Greater Journey, The by David McCullough ~July Book Club Online

[JoanP]

The Book Club Online is  the oldest  book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone.  We offer cordial discussions of one book a month,  24/7 and  enjoy the company of readers from all over the world.  Everyone is welcome.

July Book Club Online

The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris
by David McCullough

"Magnifique! "In The Greater Journey, David McCullough tells the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, and others who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, hungry to learn and to excel in their work. What they achieved would profoundly alter American history." Amazon review                                    Discussion Schedule: Week 1 - July 14 - 20 ~ Part I/ Chapters 1 & 2 Week 2 - July 21 - 27 ~ Part I/ Chapters 3 & 4   Week 3 - July 28 - Aug. 3 ~ Part II/ Chapters 5 & 6 Week 4 - Aug. 4 - 10 ~ Part II/ Chapters 7 & 8 Week 5 - Aug. 11 - 17 ~ Part III/ Chapters 9, 10, 11 Week 6-  Aug. 18 - 24 ~ Part III/ Chapters 12,13 Week 7-  Aug. 25 - 31 ~ Part III/ Chapter 14, Epilogue

Relevant Links

David McCullough-Brian Lamb  Intervew (Books TV)  ; David McCullough-Charlie Rose;  Biography - David McCullough; Morse's Interactive Gallery of the Louvre

Some Topics for Discussion
Aug. 25-31

Part III ~  Chapter 14 ~ Au Revoir Paris ~ Epilogue

1.  Why do you think David McCullough chose  the 1830's  to begin his research, and then end with the great Exposition in 1900?

2.  Have you ever returned to a place you once visited long ago (not your home town)  in search of past memories?  What did you find? Who does David McCullough follow back to Paris in his concluding chapter, "Au Revoir Paris?"  Why do you think he chose this title?

3.  Why does Dr. Oliver Holmes observe  that medical students no longer flock to Paris from America as they did 50 years ago?  Do art students still fill the ateliers as they once did?

4. Are you familiar with some of the young artists named here - like Maurice Prendergast, John Alexander, Robert Henri?  I'd like to learn more of Henry Tanner, the young artist who had expressed concern at the prospect of being the only Black American student in Paris, as he had been in the Academy of Fine Arts in Pennsylvania

5.   In 1897 Augustus Saint-Audens returned to Paris after achieving highest honors in American art.  
  His son Homer insisted it was not illness that brought him back.  10 days later he returned home for good.  Why do you think McCullough chooses to concentrate on Saint-Audens?


Epilogue

What was McCullough's  purpose of the Epilogue? What did you learn from these concluding paragraphs?  What more would you have included here?


  

Discussion Leaders:   JoanP,  PatH  Barb,  JoanK,   Marcie

[JoanP]

JoanK, I keep thinking of what you said earlier- in response to Barb's post about Americans In Paris- especially now that we are approaching the end of the century and reading of a different sort of American tourist.

BARB: "the Americans just did not participate - they came and took what they needed - made their contacts - got their art produced using the best artisans Paris had but ignored supporting France
Maybe that's what living abroad does. Being "in" the country, but not "of" it, sort of floating on top of things."

The " Medicals" are no longer flocking to Paris...American medical schools are up to date...thanks to what students in Paris took back  earlier in the century.  But will artists continue to study in Paris?  The light?  The Louvre? The presence of so many artists working together?

 
.

[JoanP]

-
'But coming here has been a wonderful experience, surprising in many respects, one of them being to find how much of an American I am.' Auguste Saint-Gaudens

Jonathan...a great quote ...do you think this sums up the reason so many American artists went - and still go to Paris to study the great artists in the Louvre...to learn how they compare, how they differ, how America has influenced their perception?

I' ve an idea why Mary Cassatt doesn't fit the description of these artists' experiences  McCullough portrays and why he hasn't spent as much time on her work as he does on others.
Notice that Mary is one who never felt the pull to return to America.

For all the reasons you have stated, Jonathan, I can see why Saint- Gaudens was McCullough's obvious choice on which to concentrate.  Have you been able to find anything at all about his New Hampshire retreat? Lots to learn there...

