A Bakery in Paris, page 28
I found I wasn’t sad to forgo the white ball gown and a formal luncheon. The thought of such excess after the war felt like a mockery to those who were lost, though I knew none of them would likely begrudge us our merriment.
We’d already signed papers at the mairie the previous afternoon, but today, at Laurent’s mother’s insistence, we would exchange vows in Saint-Pierre. Just as Great-grandmother Lisette had done with Théo and Sébas. Her second love, while unexpected, bloomed into a romance as all-consuming as the first. Just as Grand-mère and Grand-père and Maman and Papa had done.
Madame Dupuis and the girls walked me the few hundred feet to the church. Laurent was waiting there with his parents and all his brothers.
The priest, a rather dour man who, in my mind, was the very antithesis of the man that had presided over this church in my great-grandmother’s time, spoke the timeless vows that he had recited to hundreds of couples before us. And would likely speak to hundreds more before he passed.
It was perfect.
It was still painful.
But as we walked back to the bakery where our new, but already loyal customers awaited their bit of the croquembouche we’d made to share with anyone who stopped by that day, it was worth the ache of missing my parents if the end result was that I was married to Laurent.
There was a modest crowd assembled to feast on the golden tower of cream puffs enrobed in strands of caramel. Laurent and I had made it together, and it was finer than either attempt we’d made for Rossignol. Together, we created something greater than we ever could have apart. I knew that by myself, I could do great things, but with Laurent at my side, we would both reach greater heights.
He was a good man who had vowed to raise my sisters as his own daughters. Who, in a few short years, would show how true to his word he was when our own daughter was born. He treated all three of them as though they were the most important beings on the earth.
Save, perhaps, for one.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Lisette
June 1875
As was our custom, we closed the shop for our afternoon break after we’d had our midday meal. We gathered up the children to stretch our legs and brush away the cobwebs from a morning spent hard at work. Nanette, who no longer cared to take a stroll of an afternoon, would keep an eye on the shop and put in some extra loaves for the dinner rush. She was happy to take on the duty, since I was always the one to light the ovens at an ungodly hour while she slept until the morning crowd came for their breakfast.
“I want to go see Grand-mère and Grand-père,” Théodora said, looking up at us with pleading blue-green eyes the same shade as her father’s. She had his copper ringlets and the same conviction when she spoke. I had gotten the dearest wish of my heart that something of her father would live on in her.
“That’s a bit far for today,” Sébas said. “Little Guillaume would be in tears by the time we reached the Place des Vosges. We can go on Sunday in the carriage. I know your grandmother wants to get her hands on baby Nanette. And to spoil you and your brother with sweets while your maman and I aren’t looking.”
Théodora giggled. “Clever Papa. We didn’t think you noticed.”
“Always your first mistake, ma chère. Never underestimate how clever your papa is,” I said. “Or your maman. I was raised by your grand-mère, and I know all her tricks.”
My parents, after a long and uneasy adjustment to my new circumstances, doted on the children. My mother harbored grand aspirations for all of them, but I was determined they would set their own courses in life. Though if my parents saw fit to make the children’s situations easier as they grew into adulthood, I wouldn’t argue.
“Why not to the park?” Rémy asked. “I saved a bit of stale bread for the ducks.” As the oldest, eight-year-old Rémy didn’t plead or whine to get his way. He had Pierrine’s dark hair and impish expression but was the most serious boy I’d ever known. His father had been killed during the horrible week that claimed his mother as well. With Gaspard’s help, we were able to track down little Rémy and raise him as our own. It seemed the least we could do to honor his mother.
“Next time, son. Let’s head east,” Sébas said.
We walked past the church where he had served for a decade. Théodora was still confused about how her beloved papa could have once been a priest, and still didn’t fully understand how it was that she had been lucky enough to have two papas, but she was grasping more and more as the days rushed by.
Not far from Sébastien’s former church, the ground had been cleared to erect a new church. A massive basilica that would tower over the butte. A reminder that the elite had won and the workers had been put in their place. We stood and watched the hive of laborers preparing the land for construction. It would be a massive undertaking, and I was glad I’d likely not see it completed in my lifetime.
“Loathsome place,” I said, resisting the urge to spit on consecrated ground. “But I suppose the victors must be allowed to build the monuments.”
“We don’t have a monarchy,” Sébas pointed out. “And the sentiment against the violence after the Commune was extreme enough, there likely won’t ever be again.”
“It’s something,” I agreed, “I only hope it will last. For their sakes.” I glanced meaningfully at the older children and cuddled my sweet newborn daughter to my chest.
Sébas hoisted Guillaume, his miniature in every respect, aloft to get a better look at the city that still bore the scars that had changed our lives forever.
“It will, my love,” Sébas said, leaning in to kiss me as Guillaume squealed with delight from his perch on his father’s shoulders. “It will because it has to.”
