I was all set to write about how the day after Bastille Day is always such a let-down, but then my friend K sent me this note:

Did you hear that Jacques Chirac survived an assassination attempt during a Bastille Day parade? The guy was such a poor shot, Chirac didn't even know until after the parade was over that someone had tried to kill him. Later he publicly thanked all the parade-going citizens who subdued the gunman. One good thing about 9/11 - the new terrorism-aware mentality has encouraged complete strangers, even French ones, to pull together and subdue.

My favorite thing about the story is that when informed of the attempt, Chirac's initial response was reported to be, "Oh, really?" The latest articles are translating his reaction as, "Oh, well" - and even though my French is cobbled together from menus, cognates, and Truffaut films, that seems closer to what Le Monde reported as "Ah, bon."

Now that's aplomb, baby.