Vive la pharmacie

French medicine, miraculous salt, the occult

Dear Friend,

I hope you’ve had a good week. The sun is beginning to appear here in Paris, which is good for morale and has helped to ease the transition after my trip to Marseille last week (although it is nowhere near as warm). Overall though, my week has been a bit of a mixed bag.

On Wednesday morning I was walking down the stairs of my building with my dog, Babbet, when I sort of went over on my ankle and twisted my foot (these are not the official medical terms). “Ouch!”, I exclaimed rather pathetically before Babbet turned around looking worried. “I’m really hurt, Babs!” I said self-pityingly. Initially the pain seemed to subside and I went to my shared office to work, but as the afternoon went on I could feel my foot swelling inside my boot. After my repeated wincing, my office mate Cyril suggested I should probably go to the pharmacy and get some advice.

In France, pharmacies hold an important place in daily life. They’re the first port of call when you’re ailing, and you are always sure to leave with elaborate advice and at least three products, usually a mix of chemical and homeopathic, to be ingested through various different parts of your body.

In Paris, the big green neon cross signs are on every street corner, pretty much literally. Pharmacies are one of the high-street providers that are protected by state regulation, like boulangeries or tabac cigarette sellers. Each branch must be owned by a pharmacist, and they are the only place where you can procure or buy medicine.

They are also known for their high-quality ‘parapharmacie’ range, that is health-adjacent products like skincare, lip balms, nail scissors, hot-water bottles etc. They are invariably very clean, brightly lit and shiny. In recent years, French pharmacies have become known to English-speaking visitors thanks to Vogue videos and influencer content, which expound the virtues of the French pharmacy cosmetics. Often my friends are keen to visit a pharmacy as part of their trip so that they can enjoy the full range of products from posh brands like Avène, Bioderma, La Roche-Posay and Caudalie. Tourists from all over flock to a three-floor pharmacy called Citypharma in Saint-Germain, which has a huge range and sells products on discount.

‘One of these faces is yours’ — from Elle Encyclopédie, Toujours Belle de la tête aux pieds, 1958

Possible face defaults, like ‘sad nose’ or ‘chin in galoche shape’

Anyway, back to my woes on Wednesday. I left my office hobbling and crossed the road to the large pharmacy near my office. Just as I got out my debit card to pay for meds, I started to feel a bit funny. “Je me sens pas bien”, I said. I remember the chemist said something about a chair, then, as I now know, I passed out, or as the French say, “je suis tombée dans les pommes” — I fell in the apples.

When I came to, I was lying on my back in the proverbial apples. For a second I wasn’t sure where I was; seen from below, the bright-white walls and infinite rows of neatly stacked face-creams resembled the ante-chamber of a slightly puzzling version of heaven. The pharmacist went into the back and returned with a mug of water and two sugar cubes in a paper napkin. As she passed me the cubes, I did feel a little bit like an ailing horse, but also very comforted and grateful for their kindness. She advised me to head to the urgences (accident and emergency department) of the nearest hospital to get an X-ray. So I sat on the chair and ordered an Uber off my phone.

A few minutes later I was explaining my injury to my Uber driver. “Ouf”, he reacted, “it’s painful something like that!”. He asked if I’d taken medication, to which I replied yes the pharmacy had given me Ibuprofen. “Ah”, he replied. Clearly I had given the wrong answer. “I took Ibuprofen once and I couldn’t breathe!”. “Ah”, I replied. “Oui Madame, my throat swelled like this!”, he said, taking his left hand off the wheel and making a ball shape with it on his neck. “Oh non”, I replied. “Oui!”, he said.

