379 - Join Us in France Travel Podcast

Table of Contents for this Episode

[00:00:00] Annie Sargent: , This is Join Us in France episode 379 trois cent soizante dix neuf. Bonjour I’m Annie Sargent and Join Us in France is the podcast where we talk about France. Everyday life in France. Great places to visit in France, French culture, history, gastronomy, and news-related to travel to France

[00:00:38] Attending a Molière play at La Comédie Française

[00:00:38] Annie Sargent: Today I bring you a conversation with my friend, Elyse Rivin of Toulouse Guided Walks about the wonderful Moliere, my favorite playwright. I got to see a Molière play at the Comédie Française last week and I am still so giddy about it. I really enjoy the opera. I enjoy the symphony. But I really loved the Comédie Française! It was my first time, but not my last, I’ll try to go back every time I go to Paris.

[00:01:08] Annie Sargent: We got tickets for 30 euros, so it’s not even that expensive, but you do have to book at least a month early. I’ll be looking further ahead myself, because it is booked up, uh, early. What was so special about it? Well, the Richelieu theater is beautiful, of course. Its own place Colette, which everyone should walk to on their visit to Paris. There is lots to see in this area and I’ll probably write a VoiceMap tour on the Louvre and Palais Royal areas at some point, because it’s gorgeous and there’s lots to say about it.

[00:01:42] Annie Sargent: But what makes the Comédie Française so special is that they attract amazing talent. I got to see Guillaume Gallienne and Julie Sicard in the main roles of and it just enthralled me the whole time. Everyone on stage was unbelievable. There were some, there was some singing in the play and that choir was so good. These people are actors, singers, dancers, and they’re all at the top of their game.

[00:02:10] Annie Sargent: In every respect. I am such a big fan. Anyway, they’re playing. And they were playing well. Yeah. Which they are doing a lot this year on account that it’s the 400th anniversary of his birth. And I cannot recommend this more. I went to Shakespeare plays when I lived in the U S and I was rather beffudled, even though, you know, my English is okay, right? And I know for a fact that even native English speakers do not get all of Shakespeare without some help.

[00:02:44] Annie Sargent: So don’t be shy! If improving your French is a goal of yours. Go see a play at La Comédie Française. You won’t understand everything, but you have a good time anyway, and it doesn’t get any more French than that.

[00:02:59] Annie Sargent: After the interview, I’ll update you on the much improved travel situation, with regards to COVID and French news, as well as my personal update. And I am grateful to have a lot of new patrons to thank this week.

[00:03:14] Annie Sargent: As far as itinerary reviews are concerned, I’m all booked up until April 19th currently. So if you’d like my help in crafting the best itinerary for you and your family, don’t wait until the last minute that’s at https://joinusinfrance.com/boutique.

[00:03:31] Annie’s new Latin Quarter VoiceMap tour

[00:03:31] Annie Sargent: But the big thing that I want to mention right away is that my Latin quarter VoiceMap tour is live and I’m really proud of the work I’ve done on it. I am sure you will enjoy it. You can buy it directly from the VoiceMap app, but podcast listeners get a substantial discount if they buy directly from me at https://joinusinfrance.com/boutique. And if you get it directly from me, I get to keep more of the money because Apple and Google don’t take a big sales commission on every sale.

[00:04:05] Annie Sargent: So if you’re planning on taking one or more of my tours, please get them directly from https://joinusinfrance.com/boutique, where you get a discount, even if you just get one and then the discount gets bigger if you get more of them. It’s good for everyone, right?

[00:04:23] Annie Sargent: You can follow, Join Us in France on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or Twitter, as well as YouTube. They haven’t kicked me to the curb for no particular reason this week. And I’ll also put my photos of the Comédie Française on the episode page, which you can find at https://joinusinfrance.com/379.

[00:04:48] Annie and Elyse talk about Molière

[00:04:48] Annie Sargent: Bonjour Elyse !

[00:04:49] Elyse Rivin: Bonjour Annie !

[00:04:50] Annie Sargent: We have a fun episode today about one of my favorite authors, Molière.

[00:04:55] Elyse Rivin: Yes. One of my favorite theater, men, people, persons, because I love the theater.

[00:05:02] Annie Sargent: Yes. So we’re going to start with a little bit on the background of Molière. His upbringing, you know, how he got so big and you know, it doesn’t get any bigger than that in French literature.

[00:05:14] Elyse Rivin: Exactly!

[00:05:15] French is often referred to as “la langue de Molière”

[00:05:15] Annie Sargent: I mean, “la langue de Molière” is French.

[00:05:19] Elyse Rivin: And, one of the reasons we are doing this, is because they are Celebrating the 400 three, 400th anniversary of his, baptism.

[00:05:31] Annie Sargent: Of his baptism.

[00:05:33] Annie Sargent: We assume that he was born very close to when he was baptized. But at the time there were no birth records. They only had baptismal records.

[00:05:42] About the life of Molière

[00:05:42] Elyse Rivin: So Molière and actually I did not know this because I’ve always associated Molière really with the south of France, Molière was born in Paris. He was a Parisian. He came from a basically fairly well-off middle-class family of tapestry merchants. And his uncle, his, one of his maternal uncles was a composer who worked on song and poetry that was admitted to the court. So even though they were certainly not aristocrats or nobles or anything like that, they were number one, well, to do, and number two, they had a little bit of an entry to the world of the court and the Kings.

[00:06:25] Molière was born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin

[00:06:25] Elyse Rivin: And, his original name we should mention of course from the very beginning was not Molière. Molière was his stage name, it’s the name he took a little bit later on when he was actually already a head of a small troop that was traveling around, but he was born Jean Baptiste Poquelin

[00:06:44] Annie Sargent: What year?

[00:06:45] Elyse Rivin: In 1622, We assume at the very beginning of January of 1620.

[00:06:52] Elyse Rivin: Yeah. and he was born in the first the arrondissement of Paris. And you can actually go see a house where he lived for a certain amount of time. But what happened to this young man was that he was destined to study law. He was sent to school with the Jesuits. He actually was a moderately good student apparently. Didn’t have a great passion for their studies, but he basically did what he was asked to do. And there was a basic assumption in that, that he would follow in his father’s footsteps and take over the family business.

[00:07:28] A supportive family

[00:07:28] Elyse Rivin: Both of his parents were fairly well connected in terms of the upper a merchant class of Paris. Uh, but at the age of 21, he decided and announced to his family that he did not want to follow in the footsteps of his father and his mom who obviously must have had a very, very tender relationship with him, uh, because otherwise I don’t think this could have happened. She allowed him to have his inheritance so that he could go off on his own. And work in the theater.

