Les toilettes

Bathrooms are the often unspoken challenge of travel.  Not only where they are, but what they might be called, how they might be marked, and how to navigate them. I still remember being utterly baffled at the 27 different controls in a edgy bathroom in a very upscale restaurant in Tokyo. (How edgy? There was a one way mirror out into the restaurant.) All the controls were labeled — in Japanese. I could recognize only one of the kanji. I made my best guess. 

At the Rodin museum in Paris (an 18th century residence where Rodin lived and worked) I followed the standard icons to the ladies room. Except the last arrow seemed to lead to a blank wall. I backtracked. No, I hadn't missed a turn. Math Man finally inquired of the guard who pointed at a button on another wall and said, "Push!" We did and a whole section of the adjacent wall slid back to reveal a modern corridor with bathrooms and an elevator and a water fountain and many people bustling about. I would never have guessed that was a door, to say nothing of all the activity it concealed. 

We visited Montmartre on a gloriously sunny day. The view over Paris was astounding. Before we walked down, we sought the facilities. The map showed a public bathroom just below Sacre-Couer. There was perforce a line, unisex for once. There was also a 2 euro fee, which you could pay with a wave of your phone. A small price to pay for a clean, stocked and staffed bathroom with individual stalls and behind a wall (a literal paywall?) a bank of urinals. I waited, waved, and went. Math Man was right behind me in line. Afterward he noted that the urinals were not so private. "Well, you didn't have to use them." But he did.

On our last full day in Paris, we visited an amazing cooking supply store (E. Dehillerin!). A mother with kids asked an employee about bathrooms. "Outside. Let me show you." She looked dubious, but her son looked desperate and out they trooped, vanishing into the little tree covered median across the street. It's not what you are thinking! We finished our shopping and headed out, also in search of facilities. Across the street, on the opposite corner, was a large grey pod. Les toilettes. Les high-tech toilettes! The light was red indicating it was occupied, but Math Man found what he was looking for on the other side, stepping behind a screen with a discreet but descriptive icon. There was a station outside to wash your hands and another to fill your water bottle up.

The pod slid open and someone exited, the door quickly shut to enable the wash cycle. Yep, these are self-cleaning bathrooms that clean after every user. Don't be too quick to enter, or you may find yourself taking an unwelcome shower. The light turned green and though a bit damp, the pod sparkled. There was a sink inside as well. And all for free.

In summary, I would give Paris a five flush rating. 

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Read about the self-cleaning pods. A commenter points out a move to increase bathroom access in NYC where according to the article there are "1,064 public bathrooms, mainly in parks and libraries, though only 973 of them are operational — or roughly one for every 9,035 New Yorkers." Paris has more than 450 of the free street bathrooms alone.

I used no cash in France, at all. Even donations for the candles in the churches could be made with a card or phone. In fact, I used no cash at all this trip. Not in Norway, the UK, or France.

Character limit

I bent over and whispered in Math Man's ear, "How do you suppose she'd react if I told her she was about to become a character on my blog?" 

We were waiting in line to go to an evening concert in Sainte-Chapelle (the jewel box of a chapel built by Louis IX of France on an island in the Seine in Paris as a reliquary for the Crown of Thorns). When we had walked up we had been a bit uncertain where the queue was, but had inquired of the guards at the gate who told us it was the same spot as the daytime line. We got behind the half-dozen people already there. 

The first person in line was an American woman, casually dressed, and loudly telling anyone who drifted near the line, whether or not they seemed poised to join it, "This probably isn't the line. I asked the security guards [ed.: the guards are standing not three feet away] and they told me with a smirk this is where to wait. They were dismissive and rude. I am sure this is the wrong place." 

In between the shrill warnings we learned she had arrived in Paris just today, all by herself it seemed, and had already walked miles. She was from North Dakota. Her husband had had a stroke. People grew  uneasy as her monologues drifted further away from the concert and she paced restlessly at the front of the queue. No one engaged.

"If this isn't the right place," the woman ahead of me finally essayed, "where do you suppose we should be?" "Well, there is a sign for the company who sold the tickets down the block." I wondered why, if she was so sure that we were being mocked and misled by the security guards, she had not gone and asked at the office. The woman in front of me exchanged glances with her partner and strode off. She returned shortly to announce that yes, the ticket office had confirmed we were in the correct spot. Regardless, our midwest siren continued to sound a warn-away.

Eventually we were let inside to go through security screening.  So yes, we were in the right spot. Our bags were scanned and we walked through metal detectors, and the line got scrambled. Now we are directly behind our miserable midwesterner. Why are we waiting here? Why isn't there an elevator? She has a heart problem, she could just keel over. [Ed.: she has walked past the elevator, which staff had indicated to us.]  People shift away. She tries to move someone at the front of the line by physically touching her, the young woman shakes her off. People are getting tense.  A performer walks by, her violin case slung across her back. Well, it seems call times are pretty late here in Paris. We wait some more. The staff has less than an hour to set the chapel up for a concert after the last tour of the day.  Is that group special? I once keeled over in the supermarket parking lot. "I am sorry," I say, "Let's hope nothing happens here." North Dakota farm wives have to do everything the hard way. 

Finally we are in and Math Man and I fly to our seats, breathing a sigh of relief that she is sitting elsewhere. 