“Here’s my advice”, he continued. “I stopped taking the Ibuprofen and instead I bathed my ankle every night in a bowl of salt water. Let me tell you Madame, the doctors told me that they had NEVER seen an injury heal so fast, it was un miracle!”. “Oh wow, super!”, I replied, “I’ll give it a try”. “Attention madame!”, he said so emphatically that it made me jump slightly. “Not just a little salt, hein! You want the water to be thick with salt. I bought 5 kilos of salt!”. I was contemplating the logistics of transporting five kilos of salt with a twisted ankle. “Ok, merci”, I said. “And how did you know about this method?”. “Une vielle dame m’a dit”, he replied — an old lady told me.

Shortly after that we started speaking about Tunis, where this man’s family was from, and as we sat in traffic on the way to the hospital, he put a song on Youtube on his phone called Au Café des Délices by French singer Patrick Bruel. “You don’t know it?!”, he said. “Non mais c’est pas possible!”. I explained I wasn’t French but he insisted I must know it and played it all the way through. The song had just finished when we eventually arrived at the hospital. He wished me bon courage and offered a final reminder: “N’oubliez pas le sel, Madame!”  – don’t forget the salt.

French people are a seemingly paradoxical mix of very empirical, concerned with things like taxonomy, measurements and pharmaceuticals and yet at the same time quite superstitious and mystical, interested in things like fortune-tellers, fasting retreats and herbal teas. This paradox is particularly apparent when it comes to the medical realm.

In his book How the French Think, British historian Sudhir Hazareesingh examines the conflicting sensibilities of French society in great detail. First, he explores the enduring attachment to ‘Cartesian rationalism’ that the French have long had, but points out that the actual definition of this rationalism is somewhat nebulous and could change to suit the leanings of a given proponent. He writes:

“...Particularly from the nineteenth century onwards, the adjective Cartesian ceased to be a purely philosophical term and and was increasingly used to denote a style of reasoning deemed to be distinctively Gallic:  providing a fixed and unvarying meaning to concepts;  expressing the truth in clear and distinct ideas;  arguing with precision and elegance;  moving from simple to complex forms;  cultivating a sense of moral autonomy and intellectual audacity;  and overcoming one's passions.” 

And yet, Hazareesingh argues, “a fetish for precision could easily turn into a love for formalism for its own sake; deductive thinking could lead away from knowledge based on experience.” What’s more, the dedication to rational thought, however it was defined, always existed in parallel with a significant draw to the occult and the magical.The writer traces the links between occultist schools of thought and the Revolution of 1789, in particular the teachings of Viennese physician Franz Mesmer (of ‘mesmerising’ fame). Revolution lynchpin, the Marquise de Lafayette described himself as a “one of the most enthusiastic disciples of Mesmer.” At this time, there was also a big vogue for Illumism (of Illuminati fame), which spread through private clubs like the Freemasons.

After the Revolution, there was a debate around whether to replace Catholicism with either/alternately the The Cult of Reason, or The Cult of the Supreme Being, which was founded by famous revolutionary Robespierre. And as Hazareesingh chronicles, this revolutionary was just one in a long line of great French men who liked to dabble in woo-woo ways. Napoleon Bonaparte, for example, was very fixated on what he considered to be his lucky star. Victor Hugo held séances on the Isle of Jersey (of all places!), where he said he communed with the likes of Plato, Shakespeare and Molière. Balzac was very interested in the mystic teachings of Saint-martin, and apparently refers to them in his work. Charles de Gaulle consulted an army major who was also an astrologer, named Maurice Vasse. And after his death, it was revealed that much-loved socialist president Francois Mitterrand regularly consulted an astrologer named Elizabeth Teissier, who would advise him on personal matters but also matters of state! She even made birth charts for his ministers and advised him on the correct cosmic timing to call a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty.

Mitterrand in the sky with diamonds

This is a highly medicalised nation, with one of Europe’s biggest pharmaceutical markets, but I also often hear about non-scientific methods and tips. I’m thinking of the neighbour who spent two weeks every year on a fasting retreat, the local shopkeeper who had a sideline in energy healing, the old friend who didn’t use birth control because “the body is made of water and water remembers everything and knows when the time is right to conceive.”

