THE FOUR BISHOPS: I can’t say my mood was one of undiluted joy as I set out today in the afternoon heat to pay taxes on my consulting company established here in France. Payment was late, as usual, and consequently I had no option but to drop off the cheque en mains propres, seeking indulgence by virtue of personal initiative. The fact that my local tax department is located in Place Saint-Sulpice, I readily confess, more than compensated for the unpleasantness of my task. Saint-Sulpice is one of my favourite squares in Paris, not only because of its rarefied ambience of chic prosperity and architectural splendor, but because it was the first Left Bank spot I discovered as a fresh-faced university student more than twenty-five years ago. In those days, I used to hang out at the Café de la Mairie right on the square. In the mornings, I sat alone savoring my café crème while watching the regulars standing at the counter and gulping their thick black coffee “sur le zinc” and racing off. In the evenings, my classmates and I drank claret and engaged in animated talk on the café terrace facing the magnificent square. The Café de la Mairie is unchanged today, unaffected by its fleeting cinematic fame as the setting of the movie, La Discrète.
The famous fountain in the middle of the square — called the “Fontaine des Quatre Evêques” from its statues of four French bishops — is frozen in time, its lions snarling for nearly two centuries in the shadow of the architecturally eccentric cathedral that today, alas, has become a tourist attraction for fans of The Da Vinci Code. A quarter-century ago as I sat in Café de la Mairie affecting nonchalance, I doubtless would have been immensely impressed by the prospect that, one day, I’d be briskly walking by on my way to pay personal business taxes in the imposing administrative building on the other side of the fountain. And so today, making my way across the square, I stopped to contemplate those unbridled — and untaxed — days when I was in the first flush of excitement to be living in Paris. The photos above were taken just before, grudgingly, I made an exorbitant fiscal contribution to the French state.