(Note: Paris is just like the shell of a snail.
In each “arrondissement” there are four “quartiers”, each bearing a name ex:
Quatorzième arrondissement :
1.Petit-Montrouge
2.Plaisance
3. Montparnasse
4.Parc Montsouris
There are twenty arrondissement in Paris, therefore eighty “quartiers”.
District -arrondissement- and sub-districts -quartier- as well as street names, locations, places and churches have been left in the original language.
Paris Zip code have 5 digits. The first two digits 75 indicate Paris...the last two indicate the arrondissement)
“Memories” …
“reminder” …
“recollection” …
” memento” …
God, I simply hate these words….
I despise the times gone by. The word “marker” is a much better word as it brings me in connection with specific periods of my life when I discovered Paris, when I simply found out what life was about. A “marker” is just like some kind of an anchorage, a weird sensation so powerful that you know you will never forget it until your last breath. A “marker” will stay with you when everything else, including the names of your grandchildren will already be forgotten for good.
I spent probably more time strolling in Paris than any other pupil or student. My classrooms were all outside of standards buildings, my teachers were the trees, the dogs, the cats, the moustached concierge, the street sweepers, petty thieves, and sometimes ladies of the night, or of the day. I could have become lawyer, a captain of industry, I ended up a wandering traveller…
I don’t like the idea that time goes by and that there is no turning back.
The Quatorzième arrondissement was my motherland, my kingdom, my empire, my geography book.
The Quatorzième arrondissement was a large portion of my “road to discovery”. In the back of my mind I have stored thousands of details of no importance…which are important enough to be remembered… I even recall the policemen wearing their red “fourragère”, blocking the streets with safety barriers, getting ready for De Gaulle, Khrushchev or Kennedy’s motorcade, coming from the newly opened Orly airport, the year I reached ten!
I Never really understood my unfailing emotional attachment for the city. I never understood either why or how I became obsessed with the turn of the century and the « thirties ». Sometimes I even believe that in one of my previous lives, I must have been born in the last part of the nineteenth century and lived through the period of the incredible industrial revolution. Steam locomotives, Paris metro, the building of the Eiffel tower must have been such a shock to me that it stuck with my D.N.A somehow, god knows why, but of course we know these kinds of things may happen, don’t we?
I’ve got Paris under my skin and can’t get rid of it. I promise, I tried, and tried again, to no avail.
I still take any opportunity to indulge in Paris streets anytime I can catch a high-speed train from my beloved south of France to my even more beloved Paris and when I get there I always take the time to question Georges-Eugene Haussmann, (1) exchange comments with Paul Abadie (2) or discuss underground strategy with Fulgence Bienvenüe (3)
What a weird thing to do…
Did I sign an agreement of some kind with a « ministry of propaganda » to keep promoting the « glorious thirties » even after their « death » in nineteen-eighty? A picture found on the internet necessarily bring additional queries and additional queries necessarily bring even more pictures to the surface. It is an endless quest. Choices must be made, and sometimes, sacrifices must be conducted. My obsession with some specific aspects of the city always return. I continue digging just like an archaeologist. Blessed be the Internet: I found a picture of the Champs de Mars BEFORE the Eiffel tower, I found another picture of Montmartre BEFORE the Sacré Cœur was built, I even found a picture of Petit-Montrouge when windmills produced flour…
Look, you must always go clockwise. You did not know it? Maybe you did not listen to the explanation when you were in primary school…everybody knows that…unless you do not love Paris, may be, and don’t care about history?
(Square du Parc Montsouris, Paris, 75014, a place for pensioners, cats, and cobblestones)
Let me tell you…just think about a snail, or rather the shell of a snail. Take a very small saw, slice it up, and you will find out that Paris looks like the inside of the shell. Believe me, it is true…I can also tell you that the reason why bourgeois districts are located in the west and working-class housing located in the east, has something to do with prevailing wind blowing over Paris from west to east. Factories were located east of Paris so that rich people would not choke on heavy smoke coming from the smokestacks of the « industrial revolution ».
Sometimes, one would spend one’s entire life in the same district. One would be born in Petit-Montrouge, go to school and be educated in Plaisance, get married and work in Montparnasse, and die near the Parc-Montsouris. An entire life spent in four « quartiers ». This was during the « old days », when Paris was still surrounded by fortification and city gates, when, on Sundays, one could catch the train to Sceaux and drink white wine at « Le Grand Arbre » in Robinson.
(Between 1909 and 1976, Le Grand Arbre was a place for fun ,drinks and more)
When you would get to a new school, kids wearing a smock, their feet in clodhoppers, would abruptly ask:
« Where are you coming from? » and they meant which « quartier » do you live in…This was very serious matter. In the quatorzieme arrondissement if you were from « Petit-Montrouge » it was far better than being from « Plaisance » but not as good as living in « Montparnasse ». If you came from « Parc-Montsouris », kids would look at you with respect. In the Parc-Montsouris quartier were rue Georges Braque and rue du Parc-Montsouris, two small street featuring old pensioners dry as old trees and gentle cats looking at flowers growing in the small manicured gardens. If you lived near the park nobody would dare bothering you. There still was « class » respect amongst youthful offenders and juvenile delinquents!
On rue Saint-Yves, there was a sort of deprived area inhabited by second and third-class thugs. When crossing over the place, walking on the sidewalk, we would get hurried by the school supervisor.
« Come on folks, move on, move on, there is nothing for you to see in that place… » Of course, for us, the most important thing was to reach the park as soon as possible and spending as much time there as we possibly could be a top priority.
(Church of Saint-Pierre-de-Montrouge, end of 19th century: a landmark in the Quatorzième arrondissement 75014)
The few minutes spent walking from avenue du General Leclerc all the way to rue Nansouty felt like an eternity. The street slope being downward, we already anticipated going up the hill on the way back to school. There would certainly be sand in our shoes, and a couple of missing buttons on our shirt as a result of a tussle or a brawl around the park’s water fountain when trying to be the first to drink.
I often said this, I say it again: I have never betrayed Paris!
If you read my words, my stories, the written memories, you will find out that I tell the truth: the big city was my mistress and still is…
Even when I tried to be unfaithful to the city by settling somewhere else behind the oceans, I was still much in love and could not forget. Anytime the blue and the green of the south coast disappeared under heavy clouds, I would simply plan on another visit to Paris to immerse myself in old stones, drink red wine over a zinc bar top, sleep in a ‘two stars’ hotel, stroll through the city to places that I am the only one to know. I must admit, even if I have a love and hate relationship with Paris, the love factor is much stronger than the hatred, even considering that Georges-Eugene Haussmann was a questionable prefect and a cost-inefficient coordinator of the city’s big transformation in the eighteen-sixties.
One is always feeling good in the “arrondissement” where one is born. Memory getting worse with age, one can remember the “bougnat” (4) but one does not remember what one has done the day before…Other districts were not “like home” but things changed in the course of the years and now that I have learned to look behind, instead of just looking ahead, I can appreciate the incredible collection of images, the fantastic amount of visions, the glorious inventory of streets which I visited, the awesome variety of feelings experienced during endless visits in the twenty districts, until the soles my shoes would get as thin as cigarette paper. I would walk in the streets, hoping that a young lady, seeing me through her window, would simply hail, asking if I wanted to share a cup of tea and more if the opportunity was offered.
Meanwhile, my parents would get letters from school asking if they knew where I spent my days…
No one ever understood that in my own opinion truancy was possibly the best way to learn…
Of course, I do not know each and every street, but the streets I can still remember will remain safe havens, place for “stories” or History, place where I will always return when passing through Paris. I will always say to myself “I would like to go for a few minutes on Rue Saint-Romain (5) just to see what became of the place” I will always go by the river, I will always enter a church to smell incense and sit in a café to watch the girls and the world go by.
-I-
Paris metro in the fifties, from Alesia to Palais-Royal….
I am on my way to see “The Miser” at the Comédie-Française.
A man by the name of Molière has written this play…. what a horrible play…Harpagon (the main character of the play) is dressed in rags and this will bring tears to my eyes…
A few minutes ago, I was still standing up in the queue, outside the building, catching glimpses of Avenue de l’Opéra, rue Saint-Honoré, amazed to see so many street lamps with big bulbs. The trip with the metro was interesting as we travelled in the reasonable luxury of first class coaches. Looking right, looking left, it was important to see everything because it was so different from the quiet rue Alphonse Daudet, in the “quartier” of Petit-Montrouge, undoubtedly the centre of the world!
I even saw bus number 68 (6) on his way to Place Clichy…On a wooden bench not so far away, a “clochard” (7)
Later, much later, throughout the years I rambled through the twenty “districts” and the eighty “quarters”.
Close to Palais-Royal was the rue des Bons-Enfants and the rue de Richelieu. The “right bank” (8) was far away from “home”, but every time I would go there I would feel safe, just like if I had been pushed into a cocoon and no one could find me. At the end of Avenue de l’Opéra was the impressive building of Palais Garnier, the temple of Classical Dancing. In the changing rooms, the youngest of the ballerinas dressed in white tutu could feel their childhood vanish while performing “arabesques, “cabrioles” or “pas-chassés”.
The place du Palais-Royal was a weird location, a microcosm for courtesans and prostitutes. For a long time, adult’s clubs and other swinger’s locations spread in the area. There was “Le Nautilus”, “les Chandelles” and “Le Prelude”, located at number one on Rue de Richelieu. A specialized publication by the name of “Paris-Secret” (the secret Paris) would detail information about the various places, the do’s and don’ts, and specified that before accessing “Le Prelude”, men would have to queue up under the arcades of the Palais Royal. The rule was “a man in for a man out, a woman in for a woman out” (9) Real estate and other economic consideration, including high rental prices, contributed to the displacement of the most prominent of the swinging places and other sexual attractions previously located around the Palais-Royal, some of them being replaced by Korean or Japanese restaurants!
Even if this may appear strange to some, the very westward tip of “Ile de la Cite” belongs to the “premier arrondissement”.
(Supreme Court building close to Palais-Royal 75001)
(Avenue de l'Opéra 75002)
Do you want to sit there with me for a few minutes?
I use to go there and sit for hours. Tourists would be watching the riverboats go by. I did not. I watched the cupola of the Institute, I watched the building of Le Louvre, wondering how it could be to wake up every day to this incredible landscape made of the river and some of the oldest buildings in Paris.
