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Leaving Zadkine museum, get to the Boulevard
Montparnasse, quite near and have a stop at the famous brasserie “LA CLOSERIE
DES LILAS” at no.171. It has the pretension of serving the best “Steack
Tartare” of Paris, which seems a to me greatly exaggerated. But this is the
place to be SEEN. Reporters, actors and debuting writers. So trendy and all this
because of a glorious past. Don’t forget in which illustrious footsteps you
walk when you get in!!
It started with Verlaine in the 19th century.
The Closerie was not more than a common tavern where they could dance in the
garden during the summer. Some day, the owner, still seeing his tavern being
empty except a couple of quite and silent gentlemen playing chess, said,
”C’est encore le vide!”. What he didn’t know that these two men were
Trotsky and Lenine…. In the twenties the brasserie became the meeting place of
the surrealists, which degenerated regularly into fierce battles, (real ones
with boxing, foot kicking, face slapping and injuries!). Some anecdotes are
written in the memoires of movie director Luis Bunuel, also a regular customer.
One of the great controversies was if you could marry a German woman so soon
after the war.
When the brasseries “Le Dome “ and “La Coupole”
started their activities, the atmosphere became quiet in the Closerie. Ernest
Hemingway appreciated that calm and came often to write his novels. He lived
right around the corner, no.112 rue Notre-Dame -des-Champs. Ezra Pound lived at
no 70 bis.
Theatre writer Alfred Jarry shot once an mirror into thousand pieces and uttered
then the historical sentence” Maintenant que la glace est rompue, causons!”
(now the the ice is broken, let’s talk!) --glace can mean mirror or ice in
French--
A copper plate with the name of the celebrities is pinned
on the seats where it is supposed they sit. After this anecdotal interlude
let’s proceed to the rue du Cherche-Midi.
The name is probably issued from a deformation of "chasse-midi"
- an old street name, or a clock painted on a signboard , people coming to
"chercher midi a quatorze heures", that means to lunch after hours.
Starting at the carrefour de la Croix-Rouge at the corner of rue
du Four-rue de Grenelle , the street lost unfortunately most of his antique
shops to be replaced by shoe -shops . Notice two sun dials, at no.19 and
56.
The street has a sinuous tracé and is lined with new
trendy boutiques, antique shops and restaurants of which the famous
“Nemrod”, where Earl goes often to dinner. But look at the houses, elegant
hotels particuliers with private courtyards. Nice facades like the ones at
nos.18, 19 and the splendid hotel of 1710 of Rochambeau at no.40, victor of the
battle of Yorktown. (American Independence War). He lived there in 1779 (nice
door and staircase) At no.44 l’Abbe Gregoire, emancipator of the Jews and
Blacks during the Revolution died in 183. At
the corner of the rue de 'l'Abbe Gregoire is the hotel Laennec ( inventor of the
stethoscope!!). At no.85, a charming small museum in the chic Petit
hotel de Montmorency-Bours, the musee HEBERT, a French painter (1817-1908)
considered as an expert in Italian landscape paintings. At no.89, the Grand
hotel de Montmorency (1756), famous for being the residence of Madame Sans-Gene,
a mistress of Napoleon.
Bibliography:
Vie et histoire des arrondissements de Paris, ed.Hervas, 1985-1988, 20
volumes- Le piéton
de Paris, by L.P. Fargue, ed.Gallimard 1997—Rive Gauche, une expérience
unique, by Cl.Evrard, ed.Albin 1991--- Guide du Routard Paris 1998-99 -Dictionnaire historique des rues de Paris, by
J.Hillairet,
ed.Minuit 1985, Musées insolites, Jean Hermann ed.Lemaitre1995
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