Footprints in Paris
Page 30
5 Research in the Hastings street directories does not support this belief.
Part V
Chapter XVII
1 For a while I tried asking literate acquaintances, both French and English, if they had any faint memory of such a book, but abandoned this quest when I found the invariable response was to assume that I must mean Raymond Queneau’s Zazie dans le Métro, which dates from a generation later and is anyway excessively well known.
Chapter XIX
1 The public began mockingly to refer to these objects as rambuteaux, so the Préfet responded by baptising them after the Roman emperor who had also installed such conveniences.
2 Paul Farry, Secretary to L’Association des Amis de la Montagne Sainte Geneviève.
3 Today the building, vacated by the Order, is divided into expensive flats, still sunless, and the premises of a ‘dermatological institute of beauty’.
Archival Sources and Acknowledgements
My main source for much of the material used in this book has been the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, delightfully housed in the Marais in what was, in the sixteenth century, a private mansion. Its pleasantly antiquated card-index catalogue, its relaxed attitude towards those who wish to browse its capacious open shelves and its large collection of maps more than make up for certain inefficiencies and for its long-time-inoperative photocopier. I shall be sorry when a threatened modernisation occurs. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to its archivist Madame Claude Billaud, who, having interested herself in what I was doing, actually made me a present of a complete set of modern-reproduction eighteenthcentury Jaillot maps of Paris, of which the library had a surplus. These have been invaluable to me, and have formed the basis for the street plans in this book, along with documents in the same library relating to the transformations of Baron Haussmann.
Other Haussmann schemes for compulsory purchase I consulted in the Archives Nationales, once also in an old house in the Marais but now exiled to a large concrete block on the Boulevard Sérurier. This has also been my source for such Census returns as the Paris region has managed to preserve. My grateful thanks to Mesdames Filloles and Monardie for guiding me through the system.
It is generally agreed among researchers that any architectural deficiencies of Boulevard Sérurier (such as a roof that tends to leak) pale into insignificance in comparison with the defects of the new and monumental Bibliothèque Nationale east of the Gare d’Austerlitz, with its four exposed towers of books, its wind- and rain-swept podium, its subterranean reading rooms, its multiple useless armoured doors, its lack of adequate on-site cafés and its overcomplex and frequently defective computer system. My thanks, nevertheless, to the librarians, who battle bravely and politely with these fundamental faults in design: I only wish I could have faced using the place more often. And I am more than ever grateful for our own British Library at St Pancras, whose modest red-brick interior conceals such a well-thought-out interior and whose staff were, as ever, helpful during my sessions in the Rare Book Room. My thanks also to the staff of the London Library, the institution that enables its members to carry off expensive and scarce volumes to study at home and keep them there for months if they are not needed elsewhere. And especial thanks to Chantal Morel of the library of the Institut Français in London, who, knowing that a great many no-longer-catalogued books had ended up in its basement, conducted me down there and allowed me to browse at will.
Gratitude, too, to the archivists of the redoubtable Institut de France, who welcomed me into their modest office and quickly found for me a file relating to the Académicien Maurice Lemoigne. Also, and especially, to two archivists of the library in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Eileen Phillips and Mary O’Doherty, both of whom went to great trouble to show me what they hold relating to Arthur Jacob and his brother John. Thanks, also, to Mary Fitzpatrick of the archive department of Laois County Library, and to those in charge of the publishing archive at the University of Reading library, especially Brian Ryder. Also, and especially, to Richard Aspin of the Wellcome Foundation Library, who, when he heard about my project, produced for me exactly the manuscript document I needed, and also directed me to a companion publication to be found in another library.
Thanks, as well, to the staffs of Hastings Public Library, the Hastings Old Town Hall Museum and also the East Sussex Record Office in Lewes, resources that enabled me to reconstruct the obscure history of the Tindalls. Also to the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum in West Sussex, especially to Richard Harris who confirmed to me that ‘Tindalls Cottage’ was indeed connected with my research, and to Danae Tankard who very kindly made available to me a copy of an informat ive paper she had written on the cottage in question. I do hope, one day soon, to see it re-erected.
Like most researchers today, I have made intermittent use of the internet to check basic facts on well-known figures or events. I am particularly grateful to the website of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission: it has enabled me to trace and visit the grave of Howard Tindall, which no living family member knew existed.
