{"id":492,"date":"2015-05-10T08:57:16","date_gmt":"2015-05-10T08:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ipalchemist.com\/blog\/?p=492"},"modified":"2015-05-10T08:57:16","modified_gmt":"2015-05-10T08:57:16","slug":"an-alchemist-in-paris-days-1-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ipalchemist.com\/blog\/an-alchemist-in-paris-days-1-2\/","title":{"rendered":"An Alchemist in Paris – Days 1 & 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a recent trip to Paris over the Easter weekend, I recorded many highlights and thoughts from my journey on Facebook, and many of my friends were kind enough to respond with comments, suggestions and encouragement. \u00a0For all of them I am producing an edited version here.<\/p>\n

Good Friday<\/h2>\n

I started with a tour of the French Supreme Court (Cour de Cassation) thanks to a friend (Nicolas – he will feature later) of my friend Laurent who works there. \u00a0It is a splendid building in the old Palace, and handily leads directly to the Sainte Chapelle – originally built to house the relic of the Crown of Thorns, now at Notre Dame Cathedral, and which I went beforehand to venerate, it being Good Friday and all. \u00a0It was amazing to venerate the actual mediaeval relic (whatever suspicions one may have about its authenticity before that) and then see the edifice that was built to house it.<\/p>\n

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Darren at the Sainte Chapelle<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then I went round the splendid Musee Picasso which has an astonishingly huge and comprehensive collection of his paintings. \u00a0Definitely worth the 40 minutes queue in the rain.<\/p>\n

Then back to Notre Dame for the Good Friday liturgy, which was packed and very moving, with beautifully sung music.<\/p>\n

Holy Saturday<\/h2>\n

The next day, Holy Saturday, was one of church hopping, which was probably appropriate for the season. \u00a0I started in Saint Sulpice, greatly recommended by organ friends of mine such as Mark (you know who you are), for Tenebrae. At Saint Sulpice this\u00a0was a low key affair with few people but a large choir of clergy. No organ alas so I shall have to come back tomorrow. So I popped back to Notre Dame for the end of their version which started a little later. It was a little more splendid while keeping the Holy Saturday ethos. Then I dived (dove?) into the Treasury where there is much splendid tat – mostly 19th and 20th C but some ‘ancienne regime’ as well. \u00a0At both establishments, Tenebrae was celebrated in the morning and by daylight – rather odd since\u00a0<\/span>the\u00a0whole point of the symbolism of\u00a0<\/span>the\u00a0service is that it takes place by anticipation the night before, and in the darkness, with successively\u00a0<\/span>extinguished candles. \u00a0I am not sure what is the source of this French oddity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Saint Sulpice<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a recent trip to Paris over the Easter weekend, I recorded many highlights and thoughts from my journey on …
keep reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[89,93,85,91,90,92],"class_list":["post-492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel","tag-musee-picasso","tag-notre-dame","tag-paris","tag-saint-sulpice","tag-sainte-chapelle","tag-tenebrae"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipalchemist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipalchemist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipalchemist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipalchemist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipalchemist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipalchemist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":579,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipalchemist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492\/revisions\/579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipalchemist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipalchemist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipalchemist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}