Chapter 46 french river party

one Along the way, the most healthy city is Paris. It has almost all the advantages and disadvantages of other cities, and it magnifies them together to the extreme.You can admire again and again, frown again and again, and finally you will think of Baudelaire's poem: I love you, the city of all evils! Just as we raise a fist and hit a friend on the shoulder: This villain, I miss you so much! It is arrogant, but it is tolerant, and arrogance is the capital of tolerance.In contrast, many cities are self-confessed because of arrogance, cold-eyed and arrogance, and lack of enthusiasm; while more cities have expanded their filth, encouraged vulgarity, lowered their ranks, and lost their grandeur because of tolerance.A person can be without enthusiasm and grandeur, but a city can't.It's like when an animal gets bigger, it needs a basic support force, which can neither lose blood nor break bones, otherwise it will collapse into a pile and can no longer get up.Enthusiasm is the blood of the city, and grandeur is the bone of the city.It's rare, Paris, full of vitality and even flesh and blood.

It is leisurely, but it works hard, so it is radiant in leisure.In contrast, there are many cities in the world that do nothing for a long time due to idleness, and even foreign tourists become sleepy with them; and more cities, especially Asian cities, are distracted due to busy travel, and lose the quiet meeting only in late autumn. The charm that can only be displayed in theParis is just right, free and busy, neither busy nor busy.Living in such a city for a while, even life will become more comfortable. two The various advantages of Paris are due to one of its most fundamental advantages, that is, its ability to aggregate.It is not the aggregation of wealth, but the aggregation of people, culture, and aesthetic atmosphere.

Only aggregation can make it enlightened and high; only aggregation can make it radiate and diverge.However, unlike other cities in the world that gather and disperse, Paris pays more attention to the selection and accumulation in the process of dispersing, and finally accumulates the complacency and stubbornness in the humanistic sense, which becomes the starting point of the next round of dispersing. French people, from politicians, military strategists, artists to ordinary citizens, like to be lively, like to show off, like to meet, like to hug each other with high spirits when they meet, and like to solidify and sculpt long memories after meeting.As a result, no matter where they made a windfall, made a fortune, or gained a reputation, they all wanted to show it in Paris, preferably by the Seine River.

Squeeze to the Seine River, first because of the good environment, scenery, and style; second, because there are many perspectives, which are easy to admire and spread, including identifying one by one on a yacht on the Seine River, and watching quietly; third, because of a solid foundation, There are already so many giants squatting there, whoever can squeeze in can sit on an equal footing with them and have a dialogue between generations. This scene, I think, is the expansion of the French aristocratic salon.Back then, the salon of the Marchioness of Lambert and the Duchess of Mann was a kind of gathering where elegant men and nobles scrambled to join.The bells of the carriage rang again and again, and cultural giants who even knew their names as soon as we saw each other came in through the miserable wind and rain.The hostess is beautiful and smart, gently picking up the old firewood from the aristocratic family to add new warmth to French civilization.

The salon on the banks of the Seine is not so warm, but a kind of miraculous freezing of huge volume.Notre Dame, the Louvre, Place de la Concorde, and the Eiffel Tower are all participants in this salon, so even the spirits of every monarch in the Louis dynasty, including the most showy Louis XIV, are not qualified to act as the host.Just as the Parisians were feeling unspeakable, a voice came from a distant island: I would like to lie on the banks of the Seine, among the people of France whom I have loved so much How can the tender Parisians bear this cry?They tried every means to transport the body of the caller from the island back to the Seine, and once he lived, this great salon would not have a second owner.

three Now that it has become an international scene, Parisians are proud and picky at the same time. Picking is an extension of pride. When the Eiffel Tower was just built, de Maupassant, Alexandre Dumas and other writers took the lead in roaring and leading citizens to sign their objections, saying that this tall iron guy was disfiguring Paris.This is equivalent to the fact that the participants in a salon party can't bear to squeeze in a tall, thin and lonely man in armor. It also makes sense to think about it, parties pay attention to harmonious style, when the Eiffel Tower has not been used by Paris, both in shape and material, it seems reckless and strange.Later, I also admired it for not leaving. It has a bit of the toughness of Chinese green skin. At one time, it was said that the World Expo wanted it to be a symbol, and at another time it was said that the war required it to emit radio waves. After a long time, it was used by Paris. People are pleasing to the eye.

