The Quatorze Juillet(the French do not call it Bastille Day; it’s this or the Fête Nationale) began breezy and eerily quiet. Almost everything shuts down—with the notable exception of restaurants and cafés in heavily touristed areas (so, much of the city, still). I was going back and forth about where to go to watch the fireworks much, much later (they begin at 11:00 P.M., 23:00; it doesn’t get dark until after 10:00/22:00). I had no intention of going to the military parade down the Champs-Élysées at 10:00 (A.M.), sun and guns and Macron and all. But as it began, fighter jets screamed low overhead, as they had in rehearsal yesterday, exiting stage—left, I guess, after making their tricolor trails. Shortly after that, I could hear helicopters (I’m at home, minding my own business (more or less), trying to make breakfast). So I leaned out a window in time to see waves of big military helicopters appear in threes, small in the west and then clattering overhead, a couple of dozen or so in all. I wasn’t the only gawker on the street watching.
I did eventually watch some of the parade on the internet, for the hell of it. It was a military parade. I hemmed, and hawed, read reams of advice and suggestions about the fireworks. Shortly before noon, I set out to personally take the pulse, to get my own read on how the day felt. The sun was beating down, but it was breezy enough that it was the coolest day since I’ve been here. Before I could get over to the Right Bank, tinny trumpets blowing a fanfare at the Hôtel de Ville, straight across, of course grabbed my attention. It was the large cavalry contingent from the parade, making its way back to wherever it’s headquartered. I speedwalked across the Pont St.-Louis and the Pont Louis Philippe, hoping-hoping-hoping not to miss them. But there were a lot of them, strung out along the Quai de l’Hôtel de Ville, moving steadily east but not rushing, so in the end I managed to stand close enough to touch them. And to capture a short video of them passing, bearing their elaborately red-uniformed and helmeted riders.
I walked then a couple of long blocks along the river, westward. It really was festive: swarms of people out, also walking, a sort of giddiness in the air. Every few minutes I would encounter yet another group of uniformed participants from the recent parade, off-duty, walking briskly in the opposite direction. Behind the Hôtel de Villethere were a lot of white-uniformed (I’m guessing navy) people milling about with, I assume, their families.
I went down one of the long stone stairways after I’d passed there, to stroll along the summer-only Paris PlageI’d seen only in pictures: food stalls, umbrellas, lounge chairs with people (I know; incredible) sunning themselves. A two-mile stretch along the Right Bank has been closed to traffic and designated a pedestrian (and bike, and scooter) park full-time, the Rives de Seine, for a couple of years, now, with small playgrounds and seating areas.
As invariably happens, of course, more walking than intended ensued. There aren’t stairs at every bridge, and I was to the Pont (Passarelle, because it’s a footbridge) des Arts before I could get back up, quite warm despite the cooler weather. Though it was cool and certainly echoey walking under the stone of the Pont Neuf. And then walked back, along the Left Bank, amid ever-growing throngs. Bands were setting up, beginning to play, in various places.
The afternoon passed with resting and cooling off and agonizing about the best place to view the fireworks. The best place, of course, would be the Champ-de-Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower—which would entail arriving hours in advance to stake out a picnic/viewing spot on the grass. In the sun. So, that wasn’t going to happen. My original idea had been just to watch them from Montmartre, Belleville, somewhere up high, from a distance. But then I began to regret that in advance, knowing this might very well be my only time to see them, and wanting to be closer.
In the end I decided (viewing the—view, so to speak, via the internet) I would stand on a bridge, the Alexandre III or the de l’Alma, I hoped, the closest ones. Which gained nothing in terms of needing to be there early to get a spot. So about 8:30, dressed for walking—because many of the normally logical Métro stations were closed for the duration (as they’d been in the morning, for the parade: different ones, then)—I set out. The internet had informed me the Alma-Marceaustation would be open. In the packed train, though, it became increasingly clear that it was not, because it was not lighted up on the route map. I had to make a quick decision before going irrevocably far (because if it was in fact closed, I would wind up way to the west, across the Seine, and have to retrace my steps). Other groups of people were worriedly asking what the signs and portents meant. I offered, as I prepared to exit the train and take another line that would get me at least to Invalidesstation, on the Right Bank at the southern end of Pont Alexandre III, my unsolicited advice to get off, now, and take line 8 instead of the 1 we were on—and then I was out, and hustling along the platform to get a different train, marveling as I did that I—partly from having studied a couple of routes before setting out, and partly just from omg familiarity with a few lines, now (I’ve taken 8 many times in the other direction, to the rue de Charonne area, beginning when I first started going to Spoken Word, for instance, or to various restaurants)—knew what I was doing (!).
When I emerged from underground at Invalides, of course, only the first phase was over. I’d never been in that area. The only time I’d walked across Pont Alexandre III, I’d taken a right and walked along the river to the tower. What’s there, on the southern bank, is a big grassy area, that this evening was rapidly filling with people (guys everywhere hawking bottled water and bottles of wine for the evening). As was the long bridge behind them. Besides, it was immediately clear it wasn’t really a very good viewing spot at all, except for maybe the aerial displays. The tower wasn’t even visible (from the field, not the bridge).
