Until the Revolution

You’re just 15 minutes away from the giant Rallye hypermarche, says the sign along a main road in Brittany; and it seems to be a symbol of the encroaching twentieth century. A few miles later, on a crossroad, I had to stop the car while an old woman herded her three milk cows through the intersection. … Just outside the jet-setters’ Deauville, a farmer plows his field with a spirited draft horse. … Ten minutes north of the Plexiglassed, space-age Charles de Gaulle Airport, there are thatched-roof cottages, and men hand-cut the roadside grass with scythes. The twentieth century still has a lot of encroaching to do.

Sometimes it seems to be winning. Parisians no longer take their guests up to Montmartre to exclaim with them upon the charm of the rooftops of Paris; they take them up to exclaim with them upon the ugliness of the Montparnasse Tower, an office building that would be right at home on Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue, and is depressingly visible from anywhere in Paris. Small shopkeepers are fighting a losing battle against the new hypermarchés (the name covers everything from discount stores to shopping centers), which offer lower prices, greater convenience, and inferior quality.

About the Author

Linda Bridges

Ms. Bridges is the former editor-at-large of National Review.

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You’re just 15 minutes away from the giant Rallye hypermarche, says the sign along a main road in Brittany; and it seems to be a symbol of the encroaching twentieth century. A few miles later, on a crossroad, I had to stop the car while an old woman herded her three milk cows through the intersection. … Just outside the jet-setters’ Deauville, a farmer plows his field with a spirited draft horse. … Ten minutes north of the Plexiglassed, space-age Charles de Gaulle Airport, there are thatched-roof cottages, and men hand-cut the roadside grass with scythes. The twentieth century still has a lot of encroaching to do.

Sometimes it seems to be winning. Parisians no longer take their guests up to Montmartre to exclaim with them upon the charm of the rooftops of Paris; they take them up to exclaim with them upon the ugliness of the Montparnasse Tower, an office building that would be right at home on Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue, and is depressingly visible from anywhere in Paris. Small shopkeepers are fighting a losing battle against the new hypermarchés (the name covers everything from discount stores to shopping centers), which offer lower prices, greater convenience, and inferior quality.