the weblog of robin camille davis

This is a plaque in Église Saint-Sulpice. Not sure when it was engraved but it had to have been a while ago. What I find most interesting about it, aside from the glorious letterforms, is the “vous estes” in the middle. In today’s French, “you are” would be “vous êtes.” That circumflex accent denotes that [...]

Happy Valentine’s Day! To celebrate notre amour, Deven and I went to Montmartre, which is supposed to be the most romantic neighborhood in Paris. It was nice, but frankly too crowded to be 100% pleasant. I was also in a bad mood (sorry D) which wasn’t helped by the people behind us on the long [...]

As promised, more church-themed pictures. This one is the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres, which is considered one of the most beautiful and well-preserved medieval cathedrals in all Europe. It dates back to the 12th through 16th centures and exhibits early and middle gothic architecture. In the above picture on the right, you can see the [...]

I haven’t taken the camera out for a walk since going to Place de la Madeleine and Tuileries. So you get some more pictures of the Église. The above was taken by Deven (of course) of the doors of the church, which portray the Ten Commandments in relief. I’ve seen more sculpture here in Paris [...]

We visited Église de la Madeleine yesterday. It was quite different inside from the other churches we’ve seen. It was much darker — there was no stained glass — and it was inspired by Renaissance art, Christian imagery, Neo-classicism, and the mosaics of Roman baths. Its history is complicated; supervision of its construction went through [...]