The lovely Elisabeth Villette from Paris is this week’s guest.Cet article ne vas pas vous estrangez avec son Francais, comme diableuse qu’elle est, votre Ezra Pound-worshipping editeur de World and Nation.

Ever heard of An American in Paris? Well Elisabeth Villette is a Parisian in America, and she’s that much shrewder than the other guy. It takes a Parisian to know Paris, and it takes a Quaker Parisian to deliver us the following unique perspective on the City of Light.

Villette lived 19 years in St. Germain en Laye, peppering her experience with the occasional visit to the U.S. She knew the U.S., or somewhere other than Paris, was her ultimate destination, and sure enough she ended up one month ago at the stronghold of American Quakerism, dear Guilford.

Let me first make clear that Villette loves a few things about France. I need to make this point because this Villette is rather critical of her homeland and she is likely to impress you in that way. She loves le paysage—the countryside—and she loves the architecture. However, her quaint village, five minutes from the booming cultural intersection St. Germain en Laye and 15 minutes from Versailles, is far from dans le campagne—in the country. And the architecture that everyone loves, she admits, reminds her of France’s suffocating embrace of her past.

I forgot to ask Villette, but I’m sure she would be a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright’s. She admires America’s constant change and the reflection of the times in our buildings. Of course, American architecture can be overzealous, as in the case of our twin Towers of Babel, erected in honor of our neo-imperialist era and based in none, absolutely none, of the wisdom of our Judeo-Christian or Islamic predecessors.

Back to le Paris. I forgot to mention that when Villette told me of her proximity to Versailles I squealed. I said, “But you must love Versailles! Did you go there much?”

“When we were little, my dad would take us there all the time,” related Villette. Turns out, she almost fell asleep with boredom. She’s not too different from the Washington D.C. kids among us that cried for our parents to lead us out of Smithsonian museums and never make us return. But Versailles…the purple-carpeted, gold-walled, giraffe-bushed home of the sun king…

Villette’s school was even more exotic: le Lycee Internacional—founded half a century ago for NATO’s fledglings. It educates diplomat children of Japan, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Britain, the United States, and several other countries with specific programs in their language. Raised speaking English and only English at home—under mandate of her French father—Villette studied in the Anglo-Saxon chapter.

One population that is not included at the Lycee, to Villette’s ennui, is the domestic Algerian population. The Lycee recently reviewed the question of creating an Arabic section, which would mostly accommodate the Algerians, and decided to exclude the trouble-fait. These “trouble-makers,” as many of the French call them, from Algeria, live mostly in public housing called le Habitat Loyer Modere.

“Unfortunately, the Algerian immigrants have sort of emulated the American ghettoes,” told Villette, “in what they wear, how they act, and how they can be provocative.”

They manage to sell their distinctive music, called ra‹, but still Villette declares that “the French have a long way to go to being more tolerant of the Algerians.”

“I believe that an Arabic section in our high school would not deteriorate the image of the school,” said Villette. Though realizing the negative image Algerian immigrants have conveyed of themselves to France, she thinks “having an Arabic section makes (as much) sense as having a British or German section.

These (different sections) help to perpetuate the culture of different populations living in France. And having a sense of culture is important as a means to eradicate violence.”

One of the key points that Elisabeth delivered throughout our talk is: “The Parisians are snobs, ya know.” And as a corollary to that she emphasized, “I really like it here (at Guilford) because people are just natural.”