The bass note

One of our early, habitual delights after our arrival at the beginning of August was to wander, each evening, along the Paris Plages just over the road from our studio. Since 2002 temporary “beaches” have been installed along the right bank of the Seine for a month beginning in late July. (No you are not meant to bathe in the Seine, though I have seen a group of Parisian police swim, carefully suited, around the islands each morning). I wonder if Paris Plages is a consolation prize for the handful of Parisians who do not escape to the real beach or to rural France during the annual August shutdown. It has certainly been embraced enthusiastically by locals – and, indeed, was, more or less, a tourist-free zone. Tourists don’t normally go to Paris for the beach!

Along with the installation of sand there were umbrellas, beach huts, palm trees, sun lounges, ice creams, dancers, jugglers, free books to read. There was even a temporary swimming pool, though I didn’t try it out. Below the Pont Louis Philippe, our nearest bridge, there was a temporary bar and a series of courts for playing boules or pêtanque, traditionally the preserve of old men, but here played by all, young and old, men and women. Twice a week a honky-tonk piano and drum kit materialised and, along with the musicians, a group of ordinary folk hungry for a sing-a-long: no audition necessary, songbooks provided. This gathering flushed up some other talent too: a couple of tap dancing young women, and an older man singing scat harmoniously against the crowd (he even donated 10 euros for the privilege). There was a regular concession to les touristes (those of us who had strayed on to the beach) – a song which included several verses of “la-las”. We were very appreciative. A stone’s throw away at the town hall (L’Hôtel de Ville) there was a series of free concerts, including a lively evening of Breton (Celtic) inspired music which we loved, even though it rained.

For me, though, the experience of Paris Plages, already “a memory”, will forever be joined with the Feast of the Assumption. This feast, celebrated on 15th August, is still, in modern, secular France, a public holiday. And in Paris, whose cathedral is dedicated to Mary, Our Lady, this is a big day for the church.

The Feast of the Assumption is, of course, a challenging one for Protestants who already struggle with Mary. Pope Pius XII didn’t help by declaring Mary’s “bodily assumption” to be an infallible doctrine of the church. This is not the place to enter into the theological niceties of Marian doctrine (or the meaning of Pius’ statement), but I would say that I like much more the Orthodox Dormition of Theotokis, or at least the icon, which shows Mary’s dead body being reverenced on earth whilst simultaneously in heaven Christ nurses her soul as though she were his child. It is such a beautiful image of our own hope of resurrection.

So, with all our ambiguities about Mary, John and I set out on the Eve of the Feast of Assumption in search of the procession fluviale. There are to be two processions, where a much venerated statue of Our Lady would be taken out of the cathedral on a mini pilgrimage around her town – the first on the river (fluviale) on the Eve of the Feast and the second by foot on the following afternoon. It is a beautiful evening. It is also Saturday, so that le weekend is in full swing. A techno concert at the Hôtel de Ville is a magnet for the young. At the Pont Louis Philippe the honky tonk choir is in good voice, the boules are rolling, the beer flowing. Along the river banks (think stone, not grass here) picnics are underway. Food, wine, conversation, music. Cafés are bursting onto the streets and queues for Berthillon ice creams, the best in Paris, weave along the pavement.

Earlier in the day, the police had cleared us, and the other weekend-languid Parisians, out of a park along the Quai Saint Bernard in preparation for “an event”. We decided, later, that the procession fluviale must be starting there. So, at the advertised time, we head for the bridge nearest to it, Pont de Sully, at the southern end of the Ile Saint Louis. Here it is quieter. Just St Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris, guarding the entrance to its heart. We watch some ducks flying home for the night, the slender moon rising over the Panthéon, a birthday celebration on a roof top terrace, and two musicians tossing jazz into the evening light. No sign of Mary, but no matter, we think, this is paradise. So we trace our steps back across the island. Perhaps we got it wrong. Perhaps we blinked and missed it. Perhaps she’d stowed away on a batteau mouche with the tourists. The city is positively buzzing, but no one, absolutely no one, seems to be expecting a procession. When we reach the Pont Louis Phillipe we stop for a final wistful look down the river. And there it is: the procession fluviale. A tug throwing out search light fountains and a small thread of song weaving its way up the river; and then there is Mary, dazzling, at the front of a boat full of white-robed priests. They are carrying lantern shaded candles and the song grows into a melodious chant as they pass, smiling and waving, below our feet. And incense, the fragance of incense drifts up and around us. Another barge follows, again full of candle carrying pilgrims. And another, and another, making their way toward the Ile de la Cité, circling the island home of Notre Dame. In the air the song rises from the river as though it were the bass note of the entire symphony of the city. And just two words float through the language barrier, straight to the heart: “chez nous, chez nous” . . . at home, at home.

In the scheme of the world this bass note, the umbilical chord that connects us to the source of all being, is mostly unnoticed. A week later, as we crossed Pont Louis Phillipe en route to a Saturday morning market on the Left Bank, the bulldozers were scooping up the sand. The palms and the beach huts were being loaded onto trucks. And by the end of the week Paris Plages was, once again, a road, hurling commuters along the Seine. The rentreé, as the September return of work and school and politics is called, had begun.

I’ve never much felt an affinity to the notion of the eternal city, perhaps because I am such a lover of solitude and the bush. But here in Paris, in August, it didn’t seem such a bad idea. In the heavenly Jerusalem everyone will have an apartment on the Ile Saint Louis (with a view of the river and the cathedral). Berthillon ice cream will be free. And everyone can sing around an out-of-tune piano and tap dance. There will be eternal Paris Plages, and even the Seine, fed by the crystal fountain, will invite a swim.