Food for the Mind, the Body and the Soul

15 April 2008

After yesterday we thought it might be nice to do a bit of catching up this morning. I went and did some food shopping and Virginia went down to check her e-mail and take care of some correspondence. Rue Cyrano de Bergerac is a short street divided into two parts by a staircase. For us to do our shopping, the shortest route is down the stairs and a short walk to Rue du Poteau. Since the way back is mostly uphill, we often walk to the Mairie, across from which we can pick up the little electric Montmartre Bus which goes to the Place de Tertre and drops us quite close to the flat.

After lunch we headed off to the Chapelle de la Medaille-Miraculeuse. It was here, in 1827, that the young Catherine Laboure is said to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary. Since 1832, millions of medallions have been struck and these are said to have miraculous powers for curing the sick. Catherine was canonized in 1947 and visitors come from all over the world to pray before her remains and the chair in which the Virgin Mary appeared as well as the heart of St Vincent de Paul. We had heard that the chapel was always full and that was certainly the case today and, I might add, there was a sense that this was always the case.

Although the madallions are sold, they are very inexpensive and probably the price barely covers costs. One has a sense of a generous and caring community as there are public toilets readily available (and that can be very rare in Paris)and nuns and priests arriving with luggage obviously for a vist to a revered place. Alongl the wall leading to the chapel are the testimonials from those who have been cured or blessed.

Leaving there we moved from food for the soul to food for the body since L'epicere at Bon Marche is just around the corner and being in the neighbourhood we could hardly avoid stopping there. As I said in an earlier blog, it is an amazing food store; spacious and quiet and although busy there are no queues on checking out. Unlike Harrods, their prices are reasonable when compared with grocery stores like Monoprix and the service, quality of goods and general ambience is much, much better.

Having exhausted our reading material we wandered over to the San Francisco Bookshop where we picked up some more brain food before returning to the flat via a stop for coffee.



Virginia's greatest joy of the day is that in studying her grammar book she now purports to know the difference between c'est and il est. Do you? I think this is the kind of fine point of French grammar that I intend to ignore. And, unless you are very much the pedant, I suggest you not go there either!