Le Connetable
Go home Paris, you are drunk.
You are outside Stollys. It’s 2am. You are quite politely being told to fuck off. None of your new friends who you just met want to call it a night. A man dressed as a gay pirate is trying to get you into his battered Renault Clio. He says there is a party at his place. You feel like perhaps you are the only invitee. It's time to head somewhere else and there is only one place that will let you in. It’s time for Le Connetable.
You and your new friends wander through the Marais like newborn babies. The handbag shops, tea emporiums and bear bars are looming in on you, beckoning you to keep going. You pick up stragglers on the way, disciples who want to join the cult of drinking until tomorrow is useless. “The more the merrier…” you think. But this is wrong. The greater the size of this ragbag crew the lower the chance you yourself will be granted entry. Make no bones about it, if they all get in and you don’t then nobody is going to care.
Rue des Archives, you used to work here didn’t you, once upon a time? When was that again? No time to worry about that now, you are in front of the bouncer and he looks like he isn’t in the mood for reminiscing. You clench your face into a smile and walk up to the big man.
You: Bonsoir!
The Bouncer: *nods you inside.
Le Connetable is a bit like being wasted in a shit haunted house. There’s granny furniture and fake old-looking art on the walls. At any point the bartender might pull out a crossbow and announce that billionaires are going to hunt you down for sport as part of a Netflix show. You look around the room to check out the competition.
Over there is a group of English business guys, on a work trip flashing the company credit card. They have their eyes on the fashion girls in the other corner and one of them is not-so-discreetly trying to slide his wedding ring off. He really shouldn’t bother. Their Marks and Spencers suits won’t cut it with this crowd.
You’ve lost your new friends and to be honest you don’t remember any of their names or what they look like. Maybe they are in The Fumoir downstairs. The smoking dungeon.
The fumoir is a nicotine pit that reminds you of the dragon cave from The Hobbit. Here, though, instead of breathing fire, Smaug had been chain smoking Marlboro Reds since Middle Earth was formed. You think to yourself that this is probably the worst place in the world, and you’ve been to Butlins.
You’re upstairs again and the walls of Le Connetable are really closing in. Maybe you shouldn’t have had those last eight pints. It’s probably best to leave now rather than be thrown out by that bouncer after projectile vomiting on a portrait of a 16th Century anaemic French prince. You dip outside and jump in the Uber.
EXCEPT YOU DIDN’T CALL AN UBER AND THIS DEFINITELY ISN’T ONE.
It’s the Gay Pirate from earlier! He has finally captured you in his Renault Shaggin’ Wagon. He’s eating a Cornetto with one hand and rubbing Lemsip Cold and Flu up his nostrils with the other. You reach for the door handle but the child locks are activated. As he speeds off into the dark night you tell yourself you should have gone home after Stollys, you should not have gone to Le Connetable. But then again, you say that every week.
Le Connetable - 55 Rue des Archives, 75003 Paris