[Ella Gibbons]

I haven't finished the last  chapter yet - love all your quotes.   Don't we all feel as Gus did on returning from a trip?  On seeing America again and home.

McC seems to be relating to the nostalgia these artists felt or wrote about..   How old is McC?   Is he feeling nostalgic?  Don't we all?    Our youth almost done.....

DID WE LIVE  It?  (pg.428)  "Live all you can.   It's a mistake not to........and now I'm old.   It's too late.   It has gone past me-I've lost it.  You have time.   You are young.   Live."    William Dean Howellls.

What kind of advice is that?   What does it mean?  How is one to understand "Live?"

[pedln]

Thanks, PatH for reposting Ella's link about Sargent's paintings and the Boit daughters.  The link also spoke in depth about his Carnation, Lily, .  .  .  with two other little girls. It's one of my favorites of Sargent's and I'm glad it's considered to be one of his masterpieces.

[BarbStAubrey]

For heaven's sake Sargent was an American because his parents were American - he was born in Florance Italy, and grew up in Europe -

"Sargent (1856-1925) was a genuinely international figure. Born of American parents in Florence in 1856, Sargent spent a nomadic childhood before going to Paris to study painting. Later, he established himself in England and the United States as the leading portraitist of the day, and traveled widely in North Africa and the Middle East."

And so he would not have any fond recollections, memories of the US although I did not know he did Murals and did one in Boston. Hmm here I go being picky again but if someone was born and grew up in the US and traveled as a child in this continent to Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas but whose parents came from France I do not think we would say they were French - for that matter Saint- Gaudens parents were immigrants but we do not suggest he is a Scotsmen or an Italian.

[bellamarie]

I have to admit I enjoyed chapter 14 Au Revior, Paris!  more than any of the chapters in the entire book.  It seems Mc got a bit emotional in this last chapter, allowing us to see more of the thoughts and emotions of the people especially with Saint-Gaudens.  Mc is using the two names Gus and Gussie to show the intimacy of their relationship, even though we learn of his affair with his model for the nude Diana, Albertina Hulgren, who went by the name Davida Clark, who had Gus's son Louis.  It was a bit endearing to read the letter he wrote to Gussie his wife:

"You are a noble woman, Gussie, and I love, admire and respect you more than you have any conception of.  We are both sick and for mutual peace of mind on this earth I beg you not to come down from the high place you hold in my heart."

We learn of his bouts of depression and battle with cancer.  Mc tells of the struggle Saint-Gaudens had with living in the busy, noisy city in New York and how he bought a home in the country, and returned to Paris in October of 1897. In the late summer of 1898 he writes a letter to Will Low his friend saying:

coming back to Paris had been a "wonderful experience," and surprising in many respects, one of which was "to find how much of an American I am."  "I belong in America," he continued, "that is my home... "  So much that he found unbearable about New York was exactly what he longed for now.  He was unabashedly homesick.

...the elevated road dropping oil and ashes on the idiot below, the cable cars, the telegraph poles, the skyline, and all that have become dear to me, to say nothing of attractive friends, the scenery, the smell of the earth, the peculiar smell of America."

"What a place this is over here, though, seductive as a beautiful woman with her smile.  I suppose when I get back, I shall want to return again!"

It seems in my opinion, which isn't all that important, Mc left the best for last.  So many times we long to be in a place that we hope to bring peace and tranquility away from our busy lives, and once we travel to that place, near or far from our home, we do come to the conclusion, our home is just that.....the place we want to be, all our familiar sights, sounds and smells.  There is no place like home!  And yes, in time...we long to go back to a place of peace and tranquility, called vacation.

I had to giggle at Henry Adams's great objection was the number of Americans everywhere, referring to the Exposition Universelle of 1900, the largest world's fair yet.  

"All Americans are in Paris," he wrote.  "I pass my time hiding from them."

 

Ciao for now~

P.S. Yes, Ella, I do believe Mc is feeling "nostalgic" in the last chapters of the book.  And in doing so it actually captured my interest.  I never was a person who cared much for history, I am more about the humanistic side of the story/characters/writer.

