Went back to the Louvre to see the Watteaus. So glad I did. Not a beribonned sheep in sight, just delicate mastery of expression in face and gesture, superb draughtsmanship supporting every figure, and an infusion of the ineffable.

I walked through the rest of the 18th and 19th century French painting galleries. Again there was the sense of there being too many famous works, too much genius crowded together. I tended to look more at the paintings I hadn’t already seen in reproduction. I liked this trompe l’oeil by Louis-Leopold Boilly:

Detail of man in bottom right (I just love his face):

Wandering north up Rue Richelieu, I found a bakery claiming to be the oldest in Paris (as you might imagine there are several of those). I decided now was the time to try a fancy French cake. I chose one (can’t remember the name, argh), shaped like a canoe, enclosed in a two-toned chocolate shell on a sponge base and filled with what I thought was going to be chestnut cream - which it was, but it had a completely surprising flavour that was half chestnut, half blue cheese. I hated it. And then I took another bite. And couldn’t decide if I hated or liked it. It reminded me of the experience of eating durian - firm, incredibly creamy texture, and the weird mixture of delicate and pungent tastes. It isn’t often that you taste something unlike anything you’ve tasted before, but the mixture in this cake sure qualified as that for me. I ended up eating the whole thing and somehow wanting more.