A MORNING IN PARIS
I shall never forget my first morning in Paris--the morning that I
woke up after about two hours’ sleep or less, prepared to put in a
hard day at sight-seeing because Barfleur had a program which must be
adhered to, and because he could only be with me until Monday, when
he had to return. It was a bright day, fortunately, a little hazy and
chill, but agreeable. I looked out of the window of my very comfortable
room on the fifth floor which gave out on a balcony overhanging the
Rue St. Honoré, and watched the crowd of French people below coming
to shop or to work. It would be hard to say what makes the difference
between a crowd of Englishmen and a crowd of Frenchmen, but there is a
difference. It struck me that these French men and women walked faster
and that their every movement was more spirited than either that of
the English or the Americans. They looked more like Americans, though,
than like the English; and they were much more cheerful than either,
chatting and talking as they came. I was interested to see whether I
could make the maid understand that I wanted coffee and rolls without
talking French, but the wants of American travelers are an old story
to French maids; and no sooner did I say _café_ and make the sign of
drinking from a cup than she said, “Oh, oui, oui, oui--oh, oui, oui,
oui!” and disappeared. Presently the coffee was brought me--and rolls
and butter and hot milk; and I ate my breakfast as I dressed.
About nine o’clock Barfleur arrived with his program. I was to walk in
the Tuileries--which is close at hand--while he got a shave. We were
to go for a walk in the Rue de Rivoli as far as a certain bootmaker’s,
who was to make me a pair of shoes for the Riviera. Then we were to
visit a haberdasher’s or two; and after that go straight about the
work of sight-seeing--visiting the old bookstalls on the Seine, the
churches of St. Étienne-du-Mont, Notre-Dame, Sainte-Chapelle, stopping
at Foyot’s for lunch; and thereafter regulating our conduct by the
wishes of several guests who were to appear--Miss N. and Mr. McG., two
neo-impressionist artists, and a certain Mme. de B., who would not mind
showing me around Paris if I cared for her company.
We started off quite briskly, and my first adventure in Paris led me
straight to the gardens of the Tuileries, lying west of the Louvre.
If any one wanted a proper introduction to Paris, I should recommend
this above all others. Such a noble piece of gardening as this is the
best testimony France has to offer of its taste, discrimination, and
sense of the magnificent. I should say, on mature thought, that we
shall never have anything like it in America. We have not the same
lightness of fancy. And, besides, the Tuileries represents a classic
period. I recall walking in here and being struck at once with the
magnificent proportions of it all--the breadth and stately lengths
of its walks, the utter wonder and charm of its statuary--snow-white
marble nudes standing out on the green grass and marking the circles,
squares and paths of its entire length. No such charm and beauty could
be attained in America because we would not permit the public use of
the nude in this fashion. Only the fancy of a monarch could create a
realm such as this; and the Tuileries and the Place du Carrousel and
the Place de la Concorde and the whole stretch of lovely tree-lined
walks and drives that lead to the Arc de Triomphe and give into the
Bois de Boulogne speak loudly of a noble fancy untrammeled by the
dictates of an inartistic public opinion. I was astonished to find how
much of the heart of Paris is devoted to public usage in this manner.
It corresponds, in theory at least, to the space devoted to Central
Park in New York--but this is so much more beautiful, or at least it
is so much more in accord with the spirit of Paris. These splendid
walks, devoted solely to the idling pedestrian, and set with a hundred
sculptural fancies in marble, show the gay, pleasure-loving character
of the life which created them. The grand monarchs of France knew what
beauty was, and they had the courage and the taste to fulfil their
desires. I got just an inkling of it all in the fifteen minutes that I
walked here in the morning sun, waiting for Barfleur to get his shave.