[BarbStAubrey]

Interesting isn't it how much Saint-Gaudens late in life venture to Paris centered him in how American he felt where as Mary Cassett does not show a pull to return to America as if it were her home but rather is quite content to live out her years in France.

I wonder if in the early years the pull to Paris and its art education was an adventure among friends where as, this time in England the writer could find literary talent - however, I am thinking with the Brits having attempted to Burn down the Capitol in D.C. in 1814 the idea of being among friends, even if the language was less demanding, was fraught with the not too long ago memory of England as our enemy. American literature seems to have grown up on its own with a few who ventured to Paris and the continent where as, much of the American visual arts had its grounding in Paris.

[BarbStAubrey]

Interesting, our quintessential western artists Remington and Catlin both studied under men here in the US who were students of the French artists that were included in this book - Catlin studied while in Pennsylvania with Rembrandt Peale, who studied with  Jacques-Louis David and Thomas Sully, who first studied with his brother-in-law Jean Belzons (active 1794–1812), a French miniaturist and later Sully was one of the few who chose to study in London rather than Paris with Benjamin West and the portrait artist that had the greatest and lasting influence, Sir Thomas Lawrence. Where as, Remington studied at Yale with John Henry Niemeyer, who studied with Jean-Léon Gérôme and Adolphe Yvon at the École des Beaux Arts, in the studio of Louis Jacquesson de la Chevreuse, and Sebastian Cornu.

[JoanP]

I  feel we are gaining a better understanding of McCullough's purpose in writing this book.  The man is an historian, though a student at Yale of and with some of the great Fiction writers...He was also was in med school for a while.  Will try to find more about that.  
But early in his career, he decided on History. I found this...somewhere:

"David McCullough has stressed France’s pre-eminent role in American history for years. We would not, he has argued, have a country without the French, who have permanently and profoundly shaped us."

So it isn't surprising that we continue to find the French influence on Art! Writing, Medicine, Barb.  I think this is exactly what McCullough intended to show us in this book.

So why did he decide on this particular period...1830-1900 to report on French influence?

[JoanP]

You asked about McCullough's age, Ella?
"David Gaub McCullough (born July 7, 1933) is an American author, narrator, historian, and lecturer. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award."

Nostalgia, Ella?  I wonder.  McCullough has made so many trips to Paris over the years, staying at the Hotel du Louvre, where so many of those mentioned in this book have stayed.
Maybe he has felt loss each time he returns? He can empathize with Saint-Gaudens, perhaps?

Saint-Gaudens finds his friends have left Paris, or died.  No one knows him, he knows no one.  He can't find what he was missing in America. He isn't at home here. He realizes his home is in America.

Of course he was .an American - his parents came to America, emigrating when he was two.  They became citizens. Their baby too.  He grew up in New York, leaving for Paris to study when he was sixteen.  Returned as a successful sculptor in New York.  Probably more American, (if there is such a thing)-  than the famous American painter, John Singer Sargent, born abroad of American parents, grew up in Europe, studied traveled and worked in France, Spain, London, Italy.  He came home again too...

[Jonathan]

Isn't it curious that Mary Cassatt gets the last word on this journey? Somehow McCullough must have felt he owed her that? And what impression are we left with? At 81. Her visitor recorded:

'Miss Cassatt as usual did the talking. Her mind galloped along....What abysses and reinforcements of courage and life and enthusiasm still lay hidden inside that frail body.'

Is the author saying, I could have told you much more about her?

It's difficult to determine where Saint-Gaudens really felt at home. His place in New Hampshire he called Aspet after his father's birthplace in France. And that's where he died.

Sargent went back to London to die.

And so the story ends. With so much feeling. I'm struck by how much the author himself got caught up in it. And the artists who aroused the greatest feeling in him seem to have been Saint-Gaudens and Mary Cassatt. At 81.

[bellamarie]

Jonathan,  I was so disappointed in Mc not giving us more on Mary Cassatt.  I had no idea there were more than two hundred varieties of chrysanthemums.