So I set out walking, thinking surely I could do better.
The Pont de l’Alma was jam-packed when I came to it. I was already beyond that anyway, mentally. I wanted to see, now, as much as I could. I walked, and I walked, and I walked—briskly, as the sun was going down, and there was a growing sense of anticipation (though not by everyone; many people still meandered along, as if not sure what they were doing out of doors, walking, at that hour). At length we came to a dead end where everything was blocked off, all along the access to the Champ-de-Mars, so turned left—and kept walking. Here the crowd quickly began to increase, and increase.At the fenced-off entrance point, the street that bisects the park, dividing the Champ-de-Marsproper, the grassy area, from the tree-filled park in front of the École Militaire, there of course was a bottleneck, as security searched every purse and bag, and frisked each person entering. (I’ve omitted the fact that, all day and everywhere, there was even more security than usual, armed soldiers patrolling in threes and fours.)
And then, to my astonishment, I was there. The tower soared above us, right there. I didn’t try to get onto the Champ de Mars, overcome that, in the end, I’d gotten this close, close enough to see the whole thing. People had spread blankets all over the median of the closed street, even all over both parts of the street itself. In the distance, right in front of the tower, the orchestra was playing most of Carmenat that moment, visible to us in the back on a huge screen.
I hadn’t brought a single thing to sit on (I’d thought I would be standing on a bridge!), to eat, to drink (I was a little nervous about the availability of restroom facilities, anyway. Everything I’d read had pointed that out as a flaw in the plan of staking out a place early). I plopped down between two or three groups, on the pavement, still stunned at what had happened, completely unforeseen.
And then we waited. We waited for over two more hours. Periodically I would stand up to stretch; pavement is hard. The orchestra played, excellently, an assortment of familiar crowd-pleasing tunes. World-class opera singers sang. People kept pouring through the gates, eventually filling all the discreet spaces between those of us already there, so that we were packed in: the street, the median. A bunch of young latecomers discovered a ladder behind some sort of shed, past a chainlink fence along the Champ-de-Mars, and proceeded to climb the fence and then the ladder, to sit on the roof. People were on lamp posts. Looking behind us, I was stunned to see the thousands and thousands of people just in that area, without even seeing the Champ-de-Mars itself. (Looking that way, behind, I could also see the moon, two days from full, gloriously rising.)
I knew, not just from the hour on my phone, and the sun having spectacularly set behind the tower, that it was almost time, but by the orchestra launching into The Marseillaise.We sang along. It was thrilling, even though there were two lines I couldn’t remember. (For some reason, a few minutes later, they played the anthem again.)
I never need to see fireworks again. This show was so beautiful, so inventive, so clever. Much of the musical accompaniment was very current popular music, that young people readily knew. Some was classical. Some shells opened into shapes: hearts, during an “I love Paris”-themed portion; smiley faces; and so on, or into the colors of the French flag. There were parts that were thunderous. During high, haunting soprano parts, ethereal sprays of gold opened almost silently and drifted away. Dazzling light shows ran up and down the tower. You—I—didn’t want to look away, to miss a single thing. The show lasted a long, long time, mesmerizing and dazzling.
We had scarcely cheered and applauded, when we, all our masses, heaved ourselves up and began trying to leave. Toward the end of the show there had been a steady stream of people departing early to avoid the rush. Great numbers of people peeled away in various directions, but there were still hundreds in the same general vicinity. I supposed the École Militairestation would have reopened, now that the fireworks were over, but not that many people (relatively speaking) seemed to be heading in that direction. At one point a Scottish man asked me whether we were headed that way, and I told him I had no idea (I knew, approximately, where it should be, but had been that way only once before, and at that point felt we had surged past it already—without walking actually toward it).
But having made that turn in its direction, and walking for a while, I came upon it almost dead on—it and the mob, hundreds strong, trying to get into it. The logical thing to do would have been to patiently creep forward. But oh, no, there was really energetic pushing and shoving going on, nonstop, people elbowing past until I really felt we were a moment or two away from some soccer stampede. Being a jaded old lady, I finally began snapping at pushy oafs, saying (in French, mind you) “Don’t push!” or, to one very tall and solid young man, “Do you think you’re more important than anyone else?” (to which he replied, I kid you not, that someone had pushed him).
After an interminable amount of this, I finally managed to thread through and around the main mob (not pushing anyone), and was able to look down over railings at what should have been the Métro entrance, to see that it was locked and guards were turning people away. It reminded me of the scene in the movie Titanicwhen the people in steerage are pleading to be let out through a locked gate. Thoughts of various alternatives darted through my head, including walking far enough to be able to summon a cab—but then I realized that the entrance across the street appeared not to be closed, as in, people were going down into it and not coming back out.
So I crossed, went through a turnstile normally, and was on my way home. Exhilaration and the adrenaline from the nerve-racking mob experience had faded into exhaustion. It was around 3:00 A.M. by the time I got home with my memories.
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