[00:08:03] Elyse Rivin: And the theater was something scandalous in the 1600. If you were someone who was an actor or an actress, you were considered to be someone who was sinful.

[00:08:14] Annie Sargent: Loose anyway.

[00:08:15] Molière makes his start as an actor

[00:08:15] Elyse Rivin: It’s hard for me to grasp. So I’m not sure. The idea was that there was a lot of music certainly at the court. There were lots of ballets and they put on plays and they put on comedies and things like that. But if you performed in the theater, you were considered to be a sinner. The theater was sinful. It was, an old vestige of a things early Catholic church that it was about secular life. You know, it wasn’t supposed to be, it wasn’t about saints and things like that. So he was basically doing something that. was out of the norm, really. And so he joined up, I don’t know how I wonder if anybody actually does know how, but he joined up with a group that was creating a theater company and among them, there was a family, the Béjart family.

[00:09:04] Elyse Rivin: If anybody has ever heard of Maurice Béjart, who was a very famous choreographer, it’s actually a name that is very, very old. And it was, two brothers and two sisters who were all actors and were famous already as a theater family. And he joined up with them and his, his desire apparently was to play tragic heroes in tragedies.

[00:09:31] Elyse Rivin: You know, I mean, this is interesting because it’s really pretty contemporary with Shakespeare, in England. It’s just about the same time. I’d say it’s about. 10 or 20 years later than Shakespeare, but we’re really talking about the same time period when theater is very, very popular with all classes of people. And what he wanted to do was be a great tragic actor.

[00:09:57] Working in Paris and Normandy

[00:09:57] Elyse Rivin: And so he joined up with this group and they toured a lot Paris and in Normandy, specifically around Rouen where the Béjart family actually had connections to a theater. And I love this phrase I saw in in one of the things I was looking at yesterday, they went back to Paris to what was considered to be a new theater that had machines.

[00:10:21] Elyse Rivin: And as someone worked in the theater and studied theater, I love that the, describe it as machines, because what we’re talking about is the trap in the floor that you can come in and out of the machines that pull that are the pulleys that pull the scenery up and down in the back. So it was considered to be the newest thing to have these machines in a theater.

[00:10:41] Elyse Rivin: And, they had one of the only three established theaters, in Paris at the time. So by 1644, where he’s 22, he’s made a fairly good name for himself as an actor. And so far he’s been doing work with this theater group. And I don’t know if he was getting itchy or whether he was hoping that there would be more to his life than that.

[00:11:10] The troup leaves Paris

[00:11:10] Elyse Rivin: But what happened was in 1644, the group left Paris. And they left Paris, partly because they did, what we would theater groups still do, which is they take the show on the road I mean, this is part of what they do, right. And partly because it was kind of stagnating in Paris. And I think they were looking for uh, a little bit of new inspiration. Up until this time, if I understand correctly and maybe, you know, more, they were doing plays that already existed, they weren’t creating new plays. They were doing things that had already existed.

[00:11:42] Looking for a Mécène or Patron

[00:11:42] Elyse Rivin: But one of the things they were looking for, because this is what happened at the time was they needed to find someone who would be their mécène, which means their their

[00:11:52] Annie Sargent: Patron.

[00:11:52] Elyse Rivin: Patron, exactly. Their patron, Somebody who would give them a space to perform who would give them an annual salary so that they did not have to worry about whether they had enough people coming in to see the play each time they performed and who would encourage them.

[00:12:07] Working outside of Paris for 12 years

[00:12:07] Elyse Rivin: And, give them the connections. Because this had to be somebody who was rich and highly placed so that their name would become more and more well-known. And so, as it turns out from 1646, till 1658 that’s 12 years, they never went back to Paris for 12 years. They went all over France. I looked at a map yesterday online, they performed a lot in the west.

[00:12:34] Elyse Rivin: In Nantes and in eventually Bordeaux and places in the Charente. but mostly, mostly, mostly they performed in the south and they became associated with the south specifically because there were two Dukes who took them under their wing.

[00:12:52] Elyse Rivin: And one first one, uh, who happened to have been the duke Deconte, who was.

[00:12:59] Elyse Rivin: Uh, I probably gonna get this wrong. I it’s really hard. You know, I think he was the, one of the first cousins of the king. Uh, This is, big what I mean? he’s up there. Uh, but he had been a bad boy and he had tried to, uh, uh, overthrow the king. And so he had been, uh, pardoned, but he was told to get out of Paris.

[00:13:19] Elyse Rivin: So he’d gone down to his Chateau in the Southwest, which was near Béziers. And, uh, having seen the troop somewhere, he invited them to come to his Chateau and he liked them enough, uh, that he offered them a yearly stipend and a theater, and then told them that they were going to be his troop. And so for a couple of years, they were under the sponsorship of the duke of Conti, who of course was extremely well connected.

[00:13:51] Elyse Rivin: And that was how they really became. famous. And this is actually without even going back up to Paris. Right? So, the king had heard of them who at first was Louis the 13th and then became Louis the 14th, uh, the King’s brother heard of them. And, uh, they would have probably stayed under the auspices of the duke of Conti, except that after a few years he got religion.

[00:14:16] Elyse Rivin: Uh,

[00:14:17] Molière starts to write farces

[00:14:17] Elyse Rivin: This was a big problem because the works that they were performing were either these beautiful ballet comedies, which were fairly risque and of course, filled with beautiful music and, and gorgeous costumes and dancing, or it was tragedies. Or this is the period of time when Molière starts testing out the idea of farce. And the farce is basically very satirical plays, making fun of various different prototypes of people in society. Right. And, uh, all of a sudden one day, basically the duke of Conti kind of went, ah, I don’t think I can do this anymore. I am so sorry.

[00:14:59] Molière heads back to Paris

[00:14:59] Elyse Rivin: And so they decided maybe it was time to go back to Paris, which made perfect sense. Because by this time they had been, told by the, uh, Duc d’Orléans who was the King’s brother, that he was interested in having them come before the court. And so they were invited to perform in front of the court and it was the very first time that they performed for Louis the 14th and Louis the 14th.

[00:15:29] Elyse Rivin: This was in 1658, Louis the 14th, invited them to come to Versailles. And one of the first things they did was they put on a tragedy by Corneille.

[00:15:40] Annie Sargent: Corneille.

[00:15:43] Molière wins Louis XIV over

[00:15:43] Elyse Rivin: And uh, according to some of the information uh, I have read enough on a program I saw recently about it, Louis, the 14th liked to be entertained. And, and he had heard that this group was wonderful because they danced and they sang and the women were beautiful and they were wonderful and very entertaining.

