Notre-Dame, a Deportation Memorial, and a Farewell Dinner, a Time to Remember

This was our last day in Paris. It was strange to know we would be separating so soon. The three weeks that seemed like a long time on our first day in London have flown by. Laurie, Connie, and I visited the home and museum dedicated to Victor Hugo in the morning. He resided for a number of years within walking distance of our hotel. Inside the museum are replicas of a room he decorated for his wife in Oriental style and another he decorated for his mistress, who was more appreciative of his interior design talents. His writing desk is made to be written at while standing up! He was exiled for a time because of his political beliefs, so in his day he was a radical.


Inside the Victor Hugo Museum/Home


Victor Hugo's writing desk. It is made for standing up to write.

In the afternoon we visited Notre-Dame Cathedral, famous for its antiquity (begun in the 1100's), its stained glass windows, flying buttresses, and gargoyles (and even for its hunchback, among literary fans). It is truly a marvel of engineering and very beautiful and majestic.



The famous flying buttresses of Notre-Dame


A beautiful stained glass window


One of the many gargoyles who live at Notre-Dame

Behind the cathedral is a Memorial to the 200,000 Jewish Martyrs of the Deportation. During World War II, many Jews were rounded up by the Germans in France, as elsewhere, and transferred to concentration camps. The Vichy government tried to shield its French-born Jews as well as it could, and most of those transported from France had been born elsewhere. The village of Le Chambon Sur Lignon, in the mountains of southern France, is famous for its role in saving 5,000 Jews, many of them children, by hiding them and smuggling them to safety. The 3,000 people who lived there risked their lives daily to help their fellow countrymen because it was "the right thing to do." Yet many still died, and the Memorial includes a wall of 200,000 glass pearls, one for each person who was deported. The inscription states: "Forgive --but do not forget."


A part of the Memorial


The wall of pearls, 200,000, one for each deportee

The afternoon saw us boating down the Seine for a tour of the historic sites from the water. Then we went to a delicious farewell dinner, where we were serenaded by two handsome gentlemen for the entire evening. It was a moment for looking back at the good times we have shared and for looking forward to new adventures abroad or going home. It has truly been a marvelous three weeks.