As with previous books, a number of individuals beyond those mentioned above have, at different moments, been kind enough to offer me support, interest, specialised information, advice, introductions or – in certain cases – their own memories. They are Dr Philippe Albou, Madame Claire Berche of the (resurrected) l’Association de la Montagne Sainte Geneviève, Dr Edward Brett, Roger Cazalet, Peter Conradi, Raymond and Marceline Darrigo, Sara Davies, Juliet Gardiner, Dr Dennis Gibbs, Lavinia Greacen, my editor Penelope Hoare, Victor Laks, Paul and Virginie Lutyens, Douglas Matthews, Richard Mayne, Robin Price, Michel, Annie and Marie-Agnès Roux Dessarps, Colin Thubron, Professor Maurice Vaisse, David Waddell and his stepdaughter Claire Metson. My thanks to all of them, and my hopes that they will get something back from this book.
Also, and especially, to my husband Richard Lansdown, who accompanied me with his camera on several excursions in the footsteps of Arthur, Bertie or Maud; and to Robin and Inge Hyman who were so generous as to allow me to borrow their flat in the Quarter on several occasions. A final mention, too, is due to the family now in charge of the Hôtel des Carmes, who do not wish their real name to be used but who have taken an informed interest in the promise of this book.
Timeline
1789
Start of French Revolution.
Arthur Jacob born.
1792
The Terror.
1799
Napoleon Bonaparte appoints himself First Consul.
1804
Napoleon becomes Emperor. Important town projects set in train.
Jean-Baptiste Baillière arrives in Paris as an apprentice bookseller.
1814
Napoleon defeated and sent to Elba. Bourbon monarchy restored.
Arthur Jacob takes his MD in Edinburgh and walks to Paris.
1815
Spring, Napoleon escapes back to France. His ‘Hundred Days’. Bourbons retreat again till Napoleon defeated at Waterloo in June. Second restoration – Louis XVIII.
1824
Louis dies, succeeded by Charles X.
Arthur Jacob marries, starts a family.
1830
The July Revolution. Charles deposed. Louis-Philippe becomes last French king.
1830s
Social unrest in Paris. Cholera appears.
Arthur’s fourth son, Archibald, born in Dublin.
1840s
Paris enlarged with new customs wall. First railways built. Significant road schemes begun.
Albert Alfred Tindall born in Hastings.
1848
Revolution. Louis-Philippe deposed. Napoleon’s nephew, Louis-Napoleon comes to power. Second Republic.
1851
December, Louis-Napoleon becomes Emperor Napoleon III. Second Empire begins.
1850s–60s
Paris substantially rebuilt and reorganised under Préfet Haussmann.
Archibald Jacob marries, starts a large
family. A.A. Tindall making his way in London in the print trade. Visits Drs Jacob in Dublin. Hippolyte Baillière, of London, dies.
1869
Haussmann dismissed.
1870
Napoleon III makes war on Prussia. September, French army substantially defeated at battle of Sedan. Emperor escapes to England. Third Republic established.
A.A. Tindall associated with Baillière firm.
1870–71
Winter, Siege of Paris by Prussians.
1871
Siege lifted. May, popular insurrection, known as the Commune, bloodily repressed.
A.A. Tindall marries Sophia Simson. May Tindall born. Arthur Jacob dies.
1870s
French society being modernised.
Blanche Jacob born. Bertie Tindall born. Maud Tindall born. Family publishing house now well established.
1879
Third Republic consolidated.
1880s
Howard Tindall born. Sophia dies.
1895
Railway engine crashes at Gare Montparnasse.
Bertie spends the year in Paris.
1898
Paris Metro begins to be built.
Bertie joins the family firm.
Archibald Jacob dies.
1900s
Bertie marries Blanche Jacob.
Their daughter is born. ‘Tom’ is born.
1914
Start of First World War. Northern France invaded by Germany.
Maud nursing with French Red Cross. Howard Tindall and Donald Jacob both killed in third Ypres offensive.
1918
War ends in Armistice.
1920s
Fortifications round Paris demolished.
‘Serge’ born in Paris.
1930s
Wide political divisions in French society.
Albert Alfred Tindall dies. ‘Tom’ marries Ursula.
1939
Start of Second World War.
‘Julia’ born.
1940
France invaded by Germany. Paris occupied. Puppet government installed in Vichy in so-called Free Zone.
‘Tom’ away on active service.
1942
November, all France under German rule.
1944
June, France liberated in stages after Allies land in Normandy. Paris liberated 26th Aug.
1946
Fourth Republic formed.
Late 1940s–50s
Series of unsustainable governments.
Ursula dies. ‘Julia’ first in Paris.
1958
General de Gaulle voted in as President of Fifth Republic.
1968
May, extensive riots in Paris.
1969
De Gaulle resigns, succeeded by Pompidou.
Early 1970s
Pompidou’s programme of high-rise blocks and urban motorways for Paris.
Bertie dies. Maud dies.
1973
Boulevard Périphérique opened on line of old fortifications.
1974
Pompidou dies. His successor rescinds all plans for further skyscrapers within Paris proper.
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