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The hospital itself was shabby in appearance but I got seen pretty quickly. My friend came to meet me and while I waited to see the doctor, she told me about the time she got luxury appendicitis in Monaco: she was in the south on a work trip and suddenly was in terrible pain. She was taken to an immaculate hospital, where she had her own room and was served gourmet three-course meals. She had only recently moved from America and was terrified that she would be sent a huge bill after. “Mais non!”, the doctors reassured here. “You are in France now, Madame.”

Eventually I got my X-ray result: a sprained foot, nothing grave. The doctor, who was called Cindy, sent me off with my X-rays to keep as a souvenir, and a prescription for Codeine. Nobody said anything about the five kilos of salt.

My last thought on this: living in a different country means that almost whatever happens to you, even if it is difficult or unpleasant, is almost invariably interesting.

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Thirty-second book club

This week I have been reading a novel that was recommended to me by my therapist, who is a very dynamic and life-affirming woman. It’s called Changer l’eau des fleurs (Fresh Water for Flowers) by Valérie Perrin. It’s about a woman named Violette, roughly in her forties, who was born an orphan and later entered a marriage with a mean and selfish man. For years they operated a level-crossing, before it was automated. Then they went together to be the guardians of a cemetery of a small village in Burgundy. He leaves her one day and she creates her own cosy little life in the cemetery house, punctuated by little treats like herbal teas, her pink dressing gown and a glass of porto each evening. She is a friend and confidante for the three brothers who run the town’s funeral business, as well as the local priest — her colleagues. She gets to know certain locals who come regularly to visit the graves of loved ones. She looks after flowers for those who cannot come regularly and also sells little pots of flowers from her own garden. Despite being literally set among the dead, so far it is a gentle and life-affirming read with a very likeable narrator and I look forward to seeing how the story ends.

While I was laid up with my foot sprain, I watched the Apple TV series Severance, which tells the dystopian story of a corporation that invents a ‘severance procedure’: employees elect to have their work and home selves severed in a brain operation. they are at home they have no knowledge of their life at the office. In the morning, they take a lift down to the ‘severance floor’ and on the way they transition to the work version of themself, who has no memory of their history or personal life. It’s super stylised and very cleverly written, and also eery. By turning up the hyperbole dial on corporate culture, it makes you think about the weirdness of the existing reality of it.

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Just for fun, some of my favourite things from the French pharmacy:

• Avène brumisateur, spring water spray.  I once went to a dermatologist who told me I should be washing my face exclusively with mineral water and only using high-end products from the French pharmacy. This was her number-one recommendation, a mineral water spray for the face. Delightfully ridiculous!

• Avène BB cream. Excellent light foundation to give a slightly glowy facr.

• Caudalie ‘beauty elixir’. Another spray for the face. A ‘multi-purpose mist’ that does I’m not sure what but makes your face smell nice and expensive. Thank you to to dear pals Agnes and Samira for the tip.

• Caudalie foaming face wash. I occasionally buy this face wash when I’m feeling fancy, and I’ve never regretted it yet.

• Embryolisse Lait-Crème Concentré. Top-notch moisturiser, my friend asked me to bring her three bottles to New York.

• PurEssentiel lavender sleep spray. The name is misleading. This is an entirely unnecessary aromatherapy spray that you can put on your pillow or sheets. I nonetheless find it a comfort to spray on unknown pillows when travelling.

  And something I still don’t understand:

• Treatments for the mysterious condition of jambes lourdes (heavy legs), a concept almost as nebulous and mysterious as Cartesian Rationalism.

From Guide de la Beauté, 1970

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Thank you for reading about my foot woes, occultism and pharmacies! And thank you also for your patience as I didn’t manage to write on Sunday this week. I will endeavour to get back into the Sunday groove next week.

Thank you also to those people who write back to me, I love receiving your emails and comments! Please do share this letter if you enjoy it.

Wishing you a good week.

Yours,

Hannah