Se reposer sur ses lauriers

Lately, I’ve been writing about our late summer trip to Québec City. You can’t think of Québec without also thinking of the Château Frontenac, the huge hotel that dominates the skyline. It was designed by American architect Bruce Price at the end of the 19th century. It was one of a series of hotels built to look like European châteaux by the Canadian Pacific Railway in order to encourage rail tourism by the wealthy. It has been expanded on over the years. The hotel was named after Louis de Buade, Count of Frontenac, a 17th century governor of New France. It was the site of a 1943 war conference between Churchill, Roosevelt, and Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King. A decade later, it was used as the location for a Hitchcock film, I Confess.

The hotel was sold to the Fairmont group in 2001 and the hotel was re-baptized Fairmont Le Château Frontenac. The iconic hotel was sold again in 2011 and a multi-million dollar roof replacement project got underway. The work was still in progress when we visited.

Over the years, going out for afternoon tea has been a special treat for our family and we thought that tea at the Château Frontenac would be a great way to mark our time in Québec. I must confess to being a little disappointed. The Café de la Terrace had a wonderful view overlooking the Terrace de Dufferin. It was, however, in need of restoration, although probably not as much as the roof. The banquettes were a little shabby and worn. I couldn’t fault the quality of the service, however.

Our waiter was most attentive throughout our tea time. He started off by having us inhale the fragrance of a dozen canisters of tea and talked about the attributes of each. The weather was cool and damp while we were in Québec, so opted for hot chocolate to warm myself up. That was my mistake. The chocolate wasn’t very good and it wasn’t hot, but my husband and daughter were pleased with their tea selections.

The tiered plate was layered with sandwiches below and then scones and tiny cakes and other sweet morsels above. The presentation was very attractive, but the flavor and freshness wasn’t always of the highest quality. The paté reminded me of Underwood’s Deviled Ham (yuck!) from lunch boxes of old. I felt like that the sandwiches had been prepared well in advance and left to dry out. The scones were quite delicious, but mascarpone cheese is not clotted cream! The bite-sized cakes were prettier than they were flavorful.

Frankly, I just didn’t think this high tea was worth $37 CDN a person. I’ve had far nicer teas for a much more reasonable price. It may be one of the most beautiful hotels out there, but I think they’re resting on their laurels a bit. This expression in French is “se reposer sur ses lauriers” (suh rep-o-zay soor say lor-e-ay). I had been really looking forward to a special event at this landmark property, and I’m sorry to give it such a tepid review.

Frommer’s Montreal and Quebec City

Le flétan poêlé (onequalitythefinest.com)

l’Escalier casse-cou

Lately, I’ve been writing about our trip to Québec City. Vieux-Québec is the oldest part of the city within the ramparts. The first time I visited it, I felt like I was in Saint-Malo, due to the stone buildings and narrow streets that wend their way through town. It’s no wonder it was been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Old Town is further divided into the Upper and Lower Town. The two are joined by l’Escalier casse-cou (les-kal-e-ay kass koo), or “Breakneck stairs,” so named for their intimidating steepness. There is, however, also a funicular if you don’t do stairs. Nestled near the Saint Lawrence River, the Basse-Ville, or Lower Town, is the oldest commercial district in the New World. This is where you will find one of the prettiest neighborhoods, le Petit Champlain, home to our favorite breakfast stop as well as many charming boutiques. (There are also a vast number of tacky T-shirt and souvenir shops, but they’re rather like fruit flies – pesky and prolific, and drawn to the sweetness of tourists’ wallets.)  You will also find the historic l’église Notre-Dame-des-Victoires (the church of Our Lady of Victories) on the Place Royale, the port, and a highly detailed mural of the history of the city.

Also in the Lower Town, but on the other side of the promontory facing the port is rue Saint-Paul. We liked it’s slightly bohemian flavor of independent coffee shops, antique shops, and artisans’ boutiques.

The Upper Town, or Haute Ville, was always the governmental and administrative hub of the city, due to its strategic perch high above the river. Probably the most famous and recognizable building in the city is the imposing Chateau Frontenac, a rather splendid historic hotel. I’ll talk about it in detail another day. The Terrace Dufferin is a broad boardwalk in front of the hotel that provides a wonderful vista over the river. Near the Chateau, on the other side, is the basilica Notre-Dame de Québec.

Around each corner, in fact, there is a pretty streetscape, a charming shop, or an enticing restaurant. Whether you visit in October for the fall color, in February for the festivities of Carnaval, or in summer to enjoy the long days before watching the moon rise over this 405-year-old city, I’m sure you’ll be as enchanted as we were.

Frommer’s Montreal and Quebec City

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Le soie

One of the most charming areas in Québec City is le Petit-Champlain. It’s full of charming little boutiques where you can find something special for yourself or as a gift. One of the prettiest boutiques is Le Soierie Huo, filled with beautiful, hand-painted scarves.

