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Montmartre! Only by evoking
the name, the image of the Sacre Coeur and the place du Tertre comes into our
mind. What a pity to reduce these two spots to the whole butte. It has so many
others!
Montmartre is before all still a village today, with its traditions and
yesterday’s legends, still very lively. At the grape gatherings, there are
dances, songs and a lot of drinking. To adventure off beaten path in Montmartre
it's wanting to discover havens of peace, at the cite des Fusains or the villa
Leandre, so” off French”, so British! I invite you eherby to leave the noise
and tumults of the huge crowds and make an off beaten path walk, push the doors
of space and old times where you will meet Saint Denis without his head and
Dalida, the popular charm singer. Pocket hamlet, perched high up in the most
beautiful capital of Europe, one may think he knows the place and that he toured
it all. We all smile in advance (and we are wrong!) in front of his soft slopes,
falsely inviting…nevertheless the butte was never so clandestine as today.
Montmartre has to be tamed! It’s you, the “promeneur; loitered or walker,
whatever you choose as name, to be the judge.
It is evident is that if you wander many times just randomly around, having
faith in your intuition, your own sensibility will find little spots you like.
Nevertheless, here is a little sympathetic itinerary. The game is to make the
tour of Montmartre trying to avoid the maximum of cars and tourists, without
passing again the Place du Tertre!
We start at place Blanche
coming out of metro Anvers. It’s hard to miss MOULIN ROUGE with its big sails
but before starting to have a look it let’s have a little bit of history. Not
too long, don’t worry ;-)
The great epoch of the Butte is around 1880-1890. A frantic life stirred
Montmartre. New dances, as unchained huge crowds in deafening uproar public
house dances appeared.
Remember the film “French Cancan” by Jean Renoir, a salvo of emotion, funny
situations and magnificence, filmed for the anniversary of the creation of the
Moulin Rouge. Created end of the 19th it was surpassed soon the
reputation of the Moulin de la Galette.  The Moulin Rouge, known over the whole
world by the magnificent and famous posters by Toulouse Lautrec was the home of
the famous “chahut” named later “French Cancan” (1920). Legs of the girl
dancers emerged out of a forest of lace and white petticoats. Whenever even an
ankle appeared, half the cabaret nearly had an apoplexy. But THE great scandal
at the Moulin-Rouge happened in 1896 during a "Bal des Quatre Arts"
organized by students. A strip-tease contest with the prettiest models of the
ateliers was organized and a big applause welcomed the first ever "
integral nude" shown on a Parisian stage.
But this was not everybody’s opinion, like senator Beranger, president of the
" Ligue contre la licence des rues" (confederacy against the
licentiousness on the street), yes I’m not making it up;-) who filed a
complaint and the organizers with the winning model was sentenced to 3 months in
jail. This was enough for the students to raise barricades in the purest
tradition of the 19th century uprisings. Riots broke out, total
panic! Even the stained-glass windows of the church Saint-Germain became the
victim of this mini war, it is even said that two students died after a police
charge. Celebrations of the 14th of July and the closing of the Grandes Ecoles
calmed everything down, but Paris will certainly stay the only city in the world
where people died for "artistic nudity"!!!!
We are standing on the boulevard de Clichy and let’s walk to no.94 where the
entrance of the CITE VERON is located. Dead-end alley of about a hundred meters,
it keeps its old fashioned charm Boris Vian and Jacques Prevert lived here.
Returning to the boulevard try to have a glimpse or if you could sneak inside
the wrought iron gate it would be even better, at no.58-60 the VILLA DES
PLATANES. This gate hides an opulent building, flanked by a double staircase
guarded by two statues. A genuine colonial décor remind “Gone with the
wind!”
Return now to the place Blanche. You will probably meet numerous touring cars and
endless lining of sex shops, topless joints, sexodromes, lingerie follies,
" studios with all comfort at end of the alley" and tourist
traps with their porno pictures. Small criminality never raised high levels
here, but beware of some funny looking dark figures around the place Pigalle.
The real great criminals retired a long time ago from this neighbourhood.
But let’s leave this spot of decadence (?) and start the real agreeable part
of the walk. Up to Montmartre beginning with rue Lepic.
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 --Guide du routard 1999,
(ed.Hachette), 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), --Montmartre dans l'histoire de Paris, by E.Botteau ( Presse Cité, 1993)
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