And we walked back to the bakery with the green façade, hand in hand. On the little terrace, the rose that Théo had given me was now a sturdy young bush that bloomed reliably and grew heartier with each passing year. I could not help but smile each time I saw it. The first gift that I was given that was born of love, not obligation, and without the taint of expectation. As we opened the door to our little bakery in the heart of Montmartre, the rose’s aroma mingled with the earthy smell of baking bread. They blended to create the perfume that, to me, would always be the scent of love and Le Bijou.
Pain français
I have learned all manner of elegant recipes at Nanette’s hip, but this is the one that is never missing from the table. The one we rely on to sustain us. Common man or the emperor himself, rarely a meal goes by where a portion of common bread is not present—or sorely missed.
Add to six pounds of flour, two pints of milk, three-quarters of a pound of lukewarm butter, half a pound of yeast, and two ounces of salt. Mix all well together. Knead with a sufficient quantity of warm water. Cover the dough and let rise for two hours. Shape into rolls and let rest on tinned plates over a slack stove. Let stand one hour, then bake in a very hot oven for twenty minutes.
Recipe notes: No alteration needed. Serve often, and with love.
* * *
Author’s Note
A question many authors are posed is “Where do your ideas come from?” Many authors find the question annoying. Largely, I suspect, because the origin stories of their books aren’t all that interesting, and they hate disappointing their readers. Most books aren’t inspired by anything as dramatic as a bolt of lightning or a stone tablet hidden in the woods. Alas, most of my books start when a friend messages me with a link to an article and says, “Hey, you should write a book about this.” In other cases, research for one book leads to an idea for another (e.g. The School for German Brides was born from research materials I found for my previous book, Across the Winding River).
In the case of A Bakery in Paris, right at the beginning of the Covid lockdown I was actively hunting for new ideas. Usually, I have plenty in my back pocket, but none of them felt right. At the time, I was dating a historian and I asked him for his thoughts on a potential new topic. I was keen to break away from the World War II books I’d been doing and wanted to look to a new era for the sake of diversifying my craft. He suggested I look into the Siege of Paris and the Paris Commune of the early 1870s for inspiration. I remembered some of this history from my graduate school days, and, after refreshing my memory, I knew the dashing historian boyfriend was right. And yes, reader, I married him.
For various reasons, The School for German Brides was contracted first, so I had to wait a full year to dig into this manuscript. Writers will tell you of the siren song of the “affair book” . . . the book that you want to write because you’re supposed to be writing something else. A Bakery in Paris was the most alluring affair book of my career, and it was incredibly hard to wait to begin writing this tale. Thankfully, my wonderful editor, Tessa, believed this would be a great follow-up to The School for German Brides, as it doesn’t entirely leave behind the World War II aspect of my previous work, thanks to Micheline’s post-war timeline. But it does seek to depart from my previous novels that centered on the conflict itself. The idea was to focus on Paris as it was rebuilding—and reinventing—itself.
Both Lisette’s story from the 1870s and Micheline’s from 1946 deal with a city recovering from the horrors of war, and also the families that must heal and move forward when the path seems impossibly barred. I wrote the entirety of Lisette’s story first, and then moved along to Micheline’s. I had worried that the narratives wouldn’t flow together without a lot of overhaul, but the similarities of the circumstances in which they lived have such strong parallels that it wasn’t as hard as I’d feared to intertwine the story arcs. Originally, there was going to be a third timeline set in the 1990s, but there was such rich material to expound upon with the first two heroines that I couldn’t find a way to make the modern heroine live up to her foremothers. Once I let go of the idea of the third voice, the narrative simply worked.
Both Micheline and Lisette, and the rest of the characters that surround them, are all of my creation. There are references to real historical figures, but aside from a cameo from a real Versaillais general, none appear “onstage.” That said, many of the events depicted are true. The women of Montmartre held off the Versaillais troops who were waiting for the horses that the generals had forgotten. The Versaillais were dislodged by the National Guard, and that was the beginning of a two-month reign of the common man over Paris. Sadly, their infighting, and a lack of organization and a common vision, meant the Communards would ultimately fall to the Versaillais.
The real plot twist in all this was that though the bourgeoisie and the monied classes disdained the Commune in its time, the bloody and disproportionate reprisals of the Versaillais against anyone even tangentially associated with the rebellion swayed the public opinion back in favor of the workers, who were fighting for fair treatment and representation under the law. Though the Commune was defeated and the Byzantine behemoth, the Basilica of Sacre Coeur, still looms large over the city to remind the people of the power of the elite, France never again saw a monarchy. This rebellion was well and truly defeated, but the people were ultimately victorious.
Also based in truth were the vicious attacks against women in France who were accused of “horizontal collaboration” with German troops during World War II. When Micheline’s mother, a young widow, is desperate to feed her three young daughters, she sacrifices her dignity to keep her beloved children alive. There was little sympathy for the women who were reduced to such measures. Many suffered beatings and had their heads shaved in great spectacles of public humiliation. Others simply disappeared at the hands of their own countrymen who’d had their spirits broken over the course of the long war and were looking to reclaim a bit of their lost pride. This was the fate of Micheline’s much-lamented mother, and many other women like her.
