Travelers' Tales Paris

by James O'Reilly

  There are twenty arrondissements in Paris and each is the subject of a twenty-volume encyclopedia called Vie et Histoire—one for each. They are handsome, beautifully illustrated volumes dealing, as they each proclaim, with “Histoire, Anecdotes, Célébrités, Curiosités, Promenades, Monuments, Musées, Jardins.”

  For good measure, they contain Dictionnaires des rues and, being French, Vie pratique. They are written (in French) with that precise scholarship and ironic sense of French history which reflects the serious but affectionate view which the French take of their history, their milieu and what they consider to be their somewhat eccentric but profound national character.

  For each visit, I pick one of the arrondissement volumes. Even in the more obscure sections I have picked, I have never been disappointed. The avenue-by-avenue, sometimes building-by-building promenades which the demanding scholars have laid out in these volumes are long and physically tiring. But visiting the Place St-Georges in the IXe, la rue Mouffe in the Ve, the Bibliotheque d’Arsenal in the IVe or the Church of St. Vincent de Paul in the Xe—to take four happy surprises—are all the revival one needs. And there is always the sidewalk café restorative where no one cares how little you order or how long you stay.

  The volumes usually begin with “Découvertes archéologiques” (a Parisian obsession tending to prove the continuity of the French persona); they then move to the medieval bishops and religious orders who built the churches, convents, and monasteries which fixed the original sectors, lanes, and lines of Paris (obliterated now, as the text mourns, by some depredation of the modern city). The authors gamely try to make the arrondissement’s Middle Ages as distinctive and fascinating as possible. Then we accelerate to those bloody outbreaks of the Parisian spirit—the feudal rivalries and broken heads of the holy orders in the VIe, Le Tumulte de Saint-Medard in 1557 as the Reformation advanced, St. Bartholomew as it declined, the Revolution, the Commune, the effects of wars and sieges on the city. All of this turbulent history is described in these volumes with scholarly neutrality. The events themselves come alive on the carefully planned promenades as one walks by and into the ancient buildings of Paris, explores its streets and alleys, or reads the historical markers which might be hidden from the casual passer-by.

  As all of this architecture, carefully planned open space, statuary and buildings with their decorative alcoves gradually seep in to the now-weary walker, he begins to sense the underlying harmony of the city. Even the more prosaic, more modern buildings—anything after Napoleon III is modern—are built with a feeling for their place in the whole. It is not accidental. The French live and regulate their public lives by establishing what they consider to be exclusively French standards—the various Academies in their dictatorial prescriptions over the centuries have long been a source of amusement, especially in their often blind and stubborn adherence to tradition. But that tradition tends to achieve a harmony of thought and esthetic—and architecture—which the French, at any rate, consider a necessary form of discipline against their occasionally anarchic tendencies. The flow of the city expresses that discipline and that harmony.

  But on to the promenades, each of which begins with the call, “A pied....” They are carefully planned, but need a word of warning. The abiding Parisian concern about usable space and Gallic precision dictates that there is no skipping of street numbers for buildings—32 is followed by 34 which is followed by 36 ad ultimatum with many a bis and 1/2 thrown in for good measure. Of course there are pairs and impairs sides of the street which seem consistent within an avenue, but not always uniformly north and south or east and west.

  And don’t expect the pairs to bear any relationship in number to the impairs—number 35 is seldom opposite 34 on the other side of the street, a disheartening fact at the end of a long tour à pied when the traveller standing at 56 is directed to an architectural curiosity at 59 which turns out to be several hundred yards away. The street names themselves can be quite confusing: there is “rue Condorcet” and “Cité Condorcet,” “rue Chaptal,” and “Cité Chaptal,” to say nothing of large numbers of “Impasses” and “passages” which divert the earnest seeker into blind or confusing alleys.

