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, allee des Brouillards (4)

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)

Wallace fountains
Bateau Lavoir

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-Wallace fountains-Le Bateau Lavoir 

From the rue Poulbot enter the place J.B.CLEMENT where a Renaissance style fountain-reservoir replaced the dried up water sources of the butte. 

Fontaine Renaissance-Place Clement

It used to contain 125,000 litres and elevated in the air it could contain 260,000 litres. A cherry tree is planted in the middle to remind the Commune days. (Le Temps des cerises). This song is a veritable revolutionary hymn disguised in a common Ritornello. It evokes the offering of cherries by a young girl during the events of the French Commune. Enter now the rue de la Mire where the famous J.B.Clement, author of the song “Le Temps des Cerises” lived. The small and narrow rue de la Mire reminds also that the meridian of Paris passes exactly there. Now you have the RUE D’ORCHAMPT on your left, where Dalida lived at no.11. Her house still attracts a lot of people but is closed for visitors. This vast house, engaging and over-elaborated at the same time, looks like its former proprietor, cosmopolite woman, complex but a real “fille de la butte” without any “chi-chi”. Return to the rue Ravignan and at the end of this one you come to the PLACE EMILE GOUDEAU, a very charming square with its trees, old-fashioned plasterwork and a Wallace fountain. A genuine post card!! Wallace? Who was that? Sir Richard Wallace, immensely rich was an art amateur, fallen in love with France and acted like a great philantrop. While his son fought in the French army in 1870, he relieved the Parisians the best he could: ambulances to help the wounded, offering after the war of two large public fountains PER ARRONDISSMENT, like the drinking fountains in Great-Britain. His example was imitated and soon there were about 80 Wallace fountains all over Paris. Two models: in green bronze. One had a caryatid type (four sculpted women supporting a small dome. All have significance, Simplicity, Goodness, Sobriety, Charity). The second model is a trimming, nailed to the wall, where tritons are playing. There used to be at each fountain a tin mug but they all disappeared. Theft or hygienic concern? I should choose the first option! At no.13 the most famous of all Montmartre ateliers: "BATEAU LAVOIR" (first called La Maison du Trappeur) where so many famous artists used to live. Around the turn of the twentieth century about 20 painters had settled here
One of the first tenants was a certain Pablo Ruiz Blasco, better known under the name Picasso. He lived here through his “blue period”, met his first love Fernande, had his “pink” period. Then comes the period of the famous" Demoiselles d'Avignon", considered as the start of cubism but who were in fact no demoiselles and not from Avignon, but a representation of prostitutes he Barrio Chino in Barcelona. Picasso destroyed all forms, jostled the usual techniques at such a level that his own friends thought it was a practical joke.
Other prestigious tenants of the Bateau Lavoir: Mac-Orlan, Max Jacob, Van Dongen, Juan Gris, Modigliani, Juan Gris, Braque, Apollinaire. What a feasts and celebrations took place with all these artists! Orgies! The whole bohemia was gathered here and let their tempers loosened. Alcohol, drugs, the “Bateau Ivre” sailed to paradisiacal shores.
Unfortunately it burned down a few years ago. Today the rebuilt modern ateliers are without great charm but respect the primitive architecture. Today, if the glorious hours of the Bateau Lavoir are extinct, the myth continues and the rebuilt modern ateliers still house young artists sensible to the sounds of the past. The rue Garreau gives access to a vast gallery where young painters expose their first works. If you're one of the lucky to visit these premices, go inside the garden and the "inspiration muse" might awaken the artist that slumbers in all of us.

Bibliography

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--Guide du Routard, 199 (ed.Hachette)--Montmartre, balades et decouvertes, by Vincent de Langlade, (own folders 1998),--Montmartre dans l'histoire de Paris, by E.Botteau ( Presse Cité, 1993)—Le 18th arrondissment, by Renaud Lefevre (ed.Nelle’s)-Bateau Lavoir, la pepiniére de talents , by Benard Lebutort.