At a time when I should have been at school, taking an exam in History, I preferred being here, where History had been made on march eighteen thirteen-fourteen when the last grand master of the order of the Temple, Jacques de Molay, was burnt to death on order of king Philippe the fourth, of France.
Close to me was the Pont-Neuf, the oldest bridge in Paris, a landmark for which I had a lot of affection, and every time I would come to the little “Jardin du Vert-Galant”, I always wondered why I loved being there knowing what kind of tragedy the Grand Master and his Templars had been going through.
-II-
I rambled for miles and miles walking in the little streets. Large avenues and boulevards were not my cup of tea. I desperately needed the protection of narrow streets, the trill of a canary in a courtyard, the water running in the street. I needed to see the postman going from building to building, the concierge cleaning the hall carpet, beating the dirt out with a kind of fly swat made of rattan.
I needed the domestic noises of a small street, not the hubbub of large main road. Walking boulevard des Italiens, I could not think, I could not concentrate, I could not enjoy being there. There was so much noise that one had no choice but to listen to it…!
Going through rue du Caire or rue d’Aboukir was far better. On rue Salomon de Caus, rue de Tracy, passage Lemoine, or rue Blondel, prostitutes would display whatever, in all shape and colours.
Some men loved it like it was, possibly adepts of Trichophilia (10), others would simply pass by and continue on their way. We were young and amused by the scene. We would pretend we were not looking, but in fact, of course, we were. There were short pants made of Lycra, black plastic raincoats and nothing else to cover the body. In cafes close-by, Corsican or Turkish pimps would keep an eye on their breadwinners and collect the money every thirty or forty minutes.
On the second floor of Hotel du Caire, in between taking care of “BOF” as they were called (butter-eggs-cheese wholesalers) (11) “Tall Jeanette”, who was usually taking care of “first times” for young students, offered a slightly different program to connoisseurs under forty years of age. There were only two “options, one was worth thirty francs, and the other worth fifty.
( Ladies of the day, ladies of the night, close to Rue du Caire 75002)
In summer, we would all stroll around, get in a bar for a beer, and continue up and down the streets just for the pleasure of walking in a no-go area! In winter, the girls would try to stay dry and protected their face from the rain to prevent their make-up from being affected. Passing by very closely, one could smell their perfume. One winter evening, as Jeremiah, a buddy of mine, the son of a clergyman, who would be going up with “Belgian Theresa”, was getting ready to climb the stairs at Hotel du Caire, the lady of the art told him: “Hold it, little man, first, I must fix my make-up, and then we’ll go”.
Poor Jeremiah did not wait that long. This had me in stitches although, I admit, it was not the sign of being a charitable soul.
-III & IV-
Place des Vosges was a filthy place. It did not make good sense living there. (12) At number twenty was a shop by the name of DETHY. Their business was ski equipment rental. Huge piles of ski shoes were littering the place, but shop assistants knew exactly in which pile was the “right” pair. In these days, it was cheaper to rent a pair of ski shoes in Paris and carry it all the way to Chamonix or to Wengen, than renting the same in a local shop once arrived to the holiday spot.
When we would go to DETHY with Francine, we knew that ski holidays were not too far ahead. On Place des Vosges, street lamps were only half-lit and the walls if the eighteenth-century buildings were definitely decrepit. Large apartments facing the Place des Vosges were uninhabited. No one would ever want to settle there, that was for sure, excepted maybe for a few Jewish families with close connection to the Jewish district, just a few streets away, a strange area name Quartier Saint-Paul, were the Mensch (13) would regularly go and spend a couple of hours to immerse himself in Judaism, eat Russian style “malossol” gherkins, and do the shopping at Jo Goldenberg’s deli on rue des Rosiers where one could find poppy seed cake, and Rosinsky & Sbir Matzot (14). The” troisième” and “quatrième” arrondissements meant a lot to me. It was a weird place known by the generic name of “Le Marais” which had something to do with the fact that long ago, the area, close to the Seine, was in fact just a swamp.
Anytime we would decide to go the “Le Marais”, I had visions of mud, reeds, and god knows why, a heron whose thin legs were caught in the marsh, trying to get free.
(the dark period 75003)
(Today...)
("Before")
(Four views of Le Marais district in Paris, also called long ago - but not anymore- the Jewish quarter)
Going from the troisième arrondissement to the quatrième, and back again to the troisième was an easy affair although I could never find where exactly the “limits” or “borders” were. The adults knew, I did not. I did not even know yet that Paris was laid out like the shell of a snail! I always listened to the explanation when going through a street. Street names were interesting and sometimes a bit weird. Rue des Archives, there use to be the National Archives of France during many years. I could imagine piles of paper and parchment rolls… Rue des Blanc-Manteaux, there use to be a monastery hosting a mendicant order whose members wore a white garment. Rue Vieille du Temple, there use to be a Templar house, long ago, before the Templar order was shutdown and the grand master burnt alive.
I would listen to the explanation by the Mensch or by my mother. In my mind, I could even see like if it was for real, images of Templars with a cross painted on their coat, Houses in Jerusalem, Men fighting during Crusades, other men dressed in white, knights on horses, men dressed in black wearing kippa. I could also imagine a land with synagogues, churches and temple, where wise men would come once a year to bring presents to a baby by the name of Yeshoua. The Mensch explained once that Yeshoua was a prophet. All of this was not very clear for me. I would understand better when I would grow-up.
As we would get closer and closer to the rue des Franc-Bourgeois, one could see men dressed in black overcoats and wearing a large black hat, carrying in the hand a sort of small velvet bag. These men were on their way to the synagogue on rue Pavée. They always look worried. One day, I asked the Mensch if he knew why, but he did not answer. I understood later, when I started reading about the Paris occupation by German forces during World War II.
On the walls along the street, large bits of wall coating would fall on the pavement. No one wanted to maintain the old houses. On rue des Ecouffes, old Jewish jewellers worked on silver and gold in their small shops. My father often said that they would not stay very long in the area. He was right. I was also right saying that many shops would be replaced by stores selling clothing of all kind. When my mother did not listen, the Mensch would simply say:” the only trades with full employment will always be food, sex and shmattes (15). Once we would have been to the very end of rue des Blanc Manteaux or the end of rue des Archives, we would return to “real Paris”, on the way back to the safe haven of Petit-Montrouge, leaving behind us the Place des Vosges were even hobos and tramps did not want to live or be seen…
-V-
The cinquième arrondissement has often seen me go by, from north to south, from east to west, depending on the day’s quest and my energy to get away from college or get closer to the place d’Alésia (16). The journey would always end up close to the Lion de Belfort, on place Denfert. At the beginning of the trip was place de la Contrescarpe with the small cafés and bars and the pensioners playing card and drinking “un ballon de rouge” sitting close to the public fountain. The rue Mouffetard would take you towards the south of Paris and at one point, one would pass by the Saint-Medard church, an eighteen-century affair with an early start in the fifteen centuries. The church smell of humidity and holiness. Ageless women would gather together on prie-dieu and discuss everything possible but religion. On summer days, while “the others” in my class were gathered around Monsieur Scheidegger, the math teacher, or Monsieur Dorne, our History teacher always clad in a grey smock, I would be walking on rue Mouffetard, on my way to the wonderful quartier known as La Butte-aux-Cailles, a god forsaken place in Paris, were independent cats would be laying under the sun in old courtyards. It was just like being out of Paris, in the country, even further.
On the other side of the Boul’Mich, once I was over with my Tunisian doughnut, and had cleaned my fingers still coated with frying oil, I would often go on a quest for sacred buildings, mostly churches. The place was full of it. God had different faces, so did Jesus. Churches smelled different depending on the location but one could always smell a common scent, that of people congregating together, that of faith, and that of candles burning in candle holders.
(Place de la Contrescarpe 75005)
(Place de la Contrescarpe 75005)
(Rue Mouffetard 75005)
(Rue Mouffetard 75005)
(Sainte-Genevieve church close to Pantheon 75005)
(Cinquième arrondissement during May 1968 events. 75005 )
There were churches with god, churches with Christ, churches with both, churches with honest people, churches were people would only go and pray Saint-Anthony to find their set of keys, and churches where one could find the comfort of a dry place when rain was pouring outside. From Saint-Julien-Le-Pauvre to Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet, from Eglise Saint-Médard to Eglise Saint-Séverin, from Saint-Etienne -du-Mont to Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, if one loved churches and religion, one had a wide choice or styles and religious orientation. Old buildings strong as faith, had survived through the political spasms of the city, especially a major one: the French revolution. In some churches, the stoups were so big that if, by chance, a dove had found a way inside the place, it could have bathed in holy water. This quartier was losing its authenticity and was plagued with excessive tourism. Swedes, Germans, Americans, or British visitors looking for the best possible café to enjoy a typical Paris atmosphere were meandering around whilst future architects, lawyers, surgeons, or professors were queuing up in front of the movie theatre Champollion on Rue des Ecoles.
I Kept for a very long time in the back of my mind the tragic story of Heloise and Abelard (17) which surfaced anytime I would go around the Sorbonne.
-VI-
In the sixième arrondissement lived only “ fine people”. Belonging to this group of “fine people” was very important to my family. I am convinced to this date that it is one of the reason why I opted later on in favour of rebellion and being unconventional. All of the people living close to Rue Bonaparte Boulevard Raspail or rue des Saint-Pères must have been “fine people”.
Just before turning eighteen, I entered adulthood and experienced a rich life. Every now and then, I simply love lining up, in my mind, the best moment I can remember of. Strolling in Paris, in places where I have been for any reason, is always a pleasant experience although on occasion, it can be also painful…There are things that I would rather forget about…. but….
The “fine people” of the sixième arrondissement lived around the Jardins du Luxembourg. They were artists, comedians, famous writers and did not like to be kept away from Saint-Germain-Des-Prés and the Whisky-à-Go-Go of the Rue Mazarine. Hot chocolate served at Café de Flore or Les Deux Magots, had also an important place in the daily life of Parisian intelligentsia. In the Luxembourg gardens, kids loved to run through piles of dead leaves assembled by the Gardeners of the Senate. These brats also loved to hide to smoke a couple of cigarettes before returning to the boarding school not far away from the Lycée Montaigne.
Brats? did I say Brats? I was certainly one of them, and possibly even the worst. In Collège Bossuet, Jesuit priests, dressed in black, convinced that they were holding the ultimate truth tried to teach us about life, to no avail….
