. If only all rich people would do what Jesus said . . . .

More photos from this morning's walk:

Square Santiago du Chili in the early morning light. That's Les Invalides in the background.

Flowers from the garden behind the Basilica of St. Clotilde (above and below).

The restaurant Le Basilic in the greenery behind the Basilica (La Basilique) of St. Clotilde.

Place Bourbon, in front of the National Assembly building.

More views of the neo-gothic Basilica of St. Clotilde (above and below).

The Basilica of St. Clotilde is a fine 19th Century example of neo-gothic architecture, and a fitting tribute to a woman who greatly influenced Western culture by fostering the spread of Christianity, particularly in its Roman Catholic form. Clotilde (my 45th great-grandmother) lived from about 474 or 475 to 545. Her husband, Clovis I, had been a practitioner of Arianism, an early, non-trinitarian form of Christianity named after Arius (256–336), a Christian leader in Alexandria, Egypt. Clotilde convinced Clovis to convert to Catholicism in 496; he was then baptized by the bishop in Reims on Christmas day.

Memorial to César Franck (1822-1894), organist, in Square Samuel Rousseau, in front of the Basilica of St. Clotilde.

In Paris in 502, Clovis and Clotilde built the Church of the Holy Apostles. St. Genevieve would come to pray there, and so later the place was known as the Abbey of St. Genevieve. In the Middle Ages, it was a center of learning. Now it is the site of the 5th arrondissement's Henri IV high school, whose buildings include an old tower from the abbey, Tour Clovis.

Back to the basilica in the 7th -- In addition to its superb neo-gothic architecture, the Basilica of St. Clotilde (completed in 1846) has a magnificent Aristide Cavaillé Coll organ with 73 stops. The installation of the organ was overseen by the composer and organist César Franck. This organ (photo below) is famous for its sound, coupled with the great acoustics of the basilica.

After we enjoyed a visit in the interior of the basilica yesterday, we sat in the lovely square in front of it, bordered by Rue St. Dominique and Rue Las Cases. We'd never walked down Rue Las Cases before, so we did that, and were surprised to see a number of hotels particuliers (stately homes) among the apartment buildings.

Baslica of St. Clotilde.

One of the attractive building on Rue Las Cases had a for sale sign on a fourth-floor apartment. A few minutes later on Rue de Bellechasse, we saw the display windows for the realtor who has that listing, so we stopped to examine the postings. The place on Rue Las Cases was there, priced at an incredibly high 20,000 euros per square meter. So what should have been a 700,000 euro apartment (if it were in the 15th arrondissement, for example) is priced at 1.4 million euros!

As nice and quiet as Rue Las Cases is, however, we noticed that it does not include so many conveniences like a grocery, baker, butcher, green grocer, barber shop, café, etc.

Rue Las Cases in the 7th arrondissement.

We walked up to the Seine on Rue Solferino and crossed the river on the touristy and love-lock laden pedestrian bridge. Soon, we were in the deeply shaded part of the Tuileries, where we paused for a rest on a couple of those ubiquitous green metal chairs. I had the kind that is almost a lounge chair. It was so comfortable, and the wooded-and-ferny area there is so charming, that it was difficult to leave.

Eventually we did rise and walk across the Tuileries and up Rue Castiglione to the Place Vendome. We were surprised to see three very large façades covered in scaffolding there (with the artsy silk screened canvases covering the scaffolding, of course). So we just stood and looked at the graceful Place for a bit, then moved on.

View of the Seine from the pedestrian bridge near Rue Solferino and the Musée d'Orsay.

Nearby was a restaurant that I wanted to check out -- just to pass by and take a look, I thought, because I thought we'd be there far before the dinner hour.

The restaurant, called the Saint O, turned out to be attached to the Royal Hotel Saint Honoré on Rue d'Alger and Rue Saint Honoré. As we were looking at the menu posted in the window, Tom pointed out that it was already 6:30PM. I looked at the Lafourchette app and found that we could reserve at 7PM and get a 20 percent discount. So we did.

Fortunately, Tom was wearing a blazer and I was wearing a dress -- not that there is a dress code, but we felt comfortably appropriately attired.

Waiting for dinner in the Saint O restaurant on Rue d'Alger.

We spent the next 15 minutes sitting on a cushy sofa in the luxuriantly comfortable, air-conditioned lobby of the hotel, and then entered the restaurant for a drink before dinner. So we practically had the place to ourselves. Only two other tables were occupied when we left.

Why so few people, we wondered? The food was wonderful, the prices reasonable, and the service could not have been nicer. Signs indicated that the restaurant and hotel lobby had been recently refurbished (2017), and one review on the web referred to the restaurant by some other name, something like Café 221.

Sea bass with two kinds of buttery sauces, on a pile of softly cooked veggies.

Lafourchette had only 425 reviews of the place, with an excellent 9.2 average rating (out of 10 points). In a central area like this, I'd expect there to have been a couple thousand reviews.

So the place is new, or renewed, and we are among the early fans.

When we ordered our drinks, the server gave us a little dish of a spicy nutty snack mix; very American, I thought. Next came delicious, fresh sourdough bread and butter from the Poitou-Charentes region of France.

Salmon and long-grain rice in a béchamel sauce.

We asked for no starter courses. Tom ordered salmon with long-grain rice, and I ordered sea bass with veggies and a buttery sauce. We shared a chocolate gateau and profiteroles for dessert. All the food was absolutely delicious, and beautiful.

Chocolate gateau and profiteroles.

So we had energy to walk part of the way home. When we were well past our 5-mile goal for the day, we aimed for a nearby taxi stand. But I caught a taxi by calling out "Taxi!" to one that was passing by on Rue Solferino. This is not the way you usually get a taxi in Paris. I only did this yesterday because we were in a place where there was a space for the taxi to safely pull over to us, the taxi's windows were open, and because the traffic was very light. Normally, if we aren't near a taxi stand, we raise a hand to hail a cab from a bus stop, because that is a safe place for a taxi to pull over.

The taxi had a large sunroof and big windows, so we enjoyed the scenic ride home in the cooling summer air.

Here are more photos from the day: