Incomparable Paris sparkles and swings

PARIS – You can go to Brussels and get back in a wink. That’s the glory of the present train system. From Brussels back to Paris takes just one hour and 15 minutes on an efficient THALYS train, utilizing the practical high-speed rail network set up by the French, German, Dutch and Belgian railroad, linking city to city in those countries.

You board your homebound THALYS train, its locomotives distinguishable by their red-maroon fronts, with the coaches a dull silver. From the Bruxelles-Midi station, a modern chrome-plated facility full of cafés and pickpockets (both designed for tourist excitement), you grab a reserved seat and voila! in just over an hour you’ll pulling into the Paris Gare du Nord.

What makes Brussels desirable as "the capital of Europe" is the fact that its location is pretty central.

The Eurostar, the British-French bullet train which zips under the English Channel, can now whisk a traveller from London’s Waterloo Station to Paris Nord in just two hours, barely enough to enable the commuter to enjoy breakfast (or dinner, as the case may be) and read the newspapers before de-training. The same top-speed conveyance deposits the Brussels-bound passenger at the same Bruxelles-Midi terminal within an hour. (The "Eurostar" operates ten trains from Waterloo station daily, Monday to Saturday, with departures only slightly reduced to eight on Sunday).

Mind you, Waterloo International Station is in London. In Paris, where all the grands boulevards and avenues are named after Napoleon 1’s victories, nobody mentions the awful name "Waterloo".

Knowing this writer to be an admirer and researcher on the Emperor Napoleon (have you noticed how many fellows in the Philippines are called "Napoleon", including Ambassador Clem Montesa’s very alert driver, Nap Aguac from Kalinga, and my crony and former prison-mate, Publisher Napoleon Rama of the "Bulletin"?), my Paris-Brussels-based Chief European Correspondent, V. Gomez Massart and her husband drove Precious and me to Waterloo, the scene of the great running battles which culminated in the final confrontation of June 18, 1815.

Waterloo is just 20 minutes out of Brussels, and it was a chilly and rainy day. I had been there a decade ago, but this time, with Martin – a military officer (retired) and expert – explaining who fought where and the disposition of the contending armies, it was clear this time why the great "Child of Destiny" had failed. It had been nip and tuck, but, when the Prussians arrived with artillery and fresh troops, Napoleon – whose gallant cavalrymen and infantry had broken their backs in waves of bloody assault on the Duke of Wellington’s British "squares" – realized that all was lost. He had marched his Grand Armee of 78,000 men into the fray. By nightfall (the battle had begun at 11:30 a.m.), nine hours later, the French had lost 42,000 men and were in full retreat.

Wellington, who commanded a composite of British and Scots guards, from the Blues, Household cavalry to the Gordons and Highlanders, as well as Dutchmen under the Prince of Orange, Belgians, and other levies whom the Iron Duke himself described as "scum" and "riff-raff", had won the day. He was later rewarded with a stately home marked Number One, London, and every honor and accolade in the kingdom.

To nobody’s surprise, Wellington seems "forgotten" in the souvenir shops and museums of Waterloo, while Napoleon is everywhere, in statue, in effigy, even in those well-carved tin soldier figures called in French, soldats de plomb. Only a small Musée Wellington on Chaussée de Bruxelles 147 – the Waterloo inn where the Iron Duke spent the night before the battle – commemorates the victor. One curiosity, it’s pointed out, is the artificial leg of Lord Uxbridge, one of Wellington’s generals, which was blown off by a cannon ball during a cavalry charge.

Uxbridge’s leg was "buried" with appropriate honors in Waterloo. He was fitted out with an artificial leg so he could walk. When he died, his leg was disinterred and brought back to England to be buried with the rest of his body. As an "exchange", his family sent the artificial leg to Waterloo, to be placed on exhibit.

If you ever go there, don’t miss the Panorama de la Bataille (Panorama of the Battle) at 254 Route de Lion. This building is located at the foot of the 148-ft. high earthen mound topped by a roaring lion cast in iron. In my younger days, I climbed the steps leading to the summit, from where there is a splendid view of the battlefield in all directions. (Having been there, done that, I didn’t undertake that arduous feat a second time – with a care for my advancing years.) Anyway, the circular painted "panorama" done by the artist Louis Demoulin gives the viewer the sight, even almost the sound and smell of that terrible battle, in his courageous men (and horses) perished by the battalion.

