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PARIS DREAMS, PARIS MEMORIES

Stanford University Press

Contents

List of illustrations.............................................................................................................................xiAcknowledgments...................................................................................................................................xiiiIntroduction......................................................................................................................................11. Paris—Praised, Modernized, Remembered, Staged, and Loved: Nineteenth-Century Foundations.................................................62. The Memory of a Certain Belle Époque (1914–circa 1960): Or How the Turn-of-the-Century Lived on Beyond Its Time.....................443. Postwar Modernizing and the Resistance of Memory (1945–circa 1980).......................................................................824. New Varieties of a "Nouveau Paris" (1974–...)............................................................................................1195. Paris in Comparison............................................................................................................................1586. Contemporary Paris—Images, Spirit, Soul, and Sites.......................................................................................186Conclusion: To Know Paris.........................................................................................................................222Appendix 1. Unusual and Unexpected Paris—A Sampler..........................................................................................229Appendix 2. Landmark Paris Imagery................................................................................................................230Appendix 3. Modern Paris Timeline.................................................................................................................232Notes.............................................................................................................................................235Selected Bibliography.............................................................................................................................269Index.............................................................................................................................................273

Chapter One

Nineteenth-Century Foundations

PRAISED TO THE SKIES

Visitors to France first hailed Paris as a paradise back in the Middle Ages, when somewhere out of this world was the best place anyone could imagine. French and foreign writers alike made that flattering comparison, sometimes citing the similarity of the words Parisius and paradisus as etymological proof. But paradise could mean many things. When an English bishop called Paris "the paradise of the world" in the fourteenth century, he—a bibliophile—had in mind especially the city's twenty-eight bookstores. other admirers invoked exalted earthly imagery: Paris as a majestic woman—"the queen" of cities and "mother" of cities—high tributes indeed, but none could match the dream potential of the celestial imagery. With its splendid churches, eminent scholars and university, beautiful houses of nobles and prelates, fine arts and crafts, and the abundance of food and wine in its many taverns, late-medieval Paris was—according to travelers and proud locals—"magnificent," "peerless," and a "place of delights." in short, an earthly paradise.

It enjoyed that sky-high reputation as early as the twelfth century. Some clerics were so impressed with Paris's bounty of riches and pleasures that they denounced it as a fatal snare, best avoided: "Flee [this] Babylon, flee and save your souls," urged saint Bernard in the mid-twelfth century. A German visitor in the following century, enjoying the delights of the place, fell back on the heaven-on-earth line, but scaled it down significantly: the city was a paradise for the rich, he wrote, ... And a dreadful swamp for the poor. That qualifier, however, did not take hold in the emerging tradition of Paris description, a tradition shaped early on by enthusiasms fixed in the loftiest of metaphors.

The accolades as well as the reproaches have echoed down through the centuries, only the palette of words and imagery changing from time to time. In the early nineteenth century, the French authors of Paris pittoresque hailed the city not as heaven but as the "capital of the civilized world" and "the marvel of the world." "Everything ever conceived in thought or dreamed to be beautiful, pleasing, and gigantic.... All that is Paris."

The praise from foreigners swelled to a resounding high in the now-celebrated period around the turn of the twentieth century. Guidebooks then were instrumental in framing individual experiences with a collective memory, one that had taken shape centuries earlier in the writings of awestruck travelers and learned Parisians. Designed to interest visitors seeking the best of Paris, the guides told readers what to see and how to put it all into words and memory.

Addressing tourists from the english-speaking world, Conty's Pocket Guide to Paris (1898) declared it "a model city," "a wonderful city, "and "the gayest city in the world." There "business and pleasure are harmoniously combined." Visitors could be sure to find a "reception" that "fully justifies the prodigious vogue which this wonderful city enjoys throughout the entire world." The english guide Cassell's (1900) began by describing Paris as "the beautiful city ..., which for ages has been recognized as the chief capital of europe." Bouquets of superlatives appeared year after year. "The most attractive treasury of art and industry in the world," "the most cosmopolitan city in europe," "indisputably the cradle of high culinary art"—these were not the boasts of a proud Parisian, but the remarks of the sober German-based Baedeker, passing along conventional judgments as matters of fact. The "charms of the seductive capital" are so great, Baedeker assured its readers, that "no one quits [it] without regret." among those charms was a beauty that "French writers of all ages" and "many foreigners" have celebrated.

None of the guides mentioned the city's big rats, large enough to eat cats. Nor did they quote the French writers of the time who described Paris as a "sewer" and a "hell," rife with poverty and alcoholism. The guides also ignored tuberculosis-ridden slums and the new "ugliness" cropping up after the turn of the century—tall buildings spoiling historic perspectives, brazen displays of pornography, and the noisy, dangerously fast automobiles, "autobuses," and trucks that destroyed "the charm of strolling," as a French journalist lamented in 1907. Strolling the Grands Boulevards meant running an obstacle course of smelly urinals that were like a "jumble of cesspools," wrote a former city council member in 1907. Crossing the boulevards on foot required maneuvering through heaps of horse manure, discarded papers, and rotting meat, fish, cheeses, and vegetables thrown out by street vendors. Another lost...