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The Next Time
You See Paris

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pril in Paris, a time and a
place immortalized in
American pop music, los-
es none of its glamour, no
matter how often the radio
broadcasts the Doris Day rendi-
tion of Yip Harberg's wonderful,
and inevitable, rhyme scheme
—"blossoming trees ... welcom-
ing breeze" — nor how often
travelers actually return to the
magnificent French capital.
During April, truly, the chest-
nut trees do blossom on the
Boulevard San Michele, children
sail little boats in the gardens of
the Tuileries, lovers stroll the
banks or browse among the
bookstalls on the Seine.
Jewish travelers find addi-
tional enchantment exploring
the Marais, the center of Jewish
life in Paris for almost 1,000
years.
- Marais is the French word for
"marsh," and that district of the
city along the Seine, approxi-
mately from the present-day
City Hall to the new Bastille
Opera, was indeed a swamp-
land, back in the 11th cen-
tury when Jews first
settled there. The
marshy area was filled
in and became, in time,
the chic neighborhood
in which the French
aristocracy built its
grandiose homes
and the monarchy
housed its glitter-
ing mistresses.
The private
mansions of the
Marais, on the
other hand,
have been pre-
served and
restored, as
public mu-
seums: like
the Musee
Carnavelet,
which un-
folds the
history of
Paris and contains, among oth-
er items, the personal souvenirs
of Rachel, one of the most cele-
brated French Jewish actresses;
the Musee de la Curiosite et de
la Magic, a display of antiques
with magical themes, of optical
illusions, robots and interactive
games for children; and the
Musee Picasso, with more than
250 of the artist's paintings, 160
sculptures and numerous sculp
tures, drawings and sketches.
In the center of the Marais is
the Place des Vosges, one of the
world's great urban squares,
built by Henry IV in 1612 and

an immediate "hit" for the beau
monde, who proceeded to con-
struct their "hotels particuliers"
in the streets around it. In a
palace here, Louis XIV installed
one of his many favorites,
Madam de Montespan, who bore
the Sun King seven children —
the illegitimate consequences of
Place des Voges impregnations
which no churchmen of the day,
not even the powerful Cardinal
Richelieu, the "villain" of Dumas'
Three Musketeers, dared con-
demn.
The broad, green lawn of the
Place was the setting for duels
fought by the noblemen of the
day or by their counterparts in
the romantic novels of Dumas.
At No. 6, the "hotel" of one such
aristocratic duelist, Robert de
Rohan Guernee, is now the
lovely little Musee
Victor Hugo, the
home of the 19th
century poet and

novelist whose later works, like

Les Miserables, were powerful

statements of a democratic hu-
manism.
A few houses away, at No. 14,
is a small synagogue which still
continues the Ashkenazic min-
hag of its 19th century east Eu-
ropean immigrant founders.
Back-to-back to it, at 21 bis, Rue
des Tournelles, is the far-more-
imposing building, formerly
Ashkenazic and now the spiri-
tual home of Sephardim from
Tunisia.
The two synagogues at the
Place de Vosges are among the