Wednesday, September 28

Today, I went to court - but in French style, at the Palais de Justice.  This is a massive building on Ile de la Cite which surrounds Sainte Chapelle (see previous blog).  It is a tribute to our old friend, Napoleon, who established - you guessed it, the Napoleonic Code - which still lives and breathes in our Quebec to this day.

The building is a large one - and I might add, makes Arthur Erickson's creation seems somewhat ... small and "new"!  I tried, with my poor French translation skills, to see some courtrooms in action.  I did succeed, after some poor gendarme took pity on me, in sitting in a couple of sessions - which were somewhat interesting given that I didn't understand 98% of what they were saying!!!  In one courtroom, two women were fighting over something in a typical "Judge Judy" style - and then an advocate spoke for one of them - and then the judge gave his decision.

In any event, the building is beautiful.  Here are some photos.

 

Cour d'Appel

The Court of Appeal - I couldn't get into the courtroom since it wasn't open, but the room looked amazing from the little I could see from the outside.

After a quick lunch in front of the wonderful statue in front of St. Eustache church, I was off to see the Edvard Munch exhibit at the Pompidou Centre - which wasn't yet up and running when Kathy and I had earlier visited the museum.  It was very interesting.  Below are two of the favourites pieces that I saw.



"Starry Night"




Equivalent of "Death Watch", which I believe was to refer to the death of his sister



Edvard was not what you would call a "cheery" guy - lots of his paintings had vampires, sick people, murders, fighting men, dead bodies, etc.  He suffered from depression and was hospitalized and apparently underwent there some sort of electrical therapy.

Unfortunately, his most famous paintings, The Scream from the early 1890s, (consistent with the less than happy approach) was not part of the exhibition - they are permanently on display in Oslo (where a number of the versions of this painting have been stolen and then recovered).

Another beautiful day in Paris - with temperatures in the high 20s.