They did not teach me anything about Jean-Paul Sartre.
They did not teach me anything about the Algerian war.
They did not teach me anything about the Shoah.
(Rue Soufflot 75006)
(Rue Soufflot 75006)
(Inside café Le Procope 75006)
(Inside Lycée Montaigne 75006)
(Lycée Montaigne as seen from the Luxembourg gardens. 75006)
( Hotel Aviatic: one of my hiding places when in Paris. 75006)
(Polish library in Paris 75006)
(Fountain of the Fellah , rue de Sevres, 75006)
Neither did they teach me anything about the ladies of the night of rue Blondel, the older women of La Coupole, the “midinettes” going on july thirteen to the Firemen’s dancing evening or the seducing starlets of the “Ruban Bleu” beach in Juan-les-Pins.
I had to learn all of this by myself…
Once the studies were over, and my field of vision cleared of painful images, I had started going around the world, flying over the seven seas, the deserts, far, far away from Paris but every now and then, I would return “home” to the big city just to play tourist with just enough of melancholy to make the experiences “pleasantly painful”. I wanted to eat a “saucisse frite” in a café, I wanted to get in churches and just look at the stained-glass windows, instead of expecting somekind of illumination, I wanted to see in a different light those places that I had seen fifteen, twenty, twenty-five years before.
The sixième arrondissement was really convenient to conduct this kind of exercise. I Loved the proximity with the old gare Montparnasse, the bakery of Monsieur Poilâne, on rue du Cherche-Midi, the musical instrument shops on rue de Rennes, the delicatessen shop “Doremus” facing the Saint-Placide metro station. During the end of the year celebration, a long line of people would queue up in front of the deli, hoping to find the right christmas capon. On the other side of the street, a man would sell hot chestnuts which he would wrap up in a bit of newspaper, and pretty soon, hands would get stained with melted printing ink…
Whenever I wanted to play tourist in Paris, in between wanderings to Moscow or Valparaiso, I had a couple of good “recipes”: renting a room at the Aviatic Hotel and have dinner at the Café Procope, or taking accommodation at Hotel des Saint-Pères and having a three-course dinner at Brasserie Lipp. I loved the sixième arrondissement, it was a decent area although I had contempt for those living there for being so snobbish, without a trace of humour, or even a whiff of humanity. I never came to Paris without passing by Saint-Sulpice, or paying a visit to the Fontaine-du-Fellah (18) on rue de Sevres. I never came to Paris without going to the Luxembourg Gardens and walk around to octagonal pond, having a thought for the stern queen Catherine de Medicis and remembering the small wooden sailboats of my childhood, pushed by the wind, on their way to conquer the seven seas, just in front of the Palais du Luxembourg.
Every time I would come to Paris, from wherever I lived at that time, I would end up for a few minutes at 17 rue Saint-Romain, trying to remember the particular smell of the liquid wax use to clean the building’s staircase. On occasion, when the door would be open, I would simply sneak into the building, and climb to the first floor, retreating fifty or plus years in the past, in my past. Should anyone challenge me with “who are you? what are you doing in the building? Are you a pervert? are you a thief doing some pre-theft research”, I had plenty of answers readily available, including one explaining that at one point in my life, yes, I lived on the first floor, that I even remember the name of the concierge and the name of the older lady who was a tenant on the courtyard side of the building. I would even be ready to tell the horrible story of the painter working on the outside of the building, who fell from his scaffolding and got impaled on the black wrought iron railing spike protecting the front of the building. Some childhood images are so violent that they never completely disappear.
-VII-
I had found work on rue du Champ de Mars, in the septième arrondissement. I had been hired by a car rental company and was supposed to be a salesman. I Had no idea about sales. Even if I was not just fresh out of school, I was still emerging from youth but I was full of energy. With two other colleagues, we had settled in an office on the seventh floor of the building. The sales department! What a pompous name for a bunch of kids more interested by cocktail hours than sales results and figures. The building hosting us was a huge garage. The seventh-floor offices provided access to a large terrace, a wide balcony surrounding the building. As soon as days would become warmer, we would spend more time on the balcony than in our office. The view was far better! Looking to the north, one could see the Eiffel tower and slightly behind it, but looking eastward, the Sacré-Coeur church overlooked Paris. Looking south, I could see the steeple of Saint-Pierre-De-Montrouge church as well as the few apartment towers in the treizieme arrondissement, which would later become the “Chinatown” of Paris. We always had all kind of opportunities to drink. A good sales report, the birthday of a team member, July 14th, of more simply, the middle of the week, the end of the week, or the beginning of yearly vacation. On rue du Champ-de-Mars, there was this café “Le Sauvignon”, just across from the garage. Every morning, we would meet there for coffee and croissant. This was the time of early video games and while we would proceed with breakfast, we could hear the Bip-Bip-Bip of the “Pong” video game: a small tennis or squash ball and two paddles were enough to keep a player busy for hours.
(Gare des Invalides . The Air France bus station in the center of Paris 75007)
(Air France bus . Picture probably taken in Le Bourget Airport in the 70's)
(Roux-Combaluzier & Lepape elevator on the Eiffel tower 1889 . Paris 75007)
(Building the EIffel tower has started. 1887 . Paris 75007)
( Building of the Eiffel tower has started 1887 . Paris 75007)
(Building the Eiffel tower will start soon....there are already a few tools on the ground Paris 75007)
(Painters on the tower Paris 75007)
Close to the rue du Champ-de-Mars, on rue Cler, shopkeepers would start a busy day. Another ten minutes and finding a parking space would be totally impossible. I liked the area very much but I would have been totally unable to live there. There was something that I did not like in the way this quartier operated. I was however fascinated with the perspective of the Invalides as seen from the avenue de Breteuil. I was also just fascinated by a couple of picture I had got hold of showing the Champ-de-Mars before the Eifel tower was built. An interesting story, that of the tower. It was supposed to be built only for the duration of the Paris world fair…but it was never dismantled. The old iron lady had its roots too deep in the Paris ground.
Every now and then, passing by Ecole Militaire (19), the smell of horse dung would float over the walls all the way to avenue Duquesne. I could hear the neigh of horses, and the noise of horseshoes on the cobblestones. At meal time, when my colleagues would go for lunch in the watering holes on rue Cler or rue Duvivier, I would retreat towards Gare des Invalides, a wonderful building located between rue de Grenelle and Quai d’Orsay. The place was used as an underground terminal for the Air France busses connecting Paris to the Orly and Le Bourget airports. The buiding had been erected on the Invalides esplanade in eighteen sixty-seven and was one of the famous landmarks of the septieme arrondissement. Sandwiches were affordable at the Gare des Invalides, so was the “rouge” (20). As I ate my sandwich and drank my wine, I could watch the passengers boarding the blue and white Air France buses, a first step into a long journey. When a bus would live the building to join the traffic on rue Esnault-Pelterie, my thoughts would immediately fly to Hanoi, Anchorage or Tokyo.
-VIII-
Since I was unable to behave properly in a standard government school, I had been sent to a private school in the huitième arrondissement. Our play ground was the Parc Monceau. The Ecole Active Bilingue was a school for priviledged pupils. It was located on Avenue Van Dick, a small private way hosting several mansions. Children of ambassadors, captains of industry, or other celebrities were attending school there. Access to the school was through the magnificent metal gate at the bottom of Avenue Hoche. Coming to Ecole Active Bilingue from the quatorzieme arrondissement was a time-consuming affair requiring two connections through three different metro lines. I Had elected to get off the metro at Etoile, where the Arc -de-Triomphe is located, and walk to school the rest of the way. It was a cheap pleasure. Every now and then, when getting out of school, I would walk down the rue de Courcelles and pass by the “Loo House”, a kind of Chinese pagoda that use to belong to a rich Chinese art trader. Walking by the “Loo House”, my imagination would help me fly to China. I would never be lucky enough to travel so far, I thought. Going to visit China would remain a dream.
(My dad would drop me close to the Bluebells changing rooms, saying : stay there and be a good boy...)
In these days, I did not know much about life….and even less about my future.
The huitième arrondissement was very precious to my heart. One day, as my father was conducting technical work in the “Lido” cabaret on the Champs-Elysées, he had asked me to join him and once in the building, he had me seating on an armchair very close to the Bluebell girls dressing room.
“be a good boy, just wait for me there, don’t move…”
My father being very busy on that day, I stayed there, as a good boy, simply enjoying the vision of the dancers coming in and out of the changing rooms, often wearing nothing more than a few square centimetres of shiny fabric…
At the other end of the huitième arrondissment was the Gare Saint-Lazare train station. It was my favorite. From Gare de Lyon or Gare de l’Est, one could catch a train to Switzerland, Italy, or the Riviera, but from Gare Saint-Lazare, one could catch one of the trains in direct connection with the big liners crossing the ocean or more simply, connecting the ferry-boat to England from the French coastal city of Dieppe. From Gare Saint-Lazare, there were also all the suburban trains carrying commuters from Paris to Ermont, Saint Leu La Forêt, or Mériel.
These folks would probably never go to China either…
Between rue d’Amsterdam and rue de Rome, there was the enormous concourse known in French as the “Salle des pas perdus”. Through the concourse, several thousand of hurried travellers would rush to take a train back home, or catch a metro to continue their journey to work. On Saturdays and Sundays, the activity of the train station decreased by ninety percent and the flower lady’s business was certainly better than during the week. Gare Saint Lazare was also home to 141 TD Steam locomotives. These hauled suburban trains. Since childhood, I was scared by steam locomotives. It had probably something to do with my “close encounter” with one of the steel and steam monster during a train trip to Britanny. On a particular day, visiting once again the train station, I decided that it was time to get rid of this stupid terror. I stopped by one of the locomotives and asked to engineer if he would allow me to come on board. He did. I was so scared that it is not even funny writing about it. Once on board, the engineer and the fireman explained to me how the machine operated. Although my heart was pounding, and I forced myself into listening to the explanations, asking more questions, talking with the two men about their work, and the types of engines they had been working on. About half an hour after I had climbed on the footplate, I knew that there two men had changed my childhood terror into an adult passion.
