The whole of Paris is a battlefield. And the battles that were fought across Paris are ones that still matter. Which side are you on, boy. Which side are you on? Oh look! There are the pockmarks on the wall where the Germans executed a whole bunch of patriots in 1945. And there's the building where the fucking gestapo tortured Jean Moulin.
In the afternoon we went south of the river. I wanted to taste the Gothic. There was a queue outside Notre Dame and an even longer queue outside la Sainte Chapelle, so we went into the Church of St Severin- where there were no queues at all- and went over it inch by inch. Medieval catholicism is as good for the soul as 19th century catholicism is guaranteed to rot it.