Seeing museums close before the hour, with a heavy heart. Theaters wonder, cinemas despair. This Friday, just after the Prime Minister's announcement announcing the limitation of gatherings to 100 people, we descend the most beautiful avenue in the world, the magic straight line that goes from the Star to the Royal Palace, from the Lido to the Comédie Française in passing by several cinemas on the Champs-Elysées.
At the UGC Normandie, which adjoins the deserted Lido, the cashier has just received an email “which guarantees us our wages whether we close or not. I have no other information than this memo. There is a meeting. We have one of the largest halls in Paris, 860 seats… ”, he says. In the queue, a dozen retirees, including a funny who asked "Two for De", two places for "de Gaulle". Michèle and Sylvie, two friends, giggle: "We are well over seventy years old ... We should have stayed at home, right? "
The sparkling septuagenarians do not give up: "Already that Club Med has just announced the cancellation of my trip, if museums and cinemas close, I will miss it," admits Michèle. Miguel and Mireille bought tickets for "A Good Wife". Would it be a drama if they were deprived of their favorite hobbies from this weekend The question annoys a little Sir: “To die is a drama. Having generalized cancer is a tragedy. Losing a child is a tragedy. No, there is nothing unusual about this situation. We thought we knew everything in this new world. Epidemic is an old word that brings us back to the old one. We come back down to earth ”. Mireille opines and positive: "We will walk, it will change us, if everything is closed".
"We suffered everything, from yellow vests to coronavirus"
Crossing the avenue, a little lower, the other historic cinema in the district, the Gaumont Champs-Elysées Marignan, looks sad, despite its 500-seat hall: "Look, it's empty ... sighs one of the reception agents. However, Friday afternoon is a good session. But for the past few days, nothing. We all went through yellow vests with coronavirus. We continue to descend on the same side, to the Théâtre du Rond-Point.
The bookseller discusses outside: "The clientele has dropped so much in the past few days, already ... Usually, there are people before and after the play to buy a book. And the restaurant livens up the space a lot. But tonight ( Friday ) it will be closed ”. The Rond-Point, a real place to live, exceeds the gauge with its large rooms. Only one, the smallest, 86 places, should remain open. But it sounds hollow in this great theater. "There's no quibbling, it's canceled for the big room," laments the ticket clerk.
In this somewhat heartbreaking in-between, we enter the Petit Palais just before the museum decides to close its immense and majestic golden gate, around 3:40 p.m., well before the usual schedule. And we find ourselves trapped inside. "Fatna, we are closing" asked an interviewee, as the information arrives in real time to the staff. "No, we're just closing the central door, and we're going to count visitors ( note: up to the limit of one hundred )," replied her colleague.
Mona Lisa unaccustomed to receiving so few tributes
These, like a somewhat surprised English couple who just arrived in Paris for a week, can still enter through a side door, barely visible. Weird. A young couple is looking for a way out. "We just wanted to have a coffee inside facing the garden and see the sun under the glass roof," say the lovers, in one of the most beautiful places in Paris.
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The sky is azure blue. Fear of heights. We enter the Louvre around 4 p.m. when the news falls: the largest museum in the world announces its closure at 6 p.m. Many of the employees in the rooms feverishly consult their smartphones: “You have the info Check your emails. Something fell on the site ”. "It's funny," says a babysitter. We, we only asked for more security, freezing in quantity, because tourists sometimes speak to us very very close and touch us by thanking us. ”
The last visitors of the Mona Lisa. She is going to be all alone "in a ghost museum" as a visitor says, until an unspecified date. pic.twitter.com/JsYrN1wleS
- Yves Jaeglé (@yjaegle) March 13, 2020A lady with a walker heads for the Mona Lisa with her daughter. Patricia and Jacquine, Americans, come from Michigan. They are told that Trump no longer wants flights from Europe. They burst out laughing: "We don't know how we're going to get back, but we'll see. Corona also goes through Michigan. ” We will find them, all smiles, a little later in front of a Mona Lisa not used to receiving so few tributes.
"All we know is that we don't play anymore"
A Niçoise, teacher, who came for a three-day weekend with her husband, hesitant: "I am a little lost to realize that I will not see my students on Monday, and that the Louvre will close". A young couple from Occitania discovers with amazement that they are among the last visitors to the museum for a good while: "It's very disturbing to think that it will become an empty museum, a ghost museum", says Marine, physiotherapist.
The Pyramid will no longer open its doors and the neighboring French Comedy either. Shakespeare said goodbye there Thursday evening for a last performance of "The Night of the Kings" in a hall with 852 seats, well beyond the required gauge. At the ticket office, an affable lady is there to inform customers about refunds. A heartbreak for her: "It's pretty terrible, we don't know when we're going to resume, we're completely out of focus. Say it was full all the time. ”
And will the French bookstore remain open? The two saleswomen keep smiling but do not know: "We do not know. All we know is that we don't play anymore. ” We don't play anymore. It's not a game. It's sad. Actors who are silent, an Eiffel Tower that shines now only through its closed doors and elevators, a Palace of Versailles from which only the garden is now accessible. "To walk," Mireille would say, on this Friday with a taste of bitter spring.