Arthur Gillette has been digging into the history of Paris since he went there as a student more than 40 years ago. Actually, he says, “digging” is probably a misnomer – “munching” is more like it. Indeed, this city’s stories are less like a mine and more like an artichoke. First leaf – yum; ah, but there’s another leaf – double yum; and look, another, and another… After four decades he keeps munching and has yet to get to the heart!

On retiring a few years back from Paris-based UNESCO, the UN educational/scientific/cultural agency, where he (predictably) dealt with monuments, museums and other cultural heritage issues, he started guiding. Not as a show-off, he says, but for the pleasure of sharing what he’d gleaned and to help others discover Paris Through The Ages as he titled his palette, which ranges over sixteen two-hour strolls from “Lutetia – Gallo-Roman Paris” to “19-25 August 1944 – The Liberation of Paris.”

Along the way he feels he’s had probably less than his share of no-shows, inattentive babblers and grumpy yawners. Just as mercifully, his balades have been brightened by a number of unexpectedly happy incidents. It’s his privilege, he deems, to share a few with Paris Eiffel Tower News surfers in a series of vignettes.

To be guided personally, contact Arthur on: Armedv@aol.com

If you want to self-guide his itineraries, check the published map-guides of Paris Through The Ages on www.media-cartes.fr.

Oops! A Double Doctorate…

I waited patiently one morning by the Collège des Ecossais (Cardinal Lemoine Métro) to lead a gambol through “Learning in Paris: The University from 12th to 16th Centuries.” Ten minutes after the appointed starting time, a gentleman as breathless as well-dressed arrived. “So sorry to be late,” he panted. We waited a bit but the rest of the group didn’t appear. He courteously offered to cancel but I said no, why not do a solo?

While waiting, he announced that he was a Parisian-born agrégé d’histoire (read “double doctorate in history”). “Oops,” I thought dolefully, he probably knows a lot more than I do…” In fact, it turned out that he had never had the time to check his bookish knowledge on the ground. That walk took no less than four-and-a-half hours and was a real voyage of mutual discovery.

I picked up quite a bit of university-shaping contextual history from him. In turn, he grinned at some of my documented anecdotes, e.g. future Protestant reformer Jean Calvin and future Jesuit Order founder Ignatius de Loyola were contemporary students at colleges across the street from each other near the Pantheon. Did they meet during breaks from lectures; and if so what in heaven’s name (sorry: that should be Heaven’s Name) did they discuss?

The stroll ended in a bar near St-Germain des Prés, at the Pré aux Clercs – the “field” where Medieval “clerks” (university students) used to play pranks and… tennis. Fittingly, we toasted Robert de Sorbon, the 13th century royal chaplain who created the Parisian faculty still named after him.

Shopping? What “shopping”?

A Franco-American travel agent reserved my tour of “The Naughty Marais” (not for kids, that one) for two couples from Atlanta. I was to pick them up at their hotel at 10 a.m. sharp. As usual, I was there early and had time for a welcome coffee. Just after ten two blue-jeaned couples entered the lobby, speaking English with a drawl I’ve always found agreeable. “Atlanta?” I asked them. “Yessir, but we need a couple of minutes to freshen up.” “No problem,” I answered and had another cqfé express.

We then set off, and for about half an hour I had an audience fairly attentive to my comments and explanations. One of the gentlemen even took notes on such capers as the Marquise de Brinvilliers’ literally poisonous career, the gun-running to American insurgents managed during our Revolution by “Marriage of Figaro” author Beaumarchais from the hôtel particulier where he wrote the play later made famous in Mozart’s opera, and various amorous shenanigans of kings and nobility - foibles reeking of 17th century gender parity, let it be said.

Then, despite the note-taker, the attention of the other three began to falter. Spice as I might my commentary, there came barely-stifled yawns and glances heavenwards as if begging for deliverance from the Naughty Marais.

“Everything OK?” I finally asked.

“No way!” shot back one of the ladies. “When does the SHOPPING begin???”

It turned out that – as the travel agent had failed to inform me - there were two sets of two couples from Atlanta. The one that wanted to visit the Naughty Marais was taken...shopping.

Vive The Medieval Internet!

Among my favorite strolls are two (Right Bank and Left Bank) itineraries along the numerous vestiges of the city rampart built around Paris ca. 1200 A.D. by King Philip Augustus to protect his capital from the Plantagenet British. Its crowning glory was the Louvre, a fortress long before it became a palace. Never systematically destroyed, this Wall offers real hide-and-seek challenges as it wends its way through courtyards, street names and even one underground parking lot, physically defining Paris as she was 800 years ago.

I’ve spent much time verifying (sometimes erroneous) documentation on its path and am fairly sure of what I affirm when guiding people along its perimeter. Still, I know that I don’t know everything. So one day a couple of years ago I Googled on the Net and bingo! Up came a Website devoted to… the P.A. Wall!

The information thereon was, as far as I could tell, correct but somewhat incomplete. Through the “contact” link on the Site I sent a congratulatory Email to its Masters.

