Chambre de Bonne

Once upon a time, Paris was filled with the super rich, the rich, and the incredibly poor. The super rich had maids and lived in perfectly coiffed apartments overlooking perfectly manicured streets and gardens. The maids lived in the highest reaches of these beautiful apartment buildings, basically in glorified attics, also known as les chambres des bonnes (lay sham-bruh day bone: maids quarters). Since these maids were so busy cleaning up after the families of their employers, they rarely had time to start families of their own, meaning the that the fact that these rooms could only fit a single bed, a table, and some closet space posed no problem at all.

Fast forward a bit to present day. Paris is still filled with the super rich, but instead of maids (who are too bourgeois to have around all the time!), maids have been replaced by les filles au pair (lay fee oh pair: nannies) who keep track of the kids while dear old maman et papa (mom-ma ay pop-pa: mom and dad) are busy cooking, cleaning, and running all the errands the maid used to be in chage of. These nannies now occupy these rooms once reserved for girls who dressed habitually in black cotton dresses with French-cut white lace aprons...or something along those lines. And this is where I come in.

Finding myself in Paris with nowhere to sleep, eat, or while-away my hours after work, I was thrilled when I was offered a job as a babysitter for three young French kids in the 16th arrondissement (arr-ohn-dees-mehn: neighborhood). In exchange for my babysitting, I've been offered a chambre de bonne on the seventh floor of a typical upper-middle-class French apartment building. It's completely outfitted with a twin bed, a table, a stove top, fridge, shower, and closet. Which, considering I'm an unmarried female in my twenties, is all I need. My, my! These French families have thought of everything!

In fact, I've even started to romanticize the situation a bit. I can't help but think of who might have lived in this room before me, during the yesteryear of pre-war Paris. Thoughts of countless young French girls selflessly serving the upper-crust before they were sent home to quietly suffer from the plague come to mind. Way off? Maybe. But hey, it's France! These sorts of things did happen. 

Whatever romance my room may be lacking, the view from my window certainly makes up for it. A sprawling Parisian landscape that, when I poke my head out at just the right angle, even offers me a view of the top of le tour Eiffel (luh toor ey-fel: the Eiffel Tower) which, when it's dark out, actually glistens with twinkle lights every hour. It's nice to see this and be reminded that, hey, I may be broke, sick, and running out of clean clothes, but at least I'm broke, sick, and dirty in Paris, baby!