Dominique Huot and Hugues Beaulieu create the majority of the colorful squares at their home in nearby Lévis but can often be found painting in their shop at 91, rue du Petit-Champlain. Le soie (luh swah) means “silk” and you will certainly find plenty of beautiful silk scarves here, but you will also find fine woolen ones as well as men’s ties.

The scarves are a riot of colors. Some resemble a watercolor painting while others feature hand-painted flowers or stenciled leaves. Adding salt to the painted surface gives a dappled edge.

 

Many of the scarves feature a genius clip in a matching fabric. If you would like to wear a scarf with the insouciance of a française but feel that you can never pull it off, the clip will remake how you feel about yourself. They slip a handy guide for a variety of ways to wear your scarf into each bag. If a visit to Québec City isn’t in your near future, you can order on-line here.

 Frommer’s Montreal and Quebec City

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Virgule

Virgule, Etc. is the name of the retrospective exhibit at the Palais de Tokyo that celebrates the contributions of French shoe designer Roger Vivier. The exhibit is set up as though it were a permanent museum dedicated to shoes. Intermingled with shoes from the company’s archives, the musée de la chaussure in Romans, France, the Bata shoe museum in Toronto, and the Metropolitan in New York are copies of works from the Louvre or the Prado that inspired the designer.

 

Vivier began his career in the 30s and the 140 pairs of shoes in the exhibit follow the arc of his designs. He saw shoes as sculpture and he never ceased to question how the basic design could be tweaked. “Lines have always enthralled me,” he said. “I’ll re-sketch my drawing five hundred times to check the exactness of the idea and respect the foot’s architecture.”

The heel of a shoe received Vivier’s particular attention. He launched the stiletto in 1954, the “Etrave” in1958, and the “Choc” in1959. But is it the “Virgule” (veergool) that is most indelibly associated with the brand since it first punctuated a pump in 1963 when Vivier launched his own brand. Prior to that, he had collaborated with Christian Dior and other designers.

Some of the well-heeled women who have worn Vivier’s creations include Queen Elizabeth for her coronation, the Duchess of Windsor, Princess Soraya of Iran, Marlène Dietrich, Elizabeth Taylor, Jeanne Moreau, Brigitte Bardot, and Catherine Deneuve. She wore his flats with the square silver buckle in her film “Belle du Jour” and suddenly flats were as sexy as high heels.

After Vivier’s death, the popularity of the shoes declined. But creative director Bruno Frisoni gave the heels a lift when he took over in 2002. And when the embodiment of Parisian chic, Inès de la Fressange, began kicking up her heels as the brand ambassador, Roger Vivier was re-born. Now a whole new generation of style icons, such Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Nicole Kidman and Julia Roberts are regularly photographed wearing Roger Vivier shoes.

PALAIS DE TOKYO
13, avenue du Président Wilson,
75 116 Paris

From now until October 21 - 12:00 to 21:00
From October 23 to November 18 - 12:00 to midnight

 Roger Vivier

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Il sait tout, mais il manque d'inexpérience

French composer Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was born in Paris on October 9, 1835. His father died while he was a tiny infant, leaving him to be raised by his mother and a great-aunt. It was this aunt who introduced him to the piano when he was only two. The little prodigy was reading and writing at age 3 and had a solid grounding in Latin by age seven. He composed his first piece for the piano at age four. His first public concert was at age seven. This was no little music-class recital; he accompanied a Beethoven violin sonata! Saint-Saëns first solo recital at age ten was at the mythic Salle Pleyel. The program featured a full Mozart Piano Concerto, among other pieces. For his encore, he said he would play ANY of Beethoven’s piano sonatas WITHOUT music! This feat made Saint-Saëns a sensation across Europe and even in the United States.

Saint-Saëns studied organ and composition at the Conservatoire de Paris. The symphonies he composed while still a student were hailed by the music community. Hector Berlioz wittily said, Il sait tout, mais il manque d'inexpérience (eel seh too, meh eel mahnk din-ex-pear-e-anse), which means "He knows everything, but lacks inexperience." To make a living, he played the organ at various Paris churches, including many years at the keyboard at la Madeleine where he IMPROVISED a new composition each week. In addition to being a musical genius, he was also passionate about many branches of science, philosophy, and the decoration of Roman theaters. He also wrote plays and poetry.

The personal life of Saint-Saëns was dramatic and tragic. He married a young woman who was half his age and they had two sons together. The boys died within a few weeks of each other: one of a childhood disease, the other due to a fall from a window. Saint-Saëns saw the disaster unfold, but he was unable to save the child. The composer blamed his wife; one day, he simply walked away. The couple separated, but never divorced. He rambled from one exotic country to the next, and wrote his travel memoirs under the penname “Sannois.” He eventually settled in Algiers where he died of pneumonia on December 16, 1921. His body was brought back to France where Saint-Saëns was honored with a state funeral at the church where he played the organ for so many years. All told, he composed over 300 pieces. Ironically, his greatest musical triumph, The Carnival of the Animals, was only published in full after his death, because he thought it would undermine his reputation as a serious composer.

