Wait--Another Gorgeous Library, You Say?

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Visiting Libraries While In Search of the American Dream

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

The Bibliotheque Mazarine (featured immediately below) closed for the month of August, which forced me, ever so unfortunately, to find another historic library to work in.  

My search, conducted online (here's the link again to the 10 of the Most Beautiful Libraries in Paris, according to Welcome2France), showed me which library I wanted to visit next.

It's the Bibliotheque Richelieu. It was opened to the public in 1868.

For 20 euros, I got a pass to the Manuscript Room for five days. 

In the Manuscript Room, people study manuscript -- of all things. They rest a big, thick, old, fragile book on a red velvet covered frame that allows a person to open and read the pages without laying the book open flat, which would stress the binding. 

As I wrote another chapter or two last Wednesday, people were ever so patiently and gently flipping the pages in these old books. They would read, jot a note in their notebooks, read some more, jot some more. They would tenderly take a photo of a page.

It gave me so much happiness to write in a room where people had such a great respect for, love for, books. It was an emotionally satisfying experience to create a new book in a place where people have such high regard for books. I've never experienced a day of writing quite like it. 

I look forward to being there another two days and hope to have lots of good scenes written and then two days at The Arsenal, and then it will be Sunday.

On Sunday I'll take my host Christelle and her boyfriend to lunch, hopefully somewhere near the Montparnasse station. Around 1 I'll catch the Orlybus. Then I'll hunt for a bus within Orly that will take me out to where my airplane is on the tarmac.

6 in the evening (Paris time) is take-off. Eight hour flight. Land in Newark, NJ. Take the monorail to the NJ Transit train station. Transfer and go into Penn in Manhattan. Walk 2 long blocks east to Broadway and the Q. 

I'll arrive home in Brooklyn at approximately 3 a.m., at least that is the time that my body and brain (acclimated to French time) will think it is. If I slept until 7 in the morning in Paris, by the time I get home in Brooklyn I will have been awake and struggling with travel (based on the Latin word travail) for more than 20 hours.

I'll fall into bed at what is really 9 p.m. New York time and sleep until 8 the next morning. I hope. And maybe that will be it -- there will be no jetlag. What are the chances of that?

Here are my pictures of the Richelieu.

Look at this front door! It's freakin' amazing!

Just your average window...with a gargoyle, and above, a row of intriguing attic windows. Stand by for a post with pics of French attic windows!

One of the facades in the courtyard leading to the Richelieu.

This is the main reading room. As a member of the general public, you can take a picture from the entryway. Only scholars are allowed to sit down.

Arches, tables, table lamps, books.

Holding up an arch is a beautiful sculpture -- of course! 

The Manuscript Room was on the third floor, at the end of this very modern covered walkway.

A mere door to the Manuscript Room.

A row of arched windows.

This is the red velvet-covered frame that holds the big, old books.

At each end of the library was a circular staircase leading up to the next level.

The arch of the window is reflected by a reverse arch carved into the wood. 

This is the cover to the access to the catalog of manuscripts.

A jolly little rolling staircase to reach the high-up books. It has little traps under each stair, to prevent any books that might be stacked on the stairs from slipping and crashing to the floor.

The stair rolls along a built-in edge (see the very top). 

I just loved writing in this library! I think it's beautiful! What about you? Commend below!