A year ago at a dinner on the Upper East Side an American art collector mentioned that he had called a hotel in France to rent a room and the desk clerk informed Devlin that the only available room was on the ground floor.

“Where is the entrance?”

“Next to the desk.”

“So your guests will see my comings and goings and I will hear all of theirs.”

“Ouais, is that a problem?”

“I like my privacy.”

“Then shut the shades.”

He complained about the treatment and his friends commiserated by excoriating the French with typical non-Gallic misunderstanding.

“Typical French attitude. They hate American tourists,” commented one of Devlin’s dinner guests, pouring himself a chilled Cote de Ventoux.

Another chuckled about the French love of Jerry Lewis without realizing that the French subtitlists have ameliorated the stale Hollywood dialogue, while Devlin’s wife wished that she was in Paris.

“I love the city in the summer. There’s no one there.”

I agreed, but said nothing about les Amerlots nul, because they are ignorant of the fact that 90% of the French take ‘le grand vacannes’ after Bastille Day and remain away until the Grand Retour in mid-August.

This exodus includes the star bartenders, head waiters, first-line cooks, and well-trained desk clerks manning the bars, cafes, restaurants, and hotels. The only ones in Paris are being punished for their undistinguished behavior to the clientele throughout the year and bus boys are upgraded to waiters, chambermaids become desk clerks, and bottle washers are tested as chefs. Not a happy campers in the bunch.

Bien sur, Les Miserables love nothing more than miserablizing tourists with a muttered moue.

Moi en tout cas j’adore le France.

Vive les frites.