Jardin du Luxembourg

I know I’ve walked in the rain through Jardin du Luxembourg, but I can’t remember.

The octagonal pond

I never tire of watching children push their rented sailboats into the wind with a stick. They follow the journey of their boats as they sail across the octagonal pond, and then rush over to wherever it lands to give it another strategic shove. Fortunately, the children never tire of their sport.

Below, a boy’s sailboat bears Spain’s country abbreviation and flag colours.

Nothing digital or battery-operated for rent here:

The ogre of the Medici Fountain

The quiet, shady grotto of the Medici Fountain invites relaxation with a bag of macarons.

I like to know something of the history of a place. However, digging into the Medici Fountain’s complicated chronology of construction, ruin, and layers of renovations, doesn’t offer as many rewards as pulling the thread of the insanely jealous cyclops clad in bronze patina at the far end of the grotto.

The giant green cyclops looms jealously over Galatea (the river nymph whom he loves) and Acis (her mortal lover). The two lovers are rendered sensually in a white marble embrace.

Briefly: Galatea spurns the cyclops, who in a rage hurls a chunk of mountain at the fleeing Acis, killing him. But Acis gets the last laugh: Galatea transforms him into an immortal river god, who proceeds to split the colossal rock that killed him and to flow forth eternally as a mountain spring.

In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, this cyclops is a complicated monster. He boasts to Galatea that he owns herds of sheep whose mothers nurture their “well-warmed lambs” with “bulging udders.” Yet he himself neglects to tend his animals. He claims to love Galatea, extolling her virtues to the skies. At the same time, he despises her for not returning his love and calls her every name in the book.

The Greek gods, all too human.

The storied beehives of Luxembourg Gardens

One of these days, I’ll be at the right place at the right time to buy a jar of honey produced at the apiary of Jardin du Luxembourg.

Surprise movie filming in Jardin du Luxembourg

I was at the right place at the right time.

Sculptures of the Jardin du Luxembourg

Queens of France and Celebrated Women

Around the main gardens and the octagonal pond stand twenty statues of celebrated women (royalty, legends, muses). The statue of Marguerite de Navarre portrays the very image of thought.

She and her King-of-France brother supported artists, writers, and intellectuals. They also hosted a salon called “The New Parnassus.” Marguerite de Navarre herself was a writer of remarkable poetry and fiction.

In short, she was a key player in ushering in the French Renaissance.

Fountain-Cenotaph for Eugène Delacroix

To the lower right, Apollo applauds as the allegorical figures of Time and Glory swoop up to a bust of Delacroix to deliver palm fronds and a laurel wreath.

Monument to Paul Verlaine

Charles Baudelaire

Baudelaire, memorialized in stone etched with an excerpt from his poem “Les Phares” (“The Beacons”):

George Sand

George Sand (a.k.a. Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin) wearing her fem attire:

The Poet

Leconte de Lisle

Leconte de Lisle, a French poet born on the island of Réunion, receives a prominent cenotaph in the form of an angel carrying a bust of the leader of the Parnassian school of poetry.

Gabriel Vicaire (a.k.a. “Adoré Floupette”)

Under the campy pseudonym “Adoré Floupette,” Gabriel Vicaire collaborated with a fellow poet to publish Les Déliquescences (1885), literary satires of the excesses of symbolist and decadent poetry.

Aside: Sixty-odd years later, these two rapscallions inspired the Australian hoaxers who conjured up the fictitious life and works of Ern Malley.

Liberty Enlightening the World

Smaller models of New York Harbor’s Statue of Liberty keep popping up in Paris. Below: a copy of the bronze model that Auguste Bartholdi created while he was constructing the colossal statue:

Broken link of slavery: Le cri, l’écrit

Bronze sculpture commemorating the abolition of slave trade and slavery:

The Effort

Le Triomphe de Silène

Below, the boisterous tangle of arms and legs culminates in the flabby, naked, and sloshed Silène, foster father of Dionysus. Silène seems to be the only one carousing — the others struggle to keep his chaotic limbs astride his donkey, and get trampled in the process. Even babies crawl dangerously underfoot in this ludicrous orgy.

Note the smart kid feeding the donkey an apple:

The Mouth of Truth

According to an ancient Roman legend, the mouth of Truth will snap shut on the hand of a liar.

The Mask Vendor

At the base of the bronze statue are masks of illustrious French creative types: Corot, Dumas, Berlioz, Carpeaux, Faure, Delacroix, Balzac, and Barbey d’Aurevilly. In his left hand, the seller advertises a mask of Victor Hugo.

The Greek Actor

A young Greek actor rehearses his role, script in hand, his mask cavalierly pushed up so he can read his lines.

The blue bike

The impeccably manicured gardens

View from Tour Montparnasse:

Next: From Horse Slaughterhouse to Parc Georges-Brassens

Camille Martin