Singing at the Crillon

I’m sitting in the Jardin d’Hiver in the Hotel de Crillon, reading George Orwell’s Down and out in Paris and London, waiting for Lauren to arrive.

"Nearly everyone hates hotels," says Orwell.

I look around at the Crillon. It is beautiful. Everything is polished. Each surface is reflective, dazzling. There is marble and glass, there are mirrors and, behind vitrines all around the shining walls, there are sparkling goods for sale: pearls, diamonds, platinum. In one vitrine, the original bill of sale for the hotel is displayed, sandwiched between two pieces of glass.

Lauren arrives.

"I’m sorry I’m late," she says. "It was the taxi driver. As soon as I said I was going to the Crillon, he started going all Socialist on me. He was like, ‘Oh, la crise! Et comment vous songez que nous allons la surmonter - les ouvriers?’ et tout ca*. Like I’m going to the Crillon so it’s my fault."

"You should have told him you weren’t paying. La Crise. Is that what they call the Credit Crunch in France? They don’t call it the Credit Crunch?"

"Well, they don’t call it the Credit Crunch, because they don’t really have credit."

That’s true. But I remember the graffiti I saw on the metro this afternoon, on one of those low-tech paper posters inserted into grooves in the ceiling of each carriage so that they hang vertically above the heads of commuters.

On the back of one, someone had scrawled,

100% CRISE!
NOVEAU!
LE PATRON ALLEGE PLUS SAIN
TOUTE DOIT DISPARAITRE!
PROMOTION!*

There are already soldes in the real shops too: 20%, 30%. In Paris, mid-season, this is very unusual.

Back at Le Crillon, after dinner, Lauren is about to leave when I remember.

"Wait. I have to show you something."

We ascend in the lift to my room.  Set into the lift walls, there are more jewels behind glass vitrines.

"Would you wear them?" asks Lauren, critically. Not this afternoon when I arrived, perhaps, but the more they are repeatedly shown to me, the more I find myself imagining the possibility of liking them.

We get to my suite, which is on the top floor of the hotel. I go to the window to draw back the curtains. At first they resist. We grope behind them to find the operating string.

"Be careful. After all, it wouldn’t do to break the Crillon."

We look out of the window. Below us is the courtyard of the Jardin d’Hiver.  We can see the roof of the front of the hotel on the other side of the cour hiding the Place Vendome. Beyond that, as far as we can see, stretches a sea of the toits de Paris, their reflective zinc frosted by the cold night air. Between the waves of roofs emerge the spires of churches, tower blocks, the Assemblée Nationale lit up in blue to celebrate France’s presidency of the EU. Floating up from the misty exhalation of Paris we can see the top of Les Invalides, flashing fire and La Tour Montparnasse and the Eiffel Tower itself. Everywhere French flags fly from the rooftops. Behind us, the air conditioning hisses as it turns itself up a notch. It is almost unbelievably beautiful.

Lauren feels impelled to sing the French national anthem. "Aux armes, citoyens! It makes me feel patriotic to sing it, even though I’m not French."

"It would make anyone feel patriotic. It’s a good anthem. Who was it who said that everyone has two countries, France and his own?"

"I think it was Jefferson" Marchons, marchons!
Qu'un sang impur - isn't that terrible? 'Impure blood'! How can they sing that?"

"It’s still better than the English anthem. That’s a dirge:
God saaave our graaaaciousss queeeeen.
Loooooooooong live our noooooooooble queeeeeeeeeeeen..."

"We have that in the States too, but with different words:
"Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride"
I like Rule Britannia."

Together, we sing:
"Rule, Britannia
Britannia rules the waves
Britons never never never shall be slaves!"

"How about, Jerusalem?" I ask.

"I don’t know that."

"It’s William Blake. It’s really erotic and radical:
Bring me my spear of burning gold
Bring me my arrows of desire.
(They sing it at Conservative party conferences, you know).
Bring me my (what? I’ve forgotten). Oh, clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!

We stand in the window and lean out over Paris, singing the two revolutionary anthems, from the lap of the Hotel de Crillon.

-Aux armes, citoyens !
-Formez vos bataillons !
-I shall not cease from mental fight,
-Marchons, marchons !
-Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,-Qu'un sang impur.
-Til we have built Jerusalem
-Abreuve nos siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillons !
-In England’s green and pleasant laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand!"

 

vitrine - display/shop window

Oh, la crise! Et comment vous songez que nous allons la surmonter -  les ouvriers?’ et tout ca - Oh, the Credit Crunch! And how do you think it's going to work out for us workers? and so on.

100% CRISE!
NOVEAU!
LE PATRON ALLEGE PLUS SAIN
TOUTE DOIT DISPARAITRE!
PROMOTION!

I guess this means
100% CREDIT CRUNCH
NEW!
THE BOSS IS LIGHTENING UP FOR BETTER HEALTH?
EVERYTHING MUST GO!
SPECIAL OFFER!

Comments

[Allure]

The Spanish anthem is even more patriotic...

(Oh Lord, I can't resist an easy/bad joke)

[badaude]

Well, I guess it wouldn't have been so noisy...

xb

[Allure]

I love the header idea, that's so kind of you! :)

[badaude]

That's ok! Just drop me a line to talk about it.
xb

[tcheni]

hi there!

Le patron allégé plus sain:

(Try our) more wholesome fat-free boss.

(As for le sang impur, the common deconstruction of this quite unpolitically correct line in the national anthem is that "impure blood" is actually french blood: La Marseillaise, written during the Revolution for the first contingent of conscripts in french history, glorified the fact that common men, peasants, could at last bear arms to defend la patrie when it had been la noblesse's raison d'être for centuries. Le sang impur would be then the blood of peasants, as opposed to the allegedly "pure" blood of nobles, which would after their death on the battlefield fertilize their own lands ("abreuve no sillons"): these wars were fought on french soil after all. It was a way of saying: by defending your lands, you're just doing what you always did and what your sons will do: cultivating.)

[badaude]

...certainly less offensive, though possibly a little pessimistic?
Like the healthy fat-free boss. We should all have one.

[brooklyn escort]

how about ISO boss-must be lightharder and fun..lol