Paris for Dreamers

by Katrina Lawrence

  A new generation of artists had much to talk about. Art could no longer reflect life — photography and cinema now did that. Impressionism had reacted to a faster-paced world by capturing fleeting moments, and its pastel-hued paintings prettied up the reality of a new industrial world for a while, but growing wariness of the approaching twentieth century eventually demanded a more radical response. Artists were emboldened to emotionally react to their world and, like writers, became political and philosophical commentators on modern life. Montmartre might have been a fresh-aired hilltop town, and many Impressionists, with their rose-tinted glasses, had lived here early on, but the district also had a hard edge to it, which perhaps explains how this was the birthplace of Modernist art. An early hint of the changing artistic landscape was Cézanne (who lived nearby), whose 1867 Rue des Saules has a darkness to it for what is essentially a country streetscape.

  Turn right into Rue Saint-Vincent, and continue along the cemetery wall which, in autumn, is covered in a magnificent leafy coat, shaded ombré from red through to orange and green. At the end of the street, veer left and ascend yet another set of so-Montmartre stairs. You’d never guess that much of this area was the infamous maquis, or scrubland — a shantytown of makeshift houses that sprang up after the old farms were cleared, but before the land could be readied for building. It was a thriving, if dangerous and dirt-poor, world — the artist Modigliani had a shack here on the back slope — and yet another edgy element to Montmartre.

  Up at Place Dalida (after the Egyptian-born bombshell pop singer of the 1950s and ’60s who became an honorary Parisienne and much-loved montmartroise), look left and enjoy the photo-perfect view up to Sacré-Coeur, but for now (don’t worry, we’ll circle back here) turn right and nip down Allée des Brouillards, the lane of the fogs, so named for the mists that once lingered over the old springs of Montmartre. The gabled white mansion to your left is the Château des Brouillards, an eighteenth-century folie now restored, but that once had a suitably shabby chic air when surrounded by the scruffy maquis.

  The stairs at the end take you down to Rue Simon Dereure. Before you go too far along, spend a few minutes wandering around the château’s old gardens, now the Square Suzanne Buisson, just behind that gorgeous spray of cherry plums. It’s mostly a park for locals, with a playground set amid a grove of London plane trees and a boules pitch bordered with Juneberry trees and lampposts, but it boasts some historical gravitas; the Statue de Saint Denis — that headless figure looming over a pond fountain — commemorates the third-century bishop of Paris who, along with two Christian companions, was beheaded by the Romans somewhere around here. This is one explanation for the name Montmartre: the Hill of the Martyrs.

  At the end of Rue Simon Dereure, turn left onto the curving Avenue Junot, lined with linden trees. The street sliced right through the maquis in 1910, which explains the modernist buildings. As you make your way up, duck down the cul-de-sac Villa Léandre, a wisteria-and ivy-laden homage to the English countryside that was so in fashionable in the 1920s (think the architectural equivalent of Chanel and her tweeds). At the Ciné 13 movie theatre, head down Rue Girardon. On the next corner, on the right, look up through the paulownia branches to see one of Montmartre’s remaining two windmills. This was once the site of one entrance to the famed Le Moulin de la Galette, a sort of fun park for dancing and drinking; head down Rue Lepic and you’ll see the arch of the other old entrance, at the foot of a slope topped with the second moulin.

  Little symbolises Montmartre like a windmill. In past centuries, as many as thirty could be found on this hill, back when it was covered in abbeys, monasteries, vineyards and farms. Mills had various uses: some crushed flowers for perfume, others gypsum for Plaster of Paris; some ground wheat for that ever-important Parisian staple, bread; others pressed grapes for the juice that would ferment into the locals’ preferred tipple. Montmartre’s last-standing windmills have the fragile air of yesteryear, of time blowing away. Most disappeared during the industrial age, which preferred other forms of power. It was only due to Montmartre’s fun-loving spirit that these two survived .

