The Garden of Luxembourgh

Paris is a much loved city. Beautiful works of art adorn her. When the people of France overthrew the monarchy, I suppose they crowned Paris their queen.

Throughout Paris, monuments, statues, and paintings stand in our midst and tell their stories of human struggle and divine intervention. So numerous, dominant, and spectacular are public works of art, people seem to understand their place in the old world in ways that we of the new world can only imagine through reading and travel.

By invitation

Like all the world’s children, granddaughter Audrey was granted free admission to all museums, “by invitation of the President of France,” our guide reminded us.

This artist in the Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages captured my heart with her complete focus on her restorative work. I stood in awe of her attention to detail—she recorded each brush stroke in a journal—and her physical involvement. As she relaxes her arm on the statue’s shoulder, he seems to gaze at her with love.