Marquis de Lafayette

This French soldier was a passionate joiner in the American Revolution against Britain. He became lifelong friends with George Washington, even naming a son George Washington Lafayette.

This statue near Quai de Albert I and the Champs-Élysées was erected by the “schoolchildren of the U.S.”

This site says:

"A small subscription magazine booklet: The Mentor, Lafayette by Albert Bushnell Hart published in January 1918. It has a photograph of Paul Wayland Bartlett's statue. The statue is of the identical design to that which was placed at Metz by the Knights of Columbus in 1920. The caption with this photograph reads:

'The Childrens Statue of Lafayette. This statue, designed by the sculptor, Paul Wayland Barlett, was a gift to France in 1908, from five million American school children. It stands in a court of the Louvre, Paris.'

However, the statue was removed a few years back to make space for a modern pyramid of steel and glass cover to a staircase leading to a lower level entrance to the museum. The new location of this statue is along the Cours Albert 1er [right bank of the Seine], between the Pont de l'Alma and the Pont des Invalids, not far from the statue of Bolivar. It served as the focus of one of the 2004 Alliance Day Commemorations in Paris.”

Église de la Madeleine

Looking north from the Place de la Concorde, past this fountain, you can see the church dedicated to Mary Magdalene, at the end of rue Royale. Louis XVI was beheaded with the guillotine just near here in the square.



The Neo-Classical Église de la Madeleine is affectionately called "La Madeleine" by Parisians. There are 52 Corinthian columns around the edifice.





This statue inside is of Mary Magdalene's ascension. It was built in 1837 by Charles Marochetti.



The painted frieze shows Jesus and the disciples.

I posted about Mary Magdalene in May, just as the movie "The DaVinci Code" was being released. I mentioned this church briefly then.

Two separate plans for this church were scrapped, the first in 1776 and the second in 1790.Then Napoléon thought Paris needed a temple to his army, and commissioned it to be completed as that honorary building. However, that too was scrapped for the Arc de Triomphe instead. In 1814 Louis XVIII decided it needed to be a church, but it was almost redesigned into Paris' first train station in 1837. Since 1842 it's been a church. (Information found at http://www.paris.org/Monuments/Madeleine/)


In 1969 the Catholic Church admitted quietly that there was no biblical basis for Mary Magdalene being a prostitute.


Every day except Monday there is a flower market around the church.


Edouard Leon Cortes(1882 - 1969) Flower Market at the Madeleine, Oil on canvas

Tuileries Gardens

Please click on images for larger views.

view toward rue de Rivoli

The Tuileries Gardens are where you go to rest your feet after a long, tiring day. That is not to say the gardens are not a prime destination in and of themselves. But the location is so central, it's impossible not to want to sit and rest there after walking Paris. They begin where the Louvre leaves off, and stretch all the way to Place de la Concorde.

Looking toward the Louvre and the Arc du Carrousel. You can rent a sailboat and push it with a stick around the fountain.

Many mythological figures overlook the Tuileries

There is always ice cream.

And lunch breaks.

And naps.

Louis XIV, the Louvre and Bernini

Click on photos to see enlarged view.

Sculpture of King Louis XIV by Bernini, outside the Louvre

If you study the history of the Louvre (now the world’s largest museum at half a million square feet, but previously French monarchs' royal residence) you will get a pretty good summary of the history of France and Paris.

I, for one, am overwhelmed by all the kings named Louis and queens with “de Medici” at the end of their prenom. It will take time to study it all, but I want to start here with this beautiful sculpture outside the Louvre of Louis XIV by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Some random bits of information:

- The Louvre was first a moated castle with towers on a site called “the Louvre” (origin unknown, though there are theories) commissioned by King Philip Augustus (also known as Philip II, 1165-1223).

- Centuries later Louis XIV (1638-1715), the “Sun King” or “grand monarch,” ruled France 72 years! This is the longest reign of any French or other European monarch in history. It was under this Louis’ long reign that France’s presence was extended to the Americas, Africa and India.

- The sculptor and architect, Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) came to Paris from Italy for a few months to design a new east wing of the Louvre for Louis XIV, but the task ended up being completed by architect Claude Perrault. Bernini’s most famous work, perhaps, is in St. Peter’s basilica in Rome.

I’m sorry that’s all I have time for at the moment. It’s not much, but now I know a little more about the Louvre, one Louis, a sculptor named Bernini and his connection with Paris and the Louvre.

