The Left Bank has become a rather expensive tourist trap nowadays so we are eating and drinking the afternoon away in a darkly lit bistro on La Rive Droite, The Right Bank. The cassoulet contains mutton, pork skin, and white beans. We are pouring a table wine from a country estate in St. Emilion when a short little man, with a rat-like visage similar in look to Roman Polanski sidles up to our table. He knows we are foreign by the way we are dressed and, probably, by the loudness of our party.  We are, unashamedly, ugly Americans! Loud, rude, obnoxious. I am prone to blaming it on the wine consumed at such an early hour. Not quite 3 in the afternoon. He wants to show us Le Sacre Couer Basilica, Les Palais de Tuileries. He is offering his services as our own private tour guide when we explain we…