From here we went to a Paris florist’s where Madame pinned bright
_boutonnières_ on our coats, and thence to the bootmaker’s where Madame
again assisted her husband in the conduct of his business. Everywhere
I went in Paris I was struck by this charming unity in the conduct of
business between husband and wife and son and daughter. We talk much
about the economic independence of women in America. It seems to me
that the French have solved it in the only way that it can be solved.
Madame helps her husband in his business and they make a success of
it together. Monsieur Galoyer took the measurements for my shoes, but
Madame entered them in a book; and to me the shop was fifty times
as charming for her presence. She was pleasingly dressed, and the
shop looked as though it had experienced the tasteful touches of a
woman’s hand. It was clean and bright and smart, and smacked of good
housekeeping; and this was equally true of bookstalls, haberdashers’
shops, art-stores, coffee-rooms, and places of public sale generally.
Wherever Madame was, and she looked nice, there was a nice store; and
Monsieur looked as fat and contented as could reasonably be expected
under the circumstances.
[Illustration: The French have made much of the Seine]
From Galoyer’s we struck forth to Paris proper, its most interesting
features, and I recall now with delight how fresh and trig and spick it
all seemed. Paris has an air, a presence, from the poorest quarter of
the Charenton district to the perfections of the Bois and the region
about the Arc de Triomphe. It chanced that the day was bright and I saw
the Seine, as bright as new buttons glimmering over the stones of its
shallow banks and racing madly. If not a majestic stream it is at least
a gay and dashing one--quick-tempered, rapid-flowing, artistically
walled, crossed by a score of handsome bridges, and ornamented in every
possible way. How much the French have made of so little in the way
of a river! It is not very wide--about one-half as wide as the Thames
at Blackfriars Bridge and not so wide as the Harlem River which makes
Manhattan an island. I followed it from city wall to city wall one day,
from Charenton to Issy, and found every inch of it delightful. I was
never tired of looking at the wine barges near Charenton; the little
bathing pavilions and passenger boats in the vicinity of the Louvre;
the brick-barges, hay-barges, coal-barges and Heaven knows what else
plying between the city’s heart and points downstream past Issy. It
gave me the impression of being one of the brightest, cleanest rivers
in the world--a river on a holiday. I saw it once at Issy at what is
known in Paris as the “green hour”--which is five o’clock--when the
sun was going down and a deep palpable fragrance wafted from a vast
manufactory of perfume filled the air. Men were poling boats of hay and
laborers in their great wide-bottomed corduroy trousers, blue shirts
and inimitable French caps, were trudging homewards, and I felt as
though the world had nothing to offer Paris which it did not already
have--even the joy of simple labor amid great beauty. I could have
settled in a small house in Issy and worked as a laborer in a perfume
factory, carrying my dinner pail with me every morning, with a right
good-will--or such was the mood of the moment.
This morning, on our way to St.-Étienne-du-Mont and the cathedral, we
examined the bookstalls along the Seine and tried to recall off-hand
the interesting comment that had been made on them by great authors and
travelers. My poor wit brought back only the references of Balzac; but
Barfleur was livelier with thoughts from Rousseau to George Moore. They
have a magnificent literary history; but it is only because they are on
the banks of the Seine, in the center of this whirling pageant of life,
that they are so delighted. To enjoy them one has to be in an idle mood
and love out-of-doors; for they consist of a dusty row of four-legged
boxes with lids coming quite to your chest in height, and reminding one
of those high-legged counting-tables at which clerks sit on tall stools
making entries in their ledgers. These boxes are old and paintless and
weather-beaten; and at night the very dusty-looking keepers, who from
early morning until dark have had their shabby-backed wares spread out
where dust and sunlight and wind and rain can attack them, pack them in
the body of the box on which they are lying and close the lid. You can
always see an idler or two here--perhaps many idlers--between the Quai
d’Orsay and the Quai Voltaire.