(Concourse at Saint-Lazare train station .75008)
(Entrance to Parc Monceau...mys school was thirty meters in, on the right side.75008)
( Driving crew on a 141P. This locomotive was assigned to the Argentan depot) 75008)
(Gare Saint-Lazare: a suburban train is either going...or coming...I guess it was a push-pull configuration 75008)
(The Loo house by rue de Courcelles 75008)
(Pont de l'Europe by Gustave Caillebotte. 75008)
(Gare Saint Lazare by Claude Monet. 75008)
(Baron Haussmann, Georges, Eugène, expensive works, 75008)
(141 TD Locomotive ready to haul a suburban train. I climbed on board one of these to get rid of a childhood terror. Steam became a passion... 75008)
Beyond Gare Saint-Lazare was the quartier de l’Europe, a quiet group of streets each bearing the name of a major European city: rue d’Istambul, Rue de Londres, Rue de Liege, rue de Berne, rue de Turin or Rue de Moscou. There were no shops, no cafés, there was just the silence fitting the well-off middle-class families living in the Haussmann style buildings
Rue de Saint-Petersbourg led northward, towards Place de Clichy, not so far from the fantasies of Pigalle, Place Blanche and Le Moulin Rouge.
-IX-
In Montparnasse, we would connect to a different metro line. On line four, the coaches were green and red, on line twelve, formerly known as “Nord-Sud”, coaches were grey-blue and yellow-red for the first class. Getting off the metro at station Saint-Georges, one would be looking for a statue of the saint fighting the mythical dragon! But there was none of that. Place Saint-Georges was a quiet square of the neuvième arrondissement. It felt like this part of the quartier had been forgotten in time. Not so far away was Pigalle, Place Blanche, with nude ladies in the Folies Pigalle or at Tabarin. In the streets just a few yards from Pigalle square, there were plenty of bars, most of them with hostesses, all of them with neon lights in red or pink, enough light to become a temptation to young visitors, seasoned navy sailors, or simply male tourists.
Above all, on rue Lamartine, there was a strange shop that people use to call the “Armenian”! The shop sold all kind of middle-east products, some of them necessary to cook the “once a year” couscous using a recipe dating back to the days of French presence around the Suez Canal in Egypt. The “Armenian” sold big olives in brine, floating in huge wooden casks, and colourful spices. Lined up on shelves were preserves in tin cans identified with strange letters that only the “Armenian” could decipher. The “Armenian” could read the names, we could not. The Daughters of the Canal” (21) would regularly visit the shop and buy “Ras-El-Hanout” and “Zaatar”, two spices of great importance in middle-eastern cooking. The “Filles du Canal” (Daughters of the Canal) liked to visit the “Armenian”. The shop would remind them of the Arabic grocer’s shops in Alexandria, Cairo, Suez or Ismailia.
(Bus 48 on Carrefour de Châteaudun. 75009)
(Beit Loubavitch : mandatory morning prayer...75009)
(Place Saint-Georges 75009)
When talking about the “Armenian” and remembering nineteen-fifteen and the predicament of the Armenian population, the Mensch would say “Poor people…the Ottomans were scoundrels…” When we would have Armenian friends for dinner, no one would even dare talk about this tragic period when a million and half Armenian people had been killed simply for being Armenians. Everyone knew, everyone remembered, but everyone would respect the self-imposed silence on the subject.
Not far away from the Armenian shop was “Beit Loubavitch” (22), The House of the Loubavitch. Knowing that my father was getting closer and closer to the time he would part from this world, I wanted to give him a pair of tefilins as well as a prayer shawl, in the hope of promoting reconciliation with Judaism. (In nineteen-forty, my father had to get rid of all of the signs and objects associated with Judaism. He also refused to wear the yellow star and spent his time in hiding between nineteen forty and nineteen forty-four) After choosing what I thought was appropriate, I was immediately grabbed by a giant religious man, taken to the first floor of the shop where there was a small “shul” (24) and pushed into a group already engrossed with praying. I simply could not escape, and I tried all the possible excuses to avoid an unfortunate situation…
I was learning Hebrew at that time but I was in fact far from being fluent, especially with the Hebrew used for religious purpose…
“What? You cannot read Hebrew? we will help you…just read the phonetics on this piece of paper then….”
My tie being taken off, the left sleeve of my shirt rolled up to the shoulder, the tefillin attached to the right place, I was “cornered” I had no choice but to pray, and be a “shayner yid”, a “good Jew”.
-X-
(Passage du Prado 75010)
(Passage Brady 75010)
(Canal Saint Martin 75010)
(Gare de l'Est 75010)
Just after the metro station Strasbourg-Saint-Denis one would cross over to the dixieme arrondissement. From boulevard de Strasbourg, one could see Gare de l’Est train station. I knew the place well as trains to the country house would live from that station. From Gare de l’Est left trains going to Basel, Warsaw, Budapest. When catching a train to a week end of leisure near the small airfield of Coulommiers-Voisins, I would spend the time of a leisurely stroll through the station, looking at trains due to leave for Poland or Hungary. I was already attracted by far away destination, adventure, and exoticism.
The Canal Saint-Martin was very close to Gare de l’Est. Rue du Professeur Jean Bernard would take one directly from the station to the Quai de Valmy, overlooking the canal, not far away from Ecluse des Morts, and not so far away either from where the Montfaucon gallows had been till seventeen-sixty.
In the western part of the dixième arrondissement was the rue de Paradis with all the glassware shops. Behind the walls of old buildings, courtyards with cobblestones and water fountain kept preciously the memories of an era gone by. One upon a time, kids had played in the courtyards, blacksmiths had prepared horseshoes, and grinders had sharpened the kitchen knives of housewives at rue de Paradis or Cour des Petites-Ecuries.
I always enjoyed crossing from boulevard de Strasbourg to rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis, using passage Brady. Of course, this was not as fashionable as Galerie Vero-Dodat, Galerie Vivienne, or passage Verdeau, but it better reflected the very nature of the dixieme arrondissement, a popular quartier of Paris. Passage Brady was located very close to Passage du Désir and rue de la Fidélité…! What a program: an incredible choice between desire for lust and fidelity to avoid unpleasant situations…I was unable to make the choice...
In a building on rue d’Hauteville, sitting at a desk and surrounded by several telephones, I was selling advertising. My boss, a Tunisian Jew, bore the same name as a reputable Vodka. During lunch time, I skipped the casher restaurants close to the office and would go to boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle to sit on a bench and feed corn to the Paris pigeons congregating around my feet.
-XI-
(Playing boules alongside boulevard Richard Lenoir 75011)
(Petite-Roquette prison is being razed to the ground in 1973. 75011)
On rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, during spring or summer, there was this smell of wood glue. On both sides of the street, makers of wooden cabinets and furniture worked six days a week, for seven centuries. Along the street, here and there, there were doorways to small courtyards hosting a large array of plants and very old cobblestones. Cour du Bel-Air, cour Saint-Louis, cour de l’Etoile d’or, as soon as you would set a foot in one of these, you would be transported somewhere else, in a different century.
Behind the Bastille was the rue de Lappe, with its small bars and cafés and the “latino” atmosphere. A few hundred meters away was the Bastille train station and the suburban trains hauled by Steam Engines on the seventeen kilometres between Paris and Boissy-Saint-Léger. Housewives living along the tracks would keep their windows close, even during summer, by fear of the greasy sooth. No one would ever think that the train station could be replaced by an Opera building. Close by was the old Prison de la Petite-Roquette, first a prison for juvenile delinquents and then a prison for women. It was a sinister building and when came nineteen-seventy-four, the destruction of the prison was a blessing. Slightly east of La Petite Roquette was the Pere Lachaise cemetery, were famous people were asleep forever, including Frederic Chopin whose grave was visited day or night by music lovers coming from all over the world. Each year, on May the first, crowds with red flags would march from Place de la Nation to Place de la République, crossing the onzième arrondissement while singing the “Internationale”. Right after the demonstration, cafés and bars would all be full of thirsty people who had been shouting anti-government slogans.
-XII-
Whenever I would drive by that brick and stone building, I would always remember the various movies seen on television involving “Commissaire Maigret” …I could even remember or imagine a dialogue:
“Are you sure it’s him? Look at the corpse, take your time, do you recognize him? are you sure?”
I remembered what the inside looked like. I had been there once: there was white light, I could see the tools of the trade, the carts loaded with autopsy saws. On Sundays there was silence, excepted for the humming of the refrigerating equipment.
(Paris morgue 75012)
(Works in Bercy area: changing a popular place into a luxury quartier for the rich 75012)
(Offloading barges in Bercy : "kiloliters" of wine!!! 75012)
(Ilot Châlons : uncontrolled crooks and drug dealers 75012)
(Ilôt Chalons is being razed to the ground : dealers and crooks will move north 75012)
(When Bercy was "le quartier du vin" 75012)
(Railroad in Bercy: it will disappear 75012)
( Where are Rats, there are Cats 75012)
(Bercy is gone...a few casks are left...soon they will be gone and the warehouses will become restaurants or fashion shops 75012)
(The Bastille train leaving...or returning to Paris before 1969 75012)
(Push-Pull train at Paris-Bastille before 1969. 75012)
At the northern tip of douzième arrondissement, located along the river Seine, there was the Institut Medico Legal, also known under the common name of “La Morgue”. The building was located underneath the metro line number five. People having died in a suspicious fashion were brought here for investigation and autopsy. Homeless folks found dead in a street would also be brought to the morgue. No one would ever know if these people had family or not. Luckily, just a few blocks away, there was Gare de Lyon, the enormous train station with its huge clock tower. Was it the time to catch a train towards the south of France, Venice may be? Or further?
Across from Gare de Lyon was the “Café aux Cadrans”, a huge parisian café used by the holiday organisation Club Med as a “meeting point” for travellers before boarding a holiday train to southern Italy. Along the train station, there was un unpleasant place: Ilôt Chalons. It was a cluster of very old houses, probably built in the middle of the nineteenth century, inhabited by migrants of all origins and culture. Ilôt Chalon was a place where clandestine prostitution and drugs were a daily affair. The town council and the police knew that it would not last very long since the all area was already designed to be razed to the ground however for the time being, walking across Ilot Chalons was an unforgettable experience the smell of African food would mix with the whiff of cannabis and the sweet scent of opium. When building site machinery assaulted the Ilôt Chalons, a couple of months was enough to get rid of the old houses and start building the base of a new business quarter with office space and four-star hotels.
