Paris sketches-A bus tour

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Suddenly they are sitting in an air-conditioned bus, those tourists, teared away by showy advertisements from their boring, dull and gray daily existence, following passively as a flock of sheep in the traces of their shepherd, read "guide". Along dull highways they land at the foot of the Sacre-Coeur, between the legs of the Eiffel tower or the parvis of Notre Dame. Their first meeting with Paris! For a lot of them it will be the last also. Damn Paris, it's all look alike!

A few more daring personalities, try to get away for a few minutes from their space-ship bus to explore some surrounding streets. They will not go very far, being reassured seeing that the display-windows look the same as in the city from where they come, or scared off by the brutal, autochthon inhabitants eating their lunch on the lawn of some park or garden. They will hurry back to the ritual spot where their tribe is gathered. Now they will climb all together endless stairs, enormous elevators, going on pilgrimage under high vaulted halls, and undergo without a sound of protest, until the bitter end, deadly tiring ordeals, that another "deus ex machina" did them suffer already in Venice, London or Calcutta.

The poor wretches will sleep that night again in their own bed, exhausted, but intensely happy that the marked task was brought to a good end. The "chosen " will stay up a few hours longer, just the time to experience some "couleur locale" in Paris by night. They will add new emotions to their "adventure notes", even if they have the impression they already did things like that elsewhere. There is indeed not a big difference in a half naked bad Pigalle dancer  and a half naked bad Soho dancer. For this kind of consumers of "herd recreation" Paris has the anonymous feature of a robot portrait that doesn't exist. For them, Paris is not Paris and will never be. They "did" Paris, but they weren't even there. A pity for them. Paris has to be earned. To meet Paris you must go and discover resolutely on foot, far from the basilicas and triumphal arches, in the areas without beauty and show. But to discover it, you must know the art of "loitering", walking without a precise plan, have the art of losing your time just to gain some more but precious one. To gain Paris confidence, you'll have to, if it's necessary, be able to travel in your mind, sitting without moving on a terrace of the place de la Contrescarpe or a bench on square Viviani.