VOICI LA FRANCE

This is a focus leader. Do your movies look like this? Do your soundtracks sound like this or like this? If so, you need this. a focus leader. First, set your lens so that these lines are sharp and clear on all parts of the screen. Now, set the volume control on your projector. The sound level should be adjusted until my voice can be clearly understood in all sections of the room. You are now ready to participate in another Pan-Amean travel adventure. In every man's heart, there is a secret place. The place you were headed for when you were a child and ran away from home and never got further than the corner. As long as I can remember, for me, the place was Paris. Somehow, even though I'd never been there, coming to Paris was like coming home. The Arctic Triumph standing there as familiar as a face in a family album. The great open squares flooded with sunlight. The gardens of the Louv, the gardens at Versailles. I'd seen its picture in books and heard its echo and old songs. And yet I never really knew anything about Paris until I was there, listening to its voices, watching the April morning touching its river. Paris begins with the sen, the place where Parisians go when they want to be alone, when they want to dream their secret dreams, when they fall in love. The Sen is the mother of Paris. Towering up out of the river stands the Cathedral of Notradam. It took 170 years to build those walls. Stonemasons and sculptors worked away their whole lives and their sons took their places on the scaffolding and then their son's sons. Up where Notradam's gargoyless brewed eternally over the beauty of Paris, I thought of all those who had lived in this city and helped to make its name unforgettable. Somewhere under these rooftops, behind a window like this, Zola wrote his first novel. Crippled little Tulus Lotre painted his sad women with their haunted eyes. In these narrow streets of Moart, Goang clumped along in his blue wooden shoes, dreaming of a voyage to Tahiti. From these hidden corners of the city came the children of Renoir's paintings. The children of Paris looking so wise, so serious. Out in the shelles, it seems as though all the world is pouring into Paris. A restless tide of traffic, a pulse of excitement in the air. Everywhere else in the world, a boulevard is just a broad avenue. In Paris, it's a theatrical production. No actor at the comedy Frances gives a better performance than a Paris taxi driver trying to talk his way out of a ticket. The French may not have quite solved the problem of driving an automobile, but they figured out the quickest way to park one. A city with a thousand faces. This cross into MMart and it's another world. The cool dignity of Sakre Kur looking down on crumbling little back streets where half the citizens are professional artists and the other half are amateur critics. The face of Paris changing from marts to the green banks of the same. Changing from the book stalls along the Kay to the chatter of the bird market on the il de laete. Here among the birds the eyes of Paris are the eyes of an enchanted child. But out on the flea market the eyes of Paris are the hawks glance of a bargain hunter on the prowl. a mad hatter's collection of merchandise, as though all the attics of the city had been ransacked for the treasure spread out on the counters. A city with a thousand faces. Leal at the crack of dawn. It's the best show in town. If you've got a sharp eye, you can spot the buyers from the great restaurants coming down to choose their menus for the day. When it comes to listing the arts of France alongside music and painting and poetry, put food. Sitting down to a meal is like attending the opera. Part of it is the scenery. Poets have broken their hearts searching for the word to describe this place. The city of light. The city of elegance in half a dozen blocks off the rue de la Paris sets the style for the world. What Paris is wearing this morning, New York will be wearing next month. What fashion photographers are shooting now, South Africa will be wearing next year. Portrait of a city. The mannequins arriving for work in the morning. But more than any passing fashion, more than any street or avenue, Paris is its people. Citizens of Paris. A people as deceptive as snowflakes. The closer one looks at them, the more complicated they become. A Parisian can work with the dedication of a medieval craftsman or loaf away the day like a school boy. Citizens of Paris. Cautious and practical. Dreamy and romantic. A people with a taste for talk. There's an old saying, put together two Parisians and you get three opinions. Nothing so satisfying as complaining about the politicians, protesting about the price of tomatoes, passing on a bit of gossip about the little blonde next door. citizens of Paris shaped by the spirit of France. A nation with 2,000 years of history. A heritage going back down the centuries. Back to the glory that hovers over the towers of Shambore on the river Lir. Back to the clash of battle in the Roman arena at Nim. The first dim beginnings going back to the stone age. The ancient tribes that left these mysterious monuments at Carneak. Were they pagan altars or the tombs of forgotten kings? No one seems to know. Britany with its old peasant proverbs. If you are a lady and I am a lady, who will draw the water from the well, your most precious possessions, says the father to the son, are a strong woman and a loaf of bread. The fishing fleets of Britany sail out as far as Greenland. The local sailors say that somewhere offshore lies a great city that was buried long ago when a Celtic princess unlocked the dyke with a golden key and went out to meet her lover. Hear that sound of the sea? They tell you that's the clang of all the drowned church bells. Every month of the year, somewhere in Britany, there's a village preparing for a celebration. at the edge of Britany. Rising out of the tides stands M San Michichelle, the Gothic Abbey where Benedicting monks have studied and prayed for 800 years. as good a place as any to prove that in France you find world famous restaurants even in tiny villages. the eggs were laid in the backyard this morning, but the brandy was born long ago in the northern vineyards. It takes at least 10 years to age a fine cognac and at least three years to produce a decent champagne using the mysterious process worked out by some inspired monk in the 17th century. Not far from here, across the fields of Champagne, is the Cathedral of Rans and the memory of Jon of Ark ringing in the air like bells. Mlanc, snow crown queen of the French Alps. The highest peak in all Europe, the slopes around Shamoni challenge San Maritz as the leading mountain resort of Europe. In January, the skiers flock here to take the spectacular runs that shoot down 7,000 ft without a turn. And in May, the mountain climbers start out. All it takes is a coil of rope, an alpine stock, and simple courage. Up here on the glacial slopes, the air is cold as mountain wine. And a few hundred miles south, the Mediterranean burns blue in the sunlight. The Riviera, a faint smell of mimosa in the air and the echo of the roulette wheels at the casinos. A place listed in all the dictionaries of the world is a word for holiday. The code dour principal cities Nice and Khan. Principal point of interest le girls. the highway. curves like a necklace around the throat of a mountain. And below the river Tarn slices through the wild gorges past the cliffs honeycombed with caves. Gypsies have camped here in the valley of Overn since the Middle Ages. The days when the walls of Pu dome were hauled up on their astonishing peak, stone by stone. From Overn to the Pyrenees is fairy tale country. Under the turrets of Caucason, one seems to hear a voice beginning, "Once upon a time." Except that today the bewitched princess plays hopscotch and the handsome prince has skinned knees from playing jacks. When knights and armor clattered across these fields, they were already weaving tapestries here at Obuson. The technique handed down across the generations for 800 years. Shenano, a gift from Henry II to his shrewd blonde darling Diane Deatier. At the edge of the sea beneath the Pyrenees lived the Basque. No one knows where they came from with their mysterious language and their delicate dances. Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. From Britany to the Pyrenees, each of the provinces of France is a thread woven into the tapestry of Paris. The dreams of glory of the children of Paris were born at Carcasson. The show that draws their laughter comes from the Mediterranean. Every great city has a time of day when the air takes on a kind of magic. In Paris, it begins in those soft hours of late afternoon. Just before twilight comes the time of meetings, the time of quiet talk on the cliffs of Moat. The time of friends seeking each other out on the boulevards. Along the river, the monument stands silent. The city seems to hold its breath until the sun goes down behind Notraam and night comes on with a crash. for Paris, city of light, city of a thousand faces, lifting its head in the night with all its fountains blazing like stars. In every man's heart, there is a secret place. And for me, the place is Paris. Heat. Heat.