There was a lot of money to be made in real estate further up along the river Seine. Bercy area was entirely dedicated to the storage of various wines reaching Paris on barges. Bercy warehouses were huge and spread on sixty-one streets and courtyards, each bearing a name associated somehow with the wine industry. There was rue Saint Estèphe, rue de Romanée, rue de Cognac. Thousand of wood barrels and casks waited to be picked up and sent to their final destination: a restaurant, a brasserie, a chain of supermarket may be. In the evening, when the wine activity stopped, the place was invaded by stray cats chasing rats and other rodents. As the activity slowed down, the place looked more and more like a distant city somewhere in France. When the old warehouses were transformed into fashionable shops and restaurants, I was not there to see it. I simply could not stand seeing the area becoming a place for the rich and famous. Real estate prices had rocketed, it was simply unfair even if everyone knew that the wine warehouse had a limited future as such.
With the beginning of springtime, the Foire du Trône would return to Reuilly and settle there for two months (25). Between the ring road and the boulevard des maréchaux (26) the Foire du Trône hosted incredible rides, fortune tellers, sweets stand, ghost trains, bumper cars, and rollercoasters. Going to Foire du Trône could be a risky affair for the wallet as temptations were everywhere. French fries and Frankfurt sausages tasted of course different when eaten sitting on the grass of Pelouse de Reuilly. One of the fortune teller, “Lily Pinson”, born in Kiev in nineteen-twelve under the real name of Nastasia Lobanov-Rostovsky, was specialized in teen-ager love affairs. She could always predict that a gentle boy or a sweet girl would soon become a lover or a mistress. On Thursdays, when school was off, there was a long line of teenagers waiting in front of her caravan. Three candy stalls would offer marshmallow, candy floss and above all fritters and doughnuts of all kinds and shape; eating junk food was an important part of the day’s program…
From the top of the highest of the rollercoasters, one could see the top of the “monkey’s rock” of the Vincennes Zoo, not so far away.
(At the "Foire du Trône" was a lady selling marshmallow 75012)
-XIII-
Should I want to escape from the quatorzieme for a morning, when I should have been in a classroom at Lycée Montaigne or some other republican institution, I would simply catch bus “62” going down rue d’Alésia. Just a few minutes were needed to reach the “Butte aux Cailles”, an incredible district full of small streets, one story houses, small gardens. Rue Alphand, rue des Cinq Diamants, passage Barrault, there was nothing but silence and bird songs coming from the bushes. The treizième arrondissement was in Paris, but it was not Paris, it was “somewhere else”, an incredible “somewhere else”. The hillock kept the memory of a working-class population as in the last part of the nineteenth century, the eastern part of Paris was by far the best place to build factories with smoking stacks: the prevailing wind would blow the smoke to the east, and who cared if other workers in other factories further east were poisoned. Many “bougnats” (r) from Auvergne and the Aubrac had left their land and traditions to come to Paris and open their business there. Close to the Butte-aux-Caille was Avenue d’Italie. It was not a very big avenue, just a mix between and avenue and a street, leading you to the porte d’Italie… It looked like the whole area had been forgotten by growth and progress. There was possibly one or two “moderate” high-rise apartments building. The rest of the housing along the avenue was made of one or two storey houses. One could easily backtrack to the “fifties”. Along the avenue, some shops would sell carpet sweepers, broomsticks, wood wax in tin can bearing incredible names such as “ Ric et Rac”, “Ciror”, or “Louis XIII”. On avenue d’Ivry, there was a car factory producing Panhard and Levassor vehicles. This was long before the area became the Paris Chinatown. The treizième arrondissement was a peaceful district.
(Trolleybus 75013)
(Square des Peupliers 75013)
(Former Panhard & Levassor car factory in 75013)
(Compressed air company building : a pure art nouveau monument in 75013)
(The Antoinist temple on Rue Vergnaud 75013)
(A "secret" place in 75013. Protected environment....it 's not Paris anymore, but it is Paris)
Beyond the treizième arrondissement, going south, were the suburban town of Ivry and Vitry which could be reached by trolleybus. Going close to the tracks of the Orleans Railroad there was rue Watt. The street would cross under the tracks. At night, a couple of street lamps would cast a pale light, making the rue Watt look like a movie set. One would really expect to see an “apache” appear suddenly out of nowhere, holding a knife in one hand and a revolver in the other hand. I liked going there every now and then just to feel the fear, while crossing under the tracks, on a November night, with heavy fog in addition to make it look even more threatening.
Not far from rue Watt was the art nouveau building of SUDAC, a company providing Paris with a complete network of compressed air in the nineteen hundred. Facing the river, the building and its forty-six meters high chimney stack had been a landmark since eighteen ninety-one.
Square des Peupliers was possibly one of my greatest discoveries in Paris along with rue de la Colonie. It was a cluster of small houses hiding between rue de Tolbiac and passage Foubert. Until I set foot there for the first time in nineteen sixty-seven, a day I should have been taking math exams with the rest of the class, I had no idea something like this small “paradise on earth” could exist. Going once to rue de la Colonie or Square des Peupliers was enough to get you connected to that place for ever. This place was where one wanted to live, where one wanted to raise a family with cats and dogs. A couple of hundred meters away from the “périph” (r) that part of town could have been anywhere else in the world as there was no tell-tale that it was a part of Paris. But the most incredible thing I had discovered was the “Antoinist” Temple at the bottom of rue Vergnaud. It looked like a reformed church but was in fact a temple hosting the faithful of a religion I had never heard of (28): Antoinisme.
-XIV-
Anytime a new kid would join a new school, others would ask the same question: where do you come from. This did not mean were exactly do you live, or what is your address, but more simply in which quarter do you live.
I lived in small world, a small empire between the old buildings of Plaisance, the Porte d’Orleans and the Observatory. Rue Sarrette, a few yards from my parent’s appartment was the oriental shop of Monsieur Lafarge. My kingdom did not need to be bigger. I had my « markers » around and could find my own way. Down rue Sarrette was the small police station. We would go there to accomplish the usual formalities such as renewing identification or asking for a new passport. For more serious business such as reporting a crime, or betraying secrets of a neighbour of the « wrong origin, culture, religion, or political beliefs » (29) would require to go to the « big » police station on rue Remy-Dumoncel.
(Saint-Pierre-de-Montrouge late 19th century: 75014)
(Porte d'Orléans very early 20th century 75014)
(Track blueprint of the "old" Gare Montparnasse 75014)
(Paris observatory : a landmark of the quatorzième 75014)
(Gallia breweries, just hundred yards from home but the picture was taken early 1900 75014)
(Cheering crowd welcoming English troops August 1944 75014)
(2, Rue Alphonse Daudet 75014 , the family "nest" on the 3rd, 5th and 7th floor)
(Place Denfert-Rochereau, another landmark of 75014)
(Georges Brassens, poet, anarchist, musicien, in impasse Florimont where he lived during twenty years 75014)
The small police station was located just across from Brasserie Gallia, an enormous building where Gallia beer was brewed. The breweries were spread on a large triangular surface of about four acres.
Close by the Gallia Breweries was this vacant lot protected by a wooden fence. We knew that behind the fence were large populations of rabbits. Light brown Turtledoves would nest in the linden trees.
In spring and summer, the quartier would smell of hop, malt and for some reason, warm beer. On the corner of rue Marie-Rose and rue Sarrette, there was a butcher’s shop. Monsieur Lelaidier and his spouse, wearing a shawl over her shoulders, all year around, operated the shop six days a week and Sunday morning: it was important because usually on Sundays there were family lunches requiring roasts of beef or pork and these would be the sales of the week. By the end of the day, Monsieur Lelaidier would scrape the chopping block with a cleaver. Wood scrapings accumulated on the edge of the wooden block and when the heap of scrapings was big enough Monsieur Lelaidier would breathe in and blow the scrapings on the floor of the shop where it would get mixed with the saw dust, spread the same morning to catch blood drops before it would stain the floor.
There were no supermarkets, nor hypermarkets, nor commercial centres. On avenue du General Leclerc (which a lot of people still called by its original name of avenue d’Orléans) besides the local market place on villa d’Orléans, was a big grocery shop going by the name of « A La Havane ». There was a tap machine for wine. Customers would simply give a bottle to the shop attendant, decide on what kind of wine would be the choice of the day and the attendant would fill up one, two, three or more returnable « five stars » bottles of one litter each. One of the landmarks of the quatorzieme arrondissement was the statue of the Belfort Lion, guarding the inhabitants of Place Denfert-Rochereau. Another landmark was the incredibly white building of the Paris Observatory on rue Cassini. Since the seventeenth century, astronomers would travel amongst the stars using refracting telescopes. Beyond the Observatory, it was not quatorzieme arrondissement anymore. I liked backtracking to rue Alphonse Daudet with a detour by Prison de la Santé. The big jail had been in activity since eighteen sixty-seven. In both peacetime and wartime, it had been a place for thieves, murderers but also for member of the resistance in the dark years between nineteen-forty and nineteen forty-four. Luckily, the guillotine was not used anymore outside of the prison. Public executions had stopped in nineteen thirty-nine on order of President Albert Lebrun. It would be much quieter chopping heads in within the boundaries of the prison. (30)
(The wall of Prison de la Santé on boulevard Arago 75014)
Normally, I would never walk west of Place d’Alesia, or if I did, it was on a few hundred meters to run specific errands. Later on, once I became more curious about Paris and even less prone to attend school, I finally came to terms with myself and accepted to betray my loyalty to my own quartier. But it was already too late. Time had gone by and opportunities were missed. For instance, I realised far too late that Georges Brassens, one of the greatest poet of the twentieth century, had lived impasse Florimont, just five minutes away from Saint-Pierre-de-Montrouge. (31) Going west towards the Seine, rue d’Alesia would pass under the tracks of the West line going to Brittany, and would change its name to Rue de Vouillé. Gare Montparnasse, were all the tracks originated, was definately a part of my landmarks and markers. The old train station was located at the beginning of rue de Rennes, a major street in the quatorzieme and continuing on to the sixieme… Reaching the platform to catch a train, one would have to climb stairs before reaching the concourse. Trains out of Montparnasse were bound to Rennes, Saint-Brieuc, Brest, Lorient. Half of the train were always full of soldiers or sailors returning to their navy bases. Other users were families on their way to vacation, Breton ladies with bigouden headdress, and priest. (32) In just a few hours, these travellers would breath the fresh air of north Atlantic Ocean, kelp smell included, they would have dinner of crêpes and apple cider and eat Kouign Amann for dessert.
