TA K I
A FALLEN FRANCE
Left to right: Political leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit and his comrades appear in front of the disciplinary commission of La Sorbonne Paris in 1968; the 1968 protests in Paris began as a stance against the Vietnam War and later brought up issues about job insecurities.
BONJOUR, MES AMIS! Fifty years ago this month, I was living in Paris and life was grand. Back then, there was nothing like Paris in the spring and early summer, with formal balls galore, polo in the Bois de Boulogne, and late-night parties in Left Bank clubs such as Jimmy’s. At 30 years of age one felt omnipotent, especially when wearing boots and riding breeches, and galloping down the polo field cheered on by the fairer sex. Then “les évènements” came about, and the high life in the City of Light took a leave of absence in a hurry. The preceding year had been one of the most bril60 QUEST
liant of the post-war seasons. Americanborn Sheila McIntosh, Countess de Rochambeau, had given a grand ball in her château just outside Paris, as had the Guy de Rothschilds in theirs, Ferrières, followed by the Agnelli ball in the Bois de Boulogne. I had attended all three, plus some less glamorous ones in the city itself given by young friends who had not as yet inherited. (They had to do with parties in their “hôtels particuliers,” as townhouses are called in the land of cheese.) The polo season in Paris takes place mostly in June and the main polo fields are situated in the Bois de Boulogne, where
the private club called Bagatelle holds a very strict line between commoners using the park and its members. (I left Paris for good in 1973, so I don’t know whether the club has been democratized since, but I surely hope not.) During May of ’68, there were rumblings of student discontent, dismissed by my crowd as “rien de spécial,” the usual grumpy French students complaining about nothing in particular. Mind you, once the Sorbonne was occupied by “les élèves,” even I noticed the change because I had to cross that venerable institution on my way to various Left Bank nightclubs. I