It was just pleasing to the eye with a new geek, the Center Pompidou.Parisians were completely dumbfounded on the day of the unveiling. This is clearly an unfinished chemical plant, so it just stands there naked?From now on, where will there be the dignity of Paris!Next was the glass pyramid designed by Mr. I.M. Pei in front of the Louvre Museum. At that time, so many newspapers asserted that if this ugly and funny monster was taken in, it would be a shame to the Louvre Museum and a disaster for Paris. So many Parisians, all of them spontaneously becoming members of the selection committee for this gathering on the banks of the Seine, are emotionally stronger than even party elections.This situation is rarely seen in other cities in the world.

In this regard, we have a lot of personal experience. Yesterday afternoon, we filmed at the entrance of the subway station behind the Louvre, because this year is the centenary of the Paris Metro, and we happened to be doing a show.The two gentle gentlemen stood at a distance and watched us all the time, finally came over, asked our nationality, and said sincerely: We are ordinary citizens of Paris, please don’t take any more pictures The subway is over, and Chinese audiences should appreciate a classic Paris. We laughed and said: The subway has become a classic, and this year marks its 100th birthday.

They said: China should know that a hundred years is a small number, and Paris also knows it. At this time, a local interpreter we hired came over and told us that there are many citizens like this in Paris, who love Paris so much that they would walk on the street whenever they had the chance, like a mayor, afraid that outsiders would misunderstand them. Paris, say Paris crookedly. I think such people are too cute and have too many things, which is an interesting social phenomenon, so I chatted with them through this translator.I said: We have already filmed the classics you mentioned, but we have missed one of the most fascinating secret corners in Hugo's novels.

Now they got excited and asked: Notre Dame de Paris? I laughed and said: How could this leak?I went to shoot on the first day.I mean, the sewers of Paris.So many thrilling chases are going on secretly at the feet of the citizens, it's really interesting. They said: Actually, as long as you go through some formalities, you can still shoot. The sewer opening is very large along the Seine River. I said: Now we are more interested in the designers of the sewers. It is said that they have long foreseen that there will be a bigger project underground in Paris, and they have left space.A hundred years ago, the prospectors who built the subway were very impressed when they went underground.

