090720 In the Honor Guard at l'Arc de Triomphe

We were about to leave the Arc de Triomphe when a bunch of soldiers carrying automatic weapons and wearing bright red fringed epaulets on their camouflage uniforms climbed the stairs out of the Metro station.

People started talking to them (not me because my French is terrible and kept changing to Hebrew after the first couple of words) and taking their pictures. Then, they started taking pictures of each other.

We figured out that they were probably there to lay wreaths at the tomb of the WWI unknown soldier—but that was an hour away. Judy saw someone who had some medals on his chest and white gloves and asked him, in French, what the schedule was. When she told him we were from the US and he saw me taking pictures, he told us to stand “over there” and he would get us a good camera angle.

Eventually, the soldiers, who had added black cravats to their uniforms, marched in line in front of us. We figured that was what he meant, so I kept snapping pictures (and my camera was running out of memory). As things progressed though, more and more people were gathering in our area, some wearing medals, some with sashes and some with flags. …and we realized that we were at the starting point for the short parade around one leg of the arch to the tomb of the unknown. If finally dawned on us that M. Menneret was the parade master and was going to put us in the honor guard.

This was one of the two days that I was wearing shorts and sandals, and Judy, who had blisters from walking, was wearing socks with her sandals. In short, we were both looking a tad schlumpy. (But I suppose we looked better than a soldier in a trench.)

So we walked in, passed the line of soldiers, and split into two lines to go to opposite sides of the tomb. There was a speaker who introduced the wreath layers for various conflicts the French fought. When the wreaths were laid, everyone sang “La Marseillaise.” When I say everyone, I include myself for about 5% of the words and humming the rest of music.

Then, the wreath layers went up the line on the other side shaking hands with the people in the honor guard. They signed a book, shook hands with the flag carriers, bugler and drummer and I realized I was also in the receiving line—with no French. As the first person came towards me, I didn’t know what to do…so I took his picture. When he reached me, he said something that I didn’t understand, so I said “merci.” After saying “merci” to the next couple of people, who said “merci” back, I decided that I had the hang of things, so I said “merci a vous.”

After the reception line, it turned out that we still weren’t done. We signed the book of participants for the day. When I signed where the person told me to sign, he explained to me that every day had a different page and showed me that I was signing the July 20 page and the covered page next to it was for July 21.


This was, without any doubt whatsoever, the highlight of the trip!