[00:16:01] Elyse Rivin: And, he expected something like that. And, instead he got a tragedy and apparently was about to get up and leave, when Molière, who saw what was happening because he was the head actor after all, he literally stopped the performance in the middle. And went backstage with his troop and said, okay, we have to do something else because of course, if you were not under the patronage of the king, you were going to lose patronage everywhere else.

[00:16:27] Elyse Rivin: And what I understand is that he decided since he had been greatly influenced by Commedia, dell’arte from Italy was the idea of the farce with a silly costume and uh, an exaggerated movements and exaggerated, uh, uh, phrasing and everything else. He came back out on the stage and he performed for the king himself and the king was delighted.

[00:16:52] Elyse Rivin: And it was from this point on till the end of his life that he was under the Kings patronage. This is Louis the 14th. There were times when he actually was with the king in Versailles. There were times when he was in his theater in Paris. But one of the things that’s really strange is that besides the theater and besides doing more and more of the satire, he had the role that was inherited from his family of being one of the Kings valet..

[00:17:24] Molière performing his duties as the King’s valet

[00:17:24] Elyse Rivin: And so for over 12 years, actually until his death, one period of the year. Apparently it was a trimester, which I think is what we we consider it to be a quarter, I guess, is like three months out of the year. He had to be at Versailles. And the Kings valet is the person who stands there behind uh, you know, the curtains were closed around the bed for the king.

[00:17:50] Elyse Rivin: But of course there were about 50 people who were standing there waiting for the king to wake up. I mean, this is what the court was like in Versailles. And so every single morning for three months out of the year, he had to be there when the king woke up. And and what did he do when the king woke up? I haven’t got a clue.

[00:18:07] Elyse Rivin: I haven’t got, maybe he handed him his, his underwear. I have no idea. We don’t really know, but it became, it’s an official title, the King’s valet. And he stuck to it and apparently was very, very good at it. And in fact had a very close relationship, even though he was not a nobleman with the king Louis, the 14th who outlived him by, by quite a lot, actually.

[00:18:32] Elyse Rivin: Yeah. So Moliere. Uh, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin at some point in this, going around France, in these 12 years of traveling around and performing, he took the name Molière. Nobody knows exactly why really. Uh, I was reading that there are lots of different suppositions about why it doesn’t have any meaning specifically. It was a stage name. However he came to use it. Nobody really knows, but then it officially really officially became his name. So from then on, he was simply known as Molière.

[00:19:07] Molière gets his own theater, now called La Comédie Française

[00:19:07] Elyse Rivin: And once he was back in Paris he had so much money from the sponsorship, of Louis the 14th that he was able to have his own theater. And of course the theater that he had, it was rebuilt at some point. This is now, what are we talking about? We’re talking about the 1660s. It became the theater that is now that Comédie Française. It is right next to the Palais Royal. It was a small theater. It was torn down and rebuilt and it was the theater that Moliere and his troop used for the rest of his until he died in 1673

[00:19:45] Annie Sargent: Right, and it’s on Place Colette today,

[00:19:47] Elyse Rivin: And it’s of course, right next to the big park that’s part of the Palais Royal. And uh, one of these days I’m going to go see a play at the Comédie Française. Even Molière is no longer there.

[00:19:58] Annie Sargent: Me too. That would be lovely.

[00:19:59] Elyse Rivin: I would love to, I it’s one of my dreams.

[00:20:02] Molière had a genius for putting on biting satire

[00:20:02] Elyse Rivin: And Basically what happened with Molière was this is that at some point in his career, he realized that he was much more talented at doing farce and satire, than at doing drama and and at tragedy. Uh, the critics, there were lots of them said when they wrote about him and the troop, they said he was wonderful when he was on stage doing a farce and imitating people. And he was awful as a tragic actor, So I guess he took the word of the people out there and he stopped trying to do tragedies. And from that point on, he did one major farce, one major piece that was satire biting satire. This is not you know, just nice stuff. This is not burlesque. This was really biting satire.

[00:20:49] Elyse Rivin: They say that he was a great observer of humanity and certainly he was privy to what was going on at the court. And that would probably give enough for anybody to talk about for the rest of their life, with the scandals and all of the other things involved.

[00:21:03] Molière was a secular man

[00:21:03] Elyse Rivin: And he was who was clearly very secular in his thinking who had no particular propensity to want to either be a noble man or to be religious, and who really saw the foibles of humans and their behavior.

[00:21:19] Molière wrote 35 plays

[00:21:19] Elyse Rivin: And so he wrote. Annie, you’re going to talk about this, obviously in a minute, he produced one wonderful farce after the other. Altogether in his life he’s credited with 35 theater pieces, which were performed thousands of times, by the time he actually died.

[00:21:40] Falling ill while performing The Imaginary Invalid

[00:21:40] Elyse Rivin: And when he died, he w he died very young. He actually died at the age of 51. He was in the midst of performing. His last piece, which was called the imaginary invalid. He was onstage when he was taken ill. Nobody really apparently knows what he died of, but, it was only the fourth performance and it was a huge success already, but they took him home and he just got worse and worse.

[00:22:11] Elyse Rivin: It seems that nobody really knows exactly what he died of because there were rumors that he had already been sick, but apparently that was not true. He was probably feeling a little bit old because he had been performing for over 30 years as an actor. And traveling around is not the easiest thing to do. But he had more or less a stable family life. And so it was very strange that within 48 hours, he actually died.

[00:22:36] Molière and the religious burial

[00:22:36] Elyse Rivin: But one of the things I find absolutely astonishing, and goes back to his idea of the observation of human nature and his biting satire, is that in spite of his fame and being wealthy, very wealthy by the time he died. He was not allowed to have a full religious burial because he was an actor and actors and actresses and people who worked in the theater. Unlike composers, this is very interesting. Unlike composers were considered to be people who were sinful and unless on your deathbed, you renounced your activity as an actor, you could not have, uh, the last rights. So what happened was he died and his widow who was much younger than he, she was 20 years younger than him. She appealed to Louis the 14th and asked him if it was possible for him to have a Christian burial, because the bishop of Paris had refused it, even though he was such an important person in culture. And Louis the 14th said, yes, he can have a Christian burial, but without pomp and ceremony with very few people around and he cannot be given last sacrament.

[00:23:52] Molière’s legacy

[00:23:52] Elyse Rivin: So when he died, he was wealthy. He was famous. He was considered to be a genius for his theater and he was the person who put French theater on the map. Because up until that point, it had been Italian theater and Italian music that had counted.