-XV-
Bus 62 was an old OP5-3 manufactured by SOMUA. It would chug along Rue d’Alesia, rue de Vouillé, rue de la Convention, cross the Seine onto the right bank and would get the « rich » districts. The street names were much nice, the buildings cleaner, the streets wider. That part of Paris was home to bankers, politicians, very rich artists, and foreign diplomats. But between the quatorzieme arrondissement and the seizieme was the quinzieme arrondissement…
On metro line number six, right as the train would be leaving « Pasteur » going west, the metro would become an elevated railroad on level with the first floor of the buildings alongside the tracks. It was a very special time, catching glimpses of what was going on in the apartment buildings. Here a housewife laying a table cloth, there a man and his kids drinking morning coffee, here again a young woman obviously ready to live her apartment, donning a raincoat…It was not rubbernecking, it was not being a peeping tom, but…yes, it was. I remember the lady watering her plants on her balcony near « Sevres-Lecourbe », or that another lady taking off or bathrobe, just after « Duplex ». Crossing the Seine on pont (bridge) de Bir-Hakeim, the middle of the bridge would be the limit between the quinzième arrondissement and le seizième. The train would swiftly reach Passy, another smart district full of stories of the rich and famous and tales about noble families of the times gone by.
The quinzième arrondissement was home to the Citroen car factories of quai de Javel, with the glass roofs and the heat, but above all, the quinzième arrondissement was « Swan Island », l’Ile aux Cygnes, a strip of land right in the middle of the river. On l’Île aux Cygnes, there was an ideal place to take a girl friend to and kiss her, or at least attempt to: it was just at the foot the Statue of Liberty which was watching for ever the Seine river going west since eighteen eighty-nine. The quartier Beaugrenelle was slowly dying. Everyone knew that things would change soon, but for the time being, it was still an area with old housing often dating back to the industrial revolution. At number fifty-one on rue du Commerce herring and warm potatoes were waiting for my visit. The rack of lamb was tasty, and the eyes of the girl friends were glistening.
(Place Balard not far away from the Air Force headquarter 75015)
(Pont de Grenelle : statue of Liberty 75015)
(Sprague-Thomson metro : the engineer's compartment. The were sparks all over...75015)
(Rue du Commerce: by the time we would get to the restaurant, we would already know how the "after dinner" would look like 75015)
We would walk all the way from La Motte-Piquet, taking a shortcut through rue de l’Avre. When we would reach the « 51 » on rue du Commerce, we knew exactly what the menu would be and what the after-dinner program would look like. Waiters dressed in black and white hovered around holding a large service tray with one hand only. I remember the last year of college, in a Parisian monument to education by the name of Lycée Buffon. When I was in need for oxygen, I would walk all the back home, up on the boulevard Pasteur, then all the way through rue du Château. The landscape of the quinzième was changing fast. Every day, buildings still there the day before disappeared, rubble was quickly picked-up. Finance folks and building companies shared the same interests: making sure that all the « old Paris » would, here too, disappear from the surface of the city, just to be replace by lifeless and expensive modern structures. Luckily for me, I had plenty of images stored in the back of my mind.
It felt awful, seeing the old buildings being torn down, some of the streets being even « rerouted », Wallace fountain were picked up by collectors and disappeared for ever from the urban landscape. These were days of great sadness for Paris lovers.
-XVI-
When one has money, one can have anything one wants. In Paris, buying space cost a lot. Having a lot of money does not mean that choosing where to go will be easy.
Would you like living on Boulevard Suchet or Avenue Raphaël? Would you prefer a three-storey apartment on Île-Saint-Louis or a seventeen room, eighteen century mansions in Passy?
I was fascinated with Art Nouveau although I had absolutely no in-depth or academic knowledge of it. I had simply been « struck » by it the first time I had seen a sample of this incredible architecture at number twenty-nine of Avenue Rapp. Anytime I could, I would roam the streets of the sixteenth arrondissement knowing exactly what I was looking for: a « Castel » or a « Villa » built by Jules Lavirotte, Victor Horta or Hector Grimard. Again, for some unknown reason, I was convinced that I had privileged ties with the turn of the century period and felt like I was « home » anytime I would be facing one the remnants of the Art Nouveau architecture. That’s how I fell in love with the Castel Béranger at fourteen rue La Fontaine…That’s how I also fell in love with the building at hundred and twenty-two avenue Mozart. This too, was becoming and obsession keeping me out of school…I simply loved the shapes of art nouveau building ornaments, the stained-glass windows in some buildings. Rue Chardon-Lagache, rue La Fontaine, rue Francois-Millet, I would simply walk and take the time to look at the buildings. I had to feed my passion, I had to nurture my obsession. I spent many days between the Arc de Triomphe and the Porte de Saint-Cloud, between the Seine on the north side of the sixteenth arrondissement and the Seine on the south side, where the new Trocadero was, facing the Eiffel tower since nineteen thirty-seven. Most of the time I spent in the sixteenth arrondissement was for architecture’s sake. I never had enough, I could not quench my thirst and often, once I would return home on the left bank, I could not help counting the days till my next visit to the Art Nouveau architects.
(Hameau Boileau: expensive and pleasurable 75016)
(A "secret" place in the sixteenth arrondissement...! 75016)
(Sieg Heil ! The dark period Avenue Foch Wehrmacht troops 1940 75016)
(Building Maison de la radio, late fifties an incredible project for the time 75016)
(The Auteuil " little train" at Gare d'Auteuil 75016)
(Entrance Hall of Castel Beranger on rue La Fontaine: the epitomy of Art Nouveau 75016)
(Avenue Foch late 19th century or very early 20th There were women riding horses but only side-saddle (!) 75016)
(An Art Nouveau building in Paris 75016)
By the Porte Dauphine, at the bottom of avenue Foch was place De Lattre de Tassigny, a large circular square, a meeting point for swinging couple of Paris and neighbourhood. Cars would simply park along the pavement and through « coded messages » using the headlight of the cars, signal for departure was given one the « ad hoc » number of participants was reached. The destination was never very far, most of the time it was a prosperous-looking villa in the west of Paris with sofas, thick carpeting, tables full of food and drinks. All the conditions were met to experience swinging or other sexual practices, before returning to the big city once the party was over and the participants satisfied.
I always loved avenue Foch, with is wide open spaces on each side. I always remember photos taken in the early twentieth century showing ladies side-saddle riding, going down the avenue towards the Bois de Boulogne. I also remember other picture, less pleasant, showing Wehrmacht officers on horses watching occupation troops parading upwards towards the arc de Triomphe during the « jerry » period of world war two.
At the bottom of avenue Foch were always parked between ten and fifteen camping-cars. Prostitutes of eastern Europe origin for most of them had a flourishing business on the side lanes of the avenue.
Villa Saïd, Villa Flore, Square Jasmin, Square du Docteur Blanche, Villa d’Auteuil, Hameau Boileau, there were small houses hiding behind wooden portals. These looked like doll houses. I did not care to know that Saïd had been the vice-Roy of Egypt, or that Docteur Blanche had been a reputable specialist in psychiatry. I did not care either to know that Flore had been the name of a landlord’s wife…but I did care to remember the Nicolas Boileau, the French poet, had live in the area.
Each time I would visit the hameau Boileau, Nicolas would invite me again, and again for other visits in spring, in summer, by fall, even in winter.
(Château de la Muette 75016)
« Hatez vous lentement et sans-perdre courage…. » I should be in haste, but be in a « slow haste ». So was I, taking my time to visit the area, listening to the birds, counting the cats, petting the dogs in the pathway.
I had plenty of reasons to dream…one of them was the Château de la Muette, another one was the Gare d’Auteuil, the end of the line train station of the chemin de fer d’Auteuil, a seven and half kilometers railtrack on which operated shuttle trains from Pont Cardinet to Auteuil.
I would rather not remember in which circumstances I Had met these two young ladies coming from respectable noble families. Both of them lived in the sixteenth arrondissement, not so far away from Porte de la Muette. I will not betray their full name although I clearly remember that one of them was the Viscountess de N. and the other the Marquise de B. Their underwear was seductive, and this had given me another reason to visit the sixteenth arrondissement, come rain, wind or shine.
Although both of them had been educated in respectable catholic private schools fitting people of noble ancestry, their formal education must have been completed in a different environment in view of the special talents that both of them displayed. They tried to instil in me tact and diplomacy, but they failed, however, In just a few months, I Knew all about the hierarchy in noble families (chevalier,baron,vicomte,comte,marquis, Duc prince…) how to address some high ranking individuals by using the title “Monseigneur”, how to apologize, how to behave during a social event….and all of this gave me other excuses to love this part of Paris, even knowing that I would never live in that area, and that I certainly did not want to…!
-XVII-
The Auteuil railroad operated on a double track laid in a wide trench along the boulevard Pereire. It was an old train with no real future. From Pont Cardinet to Gare d’Auteuil, lovers living in popular arrondissements of Paris would have during a few kilometres, enough time to kiss before reaching the end of the line and continue onto the Bois de Boulogne, walking and holding hands. The train started in the seventeenth arrondissement and would chug his way to the sixteenth arrondissement, not very far away from avenue Victor Hugo.
“My” dix-septième arrondissement was something else. It was the rue Laugier, a quartier with “fine people”, close by avenue Niel, a fifteen minute’ walk away from place des Ternes. Every morning, I would catch the metro to get to the other end of Paris just to catch a non-stop bus to Orly airport. Morning and evening, I had to face two hours and a half worth of public transport. The dix-septième arrondissement was very far away from “my” quatorzième. I had no choice but expatriate myself to live in an unknown “quartier”, thousand kilometres away from Saint-Pierre-de-Montrouge, although the real distance separating me from my former environment was only seven kilometres and nine-hundred meters! I was not really far away…but I lived in exile. Gone was Rue Alphonse Daudet, gone was the pleasant Rue de la Tombe-Issoire, gone was my childhood and the years of innocence.
(Place des Ternes early 1900 75017)
(Rue Laugier : I lived in exile there for a while 75017)
(Rue Laugier in the fifties
(Pont Cardinet train station : departure point for "le petit train d'Auteuil" crossing the seventeenth arrondissement 75017)
Caught between a sour-tempered mother in law and here dictatorial husband, I had no choice but to obey the orders of resettlement which had been conveyed: “You will go and live with our daughter on Rue Laugier, we have an apartment ready for you”.