We made our way through the Rue Mazarin and Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie
into that region which surrounds the École de Medecin and the
Luxembourg. In his enthusiastic way Barfleur tried to indicate to
me that I was in the most historic section of the left bank of the
Seine, where were St.-Étienne-du-Mont, the Panthéon, the Sorbonne,
the Luxembourg, the École des Beaux-Arts and the Latin Quarter. We
came for a little way into the Boulevard St.-Michel, and there I saw
my first artists in velvet suits, long hair, and broad-brimmed hats;
but I was told that they were poseurs--the kind of artist who is so by
profession, not by accomplishment. They were poetic-looking youths--the
two that I saw swinging along together--with pale faces and slim hands.
I was informed that the type had almost entirely disappeared and that
the art student of to-day prefers to be distinctly inconspicuous.
From what I saw of them later I can confirm this; for the schools
which I visited revealed a type of boy and girl who, while being
romantic enough, in all conscience, were nevertheless inconspicuously
dressed and very simple and off-hand in their manner. I visited this
region later with artists who had made a name for themselves in the
radical world, and with students who were hoping to make a name for
themselves--sitting in their cafés, examining their studios, and
sensing the atmosphere of their streets and public amusements. There is
an art atmosphere, strong and clear, compounded of romance, emotion,
desire, love of beauty and determination of purpose, which is thrilling
to experience--even vicariously.
Paris is as young in its mood as any city in the world. It is as wildly
enthusiastic as a child. I noticed here, this morning, the strange
fact of old battered-looking fellows singing to themselves, which I
never noticed anywhere else in this world. Age sits lightly on the
Parisian, I am sure; and youth is a mad fantasy, an exciting realm
of romantic dreams. The Parisian--from the keeper of a market-stall
to the prince of the money world, or of art--wants to live gaily,
briskly, laughingly, and he will not let the necessity of earning his
living deny him. I felt it in the churches, the depots, the department
stores, the theaters, the restaurants, the streets--a wild, keen desire
for life with the blood and the body to back it up. It must be in the
soil and the air, for Paris sings. It is like poison in the veins, and
I felt myself growing positively giddy with enthusiasm. I believe that
for the first six months Paris would be a disease from which one would
suffer greatly and recover slowly. After that you would settle down to
live the life you found there in contentment and with delight; but you
would not be in so much danger of wrecking your very mortal body and
your uncertainly immortal soul.
I was interested in this neighborhood, as we hurried through and away
from it to the Ile-de-la-Cité and Notre-Dame, as being not only a
center for art strugglers of the Latin Quarter, but also for students
of the Sorbonne. I was told that there were thousands upon thousands of
them from various countries--eight thousand from Russia alone. How they
live my informant did not seem to know, except that in the main they
lived very badly. Baths, clean linen, and three meals a day, according
to him, were not at all common; and in the majority of instances they
starve their way through, going back to their native countries to take
up the practice of law, medicine, politics and other professions. After
Oxford and the American universities, this region and the Sorbonne
itself, I found anything but attractive.
The church of St.-Étienne-du-Mont is as fine as possible, a type of
the kind of architecture which is no type and ought to have a new
name--modern would be as good as any. It has a creamish-gray effect,
exceedingly ornate, with all the artificery of a jewel box.
The Panthéon seemed strangely bare to me, large and spacious but cold.
The men who are not there as much as the men who are, made it seem
somewhat unrepresentative to me as a national mausoleum. It is hard to
make a national burying-ground that will appeal to all.
Notre-Dame after Canterbury and Amiens seems a little heavy but
as contrasted with St. Paul’s in London and anything existing in
America, it seemed strangely wonderful. I could not help thinking of
Hugo’s novel and of St. Louis and Napoleon and the French Revolution
in connection with it. It is so heavy and somber and so sadly
great. The Hôtel Dieu, the Palais de Justice, Sainte-Chapelle and
the Pont-Saint-Michel all in the same neighborhood interested me
much, particularly Sainte-Chapelle--to me one of the most charming
exteriors and interiors I saw in Paris. It is exquisite--this chapel
which was once the scene of the private prayers of a king. This whole
neighborhood somehow--from the bookstalls to Sainte-Chapelle suggested
Balzac and Hugo and the flavor of this world as they presented it, was
in my mind.
