Letter From Paris: Where The Wild Things Are

Last Saturday morning, I'd gotten up early to go to my favorite house of natural beauty, Anne Semonin where the facials are fab and the jet lag treatments are luxurious on one's arrival in Paris.  First on my list, getting eyebrows done.  Checked it off. 

I wandered over to Les Halles to see what I could see at some of my favorite stores--Habitat, H & M, and Maison du Monde--not to mention I wanted to peruse the concert schedule at FNAC.  FNAC used to be THE place to discover the music line-up coming to town.  Then they took the old non-tech board down and changed it to digital, which isn't set up as well.  Boo hoo.  But it's still worth a stop.

Now I was headed to the best "gettin' place" in Paris, BHV.  (Shameless plug here.  I just did an interview with new-ish website GirlsGuidetoParis.com that is dedicated to girls who are planning dreamy trips to Paris--or dreaming about Paris.  One of my questions was what store could I not live without.  Yes, it was the old BHV...to see why, you'll have to click here.)

I came up from the depths of Les Halles to a sunlit Saturday and decided to take the short stroll over to BHV.  I have just finished Emile Zola's pleasure-to-read novel, The Belly of Paris, which is all about Les Halles, and I loved it.  His descriptions of the flamboyant fish and feathers of poultry and the charcuterie, where Florent, Quenu, Beautiful Lisa, and plump little Paulette lived, the battles between the fats and the thins, made me see it and smell it and wish I'd touched Les Halles in its glory days.  Wild things lived in Les Halles, and Zola recorded them.  Some were the people who populated the streets, and, frankly, some were rats.

Les Halles

Though I wish they hadn't torn down the old Les Halles--that they'd renovated and changed it but not wiped it out--I happily admit that I'm a Les Halles lover even now, and even with the ugly modern architecture that glares at Paris's belly below.  (The modern French idea of architecture is often not on the money, and, yes, I'll say it, can be incredibly ugly.  Les Halles is not the only place we find it in Paris.)

Before I knew it, I was steps away from Aurouze, the urban rat-trap and poison shop of Paris that has serviced Les Halles since 1872 and was memorialized in Disney's wonderful movie Ratatouille.  (You must look at this website.  Among other things, it pictures a woman meditating in peace.  She needs those rat traps for her garden!)  

Aurouze

 

The Lone Wolf and I had to come here when we lived near the Place des Victoires, because when the building next door was being renovated, we suddenly had a mouse problem.  I told the little mice they'd have to leave or end up like the rats below. 

One day during the infestation, it could've been a scene out of any of the cute little mouse movies you've ever seen.  Baby mice were springing from behind the cupboards and doors and would've done so from a chandelier if we'd had one.

 

The mice wouldn't listen to my warning...And we had to make the trip to Aurouze. 

The products from Aurouze may have been killing rats for more than a century, but they didn't take care of our mice.  The little mice drank our champagne and danced a dance like the rats above. 

And we ended up having exterminators come.

We knew where the wild things were in our apartment.  They were living quite happily with us.

To buy Emile Zola's The Belly of Paris, click here.

 
Unless otherwise indicated, photos were taken by Beth Arnold with her Canon PowerShot SD750.

                                                                           ---Beth Arnold in Paris