  In the 1830s, the owners of the mill on this sloping site began to serve wine, along with their specialty flatbread (galette), to the Parisians who would trek up on a Sunday for a fresh-aired country fix, and the panoramic city views. Sensing a successful diversification strategy, the millers turned the terraced knoll into a guinguette (drinking garden) and the windmill up top into a viewing tower, and they added a dancehall. The entertainment complex started to attract artists, especially the Impressionists. Pierre-Auguste Renoir celebrated its effervescent charm with his 1876 Bal du Moulin de la Galette, and Vincent Van Gogh further immortalised the party hill in a series of paintings a decade later. By the turn of the century, a renovation saw a new ballroom decorated with glossy chandeliers and ivy-laced columns; its atmosphere of excitement is palpable in Picasso’s 1900 painting, Moulin de la Galette. These days, sadly, the dancehall and its gardens live on only in pigment, and the hilltop windmill is inaccessible.

  Retrace your steps up Rue Lepic, and continue along, sweeping uphill past Place Jean-Baptise Clément, and past the neighbourhood’s old neo-Renaissance water tower (also, unfortunately, private). As you can tell from the clutter of postcard-packed shops, touristy Montmartre is just into your right. We’ll get there, but for now let’s stick to the paths less beaten, and turn left onto Rue Norvins. On your right, you’ll see a cream eighteenth-century mansion; in its time it has been the home of a wine merchant, a society mental clinic, and now an artists’ residence — a curious mix that seems rather suggestive of the cultural layers of Montmartre’s history. Further down this street, you’ll pass the Jardin Frédéric Dard, a wild patch of a park that recalls the maquis of Montmartre. Also note the literary monument: a sculpture of a life-size bronze man half-emerging from the wall of Place Marcel Aymé, named for the author of the 1941 novel, Le Passe-Muraille (The Man Who Walked Through Walls). From here take a right into Rue Girardon and you’ll soon find yourself back at Place Dalida, and that magnificent view up to Sacré-Coeur.

  As you swerve into Rue de L’Abreuvoir, around a hollowed-out corner that was once a horse and cattle trough (abreuvoir), you’ll almost swear you’ve crossed back into Old Montmartre, so evocative is this strip with its wisteria-laden brick walls and chequered cobbles that seem to echo with the rattle of cartwheels and clip-clop of donkey hooves. Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro once lived at no.12 — no doubt attracted by the street’s pastoral prettiness — and many of the dwellings have the air of standing still in time, although the madcap mock-Tudor townhouse at no.4 was a late nineteenth-century addition. Up at the very end, you’ll come to the pink house, La Maison Rose, made famous by painter Maurice Utrillo (and now, of course, Instagrammers).

  Dog-leg ahead into Rue Cortot; halfway up you’ll reach the Musée de Montmartre, where Utrillo lived with his mother, artist Suzanne Valadon, from 1910. Despite battling alcoholism for most of his life, Utrillo was an urban-landscape genius, turning out endless depictions of Montmartre’s winding streets, capturing the gritty charm of the crooked buildings, mimicking the texture of their crumbling façades by mixing sand into pigment. Valadon was brilliant herself. After working as an artists’ model — she was painted by, among others, Renoir, who had lived here while working on his Moulin de la Galette scene — she went on to become a celebrated artist in her own right. The atelier-apartment she shared with her son has been recreated and it’s an inspired vision; bibelots and paint-spattered palettes are strewn on the dusty workbench beneath the bohemian skylight windows, and chairs are scattered around easels and screens, as though left mid-conversation — you swear mother and son have just popped up the road for a bowl of broth.

  Devote a good hour to the museum, a cluster of buildings — including Montmartre’s oldest, from the seventeenth century — that once housed a warren of artists’ studios. There’s usually a locally themed exhibition, and lots of history of the
area, told through vintage photos and posters. As with so many Parisian museums it’s about the outside as much as the inside — and the café, too. If it’s lunchtime, buy yourself a quiche and glass of rosé at the glasshouse café, and find yourself a wrought-iron garden chair and table. The grounds are as pretty as a Renoir painting — and indeed, he did paint in this very place; a swing is suspended from a towering plane tree, in tribute to Renoir’s La Balançoire. After lunch, wind your way downhill, peeking into the Jardin Sauvage Saint-Vincent on your right (an enclave of biodiversity in all its wild abandon); at the bottom of the steps you’ll get to also peer more closely into the Clos Montmartre; the vineyard is a 1933 tribute to a time when much of the district was covered with grapevines.

