Something I enjoyed about this trip is that, since we've been once before we had already done all the crowded monuments. We had already been inside Notre Dame, up the Eiffel Tower (which I was definitely not doing again, because I am afraid of heights and didn't remember this last time until I was already at the top. -When I wasn't pretending to smile for pictures, I was clinging with my back to the wall like a starfish), and we had already licked the Arc de Triomphe.
Which means we didn't really have any of the lines to stand in, that I think a body can spend their whole vacation doing, and possibly resent.
This freed us up to hang out in the gardens, parks, and neighborhoods around the monuments, which I think is my favorite way to see Paris. Also, it's where the food is.
That's where we found old Charlemagne or whoever, riding his noble steed. (See the picture?) I love how someone put a broom in his holster. We captioned it "Charlemagne Sweeps Across the Nation".
We also found that people were really cool about swapping out taking pictures of each other. We actually got quite a few pictures of both of us which was nice. Since we already had a growing supply of phone selfies. (And after a while they all just start looking the same. Forehead in front of the Seine, forehead in front of the bridge, forehead in a garden.)
So there's the Cranky French stigma debunked for you. (Although I'm pretty sure we were mostly swapping with other tourists.)
What I can say pretty confidently, not to paint too broad a brush because people come in all types, but I would characterize Parisians who work in a service capacity more brusque than mean.
Meanness requires effort and no one was going to waste that kind of effort on us. We were just a couple of kids from who knows where, a dime a dozen, in the great cogs of French Tourism.
Brusque is the tired man's mean.
And I know these French waiters, pastry shop attendants, shop clerks are tired. They meet more tourists than Parisians in any given day, bless them.
Not that we acted like apes or anything, trust me I sprinkled more Mercis, and s'il vous plaits in a given sentence than was self respecting. At times it looked more like grovelling. "Hello! (HUGE smile) Can I please please buy this 10 Euro nondescript drink from you?" (Seriously, eyebrows are raised, this smile I am giving is the one I usually reserve for the children when they gift me something they made with their own tiny hands) "Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm sorry I took Spanish in high school because my mom thought it was more practical, and now you find my money and request for the goods and services that you offer, a thorn in your side, thank you, please, thank you, please."
So anyways, I wouldn't take it personal.
Paris is full of lovely people, and going there is a wonderful lesson in humility.
*Except for D'Orsay
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