[00:24:10] Elyse Rivin: And of course He had collaboration with certain people like Lully. I know you’re going to mention about what happened with Lully, the great composer who worked for Louis the 14th. He is for France, what Shakespeare is for English speaking people He is the great playwright. He is the person who created plays that are, they are eternal.

[00:24:33] Annie Sargent: Right. So it’s very interesting to me that when I, I mean, I grew up with Molière, right? And I, in school, I learned about him.

[00:24:46] Molière plays Annie read in French school

[00:24:46] Elyse Rivin: I was going to ask you, which, cause I know which plays we have to read of Shakespeare in school. What plays did you do you know? which plays you had to read?

[00:24:55] Annie Sargent: So le Malade Imaginaire, L’avare et Tartuffe were the three that I read in school and then read later on because they are so fun. And to me, I thought Shakespeare was going to be funny. Well, Shakespeare isn’t funny. Even his comedies are not funny,

[00:25:16] Elyse Rivin: Oh, well, but they are in English. They are, I mean, the different

[00:25:20] Annie Sargent: I saw them in English.

[00:25:22] Sacrilege! Annie doesn’t think Shakespeare is funny whereas Molière is!

[00:25:22] Elyse Rivin: Well, I mean, that’s a whole other discussion, but, Shakespeare really specifically made three kinds of plays where Molière didn’t do. I mean, Shakespeare, he made a definition of tragedy and a definition of what was comedy, but comedy for Shakespeare was not like the comedy of Molière, which is based on Commedia dell’arte, which is more clownish and more let’s say broad, uh, with it’s it’s the comedy of Shakespeare is much more, uh, connected to the idea that everything has a happy end. It’s not so much. It’s like, it’s not gag.

[00:26:01] Annie Sargent: Right, is not!

[00:26:03] Elyse Rivin: Okay. No, It’s not, it’s a different definition of what comedy is.

[00:26:06] Annie Sargent: Because I’ve seen like Much Ado About Nothing and I don’t think I laughed once.

[00:26:11] Elyse Rivin: Yeah. It’s but it has a happy end. That’s why it’s a comedy.

[00:26:14] Annie Sargent (2): Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

[00:26:16] Annie Sargent (2): They will live, they all live happily ever

[00:26:18] Annie Sargent: I accept that. So, anyway, so Molière is very funny. He had some of the funniest lines and it’s actually pretty easy to get French kids to read Molière or to watch plays of Molière on TV. If you ever have a chance to see the performance with Louis de Funès in L’Avare, it is hilarious. Okay.

[00:26:48] Molière’s French is still easily understandable today

[00:26:48] Elyse Rivin: Does he use the real original language or did he modernize it?

[00:26:52] Annie Sargent: I don’t remember. So maybe it was modernized, but it’s not that different from today’s French. Some words are different, but we can easily read Molière, as a French speaker today. I don’t think French has evolved as much as English has. I mean, Shakespeare takes quite a bit of work even for native English speakers. I think Molière is not like that. I mean, so long as you’re literate, but of course I spent my childhood with my nose in books. So to me it was like normal. I dunno.

[00:27:30] Annie Sargent: Anyway, his comedies are very funny. It brings out a lot of joy, but one thing that Molière did, uh, that I’m not sure if Shakespeare did that, is that he was a guy who put on performances and Louis the 14th love the great performance. He loved to dance himself.

[00:27:49] Molière was a great performer and so was his wife

[00:27:49] Annie Sargent: You love to be surrounded by actors and dancers and musicians. And so Molière put on fabulous plays lavish plays with hundreds of performers, with lots and lots of things going on. And he was a showman is what he was. He was like, you pointed out he was an excellent actor, especially in comedies.

[00:28:13] Annie Sargent: And he mostly played the main role in all his comedies and his wife very often played the lead female role. Unlike in England, women could be on the stage in France.

[00:28:26] Elyse Rivin: That’s true.

[00:28:28] Annie Sargent: And so his wife played a lot of the leading females. He put on fabulously funny shows. So much so that he, and he did so much in his short life, that there are people who wonder if he really.

[00:28:46] Did Molière wrote all his plays or did he get help from Corneille?

[00:28:46] Annie Sargent: Wrote all these plays himself. There’s no doubt that he like the comedy and the way the plays work was his doing, but it’s entirely possible that he did not write every word and that somebody else, namely Corneille probably wrote a bunch of his words. So Molière might have given him, uh, an outline of how you wanted the comedy to go and Corneille went to task at writing the actual lines. . This is not proven. This is entirely hypothetical, but I’m kind of convinced by that thought, because he really was, if he did all the things that we say he did, he couldn’t, he didn’t sleep.

[00:29:32] Elyse Rivin: Well, he certainly, I, from what I gather, he certainly was a genius in a certain kind of way, I mean, I, you know, who knows? I mean, they say Mozart slept four hours a night too. I mean, it just briefly, because obviously the subject is Molière, but Shakespeare was not an actor. Shakespeare was a, uh, a writer and he produced the plays. But he did not act. And so, uh, there was not, it was very much more focused in terms of, you know, what he did.

[00:30:00] Annie Sargent: Right. Yeah. Molière was, I mean, he was a showrunner. He hired the actors, he kept the books. He went around selling his services to everybody. I don’t understand how it’s possible for somebody to do so much. Anyway, a while back I published a Patreon reward called L’affaire Corneille Molière. It goes into depths about whether or not he wrote himself every word that we credit him with. But it’s neither here nor there because either way he was a genius. Use a genius.

[00:30:31] Annie Sargent: So, you know, it’s fantastic what he did and okay. I want to tell you one of the things that he was very good at, and of course he didn’t do this by himself, is that he, um, he would put on plays with music.

[00:30:45] Molière’s comedy-ballet

[00:30:45] Annie Sargent: They were comedy ballets kind of thing. And he invented the style where there was a bunch of dancing. And so typically the actors had plenty of time to change costumes and whatever, because in between acts, the dancers would come on.

[00:31:01] Molière working with Lully and Charpentier

[00:31:01] Annie Sargent: And a lot of the music was by Lully, who was an Italian composer. And he was an extremely talented composer who wrote some beautiful pieces. Let me. There are some Chaconnes by Lully that were used in the plays. And it was like a full body experience. You went to one of these performances to hear music, see ballet hear beautiful words. I mean, it was an altogether kind of thing. And it was wildly popular, obviously, whenever it was performed in Paris or anywhere else now, Lully and Molière had a big falling out at the end of their lives.

[00:31:39] Annie Sargent: And at the end of his life, it was, um, uh, Charpentier

[00:31:43] Elyse Rivin: If I understand correctly, though, some of the last satires were not, did not have a lot of dance. They had music.