Lisette’s bakery, Le Bijou, is fictional, but I did search photos of countless Parisian boulangeries for the perfect prototype on which to base my own little slice of Paris. I found a minuscule spot called La Galette des Moulins right in the heart of Montmartre, on the rue Norvins, just off the Place du Tertre. The building is a lighter shade of green than that of the one you see on the cover, and I haven’t been able to find out how old the building is, but the tiny little bakery has a courtyard beside and apartments above, just as depicted in the book. With its warm reviews from regular patrons but glaring absence from many travel guides, it was the perfect understated place to set the story.
While much of this novel was written while international travel was impossible, and I had to spend hours on Google Street View (what a lifesaver!), I did have the opportunity to visit Paris between drafts. It was my first return to one of the cities of my heart in more than twelve years. While the trip itself was going to be a whirlwind adventure across much of Western Europe, I would get three days to photograph and absorb the places where Lisette and Micheline lived and loved. The first morning of the trip, we trekked the fifteen-minute hike up the butte from our hotel to the beloved bakery that I’d used as a model for Le Bijou. I’d studied the building from every angle online, but I was finally going to step foot in the place for myself. I planned on buying an obscene number of pastries, a good coffee, and photographing until the owners got annoyed.
When we showed up, the bakery was shuttered. After a quick search on my phone, it seemed it permanently closed about a month before our arrival. I’d checked the opening hours so many times before our travels, but apparently not close enough to our actual stay in Paris. Yes, I cried actual tears in the Place du Tertre for the hole-in-the-wall bakery that hadn’t survived the pandemic long enough to experience the boom of the “summer of revenge travel.” And there were no other bakeries for blocks and blocks. Of course, in modern times there are multiple cafés and restaurants right in the square, so the average Parisian or traveler won’t starve. In Lisette’s time, bread was a staple of the diet. Nutritionally questionable or not, people ate pounds of the stuff per day to live. Having to walk a half hour or more to find bread would have been a real burden for the hardest working people in the city. So many times, in both timelines, the need for a bakery in that corner of Montmartre is brought up, and the absence of one in 2022 drove that point home for me.
There was something poetic about the bakery having been closed upon my arrival. It was going to be a stellar moment in what was already an incredible trip. But as I stood and resigned myself to taking pictures of the exterior of the storefront and the little courtyard, I sympathized with Madame Dupuis, who knew there was a need for a good bakery in her neighborhood. I truly hope someone opens it again and restores it as a bakery. If said proprietor is reading this? Invite me to the grand opening and I’ll bring signed copies of this book for your first patrons in exchange for a hot pain au chocolat and a coffee. Or a tartelette au citron. Maybe both?
A stone’s throw from the now-shuttered bakery is the Église Saint-Pierre de Montmartre, one of the oldest churches in Paris. It’s the church where Sébas served as priest, where Lisette married Théo, where Micheline married Laurent, and where countless members of their family, for generations, attended services in good times and in bad. The church, now in the shadow of Sacre Coeur, still stands today and continues to serve the people of the Montmartre neighborhood where Lisette and Micheline lived. It was indeed a warehouse for Communard weapons during the attacks, though I found no proof of a compassionate priest who allowed the munitions to be stored in the place of worship. I’d like to think some of the clergy were sympathetic to the plight of their most needy parishioners, but unfortunately, most sided with the Versaillais, who represented the last vestiges of monarchy and the established order that the Church sought to uphold.
The theme that I found reinforced during my visit to Montmartre was, especially in Lisette’s time (but still today), the importance of neighborhood unity. Neighbors looked out for one another. They supported local business and worked diligently to make sure that their little corner of Paris was thriving. This wasn’t just an abstract idea. There were neighborhood organizations that worked for the benefit of all residents of the area as well as those fortunate enough to visit. A sign in honor of the “Place de la Commune Libre de Montmartre” dedicated on April 11, 1920, during Madame Dupuis’s heyday, commemorates the organization that was charged with making sure that the needs of their small community weren’t ignored while the more powerful quartiers had their voices heard. This was the very spot where, for a time, the organizers would have met to discuss the matters central to Montmartre and its residents.
The sign is attached to a green wrought-iron fence that surrounds the terrace of the very bakery that inspired Le Bijou, and if you imagine hard enough, you can see the vines of an unruly rosebush that smells curiously of honey and cinnamon.
For book club questions and for further reading, please visit aimiekrunyan.com.
Acknowledgments
If The School for German Brides was the book I labored to write in three-hundred-word chunks during one of the heretofore hardest phases of my life, A Bakery in Paris was the joyful one I got to write when life began to regain a sense of normalcy, and as I found the space to process all the hardships of the previous few years. I think both the optimism and the challenges of that period are reflected in this work, and I am so grateful I’ve had the chance to share Lisette’s and Micheline’s stories with the world. As with all books, there is a whole host of people without whom the book never would have happened, and I offer them my deepest thanks:
