Actually, it’s really a rather pleasant place. I go through a not-for-the-public access, around the corner on the Seine side from the main lobby. A staff member takes my passport and gives me an orange badge to wear and I take an elevator up to the 4th floor. After a few false turns, I eventually make my way to a large room with big tables and windows overlooking the Louvre. Fabrice Golec had assembled all the materials I had requested on Tuesday and I started plowing through them.
A few blurry, carbon copy resumées, some handwritten speeches and finally the letters. The problem with Eiffel research is the great man himself. Everything is Eiffel-oriented and one has to look past him to get some kind of a glimpse at the world that surrounded him and, in my case, at the Latin American activities which occurred despite (or because of) Eiffel’s participation.
Through family letters, I have begun to know M. Lelièvre, Eiffel’s agent, an old and faithful member of Eiffel’s company and a dear family friend. I stopped (or was stopped because it was 5 pm) at the point that Lelièvre has arrived with his family in Lima. Tomorrow, I will learn that he died from some tropical disease. One becomes attached to these people – their handwriting, terms of endearment, discussions of wedding arrangements, and business worries. There is something so intimate about reading the actual letters.
It rained last night and the tall windows in my apartment are either open or closed. So, I’m afraid I did let some rain inside – otherwise there would have been even less air. I had lunch near the Boule Miche – this tiny little stand where the guy toasted panini and made crepes so smoothly and efficiently that even the Camilia Grill’s short-order cooks would have been envious. A tasty toasty panini and a coke for 3 Euros. The best deal in town.
Tomorrow morning I will do laundry and go to the archives in the afternoon. If I’m lucky I should finish up there and move on to the Archives National – a much more chancy proposition.
Les Archives Nationals
L'As du Fallafel
Musée Picasso
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