The Mysterious Bakery On Rue De Paris

Edith Lane hides in the toilet at a train station in Paris, embarrassed by her mistake. She has come to Paris from her home in Ireland to begin a job as the assistant manager of a small bakery. Inspired by her father’s career as a pastry chef and the movies like Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Amelie she used to watch with her mother, she has come looking for adventure.

However, the bakery she is meant to work in is not in Paris, on the Rue de Compiègne, but in the town of Compiègne on the Rue de Paris. She tells herself that every heroine in an old movie faces obstacles and challenges before at last getting the happiness they deserve. Determined to see her dream through, she boards the train for Compiègne.

When Edith arrives in Compiègne late that night, she’s greeted by 15-year-old Manu, who greets her and takes her to the bakery, La Boulangerie et Patisserie de Compiègne. The bakery is in an old building of shop fronts. The owner, Madame Moreau, is an old, dour woman with gray hair and a stern expression. She leads Edith to her room in the attic. Edith falls asleep quickly and wakes in the morning, tired and miserable.

When Edith goes downstairs to the bakery, she finds Madame Moreau and Manu already working. Edith asks to meet the head baker, but Madame Moreau refuses and forbids her from going to the basement where the baking is done. She insists that the baker is particular about who is allowed in his kitchen. She instructs Edith to remain on the first floor at the shop counter and greet customers.

Madame Moreau gives her a terse overview of her tasks. Edith feels overwhelmed by the number of customers, particularly as she speaks little French. One customer, a lawyer named Monsieur Legrand, is kind and patient with her.

The bakery closes for a two-hour lunch break. Edith uses this time to explore the town. She’s charmed by the picturesque movie-set quality of the idyllic streets and the fashionable townspeople. When she returns to the bakery, she finds an entrance to the basement in the back. Curious, she tries to open the door but it does not budge.

Edith works through the afternoon, discouraged by Madame Moreau’s cold, brusque manner. She fears that it was a mistake to come, and wonders if she was deluding herself by thinking that an impulsive adventure in France would erase her painful memories of the past 18 months. Still, her “heart [is] holding out for something amazing to happen” (30). Late in the afternoon, she meets another regular customer, a British man named Geoff who retired in Compiègne and now gives tours of its important historical sites.

When the bakery closes for the night, Manu packs leftover pastries to take to the local church for unhoused refugees. Edith walks around the town and stops in front of a hairdresser’s shop. As she ponders an ad for a short “Audrey Hepburn-style gamine hairdo” (34), a man walks by and comments in French that the style would look good on her. Flattered, Edith decides coming to Compiègne might work out for her.

The next morning, Madame Moreau remains brusque, giving Edith commands and treating her with minimal civility. However, the moment the bakery opens she’s charming and polite with her customers. Edith reflects that she and Madame Moreau are “polar opposites.” Edith constantly worries about what people think of her, tries to please everyone, and routinely fails. Madame Moreau speaks with sharp wit and little regard for what others think, yet “everyone eat[s] out of her hand” (36).

In the evening, Edith finds a recipe book hidden beneath a loose floorboard in her apartment. The book is signed, “Pierre, 1945.” A recipe for “hot chocolate to warm the soul” catches Edith’s eye (39). The recipe requires liqueur vanille, a special liqueur made by soaking vanilla beans in alcohol, which she remembers seeing in the bakery’s employee kitchen. Edith decides to try it. The liqueur bottle is sealed, but she reasons that it must simply be a newly bought bottle and opens it. When she drinks the hot chocolate, she feels transported to a memory of attending a Christmas concert with her mother, when she felt “that life was the best thing ever because there would be more days like this” (42). She feels joy and contentment as if something has unlocked inside her.

In 1920, Pierre Moreau travels from his small rural home in Compiègne, where he always felt out of place except when baking, to apprentice with a famous patisserie in Paris. Baking, for Pierre, is a kind of magic. He believes the baked goods can “nourish not only the body, but also the soul” (44). After completing his apprenticeship, he intends to open his own patisserie in Paris. He meets a mysterious merchant who sells him a special kind of vanilla bean grown in Madagascar. The first time he tries the vanilla, he feels as if time has stopped, and he suddenly recalls eating fruit tarts with his school friend, Jean-Yves. For the first time, he realizes that he has always been in love with Jean-Yves. He decides that he wants to open a bakery in his hometown and use this special ingredient to give joy to the townspeople.

