What’s more, after your stroll, you can go into one of the cinemas and see a French film. It will almost certainly be about love. You might not understand the dialogues, but that doesn’t matter because if you’ve seen one French love story, you’ve seen them all. The dialogue goes something like this:
‘Je t’aime.’
‘I love you too, darling.’
‘But why did you sleep with that other woman?’
‘My love, it’s because you’re so perfect that I had to shag someone else to prove to myself that you’re real.’
‘Oh Pierre, you’re so poetic.’
‘Yes, and what’s more I wrote, directed and starred in the film, so I’m an all-round pretty amazing guy. And you do realize that, as a French actress, you are contractually obliged to get your kit off, so why don’t you start stripping while I have a quick smoke?’
Of course it won’t always be like this—if it’s a thriller, the guy will have a gun. But in any case, it’ll be French, meaning you’ll almost certainly get a naked love scene, as well as picturesque views of Paris to try and sell the movie to American distributors, so your evening’s romance quotient is bound to soar to dizzying heights.
Romance closer to home
The Bassin de la Villette is a bit of a trek out of the centre of Paris, so those visitors who want to stay central might prefer a more attainable venue for their romantic stroll.
There is, for example, the Palais-Royal, right opposite that other former royal palace, the Louvre. Not very original, some might say, but it is a peaceful spot just a few steps from the mad rush of the rue de Rivoli, a place to linger and whisper sweet nothings or, pourquoi pas, sweet somethings—Paris has always been a philosophers’ city, so there is no reason for lovers’ whisperings to be inane.
And these gardens were designed for Parisians who wanted to come and speak freely about love, life, politics and any other deep things that excite them. The arched galleries around the square were built in the 1780s for King Louis XVI’s brother, the Duc d’Orléans, who owned the palace and its park, but didn’t want to live there any more. So, just like a modern property speculator, he decided to maximize the value of his centrally located land by erecting some shiny new apartments and shops around the edge of the gardens. The King is said to have scoffed at his brother, saying, ‘So you’re opening a shop? Does this mean we’ll only see you on Sundays?’*****
The Paris effect. Before their stroll in the Palais Royal gardens, this couple hadn’t even held hands.
After the Revolution, the Duc d’Orléans actually became a member of the new, more democratic parliament and diplomatically changed his name to Philippe Égalité. He even voted in favour of Louis XVI’s execution. This didn’t save his royal neck, though, and he in turn was guillotined in 1793.
His gardens, however, had already taken on a lusty life of their own. They had become a popular strolling place because the Duke, a bit of a stirrer against his brother even before the Revolution, had declared the Palais-Royal off-limits to police. Parisians could come here to speak and act without fear of repression, and they did so en masse. The arcades housed fashionable shops, cafés and gambling clubs, and the gardens and the discreet galleries had quickly become a notorious cruising zone for prostitutes.
And it was here, on 22 November 1787, that an eighteen-year-old Frenchman experienced one of the most amorous moments of his life, which he recorded in some detail in his diary. The young Napoleon Bonaparte, then a recently qualified artillery officer, was up in Paris and feeling depressed, so he went for an invigorating walk at the Palais-Royal. Just a stroll through the gardens, you understand—he wasn’t looking for a temporary amoureuse. It was a chilly night, though, and after a while he turned towards the warmth of the cafés. In the arcades, his eye was drawn to a rather attractive girl. He knew she was almost certainly a prostitute, and, as he assured his diary, he ‘detested prostitution’,****** but the girl seemed timid compared to most of her brazen colleagues, and possessed a soft voice and pale cheeks, so he struck up a conversation with her. He told her that it wasn’t good for a frail young mademoiselle to be out all hours in the cold, asked her where she was from (Brittany) and how she lost her virginity (to an army officer), and then took her back to his hotel to lose his own.
These days, the hookers have all gone elsewhere, but if you find yourself strolling through the Palais-Royal gardens in search of tranquillity, it is touching to think that the amorous adventures of one of France’s greatest leaders began here. Later in life, under the weight of responsibility, he would become famous for telling his Empress Josephine ‘not tonight’, but something about the atmosphere at the Palais-Royal meant that on that November evening in 1787, he could think of nothing else but the joys of female company.
Martian fields
Another romantic strolling place in central Paris also has Napoleonic connections. The teenage Bonaparte was a student at the École Militaire, which is still a military college today, and he almost certainly performed manoeuvres on the former training grounds in front of the school, the Champ-de-Mars (named, of course, after the god of war).
The fact that this was where generations of French officers practised ordering their troops to march into hails of musket fire and cannonballs isn’t inherently romantic, of course, but today, these 780-metre-long gardens are a sort of strollers’ driveway towards the Eiffel Tower. At any time of day, and especially at night, as you walk from the École Militaire, the sheer proximity to the Tower gradually becomes breathtaking. Even at the start
