(Oh, that's our apartment on the top floor and in the next photo the entrance is in the building on the right with the yellow colored wall, just to the right of the red car.)
I left the apartment about 9:30 and walked down to line 6 at Nationale, which would take me right to Trocadero and the cemetery.
Spending about two hours or so in the cemetery gave me just enough time to complete my work here (unlike Père-Lachaise, where my work will probably never be "complete"). I had often wondered about the statue of a seated man locate din the small green space directly across from the cemetery entrance but had never taken the time to stop and actually investigate. This time I did.
It turns out that the green space is called "Square Yorktown," and the statue is of Benjamin Franklin; the street that separates the park from the Trocadero is Avenue Benjamin Franklin.
“On September 3, 1983, the bicentennial of the Treaties of Paris and Versailles which secured the peace and established the independence of the United States of America this tablet was offered by the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution as a grateful tribute to the architects of these treaties, who dedicated themselves to ‘The best of all works - the work of peace.’ Benjamin Franklin.”
Walking just a few meters to the rear of the park and located beneath a small grove of trees is a plaque that one can barely see from the street. But upon closer examination one reads that it was placed there by the the Daughters of the American Revolution on October 19, 1931 in recognition of those French soldiers who lost their lives at the battle of Yorktown fighting for American independence. The list is by regiment and then name.
I left the square and walked over to the Metro line 6 at Trocadero and at La Motte Picquet switched to the 9 getting off at École Militaire. From there I walked up Avenue Bosquet to Avenue Saint Dominique to meet up with Susie for lunch at Christian Constant's Les Cocottes. We had first eaten here in September of 2008 and the food was just as good this time around. Strangely enough I had the same dessert both times: Fromage Basque with blackberry jam (Constant is from the Basque part of France).
While she out in the morning Susie returned to our old neighborhood in the 5th to get her haircut at the same place we both used back in 2006-07; different name but same stylist.
After a leisurely lunch we strolled down Saint Dominique no. 67 and Karamel, a confectionary shop specializing in . . . (drum roll please) caramel treats. This was a recommendation from the wonderfully whimsical streaming series on Amazon Prime: "Alice in Paris."
Before we left the center of the city for home we had one final mission: my brother-in-law Dick who teaches history a a high school in Massachusetts asked me to track down the very last (?) copy of a French mobilization poster from World War One that was on the wall of one of the buildings on rue Royale. Sure enough we found it to the left of building with the red awning in the picture below. But there's more.
On the front wall of the building on the left facing the Place de la Concorde, the former Hôtel Coislin and once the home of the French Ministry of Marine is a plaque dedicated to the Treaty of Friendship and Commerce that signed in 1778 when France became the first country to recognize the independence of the USA.
The mobilization poster:
Susie and I said adieu to one another - she was off to Librarie Gourmand to spend some quality time browsing pastry books and I set off for home.
I made my way to the line 1 switching to the 5 and then off at Campo Formio and a short walk back home. I worked on the computer for a short while before going back out to Monoprix to pick up some chicken and mushrooms for dinner. Susie came home while I was out and we swapped stories about our various flânerie.
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