And now there was luncheon at Foyot’s, a little restaurant near the
Luxembourg and the Musée de Cluny, where the wise in the matter of
food love to dine and where, as usual, Barfleur was at his best. The
French, while discarding show in many instances entirely, and allowing
their restaurant chambers to look as though they had been put together
with an effort, nevertheless attain a perfection of atmosphere which
is astonishing. For the life of me I could not tell why this little
restaurant seemed so bright, for there was nothing smart about it when
you examined it in detail; and so I was compelled to attribute this
impression to the probably all-pervading temperament of the owner.
Always, in these cases, there is a man (or a woman) quite remarkable
for his point of view. Otherwise you could not take such simple
appointments and make them into anything so pleasing and so individual.
A luncheon which had been ordered by telephone was now served; and at
the beginning of its gastronomic wonders Mr. McG. and Miss N. arrived.
I shall not soon forget the interesting temperaments of these two; for
even more than great institutions, persons who come reasonably close
to you make up the atmosphere of a city. Mr. McG. was a solid, sandy,
steady-eyed Scotchman who looked as though, had he not been an artist,
he might have been a kilted soldier, swinging along with the enviable
Scotch stride. Miss N. was a delightfully Parisianized American,
without the slightest affectation, however, so far as I could make out,
of either speech or manner. She was pleasingly good-looking, with black
hair, a healthy, rounded face and figure, and a cheerful, good-natured
air. There was no sense of either that aggressiveness or superiority
which so often characterizes the female artist. We launched at once
upon a discussion of Paris, London and New York and upon the delights
of Paris and the progress of the neo-impressionist cult. I could see
plainly that these two did not care to force their connection with
that art development on my attention; but I was interested to know of
it. There was something so solid and self-reliant about Mr. McG. that
before the meal was over I had taken a fancy to him. He had the least
suggestion of a Scotch burr in his voice which might have said “awaw”
instead of away and “doon” instead of down; but it resulted in nothing
so broad as that. They immediately gave me lists of restaurants that
I must see in the Latin Quarter and asked me to come with them to the
Café d’Harcourt and to Bullier’s to dance and to some of the brasseries
to see what they were like. Between two and three Mr. McG. left because
of an errand, and Barfleur and I accompanied Miss N. to her studio
close by the gardens of the Luxembourg. This public garden which, not
unlike the Tuileries on the other side of the Seine, was set with
charming statues, embellished by a magnificent fountain, and alive
with French nursemaids and their charges, idling Parisians in cutaways
and derbies, and a smart world of pedestrians generally impressed me
greatly. It was lovely. The wonder of Paris, as I was discovering, was
that, walk where you would, it was hard to escape the sense of breadth,
space, art, history, romance and a lovely sense of lightness and
enthusiasm for life.
Miss N.’s studio is in the Rue Deñfert-Rochereau. In calling here I had
my first taste of the Paris concierge, the janitress who has an eye on
all those who come and go and to whom all not having keys must apply.
In many cases, as I learned, keys are not given to the outer gate or
door. One must ring and be admitted. This gives this person a complete
espionage over the affairs of all the tenants, mail, groceries, guests,
purchases, messages--anything and everything. If you have a charming
concierge, it is well and good; if not, not. The thought of anything so
offensive as a spying concierge irritated me greatly and I found myself
running forward in my mind picking fights with some possible concierge
who might at some remote date possibly trouble me. Of such is the
contentious disposition.
The studio of Mr. McG., in the Boulevard Raspail, overlooks a lovely
garden--a heavenly place set with trees and flowers and reminiscent
of an older day in the bits of broken stone-work lying about, and
suggesting the architecture of a bygone period. His windows, reaching
from floor to ceiling and supplemented by exterior balconies, were
overhung by trees. In both studios were scores of canvases done in the
neo-impressionistic style which interested me profoundly.
