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)

Montmartre Vineyards
Cabaret Lapin Agile

Cemetery Saint Vincent, The Paris Commune  history(7)

Cemetery Calvaire-Saint Pierre de Montmartre - 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-Montmartre Vineyards-Cabaret du Lapin Agile

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Erik Satie

At 6, rue Cortot, the room of Erik Satie, composer of the Gymnopedies, is to visit but only on rendezvous. Tel 0142781518. At the end of rue Cortot, take immediately right and eneter the rue SAINTE RUSTIQUE, first to the right.
This authentic oldest street in Montmartre, without sidewalks, large, heavy pavement stones, axial gutter, lined with dainty, sweet, provincial houses is very picturesque and its main attraction is the café-restaurant “A la Bonne Franquette”, once a meeting place for artists like Cezanne, Monet, Picasso, Renoir, Sisley, Toulouse-Lautrec and....Van Gogh who painted the interior courtyard. Today, unfortunately, the only thing you see are hoards of tourists stepping out of their buses and following the guide like sheep in a herd. What can we do about it? Sigh….
Go down the hill along the RUE DES SAULES (saule=willow), don't be angry, they're all gone (the willows), but glide softly towards a little pink point, soon transforming into a neat country tavern: the “Lapin Agile”. But that’s for later. Let’s first talk about the pride of the local inhabitants: the “Vigne du Clos Montmartre”. One of the most charming places of Montmartre. The last VINEYARDS of the Butte tumble down on the hill.  Yes, they used to grow a lot of vineyards on the butte and the wine was famous. During a long they covered the hill completely and produced a wine called " picolo" (gave the word "picoler", hit the bottle in French). It's a Gamay vine plant but today it is moreless symbolic and the first pick is done every year the first Saturday in October. Great celebrations, feast: it is the “fete des Vendanges de Montmartre”. The harvest will be about 500 bottles “Vin du Clos” you can buy at auction for the benefit of the elderly of Montmartre. Very high prices at the town hall of the 18th arrondissement.
Just in front of the vineyard stands the "CABARET DU LAPIN AGILE” at the intersection of the rue Saint-Vincent and des Saules. The pink house with its green windows is one of the greatest attractions of Montmartre. Created in 1860 under the name “Cabaret des Assassins”, a cabaret for hashish users it stayed like that until 1880 when Andre Gill turned it into a restaurant and named it “Le Lapin a Gill” or “later “Le Lapin Agile”, because he decorated the façade with one of his paintings where you see a rabbit jumping out of a frying pan.  It was soon known as a restaurant-concert, inaugurating the style" a la bonne franquette" (simply, without fuss).

Alphonse Allais, Verlaine, Clemenceau, Renoir, Courteline, had their napkin ring here and the cabaret became the most famous rendez-vous place of the Montmartre bohemia and the best client was undoubtedly Amedeo Modigliani. Freshly arrived from his native Tuscany, he lived barley in a miserable barrack up in the rue Lepic. He will desert the butte for Montparnasse in 1912, will sculpt and paint there fro 8 years without any success. Justice will be done to his work only after his death. Some posthumous comfort….The Lapin became the accomplice of practical joke perpetrated by a group of joy full artists with Roland Dorgeles as the main conspirator. They tied a brush to a donkeys tail, drenched it blindly in different colour pots and had him paint on a virgin canvas. Calling the “masterpiece” " Coucher de soleil sur l'Adriatique" they presented it at the "Salon des Independants" as an example of the " excessivist" style! The critics had nothing to critic. When the imposture was revealed, what a scandal in the snobbish community and rolling on the floor laughing in the artist community.
Today the “Lapin Agile” is the best cabaret of “Montmartre”. The interior didn’t change over the years and the walls are full of paintings by Fernand Leger and Andre Gill with drawings and sketches from Bruand. The cabaret is sold out every night! A lot of chansonniers made their debut here like Georges Brassens and Claude Nougaro. The evening performance “La Veillée” starts at 21.00 hours. Closed on Monday.
Next article: cemetery of Saint-Vincent, rue du Mont-Cenis and the rue du Chevalier de la Barre. 

Bibliography

-- Le Lapin Agile, un destin extraordinaire , by Ph. Lebonnaire (ed. Montmartre Presse 1995)--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)