[00:31:51] Elyse Rivin: But they did not have dance because he really wanted to concentrate on the satirical aspect of it. And, uh, the, I think that the dancing, diluted some of that, you know, it was, it’s more of a kind of nice entertainment. And here at the end, the last few plays, he really was very ascerbic about you know, wanting to really criticize things. in society. You

[00:32:15] Annie Sargent: Right. And so it was it’s Marc Antoine Charpentier, who was also the composer in residence at, uh, the church in the Marais uh, on a.

[00:32:25] Elyse Rivin: Saint Paul

[00:32:26] Molière wrote several plays about hypocritical doctors and priests

[00:32:26] Elyse Rivin: At Saint Paul Saint Louis, uh, he was the composer in residence at that church. Anyway, he wrote some very fun music as well for Le Malade Imaginaire, which was, and it’s also funny that he died, I mean, he had this health problem on stage

[00:32:44] Annie Sargent: While playing a man who pretends to be sick all the time.

[00:32:49] Annie Sargent: And there he was really sick himself. So, so it’s like, you know, an irony

[00:32:54] Elyse Rivin: It’s interesting too. If you look through the names of the place.

[00:32:58] Elyse Rivin: Uh, there are seven or eight, I think. better though, That are famous in terms of their titles, but, uh, it is true that he wrote three plays that have to do with doctors. And one of the things I read was that he was particularly obsessed the way medicine was dealt with. And I don’t know whether it’s. because he had bad experiences.

[00:33:18] Elyse Rivin: He, he considered that priests and doctors were hypocrites, interestingly, because they’re, not quite the same thing, you know

[00:33:27] Annie Sargent: But they were because doctors back then didn’t know, they knew nothing. I mean, medicine was not really a thing yet, you know, so he was probably right.

[00:33:39] Molière wrote wonderful roles for women

[00:33:39] Elyse Rivin: It’s also interesting to see, because I know I had read, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a performance of the School for Women that a lot of people said that he had a very egalitarian attitude towards women and that even in the troop, the women were paid the same thing as the men. And he allowed the women to have a predominant role at certain moments in the theater company. So it’s very interesting because it’s, I would have loved to have met

[00:34:06] Annie Sargent: him.

[00:34:08] Elyse Rivin: He sounds like somebody that would have been really interesting to talk to and sharp witted and, Uh, and probably be tormented at the same time, you know? I mean, Uh, to to to focus that much on, uh, issues in society, even though he didn’t suffer at all, because he did not come from a lower class background at all, but it’s very interesting that he was such an observer of, of human foibles you know, and things like

[00:34:34] Annie Sargent: that.

[00:34:34] The Tartuffe complications

[00:34:34] Annie Sargent: So the one place I would like to talk about briefly is Tartuffe because it has become a, you can call someone Tartuffe, right? Meaning a

[00:34:47] Elyse Rivin: hypocrite, a hypocrite.

[00:34:49] Annie Sargent: Now the first version of this play was just a play in three acts and it was.

[00:34:55] Annie Sargent: called Tartuffe ou l’hypocrite

[00:34:58] Annie Sargent: and very quickly it got censored and forbidden because okay, the story goes like this. You have this man who is hyper religious. He is not presented as a priest, but as a directeur de conscience it’s so happened that priests often had this role of. Conscientious director as you know, director of conscience. So morality director.

[00:35:30] Annie Sargent: So, but it, Molière never said he was a priest. He just said he was a directeur de conscience. And this man shows up in this household. And, he has made a vow of poverty, obviously, because that’s what one does and a vow of chastity. And it’s very pious and wants everybody to know how much he prays every day.

[00:35:56] Annie Sargent: And of course he is a total hypocrite and he hits on the wife and steals the money and whatever. Okay. But he puts a great production of his piety. And so the play, the first version of the play was a short play in three acts. Was shut down immediately.

[00:36:15] Elyse Rivin: And it was performed in front of Louis the 14th.

[00:36:16] Annie Sargent: It was, it was, and he loved it.

[00:36:19] Annie Sargent: The king loved it. Everybody loved it. They thought it was funny as heck. And they loved it except the Bishop of Paris who had been. The Kings preceptor as a child. So when they were both very much younger, uh, he had been his confessor and whatever. And so he had the ear of the king obviously, and he told the king, we have to put an end to this because this is like not good for our image in the church.

[00:36:50] Annie Sargent: So stop it. And the king was like, okay, whatever. And they stopped it. They censored the play as they did often back there.

[00:36:56] Annie Sargent: And Molière was very sad about this because he, he really thought this was a good play and it is. And so he rewrote it as a play in five acts. He changed the name, he called it a, uh,

[00:37:11] Elyse Rivin: I thought it was the bed into the imposter,

[00:37:14] Annie Sargent: right.

[00:37:14] Annie Sargent: The imposter, but even even changed the name Tartuffe there’s, it’s a different. The name, Panulfe,

[00:37:19] Elyse Rivin: That’s the name of the person,

[00:37:21] Annie Sargent: Right. So Tartuffe becomes Panulfe and he’s not a hypocrite anymore. He’s an impostor. He is just as religious, but he is introduced to the family as a businessman. Un bourgeois. And he’s the bourgeois who’s going to help him make even more money. So this guy appeals to their desire for money and for wealth and is an ambasallor.

[00:37:48] Annie Sargent: He steals the inheritance. Okay. So he is an imposter after the money. Uh, but he still overtly religious. Okay. And that play is performed once and shut down again because, and that one was in five acts. So Molière is like, how do I do this? And he rewrote the play. He called it, the name went back to Tartuffe ou l’Imposteur.

[00:38:20] Annie Sargent: So the one we read today is the imposter, not the hypocrite. Okay. Uh, but he shortened it a bit. He changed the name back to Tartuffe and it so happens that the Pope, uh, wrote an edict. I don’t know the details, but the next day that this edict came out, it was some kind of liberalization of kind of the church demands on.

[00:38:45] French people don’t trust anyone who wears their religion on their sleeve

[00:38:45] Annie Sargent: Because up until then they had been saying anybody who performs this. Is a sinner and is going to be excommunicated. Yeah. Oh yeah. They were like, if you perform this or read this, you could be ex-communicated and this, this was a huge deal. The Pope liberalized, all these rules, the next day, they started performing, Tartuffe again. And they performed it. I think 75 times that year, it was a huge success. Everybody came to see it. And the reason why this play is so important is because again, French people have this reputation as being anti-religious, but.

