Le Nemours

Le Nemours, a café at the entrance to the Palais-Royal gardens, is the setting for both of Éric Reinhardt’s face-to-face meetings with Bénédicte Ombredanne. The two encounters there move from the reserve of an author meeting a reader to an intimate conversation in which Bénédicte tells him what she has kept to herself for years.

Setting and First Arrival

The meetings took place on the terrace of Le Nemours: the first in March 2008, the second on a Sunday several months later, in September. The terrace’s everyday public setting becomes the scene of a private exchange, first hesitant and then unusually candid.

In March, Reinhardt arrived early, while Bénédicte was already there. The terrace was so busy that no tables were free. He walked its long, covered central aisle twice, scanning the seated customers for the woman who had written to him, then looked for someone about to ask for the bill and spoke with a waiter while continuing to search. He did not identify Bénédicte at once; she made no conspicuous gesture to announce herself.

Instead, Reinhardt recognized her through a tender, slightly mocking smile and the steady look she directed at him. Her quiet way of waiting left him room to turn back rather than proceed with a meeting she had invited him to share. The encounter began, before either spoke, with that silent exchange rather than a wave or an emphatic greeting.

Two Meetings, Two Conversations

At their first meeting, both were intimidated, and Reinhardt did most of the talking. Bénédicte had many questions about how he wrote his novels. The café therefore first serves as a place where a reader approaches the work and its author, with their conversation still shaped by the formality of a first encounter.

The September meeting had a different beginning. Reinhardt arrived about ten minutes late, and Bénédicte, already there, rose when she saw him on the esplanade and came to greet him with an embrace. They then spoke for four hours. Bénédicte confided in him, while Reinhardt sustained her account with questions and affectionate encouragement, believing it important that she be able to release what he understood she had carried alone for years.

That second conversation followed Bénédicte’s persistent efforts to arrange another meeting during a stay in Paris. Reinhardt had been reluctant to extend their contact and answered her messages evasively about his uncertain schedule. She continued to ask each day, including on the Sunday morning just hours before her train was due to leave; although her messages grew more urgent, she remained delicate. When he finally agreed to meet early that afternoon at Le Nemours, he knew the day would be overwhelming.

Narrative Significance

Le Nemours anchors a marked change in the relationship between author and reader. The March encounter begins with questions about novels and the difficulty of recognizing one another in a crowded public place; the later meeting turns the same café into the setting for Bénédicte’s extended personal disclosure. The contrast between her restrained first greeting and her September embrace reflects the growing openness between them.

The location’s significance lies in this transformation rather than in any change to the café itself. Amid the ordinary bustle of a terrace, a literary acquaintance becomes a listener to a story Bénédicte has long kept private. Le Nemours is thus the recurring meeting place where the novel’s exchange about literature gives way to an act of personal confidence.