Yesterday we walked to the Musée Cognacq-Jay for a dollop of culture. Lucky we didn’t want a scoop of pistachio ice cream because, like Edmund Crispin’s Moving Toyshop, Berthillon has disappeared.
There are still lots of places selling ice cream supplied by Berthillon but the original, iconic shop on the Île Saint-Louis is now a restaurant and Berthillon has moved into the centre of the island. I felt discombobulated. In fact I felt like JP Huddle and his sister in Saki’s The Unrest Cure.
“I don’t know how it is,” he told his friend, “I’m not much over forty, but I seem to have settled down into a deep groove of elderly middle-age. My sister shows the same tendency. We like everything to be exactly in its accustomed place; we like things to happen exactly at their appointed times; we like everything to be usual, orderly, punctual, methodical, to a hair’s breadth, to a minute. It distresses and upsets us if it is not so. For instance, to take a very trifling matter, a thrush has built its nest year after year in the catkin-tree on the lawn; this year, for no obvious reason, it is building in the ivy on the garden wall. We have said very little about it, but I think we both feel that the change is unnecessary, and just a little irritating.”
That sums up my feelings about Berthillon upping sticks. Cognacq-Jay is a collection put together at the beginning of the 20th century by Mr Cognacq and his wife, née Jay. If you read the Wiki entry you will be astonished at the breadth and quality on show. If you visit on the 26th December you will be less impressed. One floor was closed and, although the pictures and bibelots were very beautiful the former were not of the highest quality and I’m unable to judge the latter. So we were not detained there too long. My tummy was a little unsettled so a small pastis put that to rights and we continued to the Place des Vosges for lunch at La Place Royale. I had been before after an opera at the Bastille and am pleased that it is still open and in the same place.
I’m writing this on Tuesday evening before going to the opera at the Bastille – I hope it’s going to be a good production but you never can tell.