That was it… Two “maid rooms” (33) put together overlooking the rue Laugier. Not far away was local fire station …days and nights fire trucks on their way to provide assistance would rush through the street, siren blaring. There never was a quiet night.
By the end of the street, on boulevard Gouvion-Saint-Cyr, was a hostess bar. Whisky was tasteless and the girls ugly. I had no reason to get there more than just once… Rue Laugier was not in the really fancy section of the dix-septième. Although “fine people” lived there, we were far away from the expensive areas, by avenue de Wagram of avenue des Ternes. Real luxury was close to the park Monceau, boulevard des Batignolles, or rue de Courcelles…
Rue de Levis, there was a weekly street market, just like “our” market on rue d’Alesia. Much later on, when I returned to the “seventeenth” to inventory bad and good memories of the area, I then realized that I had been totally unable to build up any kind of relationship with this part of the city, possible because the choice to live there had not been mine. As I lived in other countries for several years, I came often to Paris and would spend a night or two close to this “former” quartier. At number two on Place des Ternes was this brasserie “La Lorraine” …where the beer was good. Luckily, it was located not far away from Hotel Doisy-Etoile, a small unpretentious family hotel. Three minutes away from Hotel Doisy-Etoile was Neuilly-sur-Seine, a town inhabited not only by “fine people” but by rich families with seven digits monthly income. For “fine people” with a six digits only yearly income, there was the town of Levallois, a gentle neighbourhood for well-off families.
-XVIII-
My only reason to go and visit the dix-huitième arrondissement was to escape from Paris by spending a few hours on Butte Montmartre, the place where the Sacré-Coeur church had been built. I was fascinated by the history of this special place. I had learned about the tragedy of La Commune de Paris (34) but above all, I was simply in love with the “Commune Libre de Montmartre”, a place for artists, a place for dreamers, a place for people looking for authentic freedom. I Loved to get there walking from the “Abbesses” metro station on line number twelve. There was no interest at all in strolling on place du Tertre…the real Montmartre was in the little streets, close to the vineyards, rue Saint-Vincent, rue de l’Abreuvoir, rue Norvins, rue Lepic. Tourists wanted to see the big white church, I wanted to spend time in the silence of the “other” Montmartre, far away from the noise, far away from the Chinese groups, the Japanese masses, the German herds, the Spanish cliques, the Swedish clusters…
(Mobile bridge 75018)
(Building Sacré-Coeur around 1895/1897 75018)
(Metro line number 2 ; Looking through the windows, one coul see long line of men in front of a " house" on rue de Chartres. It was a bordello serving migrant workers. The government kept looking somewhere else. Thousands of workers and no women, this could not continue...75018)
(106 Boulevard de la Chapelle : a former bordello 75018)
(A "business card" for the "106" , it was a " Maison de Société" 75018)
(Three card Monte : crooks in Barbès quartier 75018)
(Vineyards in Montmartre : just for fun and for the view over Paris 75018)
Going to a “sacred” place? My choice was always the same: the small authentic church of Saint-Pierre-de-Montmartre dating back to the twelfth century, when Montmartre was nothing else than just a village a mile away from Paris, may be?
On the parvis du Sacré-Coeur, visitors were taking pictures. Once back home, they would probably comment their trip…
…Here I am in front of Sacré-Coeur
…Here Sacré-Coeur is behind me
…on this one I am on the Butte Montmartre watching Paris…
…on that one I am…….
My thought would go towards the abbess of Montmartre, Marie de Beauvilliers, one of Henri IV numerous mistresses…I always liked it when religion and love stories mixed together, lovers probably felt like they were blessed by god himself…
Metro line number two connecting Porte Dauphine with Place de la Nation, ran along boulevard de Rochechouart, as an elevated railroad.
Going westward, on the right of the track was the dix-huitième arrondissement while on the left side was the neuvième. The metro line was the limit between the two arrondissements.
During the “glorious thirties” (35) when riding on a train on line number two, one could see on the right side, day or night, a long queue of people waiting in front of a house on rue de Chartres. Although brothels operation had been shutdown following the “Marthe Richard Law” of April thirteen, nineteen forty-six (ref 46-685) there were some places in the area along Barbes, accommodating the needs of a migrant working population living in France since the end of the Algerian war in 1962. No politician wanted to admit it, but the line of people was there seven days a week and along the clock. Factories in the Paris suburbs produced all kind of industrial wealth, starting with cars, and the users of the “rue de Chartres” facilities were in very large numbers.
(Pont Marcadet 75018)
(Butte Montmartre 19th century 75018)
In these days, anyone walking through the Barbès area had one foot in Mali, the other foot in North Africa. Rue de la Goutte d’Or, there were shops selling all kind of African clothing, spices, drinks, tea leaves, telephone cards to be used when calling countries in the Maghreb… Ethnic diversity was the main characteristics of this “Arabo-African” quartier in Paris. In small café, aging folks born in Algeria, Tunisia or Morocco, shared a game of Dominoes whilst crooks proposed three-cards-monte to unsuspicious out of town visitors.
For railroad lovers, not far away, was the Marcadet bridge, overflying the tracks out of Gare du Nord. One could watch trains leaving Paris, en route to Belgium, Holland, or Germany. At 106 boulevard de la Chapelle, long time ago was a “Maison de Société”, another typical French word to designate a bordello. It must have been a “decent place” but men or women having been users of this “Maison” had all died long ago and the “106” was now just a building like any other buildings in the area. To the north of the dix-huitième, just behind the ring road was “le marché aux puces”, Paris flea market, including five different areas each having its own specialties or interests: antique furniture, militaria, guns and bronzes, electrical appliances, clothing, uniforms…
In the evening and during the nights, east European pimps coming from Ukraine, Albania, or Russia would offer young blond girls to truck drivers going north or south at a “reasonable priced. No one knew exactly what the “reasonable price” was…. I guess it depended on what the truck drivers could afford…
-XIX & XX-
(Rue Vilain in winter 75019)
(Gare de Menilmontant for the "circular" railroad in early 1900 75020)
(Mur des Federes in Pere-Lachaise cemetery : sad memories of the Paris commune 1871 75020)
(Cité ELGE - for L eon G aumont . Later on, it would become the Buttes Chaumont Studios 75019 )
(Studios des Buttes Chaumont on rue des Alouettes 84.000 square meters devoted to televisual création 75019)
Near de Buttes-Chaumont park, between rue Carducci and rue des Alouettes was a place originally called “cite Elgé”, which was the first cinema studio operated by Léon Gaumont, a French inventor, engineer, and industrialist who had been a pioneer of the motion picture industry in France. Along the years, the place had changed quite a lot and had become the “Butte-Chaumont Studios”, an eighty-four thousand square meters bunch of buildings dedicated to televisual creation under the control of the French National Television Agency O.R.T.F. In nineteen ninety-six, the Studios were razed to the ground, making space for new apartments buildings whilst TV creation was pushed out of Paris to newly created television and cinema studios. From the Studios des Buttes-Chaumont, it was very easy to get to the vingtième arrondissement. One just needed to walk south, towards Belleville. Rue du Télégraphe, rue Saint-Fargeau, in Belleville, there were older folks who spoke nothing but “slang”. I thought I would be able to understand, I was wrong. There was a lot to be learned before being able to hold a decent conversation with the old “Parisians” brought up in the popular areas of Menilmontant and Belleville. Men who had known wars would play cards at “La Vieilleuse” or “Le Vieux Belleville”, two of the oldest café in Paris.
Boulevard de Belleville, when passing by the metro station “Couronnes” I always had a thought for the eighty-four souls lost on august ten nineteen-0-three, when two trains caught fire in the tunnel as the result of a short in one of the engines. The trains, made of wood, caught fire in just a few seconds leaving the victims in the dark as electricity was shut off in the station and the tunnel. Most of the travellers died of intoxication by toxic fumes.
(Jardins de Belleville 75019)
(Menilmontant 75020)
(Villa Riberolle 75020)
When rambling in the vingtième arrondissement, I had found a couple of magic places : Villa Godin and Rue Saint-Blaise. It was not Paris anymore, it was some kind of a small provincial town, with courtyards, cats sitting on the cobblestones. I would go there, sit on the terrace of a small café and spend the day asking myself why no one wanted to protect Belleville or Ménilmontant from the big changes taking place in the big city. It seemed that no one was interested with the past: the only important thing was to build, build, build again, to ensure that accommodating workforces within the city would be possible in the coming years. We all know by now that it simply did not work…
(Rue Saint Blaise 75020)
(Rue Saint Blaise 75020)
(Rue Saint Blaise mid-sixties I think , looking at both traffic and cars 75020)
The reward after completing a long tour in Paris was the mandatory visit to the Pere-Lachaise cemetery. Of course, I would not visit the forty-five thousand square meters of this enormous necropolis. I simply wanted to stop time for a few minutes or a few hours. I Had three friends sleeping there, one was a Polish pianist by the name of Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, the second one was a former marine engineer who became a celebrated painter under the name of Gustave Caillebotte, the third one was a professor at the Sorbonne. His name, Pierre Abelard had been associated with some kind of a scandal of a sexual nature as he fell in love with Heloise, one of his students. In the twelfth century such a scandal could lead to the gallows….Luckily, Abelard life was spared although he lost quite a lot in the affair.
(Abelard and Heloïse sleep together for ever at Pere Lachaise cemetery 75020)
Just a few yards from the tombstones of my friends was the Mur des Fédérés, a large section of the cemetery’s wall. In eighteen seventy-one, during the Commune de Paris, women and men had been shot to death there and thrown in common grave, just a few meters away from where the bullets dug holes in the stones of the wall.
In a few bucolic places along the cemetery, it seemed like time had stopped its course. Villa Riberolle, cite Aubry, rue du Repos, it was incredibly quiet, thanks to the neighbours who spent their time sleeping.
In the septième division of the Pere-Lachaise cemetery, Heloise and Abelard were sleeping together and no one would ever bother them…
(Rue Villain 75019)
(Eglise Saint Jean Baptiste in Belleville 75020)
As the visit would draw to an end, I needed to get out, immerse myself again in the noise and the smoke of the city. I needed to forget about Musset, Meliés, Modigliani, and get in touch with the real world.