It is one thing to see neo-impressionism hung upon the walls of a
gallery in London, or disputed over in a West End residence. It is
quite another to come upon it fresh from the easel in the studio of
the artist, or still in process of production, defended by every
thought and principle of which the artist is capable. In Miss N.’s
studio were a series of decorative canvases intended for the walls of
a great department store in America which were done in the raw reds,
yellows, blues and greens of the neo-impressionist cult--flowers which
stood out with the coarse distinctness of hollyhocks and sunflowers;
architectural outlines which were as sharp as those of rough buildings,
and men and women whose details of dress and feature were characterized
by colors which by the uncultivated eye would be pronounced unnatural.
For me they had an immense appeal if for nothing more than that they
represented a development and an individual point of view. It is so
hard to break tradition.
It was the same in the studio of Mr. McG. to which we journeyed after
some three-quarters of an hour. Of the two painters, the man seemed to
me the more forceful. Miss N. worked in a softer mood, with more of
what might be called an emotional attitude towards life.
During all this, Barfleur was in the heyday of his Parisian glory, and
appropriately cheerful. We took a taxi through singing streets lighted
by a springtime sun and came finally to the Restaurant Prunier where it
was necessary for him to secure a table and order dinner in advance;
and thence to the Théâtre des Capucines in the Rue des Capucines, where
tickets for a farce had to be secured, and thence to a bar near the
Avenue de l’Opéra where we were to meet the previously mentioned Mme.
de B. who, out of the goodness of her heart, was to help entertain me
while I was in the city.
This remarkable woman who by her beauty, simplicity, utter frankness,
and moody immorality would shock the average woman into a deadly fear
of life and make a horror of what seems a gaudy pleasure world to
some, quite instantly took my fancy. Yet I think it was more a matter
of Mme. de B.’s attitude, than it was the things which she did, which
made it so terrible. But that is a long story.
[Illustration: One of the thousands upon thousands of cafés on the
boulevards of Paris]
We came to her out of the whirl of the “green hour,” when the Paris
boulevards in this vicinity were fairly swarming with people--the
gayest world I have ever seen. We have enormous crowds in New York,
but they seem to be going somewhere very much more definitely than
in Paris. With us there is an eager, strident, almost objectionable
effort to get home or to the theater or to the restaurant which one can
easily resent--it is so inconsiderate and indifferent. In London you
do not feel that there are any crowds that are going to the theaters
or the restaurants; and if they are, they are not very cheerful about
it; they are enduring life; they have none of the lightness of the
Parisian world. I think it is all explained by the fact that Parisians
feel keenly that they are living now and that they wish to enjoy
themselves as they go. The American and the Englishman--the Englishman
much more than the American--have decided that they are going to live
in the future. Only the American is a little angry about his decision
and the Englishman a little meek or patient. They both feel that life
is intensely grim. But the Parisian, while he may feel or believe it,
decides wilfully to cast it off. He lives by the way, out of books,
restaurants, theaters, boulevards, and the spectacle of life generally.
The Parisians move briskly, and they come out where they can see each
other--out into the great wide-sidewalked boulevards and the thousands
upon thousands of cafés; and make themselves comfortable and talkative
and gay on the streets. It is so obvious that everybody is having
a good time--not trying to have it; that they are enjoying the
wine-like air, the cordials and _apéritifs_ of the _brasseries_, the
net-like movements of the cabs, the dancing lights of the roadways, and
the flare of the shops. It may be chill or drizzling in Paris, but you
scarcely feel it. Rain can scarcely drive the people off the streets.
Literally it does not. There are crowds whether it rains or not, and
they are not despondent. This particular hour that brought us to G.’s
Bar was essentially thrilling, and I was interested to see what Mme. de
B. was like.