Have you read Désirée by Anne-Marie Selinko?I read it when I was in school; I think it was the first really thick book I read.Yes, it came even before Gone with the Wind.I loved it so much that I read it again. And, I think, again.And then, I found an old, old copy of it at my grandparents' place, and how could I not read it again?It's the story of Napoleon's first love - the daughter of a silk merchant, Désirée Clary. When I read the book, all those things were just names to me. Marseilles, Stockholm, the Tuileries ...And then I went to Marseilles.There I was, thinking only about Alexandre Dumas and how close we were to the Chateau d'If. We went, of course, by metro. And guess what we found?It isn't easy to tell, but the second station on the line is Désirée Clary! … [Read more...]
An Old Lady in France
Having performed at Aix-en-Provence (close to Marseilles), and being readers of Dumas, we couldn't not go to Marseilles and visit the Château d'If. We had read and heard enough about it to want to go and see how picturesque it was. We went to the tourist office and found out what we were supposed to do. Excited and eager to set off, we stepped out of the office and unfolded the map we had been given, trying to find the the bus-stop. The map did not make sense to us at all. We looked up and around, trying to find places that corresponded to the map. We found none, so we turned the map upside-down to see if that would help. It did not.An old lady was watching our animated and amusing little drama, easily understanding what our problem was. When we turned the map upside-down, she finally came up to us and asked in that French accent that I've come to love so much, "Doo you need 'elp?"I … [Read more...]