[00:39:23] Annie Sargent: What really, uh, Molière is against is the people who wear their religion on their sleeve and use that to embezzle or to take advantage of people around them.

[00:39:38] Annie Sargent: And so anybody who is overtly religious in French society is suspect. Whether they are Catholic, Muslim Jewish, anything where to us overtly religious people is like, yeah, what are you hiding?

[00:39:56] Elyse Rivin: It’s interesting that this was 120 years before the revolution. I mean, this is the century before the revolution, but I think it was also the fact that, uh, there there was so much censorship on the part of the church, that did. there was.

[00:40:10] Elyse Rivin: One of the reasons Votaire was, was, uh, so revolted against the church a little bit later on. is It wasn’t, as you say it wasn’t just that people were, people could be practicing a religion, but that they controlled too much of, of people’s lives. And I think it’s interesting too, that Louis the 14th, who was actually a relatively religious personally. He was fine with all of this kind of farce and satire. it didn’t bother him

[00:40:39] Annie Sargent: Well, because it was a way to let off some steam, in his opinion. He had a iron fist over the country, really, but if people could let off, some steam have fun, make light of these Tartuffes who, make our life difficult sometimes, but he was such a caricature Tartuffe was such a caricature of what really happened in everyday life.

[00:41:06] Annie Sargent: That to, to the king, it didn’t seem like dangerous. It seemed like, you know, let off some steam, it’s fun.

[00:41:13] Elyse Rivin: You’re right. I think it’s the idea of pretentiousness, you know, of self-importance and pretentiousness that he wanted to break the abscess basically of this, and there must have been quite a bit of it. in, the Upper-class circles there must’ve been quite a bit of it, you know, people who considered themselves to be so important. And, and, uh, and of course look, clergy had a huge role in society in general, you know,

[00:41:36] Cachez ce sein que je ne saurais voir !

[00:41:36] Annie Sargent: So, so it’s really interesting that in Tartuffe, so in the last version, the one that we read today, uh, he only comes onto the scene that Tartuffe comes into the scene in the third scene. So the play has been going on for 10-12 minutes already.

[00:41:50] Annie Sargent: And he comes in and there’s this young lady who’s, uh, for the time scantily clad, I guess you would say, you know, she’s showing off a little bit too much. And one of the first thing he says is

[00:42:01] Annie Sargent: Cachez ce sein que je ne saurais voir !.

[00:42:04] Annie Sargent: Hide that breast that I shouldn’t be seeing. And, you know, it’s not his problem, that he’s a horny idiot. It’s her, that has a problem she’s showing off. Right. She shouldn’t be showing off, hide this thing. And again, you know, again, in today’s society and France women are like, Hey, I can go to the beach, bare breasted.

[00:42:29] Annie Sargent: Because I want to, and that is a fundamental, demand the French women. And it comes from Molière really. I mean, this is where it started, where, and that’s why French people are kind of shocked by the whole Muslim head covering, even though back then, French women put on a scarf when they went to church.

[00:42:52] Elyse Rivin: Yeah.

[00:42:53] The delicate dance French people do with religion

[00:42:53] Annie Sargent: You know, and, and still in very religious churches, they still do this. This is a scarf usually for women. So, you know, it’s, it’s this delicate dance that we do with religion in France. And you, I mean, it’s perfect in Molière and of course, L’Avare is absolutely wonderful. If you can only read one, Molière play L’Avare would be great.

[00:43:17] Elyse Rivin: Correct translates as the miser, the miser yet

[00:43:20] Annie Sargent: Great play. All of his plays are funny and now I haven’t seen him in English obviously, but I’m assuming that the translations are good. Like there’s gotta be some good

[00:43:30] Elyse Rivin: I’ve seen the miser and. I can’t remember, uh, if I saw Tartuffe in French or in English, but I know I have seen the miser in English and it translates quite well. Of course, you don’t get the, the music of the of the words, you know, I mean, that, that is one of the problems. Again, as a comparison, I have seen several Shakespeare plays translated into French.

[00:43:56] Elyse Rivin: And since I know every play by Shakespeare, just about, Uh, I can watch them, but I have to admit that it’s strange for me to hear it in French. So I don’t know about Moliere in English, except that it’s so much more present in terms of the idea of hypocrisy and, uh, blowhards, you know, and people like that, that people get the idea

[00:44:19] Molière plays are much easier to understand than Shakespeare’s plays

[00:44:19] Annie Sargent: Yeah. It’s before going to a Molière play, you don’t have to have it explained to you the way Shakespeare, you kind of

[00:44:24] Elyse Rivin: have to kind of

[00:44:25] Elyse Rivin: have to

[00:44:26] Annie Sargent: because you’re like, what was that? No, Molière, no, you don’t have to get anything explained. You’ll you’ll get it. It’s you know, it’s funny. It’s entertaining.

[00:44:35] Elyse Rivin: That the language is also very wonderful and it is interesting to me. I don’t know how many, because I know that some of the earliest things were written in poetry. And then of course the last plays were written in prose, but it’s a very beautiful language that he uses. You know, it’s, it’s Very very interesting. It’s also interesting to know that his idea of theater and acting was what we could say very modern because even at the time he said, that he wrote that he did not want to have, you know, somebody standing there and sort of just stiffly exclaiming things.

[00:45:09] Molière: father of modern theater

[00:45:09] Elyse Rivin: But, he wanted the acting to be much more natural and to people to move around in a much more natural way on the stage. So I would say personally, I think that he’s one of the fathers of modern theater. He really is because of his concept of what goes on on the stage, you know I mean? :He didn’t, uh, he he, he didn’t want people just to be sort of as these stiff cartoon things, just standing there and exclaiming verse, which is something that you can still find in certain kinds of theater.

[00:45:39] Elyse Rivin: Uh, but the interaction is very natural. The movement is back, back and forth is very natural, you know, and, and it is very much, I think, farce. is something everyone

[00:45:51] Annie Sargent: understands. Yeah.

[00:45:53] Annie Sargent: Yeah. And, and if it makes you laugh, that’s it, you know, game, you know, they won the playwright won because it’s really, it’s hard to make people laugh, especially intellectuals who enjoy a certain level of.

[00:46:07] Annie Sargent: Uh, you know, beautiful language and you know, this is not, these are not scatological plays. These are, you know, kind of highbrow plays really, but they make you laugh.

[00:46:20] Elyse Rivin: but they make you laugh.

[00:46:21] Annie Sargent: And so it’s, it’s a high art, I think, to make people laugh on such serious subjects and with such beautiful language, because none of it is vulgar or, debasing. So I’m going to try and find some performances of Molière plays. I’ll try to find one in French and one in English. Uh, it’d be good to have one that’s like with subtitles, that’d be ideal, right? If I can

[00:46:47] Elyse Rivin: Know, I know that they’ve done some filming of the theater.