 Carnival of the Animals book and CD

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Le Roi Citoyen

 

Quick. Name the last French king.

 

If you said Louis XVI, you’d be wrong. The final king of the French, Louis Philippe I, was born on October 6, 1773 and reigned from 1830 to 1848. He was a young man during the turbulence of the Terror. As a member of the Bourbon line, Louis Philippe fled abroad, where he lived in exile in various European cities for twenty-one years.

 



 

His position was so precarious in those early months of the Terror that he moved on every two days. Louis Philippe finally got a job under an assumed name as a teacher in a boys’ boarding school. His career academic ended when he got the headmaster’s cook pregnant. He repeated this routine when living under another false name with a Lutheran minister, this time seducing the vicar’s housekeeper, who was also his sister-in-law. He left her with another child when he moved on.

 

 

 

Then Louis Philippe moved to the United States, first Philadelphia, where he met up with his two brothers, then New York City, and then Boston. I had clam chowder at the Union Oyster House, where the future king once lived as a lodger while he taught French lessons. While in the United States, he met with many American luminaries of their Revolution, including George Washington. While trying to make their way back to France, the brothers were intercepted and bounced from Cuba, to the Bahamas, and then to Nova Scotia. There he met the Duke of Kent with whom he struck up a lasting friendship. He and his brothers spent the next fifteen years in England. His proposal of marriage to a daughter or the king was rejected on the basis of his religion, notwithstanding the willingness of the princess. The following year, his heart was sufficiently mended to wed the princess of Naples and Sicily, with whom he had ten children.

 

 

After Napoleon’s abdication, it was safe for Louis Philippe to return to France. His cousin was reigning as Louis XVIII under the Bourbon Restoration. He was part of the royal court, but he took the part of the more liberal faction who opposed Louis XVIII. He was, however, on much better terms with Charles X, the king’s brother who succeeded him on the throne in 1824.

 

 



Charles was overthrown in 1830. He named his 10-year-old grandson as his successor, but appointed Louis Philippe regent for the purpose to advancing this objective. Louis Philippe did not do this, however, choosing instead to advance his own chances. He served as regent for only eleven days, before being proclaimed king in his own right. It was the turn of Charles and his grandson to live in exile in England.

 

 

You may have noticed at the beginning that I said that Louis Philippe was the king of the French, not the king of France. This distinction was meaningful. Louis Philippe was the king of the people, not a territory. This distinguished Louis Philippe from his predecessor and aligned him with the reforms of the Constitution of 1791 that ended absolutist reign. His simple style of living earned him early popularity and the title of the “bourgeois monarch” and le Roi Citoyen (luh rwah sea-toy-en), or “the Citizen King.” But despite the modest appearances, his backing came from the wealthy, and under his reign the condition of the poor worsened considerably. This inequality led to the Revolution of 1848 and Louis Philippe’s abdication. He traveled under the name “Mr. Smith” in a hired cab and high-tailed it back to England. He, too, tried to put his grandson on the throne in his place. The National Assembly, however, had had enough of kings for the moment and opted for Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, who became Emperor Napoléon III.

 

 

Louis Philippe died in exile on August 26, 1850. His remains were eventually returned to France and placed in the family chapel. His descendants, the Counts of Paris, are supported by Royalist factions who even today would like to see a monarch on the throne of France. But unless and until that chapter gets written, Louis Philippe was the last French king.

 

 

 1895 France: Fall of Louis Philippe

 



 

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Le Cochon Dingue

Le Cochon Dingue (luh koshohn dahnge), or “The Crazy Pig.” deservedly has the reputation as the best breakfast place in Québec City. I ate there with students a few years ago and almost all of us left with pots of their jam to take home as souvenirs. The restaurant is located within sight of the St. Lawrence River, in the quaint Petit Champlain neighborhood of the old city. Appropriately enough, this French-style bistro opened on Bastille Day on 1979. It’s been such a success that there are several other bistros of the same name dotted about the capital city of la belle province.

This time, we indulged in their abundant platters. Le bon départ (the good start) is a hearty mixture of fruit, English muffins (called grillettes) topped with a poached egg, accompanied by cheese and their delicious apple butter. (It’s pale and tastes like a fresh apple, not at all like the dark cinnamon-y spread we were used to.) Another day I tried la brioche dorée de l’Île et fraises fraîches. This was a new item on the menu, composed of French toast made of cinnamon brioche served with maple syrup or chocolate sauce served with heaps of fresh strawberries. The beverage to choose to go with either is le chocolat chaud à l’ancienne. It’s thick, rich, and flavorful. I’m dingue de toi, Cochon Dingue!

 

Fodor’s Montreal and Quebec City

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