"Looked after by a devoted maid-companion, Mathilde Valet, she found her greatest pleasure in her gardens, where she had more than two hundred varieties of chrysanthemums, and in being taken for daily drives in her 1906 Renault Landau."

I'm not sure Mc was telling us he could have told us much more about Mary Cassatt, considering he had this entire book to give us more information and gave so little.  If anything I got the impression he was saying, Mary Cassatt had so much more to give...... "hidden in that frail body."   It sort of brings me back to Mary's last visit with Degas, and how his eyesight was failing him, and his body was giving out, yet he had so much more to give inside his frail body.  It ends on a sad note for me......

Ciao for now~

[JoanP]

Thinking about your disappointment about not finding more information about Mary Cassatt in this book, Bella and the possible reasons David McCullough did not include more - The only thing I could see was that she did not come to Paris to learn more - and take back what she had learned to America.  Wasn't  that the purpose of his research on the medical students, the artists, the inventors who flocked to Paris at this time - to further their education - who then returned to advance and shape  their own culture at home?

I think Mary Cassatt's story, her reasons for not returning to America, is the subject for another book...and not for an historian like David McCullough- simply because there is no solid documentation of why she never returned as other students did. He does recognize her as one who came to study...but her influence on artists in the US at this time seems to be unknown, since she herself did not return.  It would be interesting to know when her work became recognized in America.

Just this morning, while doing a search (unsuccessfully) for the name of the medical school McCullough is said to have attended for a while, I was quite excited to find this interview in the Palm Beach News:

"He had three criteria for including individuals in the book. They had to have returned to the United States changed by their experiences in France. They had to have felt a renewed sense of what it meant to be an American. And, they must have kept a diary or written many letters."
- See more at: http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/entertainment/arts-theater/david-mccullough-shares-tales-from-the-greater-j-1/nLjG2/#sthash.J0G0qYdN.dpuf

[JoanP]

So, later in the 19th century, med students are finding schools in the US every bit as good as those in France - thanks to the advances brought back by those who returned form Paris earlier.  But the artists continue to come...

Are you familiar with some of the young artists named here - like Maurice Prendergast, John Alexander, Robert Henri?  I'd like to learn more of Henry Tanner, the young artist who had expressed concern at the prospect of being the only Black American student in Paris, as he had been in the Academy of Fine Arts in Pennsylvania. 

This is not many years into the Post Civil War period.  Black students must still be in the minority in the US...but in Paris?  Can you find any of Henry Tanner's work?

[bellamarie]

JoanP., 

"He had three criteria for including individuals in the book. They had to have returned to the United States changed by their experiences in France. They had to have felt a renewed sense of what it meant to be an American. And, they must have kept a diary or written many letters."

What a perfect find to answer why Mc choose the people he did.  My disappointment I suppose came due to the fact I watched his interview before we began reading the book and he made such a point of Mary Cassatt being in his book.  So, I was excited because we had just finished "I Always Loved You."  I was also excited thinking I would learn more about Paris, and the interaction of the Americans with the Parisians.  It seems our Americans chose to keep more to themselves.

Thank you to our discussion leaders,  JoanP,  PatH,  Barb, JoanK, and Marcie, you did a great job!  I will leave you with...

"But coming here has been a wonderful experience, surprising in many respects, one of them being to find how much of an American I am."
                                                          ___AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS

AU REVOIR, PARIS!  or as the Italians would say....
Ciao for now~




 

[mabel1015j]

Henry Tanner had an amazing number and variety of paintings. See.....

http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/list.php?m=a&s=du&aid=1900

In one of the seasons of The Cosby Show, there was a Tanner hanging on the wall of the living room set. I'll see if i can find it.

Jean

[mabel1015j]

Serendipity! David McCullough shows up in my email today, scroll thru the pictures.

https://www.gilderlehrman.org/about/highlights-from-2014-gilder-lehrman-gala

Since i know many of you are history buffs, you may want to scroll down to the story of Laura Bush, on the right side of the page, helping to found the Gilder Lehrman awards for teachers of Am History and watch the video. Yes! How can anyone be a good citizen if they have not had an Am'n History course?