At dinner I told Math Man that while it was tempting to think uncharitable thoughts about this loudly critical midwesterner, I would rather imagine her as courageous. To come alone to Paris, to be out and about all day, to have found out about the concert and gotten a ticket. Was she a widow? Or had she had to arrange care for a disabled husband? And her chickens? What would happen if she keeled over in Paris? 

And what would she think if she knew I was writing about her?

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Photo is of Sainte-Chapelle. The concert was a brilliant hack by Math Man to get us into the chapel. You have to book months ahead, which we didn't realize. 

There are no relics in this reliquary anymore. The Crown of Thorns and other relics of the Passion that Louis IX acquired are now kept in the cathedral of Notre Dame. They were rescued from the fire and I got to see the Crown up close. A tale for tomorrow perhaps, also with characters. 

I encountered yet more interesting characters in a pub in North Berwick, and in a Main Line parking lot, but they, too, are tales for another post.

Lost in translation

Before we visited Notre Dame in Paris, I checked the website to scope things out.  Under the visitor guidelines (Google translated from French) was: Chorus from using your phone inside the cathedral. 

I was puzzled. Chorus? Chorus? Oh! Refrain. Refrain from using your phone inside the cathedral. Got it!

Inescapable Grace

I wrote the reflection for today's readings for Give Us This Day. I was drawn as much to the collect as I was to the images in the psalm and gospel:

May your grace, O Lord, we pray, 
at all times go before us and follow after
and make us always determined
to carry out good works.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The full quote from Teilhard de Chardin is: "By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagine it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact, we live steeped in its burning layers."

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Despite all my years of scientific training, I have a hard time seeing the stars whirling above my head at night not as little twinkling jewels set into a firmament, but rather as enormous, unimaginably fiery suns, their warmth bathing planets millions of miles away. They are so distant, so inaccessible, can I truly believe such a thing possible?

I confess to having the same trouble with grace. I can’t quite grasp the enormity or the power of God’s grace. All too often I imagine it as distant. Inaccessible. Or at least it seems improbable that my sinful self should be able to draw upon that divine warmth. But grace, pointed out Jesuit paleontologist and theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, is inescapable: We live steeped in its burning layers. Every way we turn, in everything we touch and that touches us, God’s grace assails us, penetrates us, molds us.

The psalmist sings of the earth, full of the kindness of the Lord—full of grace. The sparrows outside my window chirping irrepressibly at dawn, the wind sweeping down the hill, the warm splashes of color streaming through the stained-glass windows of my parish church—always and ever touching and touched by the divine. As am I.

The Collect, too, reminds us that at every moment grace goes before us, grace trails after us, grace propels us outside ourselves to work for the Gospel. Christ above us, Christ beside us, Christ underneath our feet. Every hair on our heads counted, every breath vouchsafed. As improbable as it seems, God is with us. Now and always, inescapable.

Michelle Francl-Donnay

Michelle Francl-Donnay is a wife and mother, a retired professor of chemistry, and an adjunct scholar atthe Vatican Observatory. 

[CREDIT] From the October 2026 issue of Give Us This Day, www.giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2026). Used with permission.

Alarmed

We only took carry-on suitcases for the week in Paris, where the weather was expected to be delightfully warm, and left the wooly sweaters and turtlenecks and extra-toasty PJs packed up in the large bags at Crash & Company's in Scotland.  I confessed to Crash's Companion that I had packed my Parisian PJs! Little did I suspect that I would get to model the outfit for more than Math Man.

It happened to be the tail end of fashion week when we arrived in Paris, but I was not walking any runways. Instead, on Sunday morning, just after 7 am, the fire alarm went off in our lovely hotel. I grabbed room key, glasses, and phone, slipped on my jacket and the black flats I'd left by the door when we'd come home the night before and proceeded down the stairs in my Parisian PJs. This is not my first fire alarm. It's not even my first fire alarm in a hotel. 

The staff are at the bottom of the stairs, reassuring us that their alarm system is very sensitive and that probably someone was just smoking in a room, urging us toward the lobby. More people began to arrive. There were people dressed for the day, suitcases ready to roll. Their taxi came, and they left. There was a couple in bathrobes over nightgowns, wishing aloud they had a drink. 

The alarm turned out to have been triggered by a hair dryer. The couple in their robes now wished for champagne, which the staff sent up. We went back upstairs. I had no desire for champagne, just a bit more sleep after a long day and late night. As we went past the room next to us, the door cracked open and a woman peeked out. "What was that?" "The fire alarm, set off by a hair dryer." "Ah!" What I wanted to say was, "How did you ignore that? It was loud enough to be painful." Also, "Why didn't you evacuate??"

We crawled back in bed, ears ringing, until it was time to get up for Mass.

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Working in a science building you get used to hearing the alarms go off. Sometimes (three times in my career) there really is a fire. I learned as a grad student to always take your keys, I didn't and we were out of the building for 8 hours after an explosion in a lab left a faculty member burned and _moved_ the wall several inches. Without my keys I couldn’t get into my apartment!

Four times I've been ousted by fire alarms in the middle of the night, once from a hotel during a conference and three nights in a row from the dorms while at a Gordon Research Conference. The latter were false alarms (and we attendees were quite grumpy by night three).

Then there was this alarming experience while on retreat. 

Photos is of a fiery evening sky in Paris, taken from a boat on the Seine.