Boulevard de Charonne, walking south, I would quickly reach the limits of the douzième arrondissement, knowing that I had completed my tour of Paris…
Then, I would simply need to get Paris out of my mind
but
Then I would simply realize that I could not….
(1) Georges-Eugène Haussmann, commonly known as Baron Haussmann ( 27 March 1809 – 11 January 1891), was a prefect of the Seine Department of France chosen by Emperor Napoleon III to carry out a massive urban renewal program of new boulevards, parks and public works in Paris that is commonly referred to as Haussmann's renovation of Paris. Critics forced his resignation for extravagance, but his vision of the city still dominates central Paris.
(2) Paul Abadie (9 November 1812 – 3 August 1884) was a French architect and building restorer. He is considered a central representative of French historicism. He was the son of architect Paul Abadie Sr..Abadie worked on the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris, Église Sainte-Croix of Bordeaux, Saint-Pierre of Angoulême and Saint-Front of Périgueux. He won the competition to design the Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on Montmartre in Paris, and saw construction commence on it, though he died long before its completion in 1914.
(3) Fulgence Bienvenüe (27 January 1852 – 3 August 1936) was a noted French civil engineer, best known for his role in the construction of the Paris Métro, and has been called "Le Père du Métro" (Father of the Metro). A native of Uzel in Brittany, and the son of a notary, in 1872 Bienvenüe graduated from the École Polytechnique as a civil engineer and the same year he began working for the Department of Bridges and Roads at Alençon. His first assignment was the construction of new railway lines in the Mayenne area, in the course of which his left arm had to be amputated after being crushed in a construction accident.
(4) Slang. local basic “café” selling also heating wood and coal. In the old days, the owners would come from Auvergne, a poor center of France area, and open shop where needed. Immigrants from Auvergne were called Bougnats, a modification of the word “Charbougniat” meaning someone selling coal pellets.
(5) Street in District 6th. Home of French Grand-Parents
(6) Bus line 68 connected Bagneux (south suburb of Paris) to Place de Clichy ( North of Paris intra-muros)
(7) Clochard or Cloche, Clodo, a homeless person often with alcool addiction. A tramp, a Hobo
(8) Parisians “split” the city between left and right bank of the river Seine. Traditionally, the left bank is “ intellectual” and “artistic” and the right bank is “financial” and “debauchery”….but there are many other combinations possible.
(9) Since the 18th century, the Palais Royal area has hosted many “ specialized “ clubs and restaurants. “Monsieur”, the brother of Louis XIV had received the Palais Royal as a gift from the king. Monsieur, who was gay, ensured that the location was dedicated to “ celebration of life” and about two thousand prostitutes (both male or female) operated in the area at that time.
(10) Specific liking of hair and hairy body parts. It is considered a paraphilia.
(11) rue du Caire was not far away from the Paris food market district of Les Halles. Customers living outside of Paris would take the opportunity to indulge…and wholesalers in butter, eggs and cheese were the largest customership of “specialized unofficial houses” . Bordellos had been shutdown in 1946 on April 13th (Marthe Richard Law Ref 46-685)
(12) The Place des Vosges (French pronunciation: [plas de voʒ]), originally Place Royale, is the oldest planned square in Paris and one of the finest in the city. It is located in the Marais district, and it straddles the dividing-line between the 3rd and 4th arrondissements of Paris. It was a fashionable and expensive square to live in during the 17th and 18th centuries, and one of the central reasons Le Marais became so fashionable for the Parisian nobility. In the early sixties, it was just a “historical place” but building were not maintained and no one wanted to live there. Things have changed and Place des Vosges became both a fashionable and extremely expensive area in Paris.
(13) Yiddish word designating a man of great moral value, a trustable person, an example to a Jewish community. A “nickname” for Alex, my father.
(14) Poppy seed cake is an Ashkenaze type of pastry. Matsa is unleavened bread also called Azyme bread.
(15) cheap clothing. It is a Yiddish word.
(16) a major intersection and roundabout in the quatorzième arrondissement, in the south part of Paris. It was close to the building were I lived in “these days”
(17) Peter Abelard Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailardus; French: Pierre Abélard, pronounced [a.be.laːʁ]; 1079 – 21 April 1142) was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent logician. His love for, and affair with, Héloïse d'Argenteuil have become legendary. The Chambers Biographical Dictionary describes him as "the keenest thinker and boldest theologian of the 12th Century".
(18) The Fontaine du Fellah, also known as the Egyptian Fountain, located at 52 rue de Sèvres in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, next to the entrance of the Vaneau metro station, was built in 1806 during the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte, in the neo-Egyptian style inspired by Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. It is the work of architect François-Jean Bralle and sculptor Pierre-Nicolas Beauvallet.
(19) The École Militaire (Military School) is a vast complex of buildings housing various military training facilities located in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, southeast of the Champ de Mars.
(20) Traditionally in Paris “cafés” the wines served are primarily identified by their “color”: rouge (red) blanc (white) or rosé (rose) . The bar tender will then propose a choice based on the initial “color”.
(21) On my mother side, the family came from Egypt. Ancestors had been involved in the great adventure of the Suez Canal Company since 1860. Friends, cousins, and other kind of kin had been born in Egypt, in various cities where the Suez Canal Company operated. Food habits include eating couscous and falafel. The honorary “Daughter of the Canal” title was given to any woman born in Egypt whose father, uncle, or brother has been involved with the Suez Canal Company
(22) A Jewish religious organisation with branches across the world
(23)Tefilin also called phylacteries from Ancient Greek phylássein, meaning "to guard, protect", are a set of small black leather boxes containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah. They are worn by male observant Jews during weekday morning prayers.
(24) the Yiddish word for synagogue . This one was VERY small
(25) a funfair dating back to the tenth century. Its duration is two months usually April and May
(26) There are two “ring roads” around Paris . The oldest one is known as Boulevard des Marechaux. Several sections of the boulevard have been named in memory of Napoleons field marshalls ( Soult, Kellerman, Suchet, Lannes….) The newest was opened to the public in the sixties and is known as Boulevard Periphérique or “Périph” as a short.
(27) Les Apaches was a Parisian Belle Époque violent criminal underworld subculture of early 20th-century hooligans, night muggers, street gangs and other criminals.
After the news about their notoriety spread over Europe, the term was used to describe violent street crime in other countries as well; for example, "Russian apaches".
(28) Antoinism is a healing and Christian-oriented new religious movement founded in 1910 by the Walloon Louis-Joseph Antoine (1846–1912) in Jemeppe-sur-Meuse, Seraing. With a total of 64 temples, over forty reading rooms across the world and thousands of members, it remains the only religion established in Belgium whose notoriety and success has reached outside the country. Mainly active in France, the religious movement is characterized by a decentralized structure, simple rites, discretion and tolerance towards other faiths.
(29) a reminder of a dark era in Paris during the occupation by the Nazi. Even if this was marginal, many Parisians informed on Jewish families in hiding or resistance fighters looking for shelter.
(30) Death penalty was abolished in France on September 18, 1981.
(31) Georges Brassens ( 22 October 1921 – 29 October 1981) was a French singer-songwriter and poet.
He wrote and sang, with his guitar, more than a hundred of his poems, as well as texts from many others such as Victor Hugo, Paul Verlaine, or Louis Aragon. In 1967, he received the Grand Prix de Poésie of the Académie française.
Between 1952 and 1976, he recorded fourteen albums that include several popular French songs such as Les copains d'abord, Chanson pour l'Auvergnat, La mauvaise réputation, and Mourir pour des idées. Most of his texts are black humour-tinged and often anarchist-minded.
(32) Art Nouveau is an international style of art, architecture and applied art, especially the decorative arts, that was most popular between 1890 and 1910. A reaction to the academic art of the 19th century, it was inspired by natural forms and structures, particularly the curved lines of plants and flowers.
English uses the French name Art Nouveau (new art). The style is related to, but not identical with, styles that emerged in many countries in Europe at about the same time: in Austria it is known as Secessionsstil after Wiener Secession; in Spanish Modernismo; in Catalan Modernisme; in Czech Secese; in Danish Skønvirke or Jugendstil; in German Jugendstil, Art Nouveau or Reformstil; in Hungarian Szecesszió; in Italian Art Nouveau, Stile Liberty or Stile floreale; in Norwegian Jugendstil; in Polish Secesja; in Slovak Secesia; in Russian Модерн (Modern); and in Swedish Jugend.
Art Nouveau is a total art style: It embraces a wide range of fine and decorative arts, including architecture, painting, graphic art, interior design, jewelry, furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass art, and metal work.
By 1910, Art Nouveau was already out of style. It was replaced as the dominant European architectural and decorative style first by Art Deco and then by Modernism.
(33) By the end of the nineteenth century it was not uncommon for people living in Haussmannian building to use the services of a “maid”. This maid lived in the same building, but usually on the top floor and experiences the limited comfort of a small room and toilets “outside” in the hall.
(34) The Paris Commune (French: La Commune de Paris) was a radical socialist and revolutionary government that ruled Paris from 28 March to 28 May 1871. Following the defeat of Emperor Napoleon III in September 1870, the French Second Empire swiftly collapsed. In its stead rose a Third Republic at war with Prussia, which laid siege to Paris for four months. A hotbed of working-class radicalism, France's capital was primarily defended during this time by the often politicized and radical troops of the National Guard rather than regular Army troops. In February 1871 Adolphe Thiers, the new chief executive of the French national government, signed an armistice with Prussia that disarmed the Army but not the National Guard.
Soldiers of the Commune's National Guard killed two French army generals, and the Commune refused to accept the authority of the French government. The regular French Army suppressed the Commune during "La semaine sanglante" ("The Bloody Week") beginning on 21 May 1871. Debates over the policies and outcome of the Commune had significant influence on the ideas of Karl Marx, who described it as an example of the "dictatorship of the proletariat".
(35) Les Trente Glorieuses ("The Glorious Thirty") refers to the thirty years from 1945 to 1975 following the end of the Second World War in France. The name was first used by the French demographer Jean Fourastié. Fourastié coined the term in 1979 with the publication of his book Les Trente Glorieuses, ou la révolution invisible de 1946 à 1975 ("The Glorious Thirty, or the Invisible Revolution from 1946 to 1975"). The term is derived from Les Trois Glorieuses ("The Glorious Three"), the three days of revolution on 27–29 July 1830 in France.