"Napoleon’s Throne!" I pointed to the red velvet and bee encrusted chair at the end of the room.  It was, in fact, the real throne of Napoleon I, in the Medici palace in the Luxembourg Gardens.  This was the French weekend of “patrimoine”, when all government buildings are open to the public.

Over coffee, we decided, with our Bulgarian French teacher, Boris, to visit the Senate.  The Senate building was originally constructed in 1615, for Marie de Medicis, between the reign of Henri IV and Louis XIV.   It is a delightful blend of Italian and French, decorated to the nines.

The place was almost empty when we went in at 9:45.  We were able to get right up to the tapestries and count the threads.  It is not a medium I am usually interested in, but these were exceptional.  Flowers were executed with infinitely more detail than my  own paintings.  I fell in love with the image of Arachne, the weaver.

Room after room was gilded and painted.  Despite its governmental use, there was a feeling of warmth further accentuated by the beautiful crystal chandeliers.    Windows looked out on the park, and to private gardens around the building.  We decided to save the greenhouses for Sunday.

Washington, DC, is like this every day, I think, with free museums and collections for study.  I make a mental note to spend more time there when next in the US.   England, too, has many museums open freely to the public.  In France, it is not every day one can visit the Senate, and not all areas are open like this.  We see the offices of the president of the Senate, and the little winter garden he and his elite circle relax in.

We hopped out of bed this morning to head for the greenhouses.  Here, all the plants for the park  are developed and incubated.  Ancestors of park plants, in fact.  There were several small greenhouses with orchids, some with big vanilla beans hanging from them.  There was a large, puffy Chinese orchid I’d never seen before and a fuzzy white orchid from Central America. 

We continued on the path by the dinner plate dahlias to the “mine” school and mineral museum.  It was a feast for the eyes.  I cannot imagine any more beautiful setting for a gem than the natural formations I saw here.  I was particularly impressed with two contrasting colored opals occurring in a Mexican stone.  “That is one of our most unusual specimens,” the guide told me, “normally two stones like that would occur in separate formations”.

I loved the azurite, the sulfur, the rubies.  This museum is actually open for a three hours a day, five days a week, to the public.  We left the tour, satiated with colors and sparkle.  I think of how wonderful it would be to find these stones in nature.  I start to plan a trip to the Pyrenees, and wonder if I shouldn’t be painting those flowers first.ß

Laurie (painting and text) and Blair PESSEMIER

Delphinium in a champagne bucket; acrylic on linen; 11 x 16 inches