They are a little strange: You Chinese even know this? I said: This will be the opening line of the film we shoot today. In this way, of course they did not discourage us. I guess it's one of those kinds of obsessives we see along the way.Fans of dogs, cats, watches, stamps, key pendants, old-fashioned cameras, the two of them are a little bigger, Paris fans. But they don't go crazy, and they relax as soon as they communicate. This has always been the advantage of Parisians, so the party on the Seine is eclectic and not paranoid.Those citizens who have tried their best to resist the Eiffel Tower, the Pompidou Center, and the I.M. Pei Pyramid have not lost their ability to laugh at themselves when mocking the target.They are not like our common critics. The more intense the criticism, the less dare to directly contact the object of criticism. Instead, they are much more frank. Stop mocking the object and start mocking yourself. So it may be said that what really gathers on the banks of the Seine is the collective psychology of generations of Parisians. Four There are also problems with this kind of gathering. On the banks of the Seine, the Louvre Museum is probably the place with the most gatherings. I have been there many times, and every time I always think, is this super-large-scale gathering a good thing or a bad thing? It may be a good thing for preservation, but not necessarily for display; it may be a good thing for audiences, but not necessarily for works; it may be a good thing for a few rare treasures, but not necessarily for other works. Although this refers to a museum, it has a wide range of symbolic meanings, so we might as well say a few more words. The Louvre has 400,000 exhibits, all of which are masterpieces, otherwise they would not be able to enter the high threshold of this world's top museum.However, the majority of tourists from all over the world come here mainly to see three women: Venus, Mona Lisa, and the Goddess of Victory.There are many intersections in the palace, and the directions are specially marked for them, so as not to be dazzled and not see the protagonist after traveling thousands of miles away. Not bad, but a big injustice to the 400,000 other masterpieces.Venus stands in the depths of a long corridor, lined with rows of other masterpieces almost as her ceremonial guard; There are quite a few masterpieces, large and small, that have also been included in the history of art, and they are now included as her bodyguards. Works like Venus and Mona Lisa do have a special kind of light that can completely cover everything around them.If the surrounding works appear in a certain place alone, I don’t know how many people will linger and ponder, but when they are crowded here, even the most careful visitors can only cast a polite and sorry look before leaving. The remnant sculpture of the Goddess of Victory is also highly respected, standing on the landing of a staircase, but judging from the rushing momentum she displayed, this place is still too small.It can be seen that even the protagonist has been wronged. Artists are dead, but their works are still alive, and they are alive in the Louvre. This is their success, but they can't imagine that so many masterpieces live together, which is equivalent to countless historical celebrities living for thousands of years. How amazing it is to compete for beauty and flirt with each other under one roof. From this, I think that such a large-scale gathering is not worth the candle.At that time, the world was in turmoil, and it was a good thing for some large museums to collect scattered cultural relics; this matter was also connected with the purpose of the war and the strength of the country. The deepest pain of the Italians, which again became a bad thing.Today, these good and bad things have lost their basis.Many places have the ability to preserve their own cultural relics, so why express some outdated symbol of power in a highly concentrated way? I remember going to some small ancient cities in Spain and Portugal. In order to visit what is said to be the most precious cultural relic in the city, we worked hard to find it, and finally found it to be a third-rate work.Why not allow these cities to regain some of the true masterpieces now enlisted in national museums?When those masterpieces leave these cities, the city loses its soul, the masterpieces also lose their space, and both sides suffer.This matter is also worth noting in China. It is better to disperse collections than centralized collections, so that there are things to see everywhere in the land of China, instead of being dizzy and suffering from backaches and backaches just in a large museum. This is true of cultural relics, as well as others.Ultra-large-scale high-concentration aggregation generally does more harm than good, so it is not suitable to try it lightly. five The Louvre is already so helpless, in fact, it is just a building on the banks of the Seine, stepping out of the door, facing a larger-scale party.Anyone's energy is very limited, how to bear it? Even if the party reaches this level, there are still gaps, and they are important gaps. That is, in lively Paris, it is not easy to find the eighteenth century. The Palace of Versailles was completed in 1689. After Louis XIV moved the palace to the Palace of Versailles, the construction of the Louvre stopped immediately. That is to say, both palaces belong to the seventeenth century.Later, Napoleon ordered the expansion of the Louvre, which was a matter of the nineteenth century. Both the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower were built in the nineteenth century.Concorde Square is related to the 18th century, but it was finalized in the 19th century, especially the Egyptian obelisk, which is the main symbol of the square, was moved from Luxor in 1831. Notre Dame de Paris was built as early as the fourteenth century, and then there were two major renovations, one in the seventeenth century and one in the nineteenth century, both of which avoided the eighteenth century. So, we are walking in the lost Paris of the eighteenth century. The gravity of the matter is that France's highest honors rightfully belong to the eighteenth century. The eighteenth century is like a torrent, the seventeenth is its left bank, the nineteenth is its right bank.On the left bank, Louis XIV was extravagant and built a lot of buildings, all of which remained; on the right bank, a Napoleon stood on the land that was shaped majestically by the impact of the eighteenth century, and left various relics.As it turned out, it was the rapids themselves that were hard to find.The roar had long gone, and the river bed was completely empty. This unseen torrent is the Enlightenment. As soon as Louis XIV died, the power of reason that had been silent under the autocratic monarchy began to be released.Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau spoke one after another, and France's attention gradually focused on them, and Europe's attention gradually focused on France.Finally, the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" of August 1789 came. Compared with German philosophers such as Kant and Hegel, French philosophers lack systematic rigor, and are not even considered philosophers in the strict sense; but they face social reality more directly and are more personally involved in the historical process , to appeal to the general public more effectively, and consequently bear a greater reputation, suffer more troubles, and experience more dangerous storms.They believe in human progress, use scientific rationality as a weapon, and earnestly open up space for social justice, freedom and tolerance, and oppose privilege, ignorance, and superstition. They are not going from rationality to abstract speculation, but to the formulation of thinking norms and behavior norms of the whole society.As far as academic culture goes, it's a thankless endeavor, but they chose moral responsibility first.Because of this, French academic culture has an intoxicating warmth. Body temperature is invisible and qualityless, but it has revived an era; body temperature cannot leave buildings, avenues, and steles by the Seine River, but it has changed the smiles, eyes and gait of all the French people who linger there. It can also be said that it is precisely the most important thing, without cohesion, it cannot be cohesive. Our trip this time is to find the uncondensed spirit behind the scenery.This is also the goal I used to travel in China. For fifteen years, I reached out and felt while walking, and I was often overjoyed, because I touched the body temperature from a distance, just as Hegel said, in the ashes Feel the residual warmth of the distant history. The distance mentioned here probably refers to time or space.Almost half of the body temperature transmitted to China from far away in space comes from France and Paris. Now that the body temperature of Paris has already traveled thousands of miles to China, why does it care about the lack of shapes in the cold stone buildings on the banks of the Seine?But we Chinese travelers know in our hearts that the most important thing is precisely the absent ones. It is also true: the elephant has no shape, but the big sound has no sound.