Babette & Miladus
| Amusements sérieux et comiques
|  |
| Amusements sérieux et comiques
| |
 A beautiful, cool and sunny day for the WWII Armistice holiday. Miladus watching the crowds lined up along the Champs Elysées to see the parade. |
 Chirac leaving the ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe and waving from his official car as it goes down the Champs Elysées escorted by his motorcycle guard. |
 Both sides of the street were carefully guarded by stoic guards from the CRS... |
 and the national Gendarmerie. This little guy never smiled once. |
 The Polytechniciens (notice the women in the front row in boots)... |
 following their commandant. |
 La garde républicain, à pied. |
 |
 More female officers in boots and culottes: the French have the best uniforms I've ever seen. The Saint-Cyriens. |
 A most distinguished elderly general striding ahead of his corps (Ecole militaire de Saint-Maixent?) |
 The French navy. |
 Their marines? |
 Milad loved these guys, because they balanced their machine guns on their pot bellies. Jean thinks these are the Légion Étrangère. |
 Luc François, artiste peintre, a veteran of the second world war: possibly 2e Division blindé du Général Leclerc, or 1re Armée française du Maréchal Delattre de Tassigny. |
 The French flag hanging from the inside arch of the Arc de Triomphe. The parade is over and the cars haven't quite returned to the Étoile. The poor man in the bottom left is distressed to have stepped in the dung from the Gendarmes' horse guard. |
 Back chez nous, the Champ de Mars hosted the many different armed services of France in their first "encounter with the nation", an attempt to gain about 30,000 recruits in the next five years, as the military has now become a volunteer force. I particularly liked this poster, because the paratrooper, like all of the officers and soldiers we met walking from exhibit to exhibit, seemed shy and yet so pleased to demonstrate his field of competence. |
 The gendarmes' tank, that they helped kids to get into and investigate. It felt strange to see it on the walkways of the formal Champ de Mars garden. |
 Across the river, facing the Champ de Mars and the Eiffel Tower, a submarine mockup was submerged in the very shallow fountains of the Palais de Chaillot, showing that the French military have a very definite sense of humor. |
 While at the École Militaire end of the Champ de Mars, the Air Force (why is it that the Air Force and the Navy always occupy opposite poles?) had set up a jet-fighter training game with six cockpits playing against each other. |
 There were very long waiting lines (many people wanted to play over and over, and sometimes fathers sat with their kids in their laps), with quite attractive and forceful women Air Force officers acting as game hosts. To borrow a naval image, they certainly did run a tight ship. |
 One of my favorite exhibits was this one: the "parcours pompier" (fireman training course). The firemen of Paris equipped volunteers with their smoke and fireproof outfits and their golden helmets, and sent them through a smoke-filled military tent. This tiny little would-be fireman couldn't have been more than four years old, and his jacket hung all the way to the ground. |
 Here he is led by the fireman in blue into the smoke billowing out of the tent, with his astonished older sister looking on. He was shy, but he couldn't wait to get in there. |
 Under
the proud eyes of his father, a little boy learns to shoot anti-aircraft
missiles! |
 The band of the Chasseurs alpins, with their mountain boots, berets, and enormous horns. |
 Dogs in Paris: a large Army paratrooper and his midget dog; |
 a spectator in a clothing store watching the crowds pass by; |
 and my favorite: the K9 Corps of the Army, with its "Dog's Prayer" on the Corps banner held up by mannequins dressed in the dog-training armor: |
Prière
du chien A toi, mon Maître: Toi qui viens me chercher Pour vivre à tes côtés Ne m'abandonne jamais. Donnes-moi la douceur de tes caresses. Moi je t'offrirai chaleur et tendresse. Témoignes-moi ta confiance; Moi je t'offre ma vigilance. Saches que à mon égard ta fierté Sera l'ombre de ma fidélité. Donne-moi ta simple compagnie. Moi je t'offrirai toute ma vie Ô toi mon maître, mon seul ami. |