New tidbit found today (5-24-06) at http://artchive.com/artchive/B/bernini.html about the statue pictured here:
"the ostensible reason for [Bernini's] visit, was discarded and his great equestrian statue of the king [at top], eventually delivered at the end of Bernini's life, was dishonoured. Louis did not like it, got one of his hack sculptors to turn it into Marcus Curtius Hurling Himself into the Flames, and relegated it to the garden. There it slowly deteriorated until, in 1980, vandals damaged it so badly that it took eight years to restore. Three copies were made, one for the garden, one for the Louvre, and one for Jackson, Mississippi. The original is so weak it is stored away. Happily, Bernini knew nothing of these insults, dying in an odour of sanctity, having just sketched a projected Christ, which he did not live to sculpt. His chisel had not been idle for seventy five years."

Pavillion of the Louvre, at the end of the Denon wing

Paired up

You can click on all images for enlarged view.





Men cleaning under a bridge




Women in Square George Cain




Children in the Tuileries Gardens




Men on a bench near the Eiffel Tower




Man, Woman (and Dog) near Eiffel Tower

Mary Magdalene in Paris

May 19 the film “The DaVinci Code” will be released worldwide to church controversy. Many will boycott the film, because it goes against traditional church teaching about Jesus’ relationship with Mary Magdalene. (Since when do books and movies have to be based in fact? Well, but when you’re talking about the marriage status of Jesus, the figurehead of one of the world’s great religions . . .)

I had my own Paris adventure with Mary Magdalene in 2004.

That year I was reading the book The DaVinci Code at about the same time I was learning more about Mary Magdalene (MM) from a spiritual teacher I met. Before then I didn’t know, for instance, that MM and others of Jesus' disciples may have escaped persecution in the Holy Land to Provence.

Mary, the name of the spiritual teacher, told me I was a “Magdalene” in a previous life, a follower of MM who joined her in fleeing Israel to France. I don’t accept or deny this claim, nor do I feel any particular attachment to MM, other than to find her story interesting theologically and sociologically. (Was she really a prostitute? Or did church leaders over the centuries misrepresent her because her role in Jesus’ life was outside social norms and thus beyond acceptance and comprehension?)

But because of the claim that I was a Magdalene, and because MM was said to have settled in France after fleeing Israel for her life after her friend and lord Jesus was killed, I set out on an already planned visit to Paris in October with companions with the new intention of visiting the Church of the Magdalene (Église de la Madeleine) and paying attention to any statuary I saw of her elsewhere in the city. Perhaps she would speak to me?

Église de la Madeleine, or simply “La Madeleine” was originally built as a temple to the glory of Napolean’s army in the 1760s. But after the fall of Napolean, King Louis XVIII decided to use it as a church. In the apse there is a statue of Mary Magdalene that looks very much as though she is pregnant, interestingly enough. Unfortunately I don't have a photograph to post here so you can decide for yourself. But believe me, either she is bending back in a limbo position, or she has a large abdomen!

After touring La Madeleine, Ginnie, Donica and I went to the Louvre on Monday, believing we had hours to browse (always check updated “ouverture” – opening and closing times at museums; old travel books don’t always have the current hours). It is said that if you spent 10 seconds standing before every display in the Louvre, it would take two months to see everything. It covers half a million square feet. We had 45 minutes before the museum closed.

We decided to go ahead and do “Louvre Light” (Louvre EXTRA Light) and feverishly dash around to see the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory and Venus de Milo. Just before sprinting off to view these treasures, Donica noticed an enlarged photo of a Mary Magdalene statue on the Louvre map. Of course I had told my travel buddies about the “MM watch” and so we knew we had to go check out the statue.

Gregor Erhart was a 16th c. German sculptor who carved this gorgeous statue out of limewood c. 1500. From a distance, walking up the gallery toward her at the end of a long hallway, La Belle Allemande (as she is also called) is stunning in her life size elegance and quietude. But the true awe comes when you stand below her and gaze into her eyes, or rather, receive HER gaze. The only way to describe it (for when you feel it, it is indescribable) is to say that she comes alive, looks into your soul and communicates love and acceptance. How Mr. Erhart accomplished this I can’t comprehend. But I’m grateful to the museum designers and engineers who placed the statue at a perfect height to allow the effect.

Then, the museum was closing, and we had to leave, pulling ourselves reluctantly from MM’s captivating gaze.

Later in the week, we went back to the museum to see other rooms and displays, spending the two hours we’d anticipated on Monday. In spite of the intimate experience we’d had with her earlier in the week, we all agreed that we didn’t need to see MM again this visit. So we found the nearest elevator and began our exit from the Louvre. Reaching the lower ground floor (from where you enter and exit – under the glass pyramid), coming out of the elevator, we looked both ways to get our bearings, and there we were within a few feet of the Erhart MM statue! There she stood, bronze hair flowing, rose cheeks, mouth half smiling, eyes gazing down at whomever was standing beneath her. Stunned, we agreed that SHE wanted to say good-bye to US, and so, she did.


Photos courtesy Ginnie Hart and Donica Detamore