Because absence makes the heart grow fonder, the love of country and of home typically rises and falls in inverse relation to the distance traveled. On Tuesday, newly arrived in Paris, I made a sentimental plan to visit Place des Etats-Unis, conveniently a 20-minute walk away here in the 16th arrondissement.
In Boston on the Fourth of July, I never venture near the Esplanade for the Boston Pops Orchestra concert and accompanying fireworks on the Charles River. The crowd and the kitsch in overwhelming volumes are turnoffs as strong as smelling salts. An expatriate in Paris for hardly 36 hours, I was somehow drawn to visit an honorary patch of America. I expected to pass through there quickly then find a café nearby for a celebratory refreshment.
Place des Etats-Unis is in the north-west quadrant of the city. On a good-size map, it is an unremarkable, dime-thin green chip – un parc de poche – planted south of the Arc de Triomphe midway to the Seine. Any other day in the year, an observant pedestrian, even an American one, who glimpsed the blue and green Paris street plaque might only smile reflexively. Above a stone pedestal, a pair of bronze figures at treetop height and cloaked in leaves would be easily missed.
As Place des Etats-Unis emerged ahead of me on Rue Galilee, the still high mid-afternoon sun in a cloudless blue sky on the Fourth of July illuminated the scene in spite of the surrounding buildings. A number of figures in olive and navy-blue uniforms were clutched around a monument. White, blue, red and gold colors of various flags all at once became distinct. I quickened my pace.
The commemorators were American and French veterans, most rather elderly. Lookers-on included a pair of gangling teenagers who wore brown vests that identified them as members of USA Girl Scouts Overseas. Discrete but obvious, soldiers in full kit and holding automatic weapons observed as well.
A recording of La Marseillaise now played. Such good timing was the definition of good fortune, I thought, possibly even propitious. It is usually good to set low expectations, especially when traveling. How much better to be pleasantly surprised rather than disarmingly disappointed.
What a pleasure I had to mumble the words of the French national anthem that I still remembered. Aux armes, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons! Marchons, marchons! A French Army soldier in dress uniform, black kepi and white gloves tipped his head and saluted toward the sky. I recognized Le Marquis de Lafayette and General George Washington looming there. They hold each other forever in a firm handshake. The Star-Spangled Banner next played. I admit, I put my hand over my heart.
Our oldest and best friends!
Benjamin Franklin was one of the first to obtain their support for the American cause – when other countries sneered.
And I recall a now closed Bistro in the Theater District that at the outset of the Iraq War
implored us to not forget our alliance in the second World War.
Bravo! Your your journey is off to a good start. Keep us posted.