Au pied du sacré coeur

Sunday was wettish so we took our visitors Bridget and Alan to a cosy little restaurant on the north slope of the butte montmartre, safely hidden from the tourist hoardes. It's a true restaurant in style, with white tablecloths and proper wineglasses, but cafe prices for a menu of modern french food. we (the carnivores) had magret de canard, roast lamb and filet mignon between us, while the vegetarian had a warm goats cheese salad, which was a large version of a first course (Paris has still to get to grips with the idea of an enjoyable vegetarian main course - the only one on offer here, the assiette vegaterienne, is just a plate of steamed vegetables).

After dessert we climbed the staircase to the top of the hill in penance. I only recently discovered that the sacre coeur was built as recently as 1914. Work started just after the suppression of the Paris commune - the idea was to « expier les crimes des communards », i.e. make the working classes build a huge church to atone for them daring to rise up against their employers. For that reason perhaps, Parisians are pretty ambivalent about it, though the tourists still seem as enamoured as ever with it.