He buys a rundown shop in Compiègne, with apartments above and a kitchen in the basement. That evening, he runs into Jean-Yves, who now has a beautiful wife and a young child. Jean-Yves invites him to stay with him until the bakery is up and running. Pierre accepts, but watching the man he loves with his new family is painful. He decides then that he will “pour all of his heart into his baking” (48).

At the end of her first week, Edith decides to treat herself to a visit at the hairdresser she noticed earlier. The head hairdresser does not speak English and asks her daughter, Nicole, to help. They strike up a conversation while Nicole works on Edith’s hair. Nicole attended college in London, where she met her husband Johnny, who studied history but is now a musician who plays bass in a jazz band. They have a young son. Nicole insists that the short gamine hairstyle Edith wanted is not right for her. Instead, they agree on a layered bob that makes Edith feel more French. Nicole invites Edith to the club where her husband performs on the following Saturday.

On the following weekend, Edith receives her first paycheck from Madame Moreau who remarks that she is “not bad” (55). Edith is annoyed by how much the woman’s approval still means to her and tries to hide it. On Saturday, Edith arrives at a small, intimate club, Nostalgie, to meet Nicole. Edith has always felt out of place with her peers because she spent so much time with her mother watching old movies and listening to jazz music from a previous era. But she feels at home in this club with Nicole.

Nicole remarks that Madame Moreau inherited the bakery from her father or uncle, and Manu will likely take over next. Eventually, Johnny and his band arrive on stage. Edith feels like she is “living all of [her] Hollywood movie fantasies” in the eclectic jazz club (60), a feeling that intensifies when she sees a handsome blond man seated at the bar. She realizes it is the man who complimented her on the street outside the hair salon.

Nicole sees her staring and encourages her to approach the man and flirt. When Edith hesitates, Nicole manufactures an introduction. The man, Hugo Chadwick, is half-British and half-French. Nicole leaves them to talk and flirt. Hugo asks Edith to dance.

Edith dances with Hugo and is struck by the instant connection and attraction between them. Edith invites Hugo to walk home with her. On the way, they talk. Afraid of seeming boring and unsuccessful, she claims to be a jazz singer working at a bakery while waiting for her big break. Hugo says he is a photographer who takes photos of streetscapes in Paris.

They discuss the unreliability of memory and Hugo lends Edith his copy of Swann’s Way, a novel by Marcel Proust. He explains that he always carries a copy on him and insists that reading Proust is a requirement if she is to live in France. They kiss and flirt. Hugo asks Edith to sing for him, and she does. She’d wanted to be a singer when she was younger before she gave up her dreams to care for her mother, but she’s unsure if her voice is still good. Hugo seems impressed.

Hugo returns to the bakery with Edith and balks at Madame Moreau’s name, clearly recognizing it. He politely declines to come in, saying that he does not want to cause her trouble with her boss. Hugo asks if he can take her to dinner the next time he is in town, though he does not know precisely when that will be. Edith accepts, only realizing she forgot to ask for his phone number after he is gone.

Edith’s mother had been sick for a long time, diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at a young age. She and Edith’s father were high school sweethearts and married quickly, choosing to have a child while they still could. Edith’s father worked as a pastry chef in Dublin and Edith worked part-time jobs as a waitress so she could take care of her mother. Her parents insisted she did not have to put her life on hold for them, but she wanted to cherish the time she had with her mother. Now 30 years old and a late bloomer, Edith feels she missed out on important experiences in her twenties.

On Sunday morning, she wakes still excited about meeting Hugo. Since her romantic experiences have been few, she tries not to get her hopes up. That afternoon, she visits Nicole and meets Nicole’s mother Jacqueline, who tells her more about Madame Moreau, explaining that her father Monsieur Moreau died in the ’60s, leaving the bakery to her. Jacqueline says Madame Moreau has lived a hard life, particularly during the war. None of them know who the baker in the basement is. Johnny jokes that the bakery might be haunted. Later, Johnny introduces Edith to the music of Django Reinhardt, “the king of gypsy jazz” (87).