  To take you through a promenade as described in an arrondissement volume, I would choose the 9th which offers beauty, variety, and richness of tradition. It lies behind the Opera, which it encompasses (illustrated in the volume by a beautiful cross-section of the building), and includes the Gare St-Lazare, the incomparable churches of the Trinité and Notre-Dame de Lorettes, stretching to the Place Pigalle and the Boulevard Montmartre. I “covered” it in four days and, as I open the volume again, I feel that I barely touched its luminous quality.

  The promenades are themselves mercifully subdivided for practical exploration. In the case of the IXe, there are six such walks. One of them is called “la rue Blanche to the Place St-Georges” which I would like here to revisit because I think that this sub-promenade helps disclose the secret of the city’s beauty most dramatically.

  Parisians affectionately call it the Rallye Transparisien, but we call it the Paris scavenger hunt. What you’re looking for are one or all of 135 bronze discs (about five inches in diameter, with raised letters reading “Arago,” and two small inlaid letters, N and S, indicating north and south) imbedded in streets, sidewalks, courtyards, and gardens. Playing connect the dots, these discs form a line called the Paris Meridian that runs from the southern to the northern edges of the city. Extending this imaginary line beyond the city limits around the world splits the earth into two equal halves: a meridian. Parisians with lots of time on their hands proudly boast having located all 135 discs. Others, less in the know, scratch their heads in wonder every time they stumble across one.

  —Paris Notes

  We begin at the Church of Ste-Trinité where la rue Blanche originates. The Church was built during the Second Empire on a spectacular intersection which is now being beautified into an even lovelier garden square. Ste-Trinité reflects what one might call the French dilemma or, more generously, the French charm—it is so carried away by its own aesthetic that it may have forgotten its original religious function. It combines the qualities of a grand Salon, a stately Chambre and a concert hall within the space and context of a church which is itself half-Gothic and half-Renaissance. I hesitate to call the event serendipitous, but I attended a funeral there on my promenade which gave the church the opportunity to manifest one of its few continuing functions in modern French society.

  Gautier said that the Paris of his youth had become unrecognisable. When I walk down from Passy towards the Seine, I sometimes wonder where I am and whether I have not been dreaming. My sole consolation in disaster lies in the depths of the as yet intact avenue Henri-Martin when, in early summer, the impenetrable vault of the horse-chestnut trees protects a residue of coolness, and I spy, in this verdant tunnel lit by shafts of sunlight, a lone horseman, oblivious of his time, fleeing at full gallop in the direction of Yesterday.

  —Julian Green, Paris, translated by J. A. Underwood

  The rue Blanche leads into the quarter traditionally favored by French artists in all fields—mostly, the successful ones who were able to build houses for themselves which are at once unique, occasionally eccentric and yet, through some unseen discipline, harmonious. Music, drama and painting are all represented in schools of drama and music, places of birth and death (including the mysterious death of Victor Hugo), personal museums and former theatres. One of my favorites is the Musée Gustave Moreau (where I am the centerpiece of one of my wife’s exhibition photographs) which houses 850 of his paintings and, they say, 7,000 of his drawings. And there is another jewel of a private museum waiting nearby where the descendants of the Brothers Scheffer have preserved their ateliers set in a pretty, hidden courtyard in two delightful buildings, one of which is described by the scholars as “une petite merveille de bon goût et du plus absolu dernier cri!”

  Around the corner is the former Grand Guignol, the precursor
of palatial movie houses and gory cinema around the world (précurseur de l’hémoglobine cinématographique). Although it reopened as a legitimate theatre in 1962 after 66 years of terrifying movies, it is closed today. Rue Pigalle is, as the guide says, a kind of axis for smaller side-streets with the homes of proud names in French culture: Vuillard, Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Degas, Delaroche, and toward the rue de Martyrs and rue Taitbout, Chopin at number 5 and George Sand at number 9 (naturellement), with Alexandre Dumas and Delacroix on the nearby rue de Lorette. Interspersed with these stylish locales are theatres, art schools, and small parks. However, if one ventures to the end of rue Pigalle, 20th-century pornography and its clientele dominate the boulevard between Place Pigalle and Place de Clichy with a concentration that is formidable.

