I had wanted to visit Paris ever since I was 15 years old. My best friend and I began planning, but by the time it looked like we could actually go, my father became ill. Paris would have to wait.

I got married in 2001, after moving to Scotland. Scotland has the benefit of Ryan Air, something we don't have over here - and never could, the way our taxes are. Ryan Air is the most wonderful airline in the world - for where else could you get a flight from Glasgow to Paris for a penny? A penny! Even after hitting you with a million service charges, you can still get a round trip ticket for 30 pounds sterling. So on our 26th birthday, in 2002, Mr. Right and I boarded a flight to the City of Light.

The bus from the far-flung airport delivered us to Place Dauphin, just a short walk from the Arc de Triomphe. We brunched in the shadow of the Arc, luggage at our feet. I couldn't stop smiling. Navigating the Metro was easy, and soon we were walking up the steps onto Place du Clichy in the 18th Arrondissment. Montmartre. Coming up those stairs from the Metro, the first sight to greet me was the Moulin Rouge. I wept. I really wept. Not since I was a very small child had I ever felt a sense of homecoming, and here I was, 3500 miles from my place of birth, feeling as if this was what I had been searching for all my life. The hustling bustling people in the streets of Montmartre were like neighbors to me. It was comfortable to share a drink and a laugh with the people in the café down the street form the hotel. I had no trouble coaxing friendliness out of waiters and shopkeepers. The lady at the small shoe store on Rue Lepic shared chocolates with me. Good chocolates - great shoes.

But my favorite moments in Paris were spent on the steps of the Sacre Coeur. First thing in the morning, and last thing at night, there was almost no one around. It was calm and quiet - very different from the noise and crowds during the day. One morning I stepped out with a coffee at 5am, and walked up the hill to see the sun rise. Just me, the homelss guy with the bottle of wine, and the man with the street sweepers cart.

Now the sun is setting over the Paris I love. Perhaps the next time I go there, the onion domes of the Sacre Coeur will have a crescent moon atop them. Paris has had revolutions before, and the governments - religious and secular - have capitulated to those who revolt. That what France does - they give in. They're doing it again:

France is using fast-track trials to punish rioters, worrying some human rights campaigners.

The resort to curfews drew immediate criticism from Chirac's political opponents. Former Socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius said the emergency measures must be "controlled very, very closely.''

Communist Party leader Marie-George Buffet said the decree could enflame rioters. "It could be taken anew as a sort of challenge to carry out more violence,'' she said.

They still have not called in the military, despite the state of emergency. The Jihadis are waging a holy war against France, because it is an easy target, and because there are enough of them to make it very violent and very successful.
I don't know what will become of Paris's treasures once this ugliness calms. I do not know if the churches and museums will remain.

What I do know is that when the Germans invaded France in WWII, Hitler was adamant about leaving Paris intact. He was a student of art, and was unwilling to see Europe's jewel destroyed. I doubt the Jihadis have the same view of art and culture. And I, for one, am saddened by the thought that one of the most evil men ever to walk the face of this earth had more class than our current enemies.

Update: The American Princess has a great post:

Alienation breeds contempt. Contempt is fueled by disenfranchisment. That disenfranchisment is nurtured by Jihadists. What is happening in the streets of Paris is not riots. Riots are not well-organized. Riots are short. Riots do not harm people intentionally, only by accident when connected to the destruction of property. Riots end.

What is happening on the streets of Paris is war. Holy War. The French econimic system gave it an excuse, and the French are about to pay dearly.

We are so caught up in the little metaphors that color our fight with Islamic fundamentalism. We coin it "war on terror," obtuse and general, we claim it is only an assault on "terrorists" or on "those who harbor them." We, as Americans want the battles to be few, quick, and far between. We think of the "war on terror" as so amorphous that we cannot readily define what we are fighting against. Our enemy is totalitarianism, Saddam, WMDs, the PLO, drugs, the Taliban, Chechyns, the nuclear arms dealers, the UN, my living room couch, who knows? We are so blase about the "war" that we deign to compare people on our own soil to the idiotic Mullahs of the East, casually calling James Dobson a member of the American Taliban. We have no idea how serious this problem is, do we?