[00:46:51] Elyse Rivin: pieces. Maybe, maybe one of those would have some translations

[00:46:55] Annie Sargent: attached and the movies

[00:46:57] Elyse Rivin: Have they done many movies

[00:46:58] Annie Sargent: yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.

[00:46:59] Annie Sargent: L’Avare with Louis de Funès. It was

[00:47:01] Annie Sargent: Performed as a movie, it was made as a movie overplay and it is hilarious, but I don’t know if it’s available anymore because that movie is probably 50 years old. It’s very old, but it’s very

[00:47:13] Elyse Rivin: I wonder about the others. I don’t know if any of the others have been turned into a movie.

[00:47:17] Annie Sargent: I’ll try to find them. If I find them, I’ll put them on the episode page and, you know, have fun, have fun. Just

[00:47:25] Elyse Rivin: Here’s a shortlist of the ones that. for me, are the ones that I think of as being most famous ones, the imaginary invalid talked to for the imposter, the school for women they actually did two or three about women with women in the title and

[00:47:41] Annie Sargent: that’s called L’école des femmes..

[00:47:42] Annie Sargent: The

[00:47:42] Elyse Rivin: L’école des Femmes in French, Le Misantrope, which is of

[00:47:45] Annie Sargent: course

[00:47:46] Elyse Rivin: the throat. I love the misanthrope. I think it’s wonderful. I love that’s when I have seen. I love the. L’Avare, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and Les Fourberies de Scapin.

[00:48:00] Annie Sargent: oh yes.

[00:48:03] Elyse Rivin: And I tried Looking up the word. It’s very, very difficult to explain fourberie

[00:48:07] Annie Sargent: but Une fourberie, ah, être fourbe is someone who lies, but in a very sophisticated way.

[00:48:16] Annie Sargent: Donc une fourberie is someone who deceives you, but you go along for a long time before you realize that it’s a deceit.

[00:48:27] Elyse Rivin: Hmm.

[00:48:27] Annie Sargent: That’s une fourberie.

[00:48:28] Elyse Rivin: Okay.

[00:48:29] Annie Sargent: Yes.

[00:48:31] Elyse Rivin: Okay. So here we are cynicism hypocrisy lying, all of the faults of human behavior.

[00:48:38] Annie Sargent: Yes. And Molière bless his heart was born 400 years ago and we still enjoy him greatly in France. Um, and if you’re lucky enough to speak French enjoyed it in French, because it’s a perfecto Merci Elyse !

[00:48:54] Elyse Rivin: Thank you Annie.

[00:48:56] Annie Sargent: Au revoir !

[00:48:56] Elyse Rivin: Au revoir !

[00:48:58] Thank you patrons and donors!

[00:48:58] Annie Sargent: Again, I want to thank my patrons for supporting the show and giving back. Patrons, get several exclusive rewards for doing so you can see them@ https://patreon.com/joinus. Thank you all for supporting the show. Some of you have done it for a long time. You are amazing. And a shout out this week to new patrons: Katherine Roeder, Sandy and Eric Oksen, Connie Watkins, Nina Little, Manuela Richardson, Brooke Clark Carter, Peggy Layne, Cassie Aw-Yang, Susan McDowell, Michelle, Jeanne Powanda, Anonymous man of mystery, Liz, and Elaine M Beaudoin. Thank you so much for becoming patrons and making this podcast possible.

[00:50:10] Annie Sargent: And my thanks also to Deborah Gudger for sending in a one-time donation by using the green button on any page on Join Us in France dot com that says, tip your guide.

[00:50:21] Annie Sargent: She bought all my VoiceMap tour. From the website. Thank you very much. And immediately also made a donation, which is very sweet. I guess she thought that I’m selling those tours too cheap, which yeah, probably. But thank you very much.

[00:50:38] How to get an itinerary consultation with Annie

[00:50:38] Annie Sargent: Another way to support this podcast is to hire me to be your a itinerary consultant. Here’s how it works. You purchase the service on, https://joinusinfrance.com/boutique. Then you tell me what you have in mind. I go to work. I write up what I think is best for you. Then we talk about it on the phone. You ask all your questions and then I send you an amended itinerary that really matches what you want.

[00:51:04] Annie Sargent: Uh, it saves you a lot of time. It ensures that you get feedback from a local. I am all booked up, like I said earlier until, uh, April 19th. So, if you would like the service book it several months ahead of your trip, or I might have to turn you down. I’m turning down quite a few people. As a matter of fact.

[00:51:22]

[00:51:22] How to get the new version of my Île de la Cité tour

[00:51:22] Annie Sargent: Now on top of having released a new VoiceMap tour of the Latin Quarter, I also updated my Île de la Cité tour. And if you’ve bought it in the past, whether from me or from the app you can get to the new version of the tour. So to do that, open the VoiceMap app and log in if it doesn’t recognize you automatically. At the bottom, tap on account, then choose the tour that you want to update and swipe left. That will delete the tour. You need to delete it first. Okay. We can’t get the new one, if you haven’t deleted the old one. So once you’ve deleted it, go to the purchased tab below your name and tap download. You have to confirm the download before it starts you’re absolutely entitled to do this. It’s free. It doesn’t cost you a penny more. And like Patricia has told me several times, I’m one of the few tour authors that actually updates the tours because she is a fan of audio tours and she’s tried several and she’s told me that some of those tours are really, really out of date.

[00:52:32] Annie Sargent: I make a point to update mine when it’s important to do so. And these are also tours that you can listen to from home. You can do a virtual tour where you just listen to me, talk about Paris and you can see the dot moving automatically. And of course, you’re not there to see what I’m talking about, but it’s a fun way to discover the app anyway.

[00:52:54] Annie Sargent: And you can listen to it as much as you want to. .

[00:52:56]

[00:52:56] Covid News

[00:52:56] Annie Sargent: Big changes on the COVID front in France starting last Monday. So that was February 28th, 2022 masks are no longer mandatory in places where the vaccine pass applies. So that’s museums. Theaters and restaurants, but masks remain mandatory in transport, such as planes, trains, taxis, buses, et cetera. And they are also mandatory at medical facilities and nursing homes. This will change again on March 14, coming up when the vaccine pass will not be mandatory anymore, unless you’re going to a nursing home or a medical facility I’ve been asked if that means that airlines that will fly you to France will stop asking for vaccine status after March 24th.

