I was wrong....Friday, 4 December

I was wrong. As much as I hate to admit it, and as difficult as it is, I have to say, "I was wrong." You may remember how impressed I was with the windows at Bon Marché. Well, what I didn't say was that Virginia, at the time, said "wait until you see the ones at Gallerie Lafayette and Au Printemps." And she was right, but don't tell her I admitted that, otherwise I will never hear the end of it.

The Christmas season is now in full swing and the shops are full of the most beautiful goods. Both of the Grand Magasins, which are practically next door to one another compete with their windows. Immediately in front of the windows are little platforms for really young children; and don't they just love it. We watched a gorgeous child of three or four years hugging her teddy bear and dancing to the music of one of the animated displays. Virginia felt that the windows at Au Printemps were more elegant and sophisticated than Gallerie Lafayette, but inside it was just the reverse. It would be hard to top the tree displayed under the magnificent dome in Gallerie Lafayette. And the view from the roof terrace must be one of the best in Paris.



As you may know, we have a friend who is receiving treatment at La Pitié Salpêtrière hospital in the southeast of the city. We had been told that it was well worth a visit so, after lunch we headed there. This is the hospital where Princess Diana died or where her body was taken following her death, depending upon what you choose to believe. The hospital is a long way from where the accident happened but is Paris' largest hospital and probably the best equipped to deal with both the possible medical and publicity problems that such a death would have entailed.

In the early 1600s a small aresenal on the site manufactured gunpowder from saltpetre, hence the name. In the middle of the century, Louis XIV established a hospital for the poor in the saltpetre works hoping to clear the streets of the 60,000 beggars known to exist in Paris at the time. A few years later, 10,000 pensioners were taken in and the buildings enlarged. In 1670 a church was added and the hospital began to take in the mad, the infirm, the orphaned and prostitutes becoming virtually a prison with everyone subject to the same harsh regime. At the centre of the old part of the hospital is the Saint Louis Church surmounted by its octagonal dome. The plan of the church is unusual with a rotunda encircled by four aisles forming a Greek cross and with four chapels at the angle of the crossing. Eight areas were thus formed in which various inmates could be placed separately. At the end of the 18th century Philippe Pinel began the work on a treatment of the insane which was to win him and the hospital wide acclaim. One hundred years later Charcot under whom Freud studied was to further the hospitals reputation with treatment in advanced neuropsychiatry. The hospital is huge, covering an area which must be the equivalent of the entire CBD of Hobart and is the centre for the most advanced medical treatment and research in France.