You can see the Hussars, the Cuirassiers, the brave Chasseurs à Cheval of the Garde Imperiale, charging, their sabers held steady, their Brigadiers-trompettes blaring the "charge", while Wellington’s 92nd Highlanders, bagpipes skirling, drums beating, pour volleys of lead at them, with the Royal Welsh Fusileers, forming the second rank and the Huntingdomshire regiment of foot furnishing a third round of withering fire. The officers in their shakos, tall hats, pranced around on horseback, directing their grenadiers and foot guards.

They are all there in that totally fascinating, lifelike panorama – a true memorial to a grand and fatal conflict which brought to an end the 100-day "return" of one of mankind’s most brilliant emperors and tacticians.

Napoleon wasn’t just a warrior. The Code Napoleon he established is the code of law followed, still, in several European nations today – not just in France. Not bad for a Corsican.

But for a throw of the dice of destiny, Napoleon might have been an Italian, not French, if the Isle of Corsica hadn’t been seized by France.

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When all is said and done, there’s nothing like Paris.

Our hotel, the Paris Inter-Continental, is the former "Continental Hotel," rebuilt by two great architects, Blondel and his father-in-law Charles Garnier, the same pair who constructed the baroque-pretty Paris Opera down the street at the Place l’Opera.

The Continental went up in 1878 on Rue de Castiglione (which once again commemorates a Napoleonic victory). It stands on the site of a former Capuchin monastery. Victor Hugo gave a stately luncheon here to celebrate the publication of Les Miserables and his complete works. The Empress Eugénie stayed here, in a suite overlooking the Tuileries, with its view of the gardens (like ours today) stretching all the way to the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel and the Louvre behind it.

Yesterday though, the excitement in the lobby was over the towering American NBA basketball players who had arrived last night, and are here to play a series of exhibition games. Everybody was dwarfed by those all-stars as they strolled through the lobby and clambered aboard a waiting bus.

A few days ago, a movie was being filmed at the entrance, and later in the interior garden. It was a French adventure flick entitled La Creme, and there was this smart, blonde woman director orchestrating every move, and every swing of the camera with snap and dispatch, displaying a stare saying "look-I’m-the-boss-so-don’t bitch" on her countenance.

The camera crews meekly followed her directions, the scriptwriters and floor-direks were on supportive standby, the actors and actresses mumbled and fidgeted, rehearsing their lines before the final "take".

They might have recruited me into the picture, but they had more than enough villains and contrabidas already on the roster.

By the way, in the ground floor Bar de Tuileries, the head barman is a handsome Laotian called Raymond (looking rather Pinoy but tall, distinguished, and more dignified, it must be said, than many of our own Senators). Raymond told us he was married to a Filipina, from Tacloban, Leyte – and, when we paid the bill, found he had gifted us with the tall bottle of Badoit we had consumed. Don’t be confused. Badoit is the best bottled water on earth, if you ask me, available only in France, and England, as well as very few other places, in the neighborhood.

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Millions of words have been written about Paris, more in praise than in blame. Paris is terrific, even if some Frenchmen may not be.

The Germans love France even more than I do. There is an old German saying, Frohlich wie der liebe Gott in Frankreich! (Happy as Dear God in France). Dear God may truly be happy in France, and the Germans truly love Paris so much that they invaded France in three wars within a century.

When the last world war was being lost, Adolf Hitler commanded the General in charge to destroy Paris. He replied, "Jawohl, mein Fuehrer" but completely ignored the Nazi dictator’s order. Paris, he vowed, was not for burning.

Sacré bleu! If that German general had not adored Paris, what would have happened to our old familiar haunts by Saint-Germain-des-Pres, the Cafe de Flore, Aux Deux-Magots (where surrealists and existentialists used to congregate) and the Brasserie Lipp across the street. Or La Coupole out in Montparnasse, where my friend, Christophe, the head waiter, presides over the bizarre ritual nightly wherein waiters thump the table, issue barbaric yells, then follow a pretty blonde waitress, bearing a lighted cake (gateaux!) to the crowded table of a delighted celebrant, with every waiter bellowing out the Happy Birthday song in French.

There were four birthday celebrations the night we dined there (on lamb, salmon, oysters, and fois gras) with the UNESCO group – hosted by Nextel’s Mel Velarde. Mel showed up barely in time to pay the bill because he had been brought by Rep. Edmundo Reyes, Jr. on a guided tour of the Metro – perhaps the finest underground rail system in the world. The Metro covers 192 kilometers, serves 360 stations, and is utilized by four to five million Parisian commuters daily, its 3,700 carriages running on rubber wheels.

On our Metro train the other day, there was a concertina-player from Romania who filled the coach with the familiar strains of Canta Llorando, then went around politely asking for alms. Almost everyone gave a few coins.

There’s light for everyone in the City of Light!