[00:53:48] Check your airline checkin document carefully for rules

[00:53:48] Annie Sargent: And the answer is, I’m not sure. And it really doesn’t matter what I say anyway, because if the gate agent says you’re not coming on this flight, then you’re not coming on this flight. Eh, so airlines all email their customers. Uh, they email you, your check-in documents do not ignore that email, read it carefully.

[00:54:11] Annie Sargent: It tells you everything you need to know . And yes, do what your airline says. Okay. It is going to be really, really nice that people landing in France won’t need to get a vaccine pass right away. I would still bring proof of vaccination just in case, but no more vaccine pass after March 14th. French people who go consult a surgeon or a specialist at a hospital will need to show their vaccine pass.

[00:54:39] Annie Sargent: Um, and also to go to nursing homes, to visit family members or whatever. And that will probably last for a little bit longer, but that doesn’t affect visitors because should you need emergency care? Of course you would get it whether you are vaccinated or not. So for the last two weeks, I think maybe three, when flying to France, you haven’t needed a recent negative test. You’ll still need it to go home for now, but to fly into France, you don’t need it, but if your airline requires a test, then you’re going to need to get one. So do pay close attention to what the check-in documents that the airline sends you say.

[00:55:20] Annie Sargent: And if they haven’t sent you your check-in documents yet. No panic, they will send it to you and then there’ll be time to do what you need. Personally. I will continue to wear a mask inside of stores, uh, because the thought of going into a store without a mask creeps me out. I’m sure I’ll take it off eventually, but I’m not ready just yet.

[00:55:43] Annie Sargent: That’s going to be the question. Are you ready to live like it’s 2018 again? That’s for you to decide I’m getting there. Yeah, I’m getting there as soon.

[00:55:54] Covid numbers are falling rapidly in France

[00:55:54] Annie Sargent: In France COVID numbers are falling rapidly, both in terms of new cases, new hospitalizations, and deaths, uh. People over 50 who are not vaccinated are still sitting ducks for this virus. Even if they don’t believe it, it doesn’t matter what they believe they’re sitting ducks. So the numbers show it. So if you haven’t been vaccinated, do it okay.

[00:56:20] About Russia invading Ukraine

[00:56:20] Annie Sargent: About the Ukraine. Ugh, such a terrible situation. People in France, like everywhere are worried about the humanitarian crisis created by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We’re not nervous about war reaching France at this time, but we’re horrified at what’s going on over there. It’s a fact that this war at the door of Europe is changing minds in France and Germany. And in most European countries.

[00:56:50] Annie Sargent: Number one, we need to push the accelerator on getting away from our dependence on oil and gas, especially when it comes to oil and gas from Russia. Wind solar, hydrogen nuclear all need to be on the fast track. Sure. Nuclear is not ideal. And some people don’t like windmills, but we cannot stop using oil and gas without those solutions. We have to be pragmatic about it. So yeah.

[00:57:22] Annie Sargent: Number two, and I’m at fault for this. I’ve always recoiled at big military budgets. I, and I know that Germans are even more hesitant than French people about military spending, but you know, when you have a madman at your doorstep with the second largest army in the world, it’s easy to see that it’s vital to develop a European military force.

[00:57:49] Annie Sargent: It is worth hiring and training brilliant people to develop the capabilities and keep the soldiers trained and ready, even if we never need them. I’d rather, we never need them, but this is like car insurance. You buy it. You hope you never need it, but if you don’t have it, you’re in a world of hurt.. So it’s changing minds in France quite rapidly.

[00:58:17] Annie Sargent: This is something Emmanuel Macron has said is this is a new phase in European history. And I think. As I can see right now, it’s bringing more people looking towards a European solution to this problem than a few years ago. Uh, when Brexit happened, there was a ton of talk of, you know, all these countries leaving the EU, and now it’s the opposite. All of these countries want to join the EU and NATO as well.

[00:58:51] Emmanuel Macron is officially running for relection

[00:58:51] Annie Sargent: Emmanuel McCall waited until the last day possible to announce that he’s running for a second term, the first round of election will take place on April 10th and the second round on April 24th. He made his announcement through a letter that every regional newspaper published the letter has also been shared widely on social media.

[00:59:12] Annie Sargent: It’s been all over the news. He’s just going to do a couple of rallies. I think he’s not going to be campaigning a lot. There’s going to be one official campaign video each week. And that’s it pretty much. He hasn’t said he was going to do TV debates yet, but despite all of this reluctance to spend time on campaigning, there is little doubt that he will get reelected.

[00:59:36] Annie Sargent: He was elected with 55% of the vote on the second round five years ago. And I think he’ll do even better in this time.

[00:59:44] Annie’s personal update

[00:59:44] Annie Sargent: For my personal update this week. Well, it’s good to be home. I’ve been home for almost a week. It’s been a busy week because I had a lot of itinerary reviews piling up, but I got through it and it was good to talk to several of you last week.

[01:00:01] The new VoiceMap tour of the Latin Quarter is live

[01:00:01] Annie Sargent: I also put the final touches on my Latin quarter VoiceMap tour and it is now alive and that is good. And I encourage you to check it out, uh, on https://joinuinfrance.com/boutique.

[01:00:16] Annie Sargent: Show notes for this episode are on https://joinuinfrance.com/379.

[01:00:31] Next week on the podcast: changes in visa procedures

[01:00:31] Annie Sargent: And next week on the podcast, it’s going to be a very interesting episode about getting a long-term visa for France with Sarala Terpstra. Sorry. I’m not sure I’m saying that. Right. Um, which I recorded a while back and, uh, it seems like things have changed a lot when it comes to getting a visa to come to France.

[01:00:53] Annie Sargent: And speaking of that, I also got to have a lovely dinner with Allison Lounes, who is the producer of a podcast called France formation. And I was on her podcast a while back, and I’m going to invite her on, Join Us in France . Because she has a business that helps people, uh, moved to France and offers lots of services for those people.

[01:01:20] Annie Sargent: She’s written a couple of books she was very kind and gave me a free copy. So I’m, I have, it’s a big book. I have a lot of reading to do, but anyway, thank you, Alison. And I’ll have her on the podcast soon, but regardless of the wonderful services that Alison provides, it’s good to hear from regular people who have moved to France and how they pulled it off.

[01:01:42] Annie Sargent: Because a lot of the time you have to understand the mindset first. Send questions or feedback to any at Join Us in France dot com. Thank you for listening. And I hope you join me next time so we can look around France together of wow.

[01:02:09] Annie Sargent: The Join Us in France travel podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent and copyright 2022. By addicted to France. It is released under a creative commons attribution. Non-commercial. No derivatives license. .

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