Madame Engadine's Elegant Parisian Party

I'll leave you to stew a minute in speculation about the meaning of this article's title...let me just say that my recurring "presence" in that place is due in large part to the abysmally low level of quality in late night television programming when I get home from work during the week.  Other than an occasional live sports event...usually on the west coast...or a very rare South Park episode I like, I have the cable news channels with their perennial, wearisome war of words between the two main political parties...it continues in the opening segments of the popular late-night talk shows, who have substituted angry and vicious political tripe for humor, along with guest "stars" I've never heard of.  So what's left for me? Short of switching to the ambient music station...which usually sends me into a deep sleep...I head off to YouTube to watch what is probably my favorite series of all time, and more likely than not, my favorite episode of that series from the late 1960s.  It is about a British secret agent, played by the late Patrick McGoohan, who angrily resigns, get knocked out, and awakens to find himself in a prison that is in the form of a fancy resort: the Village...location unknown.  I'm speaking of course about The Prisoner, and the fantastic episode is A., B. and C.  So what does this have to do with Madame Engadine's fancy party?

In The Prisoner, the kidnapped agent is told he is now Number Six...all residents there are assigned numbers, both the inmates and wardens.  Running the Village is Number Two, presumably with the mysterious, unknown Number One on top of the ruling hierarchy.  The entire series involves attempt after attempt to lure Number Six into explaining why he resigned...but the agent refuses to break.  In A., B., and C. they come up with a scheme...through the invention of a technique that broadcasts Number Six's dreams on a television screen...to make their target dream of a popular French party he used to frequent and then have him meet in succession there three different contacts, dubbed "A.", "B.", and "C.", one of whom Number Two thinks will solve the mystery of his resignation.  It is this party, hosted by the warm and sophisticated Paris socialite Madame Engadine, that has ultimately become what I now hold to be the impossible standard of what any decent party should be.  Impossible because, after all, the good Madame obviously had a mansion and a lot of money to spend for it and most parties are on a much more modest scale.  Still, I liked hers because the guests were personally greeted and welcomed and then accorded freedom of movement and association without being corralled into overly-organized events such as the idiotic games that plague (and to me, ruin) many parties and social events.  I definitely think that Number Six liked her parties, too. Check out the episode...you may end up watching the whole seventeen-part series.  And dig that party...