  But a clue to the secret of Paris lies at the end of this sub-promenade. Following the text, one makes a turn and suddenly looks up to one of the prettiest sites in Paris—Place St-Georges with its central statue of the designer Gavarni.

  Place St-Georges was once a fountain in a square provided by the ladies of the quarter with water for the horses of this artistic neighborhood. Then came the Métro near the turn of the century with a stop at St-Georges, destroying the fountain. But instead of dooming the square, the incursion (now discreetly hidden) became a challenge which was answered by a typically Parisian response. The lovely statue-monument of Gavarni took the place of the fountain and became the center of a tranquil, tree-lined square surrounded by classic architecture. This includes the superb former residence of Adolphe Thiers, a museum or two, and the home of “la Paiva,” a grand performing artiste.

  When I think of the harmony of Paris as the critical element of its beauty, I think of Place St-Georges. The large ochre residence of Thiers, with its triangular Greek cornice, ceiling balustrade, and deep classic windows, is on one side of the square opposite the half-gothic, half-renaissance residence of la Paiva. The charming bust of Gavarni studying his plans in the center of the square unifies the whole; the buildings and statue echo each other’s light stone sculpture and quietly ornate decor.

  Perhaps the square was carefully planned that way or perhaps it was simply that instinctive sense of the harmony of space and structure which pervades the city and guided the reconstruction of the square. I recall it as I saw it one day in bright sunshine at the end of my walk with my thumb marking my place in the Vie et Histoire volume. The Place St-Georges, its trees and the buildings around it were open to the sky, the sounds of the city were muted, Mr. Gavarni studied his designs atop his decorated column—and I thought to myself, “Paris is beautiful.”

  Jack E. Bronston’s international travel began during World War II when he was a Russian and Japanese interpreter for the Marines in North China. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1948 and served twenty years in the New York State Senate. He and his wife, Sandra Baker, a photographer, live in New York where he continues to practice law.

  We made a good decision, not to have a car in Paris. No more fretting over repairs, parking, premiums, is there enough gas? For excursions outside Paris we take the train, or find a reasonable weekend car rental. In Paris the Métro works remarkably well. Maps are clear and easy to follow, with their ribbons of color to mark the different lines, and the trains are frequent and graffiti-free. There is no sense of menace; young musicians play their saxes and guitars, an occasional orator presents his opinion of French politics, beggars implore politely, “Excusez-moi, madame, but I’m hungry....” I always reward the puppeteers, who sling a velvet curtain across the car and present a lively little show with their ten decorated fingers.

  Buses are even better. Sitting in a warm comfortable seat, gazing out of clean, clear windows at the passing sights, I roam the city armed with the yellow Le Guide Paris-Bus. It is quiet, other than a pleasant voice announcing the stops, although recently we had an international colloquy going. An Italian couple asked the French woman in front of me how to get to Étoile, and before we were finished, we all had our maps out, chatting animatedly, even the German man across the aisle piped in with his suggestion. You would have thought we were solving a problem of the world; we did, in fact, put together a nice little tour for our new Italian friends.

  I walk in Paris, sometimes hours a day, and I observe, discover, reacquaint. Having mothballed my American walking shoes in capitulation to Parisian fashion, some days the soles are weary, which has led me to yet another Parisian delight: our neighborhood podologue, who will pare nails, shave calluses, and always finish with a foot massage. I still don’t miss my car.

  —Ann Davis Colton, “Letter from Paris,” Paris Notes

  SHUSHA GUPPY

  St-Germain-des-Prés

  This is a place where thought was turned into smoke.

  THE LEGEND OF ST-GERMAIN-DES-PRÉES AS THE INTELLECTUAL centre of Paris had reached Persia by the end of the 40s and gradually spread among the young progressives. Through articles, photographs, and films we learnt the topography of the area: a maze of cobblestoned streets clustered around the square, dominated by the abbey and its graceful 11th-century tower—the oldest in the city. We knew of the cafés Flore and Deux Magots, where Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and many other authors had written the books we read in translation. We had heard about Le Tabou, where Juliette Gréco had first sung the songs of Jacques Prévert and Raymond Queneaux, and launched the fashion for a pale complexion and disillusion. All you had to do was hop on an aeroplane and disembark in Paris, and there they would all be, waiting for you!

