Paris main visit page 2

Montmartre, intro

Unavoidable landmarks

Starting Jacks walking tour (1)

Cemetery-Moulin de  la Galette (2)

Passage avenue Junot, Villa Leandre (3)

Impasse Girardon
Square Buisson -Allée des
Brouillards

Place Dalida, Musee du Vieux Montmartre (5)

Vineyards Montmartre, Cabaret Le Lapin Agile (6)

Cemetery Saint Vincent, The Paris Commune  history(7)

Cemetery Calvaire-Saint Pierre de Montmartre Espace Dali-Folie Sandrin (8)

WallaceFountains-Bateau Lavoir (9)

Place Abbesses-End of Montmartre visit 10)

Pigalle (11)

Introduction

Walking flea markets Malik, Vernaison and Paul Bert

Walking flea markets , Valles, Serpette, Biron and Cambo

Paris-18th arr-Impasse Girardon-Square Buisson-Allée des Brouillards

Did you ever hear of Marcel Ayme? Anglo-Saxon readers probably not, but he is one of France’s greatest writers. Native from the Jura mountain range, he is an adopted Montmartrois and spent all his life on the butte, which inspired him most of his novels and books. His novel “Passe-Muraille” (the wall-passer) tells the story of a man suddenly having this faculty to pass through walls. This mister Dutilleu finally, got stuck forever in a wall during his x-th passage. Having suddenly lots his faculty he could never reintegrate our world! That’s you’re going to see when you go upwards the avenue Junot and reach the place Marcel-Ayme. Coming out of a wall an incredible sculpture in relief from the French actor Jean Marais who proves here he was also an excellent sculptor.
Come back a few steps and enter the IMPASSE GIRARDON. This impasse, once called “impasse de la fontaine Saint-Denis’ used to lead to a miraculous fountain, also called “Fontaine au Crane coupe” or “Fontaine aux Martyrs”.

A legend says that a young girl who would drink from the water of the fontaine Saint-Denis will be faithful forever to her husband. This must be a legend ;-)…….Anyway, popular belief locates here the beheading of Saint-Denis. Therefore this statue in the adjacent square SUZANNE-BUISSON . Art Deco style, whole in terraces, very romantic in the evening, under the light of the street lamps. Lined with a few pavilions, and the fountain in the middle. It stopped running in the 19th century due to the anarchistic exploitation of the gyps quarries on the butte.. Amidst such a peaceful tranquillity, the statue of St.Denis loses his head looking at the petanque players. Saint-Denis is still evoked today to cure headaches and delirious people.
Cross the square Suzanne-Buisson and enter the ALLEE DES BROUILLARDS. Very narrow stairs, edged by a stone balustrade and pavilions crumbling under the ivy. Behind the high walls, how many secret gardens! The spot has so much charm! It's the ideal place to melt down people in love. And there IT is, planted at the side of the alley, with its romantic looks, right of a 19th century novel, before our dazzled eyes, and the seduction operates: what? The “CHATEAU DES BROUILLARDS” which is in fact a "folie" (foolishness), build in the 18th century by a rich aristocrat. At that time it was here absolute countryside and scrub. Soon, other constructions were built next to it and made an ensemble in 1850. Gerard de Nerval lived there in 1846. Renoir occupied once a pavilion at no. 8 of the alley. Slowly the area is abandoned, squatted and grown over again by scrub. A clever restoration in the 20th century saved it but it lots its one so charming splendour (vegetable gardens, friendly small inside alleys). And it’s survey, the simple fact that it still exists gives its admirers the same emotion, the same wonder.

Bibliography

Vie et histoire des arrondissements de Paris, ed.Hervas (1985-1988--Nouvelle Histoire de Paris, ed.Hachette--Le Pieton de Paris, by L.P.Fargue, ed.Gallimard -- Paris 19eme siecle, l'immeuble et la rue, by F.Loyer, ed.Hazan, 1994, --Montmartre, balades et decouvertes, by Vincent de Langlade, (own folders 1998),--Guides du Routard 1999, (Hachette)--Montmartre dans l'histoire de Paris, by E.Botteau ( Presse Cité, 1993)—Le 18th arrondissment, by Renaud Lefevre(ed.Nelle’s)

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