New York, March 3, 2006 – We went from the French Quarter to the French Consulate this week, and the wine was flowing freely in both places.

Friday evening at the posh Upper East Side outpost of French soil, author Norman Mailer was awarded the Medal of Chavalier of the Legion of Honor, France’s highest honor. After a couple of glasses of red wine, the Pulitzer Prize winner took the podium, and reminisced about living in Paris after World War II with his first wife, who reminded him daily that she spoke French better than he. Mailer, 83, jokingly explained that it’s much easier to speak French when drunk, and then proceeded to read a letter, in French, by Picasso’s first mistress, Fernande Olivier. He then read an English translation.

Mailer recalled that his late friend and fellow Legion of Honor awardee, George Plimpton, boasted about one of the great perks of wearing the medal: when on a crowded Paris Metro, old French ladies get up and offer you their seats.