  Back on Rue Cortot, walk towards the elongated domes of Sacré-Coeur; for a scenic route — that keeps you away from the madding crowds a little longer — zip down the picturesque Rue du Mont-Cenis stairs, and then sweep up Rue Saint-Vincent to the right. Take a detour through the delightful Square Marcel Bleustein Blanchet, with its terraces of cherry wood trees and apple blossoms that look out to tinned rooftops you can almost touch, a pergola draped in wisteria, and a tunnel of Virginia creeper that will lead you to the back of Sacré-Coeur. From here, wander right and around to the front of the basilica, to fully appreciate the outlandish design. Many locals scorn Sacré-Coeur. This is partly because of its incongruous appearance. It was built in a fantastical neo-Byzantine style foreign to Paris, and from super-white stone not sourced locally. But it’s also about the symbolism of the monument: it was erected in the aftermath of the 1870 Siege of Paris, in expiation for the ‘sins’ of the Paris Commune, which was based — where else? — in rebellious Montmartre. Sacré-Coeur was placed on the very spot where communards had parked their canons, as though a final crushing of the revolutionary spirit. So you can understand a local’s ambivalence. Visitors, however, should venture inside for the opulent mosaics and then for the stunning view of Paris on offer from the main dome. Just be prepared to navigate a steep twirl of 300 steps. You can also admire a panorama of Paris from the terraces in front of Sacré-Coeur, and just up to the right, in Square Nadar, you’ll find photo-worthy views of blossom trees alongside a romantic tumble of lamppost-lined stairs, with the Eiffel Tower peeking over the patchwork of rooftops.

  Now take a deep breath: we’re about to delve deeper into the tourist zone. Unless it’s a quiet winter day — when the pagoda trees are as uncluttered by leaves as by garish paintings and plastic café tents — it’s near impossible to picture the Place du Tertre as the quaint village square it once was, but try to imagine a past when locals would play boules by the trees, and the surrounding cafés buzzed with absinthe-drunk artists. Sadly, most of the restaurants are now tourist traps, although La Mère Catherine dates from 1793, and can boast of having served such esteemed one-time locals as Picasso.

  Just west of La Mère Catherine, you’ll find yourself back on Rue Norvins. Swerve around into Rue Jean-Baptiste Clément and then right into Rue Ravignan, and pretend you’re Picasso tipsily traipsing home, because for much of the first decade of the twentieth century he lived just down on Place Émile-Goudeau. The Bateau Lavoir was an artist community that formed in a dilapidated piano factory said to have the rickety, rocky air of a laundry boat — which gave it its moniker — yet none of the cleanliness the name suggested. The who’s-who of cutting-edge creatives lived here at the turn of the twentieth century, Picasso being one of the most famous. It was here he morphed from his moody ‘blue period’ to the romantic ‘rose’ one, and then jolted into Cubist gear with his breakthrough Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. The Bateau Lavoir burned down in 1970, but at least you can sit among the same chestnut trees that shaded Picasso and his friends on sultry summer evenings.

  At Rue des Trois Frères, just below the leafy square, turn left and you’ll find yourself in another Montmartre altogether. This is the world of Amélie Poulain, star of the arthouse film Amélie that sold a pigment-saturated Montmartre to the world. Just ahead you’ll spot Amélie’s Maison Collignon grocery store, bursting with fruits and colour, and a little further still you’ll come to, appropriately, a photo booth wedged into an old storefront, which is sure to bring out your inner snap-happy Amélie. Down the stairs of the Passage des Abbesses, swing left into the Jardin des Abbesses, created as a tribute to the women of the abbey once situated here, and work your way around to the next park, and the blue-tiled Je T’Aime wall, where I Love You is scrawled 311 times in 250 languages. Across the way, on the Place des Abbesses, you’ll see a fabulous Art Nouveau Métro entrance — the last of its kind in Paris — near a kiosk and water fountain in the signature Parisian leafy green, as well as a flashing merry-go-ground. Montmartre here is like an over-exposed photo of a kooky photo set, all drenched in primary colour, and you almost expect to see Amélie herself, clad in her beloved red, passing through the frame. Follow her spirit westwards along Rue des Abbesses, a lively street of boutiques and cafés with colourful awnings. At Rue Tholozé, pop up to Amélie’s favourite cinema at no.10 — and for a photo of the old windmill up ahead — then head back down the street and across into Rue Lepic. If you need a reviving hit of caffeine — or something stronger — you can’t go past Amélie’s old workplace, the Café des Deux Moulins at no.15.