They immediately answered and asked if I could show them what I knew about The Wall. Soon thereafter we spent a mutually enriching afternoon hiking along its perimeter. A volunteer couple, Marie-Christine took notes and François wielded his digital camera, thanks to which the Site was completed.

After several hours, we went back to square one. There, I noticed the license plate of their car – the same number as the Paris suburb where I live. It turned out that Marie-Christine and François lived about 300 yards down the road from me…

“I Now Pronounce You…”

One late March Friday evening, a travel agent with whom I work as a guide telephoned me almost in desperation. “Gosh I hope you’re free tomorrow afternoon!”

I checked my agenda and said “No problem; for which stroll?”

“Well in fact, it’s not exactly for a tour. Let me explain…” Which she did.

And so the next day I donned suit and tie and strode as reverentially as possible into the gloriously ornate Salon Pompadour of the Hôtel Meurice, a most chic establishment on the rue de Rivoli.

There, a group of about 30 formally dressed young adults from Oregon plus a few seniors awaited me, one gal in flowing white and a gentleman in dinner attire, obviously a couple. After appropriately sober remarks, and in a hushed silence, and “by the powers invested in me by XYZ travel agency”, I… married them!

It turned out that the wedding had been planned for Paris months before, with friends and family onboard. At the last moment, however, the bride’s mother fell ill – nothing too serious, but she couldn’t fly. The tickets were unrefundable, however, and so the wedding party – minus Mom – came to Paris anyway.

Following my ministrations there was much celebration.

Then the couple returned to Portland and, in Mom’s presence, really got married.

P.S. That particular Saturday happened to be April 1st.

A “Noble” Surprise

My “Grand Century on the Ile St-Louis” stroll is fairly popular. I know the subject well, having lived there from 1972 to 1993, but on one visit I got quite a surprise.

Visitors I guide tend to enjoy the coherent and noble 17th century architecture of “The Island” as it’s known, and as if the Ile de la Cité weren’t one. And, then, there are so many scrumptious anecdotes to recount… How 14th-century King Louis IX took there an oath to crusade (whither he didn’t return – the plague? – but whence “The Island”’s name), the house-laden Pont Marie collapsed into the Seine in 1658, why the “Headless Woman Street” is not named for its beheaded statue (in fact of St. Nicholas), where one of the oldest Parisian tennis courts has been transformed into a chic hotel, where poet Charles Baudelaire kept his mysterious Black Venus mistress to hand but far enough away from the Hôtel de Lauzun (where he slept in an ornate coffin) to be able to receive other ladies (presumably not in the coffin)…

One problem in guiding on the Ile St-Louis is the darned door codes. Because if you haven’t seen a hotel particulier (townhouse) courtyard there, you haven’t seen “The Island.” Luckily, I do know how to take hushed groups into the courtyard of the superbly elegant Hôtel de Charron, on Quai de Bourbon, where symbolist art began to thrive thanks to painter Emile Bernard, and more recently inhabited by world-famed volcano specialist Haroun Tazieff.

On a recent visit to “The Island”, I could not but notice that one middle-aged woman in my group listened to my commentary a bit distractedly, silently and with occasionally pursed lips. I wondered what was wrong.

When we entered the courtyard of the Hôtel de Charron, however, she smiled and burst into comments about the de Charron family.

At visit’s end, she held out to me a visiting card. Her name was… de Charron.

Guide Tipping? An Antique Habit!

Admittedly, “Lutetia : Gallo-Roman Paris” is not my most frequented tour. There’s plenty to see and say, but the subject seems dry and arcane to many people.

Not long ago, however, I got an excited Email from Walter in Denver, a financial advisor whose hobby is Greco-Roman numismatics and who’d found me and descriptions of my tour on a Website. He and wife Herlinda had already visited the impressive Roman vestiges at Nîmes and Orange, he said, but now really wanted a walkthrough of what I could show them in Lutetia-Paris.

We began at the Arènes de Lutèce, wandered up to rue Soufflot, the East-West axis of the Roman Forum (of which the 1980s underground parking lot builders left only one hard-to-find smidgen) and down the Cardo Maximus (rue St-Jacques) to the Roman baths at the Cluny Museum. Then on to the St-Julien le Pauvre church, next to which a huge Roman paving stone from the Cardo Maximus is embedded in a wall (you have to know where to look).

As we ambled, Walter and Herlinda brimmed over with relevant questions and information, and made the stroll a real learning experience for the three of us.

At visit’s end, Walter paid me. As I started to say “Good bye” he held out a coin.

“Oh, no,” I said. “As a matter of principle I don’t take tips – and I’ve enjoyed this so much that nothing extra is really required.”

“Come on,” replied Walter. “Just have a look.”

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^* Paris-based Arthur Gillette guides theme- and period-specific strolls to help visitors discover “Paris Through The Ages.” If interested in taking one, or more, contact him on Armedv@aol.com.