Jean

[PatH]

I like the Tanner pictures.  Most of them are in private hands, but quite a lot of the others are here in town, at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art.  I'll have to take a look.

[Jonathan]

'I watched his interview before we began reading the book and he made such a point of Mary Cassatt being in his book'

How very interesting to hear that, Bellamarie. I couldn't access that interview. I wish I could have. That, and ending the book with her the way he does, is evidence for me that she was and  is a source of inspiration. She must have been on his mind a lot in his researches and while he wondered how to get her into the book. There's a story there. Why don't you write it. There may be a romance in there somewhere. To end the book with Mary still on his mind!! What a pedestal he wrote for her.

[BarbStAubrey]

Fabulous article about 1895 France and the Dreyfus Affair - how it affected the French then and on well into the twentieth century

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/28/trial-of-the-century

[PatH]

That is indeed a fabulous article, Barb.  It's the clearest explanation I've seen, short of a whole book.  I can see why McCullough didn't get into it.  It's complicated, and though it tore French society apart, to get so passionate about it, you had to feel more deeply about French affairs than most of the Americans did.  (Cassatt felt strongly about it, though.  She took the opposite side from Degas, and it strained their friendship.)  Also, it happened just in the last few years covered by our book.

[JoanP]

Thanks for the easy-to-understand article on the Dreyfus Affair, Barb.  As Path pointed out, it is now easier to understand why David McCullough did not spend more time on it as it occurred in 1895 and his focus went only to the Exposition of 1900.  Things seem to be getting clearer as we come to the end.

Jean , thank you for the Gilder link...Laura Bush and David McCullough on the importance of HISTORY.  And the links to Henry Tanner - I've just spent over an hour considering the Cosbys' personal collection of African Art - displayed at home and also on the Cosby Show.  I learned that three - at least three of Tanner's works were displayed on the TV set.  I'm guessing that the one you remember in the hall was

The Banjo Lesson

Another possibility - also on the set, but where is not clear...

The Thankful Poor

 Aren't they wonderful!  I just found this...

Tanner was somewhat forgotten in art history for three decades after his death in 1937.  The Smithsonian Institution showed his works in 1969 in yet another first for Henry Ossawa Tanner -- the first major solo art exhibition of a black painter in the U. S. In 1991 the Philadelphia Museum of Art hosted a retrospective.  With this PAFA show, perhaps Tanner will finally earn his due, recognition as one of the most famous painters of the 20th century, not as a "black" or "African American" painter.

I wish we had time to look into the other American artists who came to Paris from America at the end of the century.  I'll bet their stories are captivating too!

[Jonathan]

Here's a trivia question. Of whom in the book is it said: 'He was anti-Semitic, though he would get over that with time'? A clue: he also loathed bankers, robber-barrons, and crass, boorish politicians.

And an multi-choice. Who was it, that said 'good Americans go to Paris when they die'?

Thomas Gold Appleton

Oscar Wilde

Mark Twain
 
Oliver Wendell Holmes

[bellamarie]

Jonathan,

'He was anti-Semitic, though he would get over that with time'? A clue: he also loathed bankers, robber-barrons, and crass, boorish politicians.

Answer: Henry Adams , "Later, in a caricature relief, Saint-Gaudens would portray Adams as a porcupine __"Porcupine Poeticus"__ to illustrate the "outward gruffness and inner gentleness" of the man.

It was Appleton who said, "Good Americans when they die go to Paris,"  the line made famous when quoted by his friend Oliver Wendell Holmes.  Of all the Americans who came to Paris in his time, few so enjoyed the city as did Appleton__ or returned so often. Pg. 102

Hmm a bit of a trick question since Holmes quoted Appleton.   

Ciao for now~

[Ella Gibbons]

My book has been shelved with other McC books and I want to express many, many thanks to our multiple leaders and participants.   I have so enjoyed reading and discussing the book, the journey to and from Paris by so many Americans.  To think the automobile was a sensaation at the turn of the century and what a horror it is today.   We are all in such a hurry to get somewhere and back again.