  At the bottom of Rue Lepic — and the foot of the butte — is the boulevard that traces the old border of Paris that separated city from country. Make your way down here, to Place Blanche, so named because the Plaster of Paris once carted through (and beyond into Rue Blanche) left behind a layer of white dust. The main colour these days, though, is a brash red — thanks to the presence of the Moulin Rouge. It’s now a kitsch dance-and-dinner club that attracts the tourist bus set, but has an endearing back-story. The cabaret opened in 1889, an iron-framed ballroom and champagne garden set behind a mock windmill, which evoked the old hilltop mills-turned-dancehalls. The Moulin Rouge, however, was an altogether new and glitzier creation, a precursor of the modern music festival; as the audience flitted and flirted around, dancers perfected the cancan on a stage next to a giant model of an elephant, within which was the orchestra and, for the occasional well-paying gentleman, a private belly-dancing show. The Moulin Rouge of old, hélas, has been lost to the winds of time, like most of the district’s actual windmills.

  Montmartre has gone down in history as a place of paradox, a mix of maquis and modern, a clash of rustic chic and arty glitz. The Montmartre of 1900, with all its thrills and frills, sometimes seems but the stuff of films and soft pastel paintings, but you can still access that old world if you know where — and when — to look, in the sinuous lanes and fragrant nooks. Revel in the time travel, because before you know it you’ve landed back in a neon-lit twenty-first-century reality, and the spell has broken, and all there is to do is hop on a train (pop down to the Blanche Métro station) and whiz away to the Paris of your present, as though your adventures on the hill at the top of the town were just a wonderful daydream.

  Itinerary

  • Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris: 6 Parvis Notre-Dame/Place Jean-Paul II 75004; 08.00-18.45 (Monday-Friday), 08.00-19.45 (Saturday-Sunday)

  • Towers of Notre-Dame: 10.00-17.30 (January-March, October-December), 10.00-18.30 (April-September); closed 1 January, 1 May & 25 December

  • Crypte Archéologique de l’Île de la Cité: 7 Parvis Notre-Dame/Place Jean-Paul II 75004; 10.00-18.00 (Tuesday-Sunday); closed Monday

  • Square Jean-XXIII: 4 Parvis Notre-Dame/Place Jean-Paul II 75004; 08.00-21.30

  • Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation: 7 Quai de l’Archvêché 75004; 10.00-17.00 (Tuesday-Sunday); closed Monday

  • Former home of Héloïse & Abélard: 9-11 Quai aux Fleurs 75004

  • Au Vieux Paris: 24 Rue Chanoinesse 75004; 11.00-15.00, 18.00-23.00 (Monday-Friday), 12.00-23.00 (Saturday, Sunday)

  • Hôtel-Dieu de Paris: 1 Parvis Notre-Dame/Place Jean-Paul II 75004

  • Conciergerie: 2 Boulevard du P
alais 75001; 09.30-18.00; closed 1 January, 1 May & 25 December

  • Place Dauphine 75001

  • Sainte-Chapelle: 8 Boulevard du Palais 75001; 09.00-17.00 (January-March, October-December), 09.00-19.00 (April-September); closed 1 January, 1 May & 25 December; for information on evening concerts see classictic.com

  Paris is a city peopled with ghosts. It’s also, of course, a city peopled with tourists, the sheer volume of which can make it difficult to connect with past Parisian souls. That’s why you find so many Paris lovers up at dawn, a bag of warm and buttery croissants in hand, before the day rushes into gear. It’s the time when you feel as though Paris belongs to you alone — well, to you and those ghosts — and when you feel as though you connect to the city, and its history, on a deeply spiritual level.