  In reality by the mid-50s the writers, singers, and actors had mostly disappeared, having moved from their dingy hotels to apartments acquired with their earnings, while the developers and financiers had moved in. But many of the old habitués still lived in the district, and sometimes went to the cafés and restaurants they had made famous. It was not unusual to see a short, tubby man, with balding head and strabismic eyes behind thick glasses rush down the boulevard towards his home in the square—and recognize Sartre; or to see Simone Signoret and Yves Montand having a drink with friends at the Flore. But if the stars appeared occasionally, those in supporting roles—writers and poets of various nationalities living in Paris, actors and film-stars, chanteurs and impresarios—were regular visitors, and you could count on seeing them if you went to the cafés at certain times of the day, or at night after the shows.

  All this was enough to attract intellectual tourism, and put prices up beyond the reach of students, who increasingly favoured the less expensive establishments further down the Boulevard St-Michel. By the 60s many of the small food shops had become boutiques, the run-down hotels where impecunious writers and artists had lived were refurbished into three-star hotels, and the apartments had been bought up and restored—yet another twist in the fortunes of a district which had fluctuated from commercial prosperity in the Middle Ages to dilapidation at the beginning of this century, when its derelict buildings had become the abode of students from the Beaux Arts and other university annexes. Yet despite it all, the area retained something of its village atmosphere, as it still does, with crowded street-markets, food-stands and flower-sellers suffusing the air with varied fragrances, antiques and exotica shops, while the presence of important cultural institutions such as the Institute and the Academy, and of major publishing houses ensures its continued intellectual prestige.

  But St-Germain was a mental space far more than just a geographical district, for it symbolized the triumph of France’s spirit after collapse on the battlefield. Germany had aimed its guns against culture, and lost; France had used culture as its weapon and won, wiping out the shame of military defeat. Jean-Paul Sartre (whose name more than any other was associated with the district) was one of a group of extraordinary French men and women in the forefront of European thought, who shaped their epoch: Simone de Beauvoir, Raymond Aron, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Simone Weil, Albert Camus....

  Out of their writings here, in St-Germain, was born the philosophy of Existentialism
, a philosophy popularized above all by Sartre’s fiction. Each generation of students has its particular vocabulary, based on the prevalent ideas of its time. Ours was compounds of Existentialism, Marxism, Psychoanalysis.... At that time in Paris the majority of young people who called themselves “Existentialists” had no more read Sartre and Camus than most Communists had read Marx, but the ideas were in the air, and the post-war climate propitious for their spread.

  I was given Sartre’s lecture “Existentialism is a Humanism” and later ploughed through numerous volumes of Sartre, as well as Camus. Philosophical choices depend on temperament and circumstance, and at the time Existentialism, as I understood it, suited mine: it was an expression of exile. It proposed that man is alone, “abandoned” in the universe; and free, and that the price of his freedom is perpetual anxiety; that there is no predetermined destiny, since we choose what we wish to be and thereby make our own destinies; that life has no meaning save what we give it; and that art and literature can redeem existence, which is fundamentally absurd. Most people, it says, refuse their freedom and take refuge in fantasy and self-deception, which leads them to “bad-faith” and “inauthenticity.” But freedom is exercised within a “situation” which can change by “action” (notably political action), and this makes commitment unavoidable.

  I like Sartre’s face. Some say it is ugly. It cannot be ugly: his intelligence irradiates his features. Hidden ugliness is the most repulsive; Sartre’s face has the candor of an erupting volcano. When he enters the Dôme or La Coupole, he is like a suppressed bull.... Some faces are stingy, denying one even the flicker of eyelids. They appear starched. I love his lower lip like a white Negro’s, his squint, his wandering eye, his shipwrecked eye, a slipstream of light when he enters our troubled waters.