Paris main visit page 2

Introduction to the quartier chic

Musee Clemenceau
Musee du Vin
Musee Balzac

Passy, Auteuil, Guimard,Castel Beranger

An architecural walk out of this time

Sewer museum Modern Art museum Musee  Homme Musee de la Marine

Musee du Cinema-Musee Marmottan

Musee Guimet
(new)

Musee Dapper

Bois de Boulogne part 1

Bois de Boulogne part 2

La Defense

Paris-16th arr-Musee Clemenceau-Musee du Vin-House of Balzac 

Like I said in previous article, the west of Paris was only annexed to the city in 1860. Idyllic villages like Neuilly, Monceau, Batignolles and Clichy were amid green pastures. You cold find cheese makers, farms and vegetable gardens with here and there an inhabited house. But as soon as the financiers smelled the money they bought the land, and kicked entire housing areas out of the ground, all built in Haussman style. Today these areas are very trendy with the French and foreign companies having a preference for the 16th, 8th and 17th arrondissement.
Let’s start our walk at the CEMETERY OF PASSY (see previous article). It's the only cemetery in Paris with a heated waiting room. A small graveyard, sheltered by a bower of chestnut trees, classic, old-world cemetery with beautiful grounds but it contains many grave sites, monuments and the final resting places of:  the painter Edouard  Manet (1832-1883), firmly established as the leader of the Impressionists, mainly because of his rejection of convention. His paintings featured bold, flat areas keyed to bright colors, offset by solid areas of black, painted without modelling or chiaroscuro. Also great figures since 1850, including Tristan Bernard, Giraudoux, Claude Debussy. Also resting here are composer Gabriel Fauré, aviator Henry Farman, and actor Fernandel. 
Via the rue Benjamin Franklin you reach the musee GEORGES CLEMENCEAU , housed in the originally kept edifice of this man of thousand skills, nicknamed ‘the tiger”. Clemenceau died in this house. You can see his personal pictures, furnishing and personal objects in the rooms.
When you stroll through this beautiful area it is difficult to imagine that about 1900 it was packed with wineries. Passy was a simple village with wine and cattle-peasants. The rural atmosphere is still perceptible in the small rue Vineuse. The village became rich when a well was discovered in the 18th century holding iron in it.
The mineral water became more important than the wine but in the picturesque passage rue des Eaux (Water street: is it a coincidence??) there is a little WINE MUSEUM that reminds the old days. 
It's in fact only  200 meters from the Eiffel Tower,  beautiful and impeccably conserved 14th century wine cellars of the former Passy Abbey. The abbey’s former occupants, the Minim monks, who were known as the Bonshommes de Passy, had a few acres just behind the abbey near rue Vineuse . They kept their renowned wine, enjoyed by Louis XIII in the 17th century, in the cellars that presently house the museum. Passy Abbey was "closed for business" during the French Revolution, in 1789. The rich collections of this museum are displayed in some of Paris' oldest limestone quarries. All the stages of the winemaking art from an earlier time (growing the vines, harvest time, coopering the wooden barrels, maturing the wine....They show you also how to get rid of irritating wine stains :-):-)
Closed on Monday and week from Christmas to New Year. Tourists are the targets here but you can try it. 35FF for visit and DEGUSTATION.  
A nice walk in Passy could start with the "MAISON BALZAC".
Continue on the rue Raynouard and on 47 here is the house of one of the world’s most genial writers Honore de BALZAC. If you know something about European and French literature, you must know about him. His house is to visit but closed on Mondays and holidays. What a character that Balzac! All his life he hid from his creditors! He lived in this house from1840. He barricaded himself on the second floor of his house and lived incognito until 1847, writing at his small wooden desk his famous “Comedie Humaine” (the Human Comedy) and also “Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes”. His debts and love for writing made him work 16 hours a day and he appreciated particularly the second exit at rue Berton to escape when his creditors found out where he lived. The walls still have their paintings and drawings. You can see his golden watch, his coffee can,  (he could drink 30 cups a day!) and his walking stick. The knob is from pure gold and turquoise. In 1835 he wrote to one of his friends, Mme. Hanska: “Because of my walking stick they think I’m the new Cresus, but all I have are debts!” Now that the house  became a museum, it is still impregnated of the spirit of the illustrious author. And precisely the house he hated was made the Balzac museum of the city!
You can get out of the house like I said from the back into the rue Berton. But that’s for next article….

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 199 --Dictionnaire historique des rues de Paris, by J.Hillairet, ed.Minuit --Guide du Routard 1998-1999 (Ed.Hachette)--Paris, 2000 d'histoire, by J.Favier, ed.Fayard 1997—Paris en quartiers : le Nord, by J.Lacouterie (ed.Hervas 185)—Le 16eme, Passy, Auteuil et ses anecdotes, by B.Beyern (own folders)-Une vie de fuite, Balzac, by P.Bradstein (ed. Minuit 1991)