Did we ever decide why the title of the book?

[JoanP]

It's been fun - though a little overwhelming at times, hasn't it, Ella!  Always when we come to the end of a book discussion, there seems to be so much more to say before we turn the lights out!
Now here you are at the end with this question!  
 

"Did we ever decide why the title of the book?"

Maybe we can answer the question about the Epilogue at the same time?  The purpose of an epilogue (I looked it up) - "a section or speech at the end of a book or play that serves as a comment on or a conclusion to what has happened."

The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris   By the time he reached the Epilogue, McCullough had explained more fully the meaning of what he meant by "the greater journey."   I thought he started out describing  the difficult ocean crossing,   adapting to a foreign culture and  language.  - By the Epilogue, I felt he was commenting on  the difficulty of leaving Paris behind.  Some never did.  Some died there...Mary Cassatt was one of them.  Others travelled back and forth, unable to stay away for any length of time.  He describes the extremes Saint-Gaudens went through, shipping his huge Sherman statue home to America to work on.

 He tells us "John Singer Sargent spent more time in the US at the end of his life - making up for what he had missed in his youth"...working on the murals in the Boston Public Library, among other works. (Here's a peek at these murals still on view today!)  John Singer Sargent's murals - Boston 
He declined knighthood in England - saying it was impossible because he was an American.

How did you understand the title and the purpose of the Epilogue?

[PatH]

Well, I want at least one more stroll in the Tuileries before I leave.  Here it is in 1900.  This isn't by one of our artists, it's by Pisarro, but the year is right, as you can see if you squint hard enough at the lower right corner.  I saw it at a special exhibit in Portland when I was there two weeks ago.

[BarbStAubrey]

I thought the arch of the book was an interesting statement - reading the first couple of paragraphs and the last couple in the Epilogue he starts with an air of youthful exuberance that will entail a risky sailing across the ocean, where those making the journey will drink in to bring home learning and culture - then McCullough ends with Mary as an old lady, blind, in bed, who never takes any of her learning back to American with the only shadow sign of the early voyagers is her exuberant chatting with her visitors.  

Not sure what that symbolizes but at the time she would have been an unknown here in American - I visited the Blanton this week, the Art museum at UT just to ask when Mary's art became popular - after they called the Art History department to confirm it was not until the Woman's movement in the 1970s that several women were resurrected for their contributions, until that time the light and airy look of her work was considered the hallmark of the likes of Monet, Renoir and Pissaro.  

So glad you included the link to the Sargent Mural in the Boston Library - it sounds like you learned he professed to being an American as he aged which IS nice to know because I wondered why he was included given the bench mark set by McCullough. I never looked into his work so this was a joy to explore the range of his palate and subject matter as well as technique. I notice books of his work are priced very high on Amazon.

As usual, we had a good experience reading this book - thanks to everyone we found depths that on our own few of us would explore. This was fun and am I ready for the next weather season although, for us, it will be October before we see consistent temps in the 80s. But the promise is showing and football started this weekend which is more a sign of autumn for us than falling leaves and crisp evenings. This Journey into nineteenth century Paris was a perfect summer excursion. A special thanks to our fearless leader JoanP. You keep making it happen and we appreciate it - thank you.

[JoanP]

 PatH -  a lovely Pissarro!  I've never seen that one.  If I had to name my favorite three of the Impressionists, Pissarro would be on that list.  I'm certain our American students would have been impressed by his work.  You'll remember he was one of the Impressionists who showed in the late 1870's - one of Mary Cassatt's group.  He worked with Mary and Degas on the daguerrotypes, I believe.

The EPILOGUE will continue, as the influence of these Americans who studied in Paris goes on. Another little bit of serendipity.  I was visiting in North Carolina this past week, opened a newspaper - and there was a full page ad - "We BUY GOLD AND SILVER COINS!" Followed by photographs - of the Saint-Gaudens' Gold Liberty Coin.  Isn't this familiar?-

"In late 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt made known his thoughts that American coins were ugly, and he asked renowned American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to redesign the $10 Eagle and the $20 Double Eagle (The $20 Liberty-head gold coin). It was Roosevelt’s desire for American coins to be as beautiful as the coins of ancient Greece.

