James awoke at 6:30 am and went on an 8-mile run through the Parc de Bagatelle. I woke up at the leisurely hour of 10:30 and donned a bell-shaped blue dress covered in roses and brambles. Our family had croissants and apple tatin. We had planned to have James, dad, and my brother Alex go to the Catacombs, while mom and I went to the Musée de Cluny, the medieval museum. Unfortunately, both were closed, the prior due to strike, and the latter due to restorations. Instead, we went straight to Notre Dame, built in 1163, to gaze upon the towering stone arches, circular stained-glass window panes, and candle-lit portraits, and inhale the incense so familiar at every church, surrounded by a resounding calm.
We went on the Sainte Chapelle, and the royal chapel was indeed one of the most beautiful places I’d ever been. A rainbow of lights, shining stained glass reflected the sun’s rays streaming through the arched windows. It was like stepping into the Middle Ages, with paintings of women in medieval garb and stone engravings of Noah’s Arc and Adam & Eve.
We then walked to the Concierge, where Marie Antoinette remained imprisoned until her death. A waterfall from the River Seine fell in the largest limestone chamber, and turrets spiraled into the sky as winding staircases unveiled the cells of prisoners. A chapel stands where Marie Antoinette’s room once was, a white marble table over the place her bed was said to be. Glimmering in candlelight, this black-curtained chamber felt entombed, marked with the relics of her final hours—her stained chemise, a lock of hair, a worn chair—fragments of a life once bedecked with finery. She was made into a monster by the people, a martyr by the nobility, yet who really was Marie Antoinette? A girl sent spiraling into the court with no real control over her life, confined by rules and etiquette, finding solace in fine gowns, lustful trists and yes—cake. I felt remorse for Marie, who as a small, scared girl at the age of 15 had left behind the only home she’d ever known in Austria to join the Palace of Versailles and become the doomed dauphin and eventual Queen of France. Marie Antoinette’s legacy would live on in her one surviving child, Marie Therese, handed over to the Austrians in exchange for French prisoners of war.
Heading back to Notre Dame, we climbed the spiraling staircases, winding our way up through passages and hearing the bells chime on the stroke of 5 pm. James and I reached a wooden platform in the bell tower and gazed downward at an endless stretch of crisscrossing beams. Gargoyles, carved drain spouts designed to carry away rainwater, and chimeras, fantastical beasts, perched atop stone corners. The stryga, a mythical bird, looked out upon Paris, contemplating the mist-strewn Eiffel Tower and rows of apartments. There were a host of other creatures, including a griffin, heron, elephant, gnome, and wyvern, a winged dragon. We then climbed even higher to the rooftop of one of the towers, where a view of all of Paris befell us: Montmartre, the Pantheon, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triumph, and the winding river Seine.