 Saint-Gaudens produced not only the venerable coin that is known as the St. Gaudens but also the beautiful Indian Head design, which superseded the Liberty-head design on $10, $5, and $2.50 gold coins. Indian Head coins and St. Gaudens were minted until President Franklin Roosevelt called in gold in 1933.
 
St. Gaudens gold coins, along with $20 Liberty-head Double Eagles, are the gold coins of choice for telemarketers. Investors new to the gold coin market too often fall for telemarketers’ spiels and pay prices far above the going market for Double Eagles.
 Typically, telemarketers will promote PCGS and NGC graded Double Eagles at prices sometimes $200 to $300 above the going market. We have run across instances where unaware buyers have paid double real market prices.
 
Does this mean that the Saint Gaudens gold coins are never good buys? No, it does not. At times, St. Gaudens gold coins are good investments.

[PatH]

Barb said it perfectly:

As usual, we had a good experience reading this book - thanks to everyone we found depths that on our own few of us would explore.

I learned so much from this discussion, on a wide range of topics, both from the book and from all the links my fellow readers discovered.  I now have a precarious understanding of that segment of French history, a better feel for the Dreyfus affair, know a lot more about some familiar artists and appreciate them better, have met some previously unknown ones, and on and on.

Thank you, JoanP for keeping things going so well, and everyone for contributing so much.

[JoanP]

Thank you, Barbara and PatH!
I'll echo your sentiment - "thanks to everyone we found depths that on our own few of us would explore."  It takes a village!  Thanks to all of our DLs and thank  you all for your many observations and contributions!

We'll leave this discussion open for a few days -  for any last minute thoughts.  In the meantime, we'll be "downstairs" preparing for September's Book Club discussion...scheduled to begin on September 15.  Hopefully you will be able to join us!

Again, thank you!

[Jonathan]

Hasn't it been an unusual journey? In every sense of the word. Travelling with a purpose. Through space and time. Exploration and discovery. So much more than just departure, arrival, sojourn and back home again. I seem to hear the author saying: I'll call it The Great Journey. No, I used 'great' for the Bridge, my earlier book, I'll make this one greater.

I am puzzled over what writing this book meant to the author. The 'greater journey' must have meant something to him that we might not be aware of. I've made a small attempt to find allusions to the phrase, with no success.

We never did get to hear what you saw at St. Roch's, JoanP. Or did I miss it?

You've all been wonderful fellow-travellers.

[JoanP]

HAHAHA...no, you didn't miss it, Jonathan~  I couldn't find my etching of St. Roch's, with my Hotel du Londre in the background.  You don't miss a thing, do you!

The Journée of 13 Vendémaire, Year 4, The St. Roch Church, Honoré StreetNapoleon Bonaparte quelling of the Royalist revolt, 13 Vendémiaire, in front of the Église Saint-Roch, Saint-Honoré

My hotel is right next door to the church. Our room, when we can get it,  is towards the front on the second floor above the cloud of gunpowder.
In the hotel lobby is the engraving you see above.

(5 October 1795 in the French Republican Calendar) is the name given to a battle between the French Revolutionary troops and Royalist forces in the streets of Paris. The battle was largely responsible for the rapid advancement of Republican General Napoleon Bonaparte's career.

It is said that life went on as usual in Paris the next day.

[Jonathan]

Extraordinaire!!!  'life went on as usual in Paris the next day.' Only in Paris.  And your room took several hits, JoanP. One could come home bragging, I survived in Paris. These actions, after all, were a common occurrence. A royalist revolt?  This one seems unusual. I thought all  royalists had lost their heads by this time, or were cooling their heels in places like the U.S.A.
 
'The battle was largely responsible for the rapid advancement of Republican General Napoleon Bonaparte's career.'

Some republican. Only a few years later he crowned himself Emperor. And got other family members onto other European thrones. I believe at the Saint Roch action he was still a lieutenant. I may be wrong.
Thanks for posting that dramatic picture.