THE SPELL OF JUNE
My critic points out that after having been so enthusiastic about walks
at nightfall and having put myself on record as to the exceptional
advantages of seeing Paris in the dark on winter afternoons, rain or
shine, I shall be inconsistent in extolling daylight Paris. Why the
spell of June, when your walks are wholly in daylight? If it were
inconsistency, being a woman I should be within my rights to ask the
critic what he expected. But is it inconsistent? I think not. If I love
to go out in the rain, if I enjoy city streets at night time, it does
not follow that I do not enjoy good weather and the long days of June.
It is another aspect of Paris that we get in our walks. We have time to
go on longer excursions. We "do" the river and open spaces more than old
quarters. And, best of all, in the two Junes of our early married life,
we took the baby with us on our strolls. I felt the spell of June when
we returned to Paris from Turkey in 1909. I felt it more when we were
going back to Turkey in 1910. And ever since, the Paris June has had a
charm all its own, deepening with the years. However I may like autumn
and winter and spring, June is the best month. The spell is partly due
to the knowledge that one is soon going off to the shore or mountains
for the summer, and partly to the thought that it might be the last
June. Each year we have felt that we ought to return to America in the
autumn.
In the Rue Servandoni year, April and May were cold, wet months. Spring
fever did not get us until June. Then we decided that all the wisdom and
profit of our Paris year was not to be found in the Bibliothèque
Nationale. We began to divorce ourselves from daily study by the excuse
that we ought to get together a small library on Turkish history. Where
could the books be bought more advantageously than on the _quais_? From
the Pont des Saints-Pères to beyond Notre-Dame the parapets of the Rive
Gauche are used by second-hand booksellers for the display of their
wares. The _bouquinistes_ clamp wooden cases on the stone parapets. You
can go for more than a mile with the certainty of finding something
interesting at an astonishingly low price. There is no more delightful
form of loafing in the open air. The books are an excuse. They become a
habit. In order to prevent the habit from growing costly, you must make
out a budget. Some days you are only "finding out what is there"; other
days, before leaving home, you divest yourself of all the money in your
pocketbooks and wallet except what you feel you can afford to spend.
Then only are you safe! I do not know of a more insidious temptation to
buy what you do not need than loitering along the _quais_ of the Rive
Gauche. In a few days we spent all we could afford for Turkish history.
But the afternoon walk started earlier and ended later. We never tired
of the _quais_ and the river. We watched fishermen and the barges. We
were amused by the men who bathe and clip dogs. We explored the streets
between the Seine and the Boulevard Saint-Germain. We stood on the Pont
des Arts and watched the people coming home from work. We went often
into Notre-Dame. We glued our noses to the window-glass of the art print
shops around the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. We selected furniture (from the
side-walk!) displayed in the numerous antique shops of the Rue des
Saints-Pères, the Rue Bonaparte and the Rue de Seine. We always came
back at sunset, with the westward glow before us. That was when our
oldest daughter got the taste of going to bed late.
The narrowest street in Paris is the Rue de Venise, which runs from the
Rue Beaubourg across the Rue Saint-Martin to the Rue Quicampoix. But
neither in itself nor in its location is it as picturesque as the Rue de
Nevers, luring you from the Pont Neuf as you cross to the Rive Gauche.
Nowhere else in Paris is one so completely held by the past as in the
Rue de Nevers. Here stood the Tour de Nesle. The Mint now comes up to
one side of this street for a few hundred feet, but elsewhere it is on
both sides as it was in the time of Henri IV. Massive doorways, with
bars of iron and peep-holes covered with grating, tell the story of a
time when one relied upon himself for protection. No _agents_ in the
Paris of the fifteenth century! Going down to the river from the Rue
Servandoni, we always took the Rue de Nevers. In it Scrappie's carriage
seemed like a full-grown vehicle. There was always the nervous fear that
something would be thrown out on us from upper windows, not unjustified,
as more than one narrow escape proved. We used to say that when the baby
was grown up, we should enjoy taking her on one of the promenades of her
infancy, and especially through the Rue de Nevers. We have shown
Christine the street, and hope that she will remember it. But she will
never show it to her children. Some sanitary engineer, successor of
Baron Haussmann, has conceived a project of widening the Rue Dauphine.
The Rue de Nevers will soon disappear. Our only hope is that the war
will have delayed a long time the fulfillment of projects that mean the
disappearance of what remains of mediaeval Paris.
[Illustration: Market day in the Rue de Seine]
The Parisian who goes to New York marvels at our skyscrapers. He is
properly impressed with the hustle and bustle of the New World. But it
does not take him long to note the absence of wide boulevards and the
lack of _ensemble_ in the cityscape. Then he will invariably make two
comments: "There are no trees," and "There is no place to sit down."
Except the Eiffel Tower, Paris does not boast of a "biggest in the
world." It will take Americans centuries to acquire a sense of harmony
and proportion in city building. But shall we ever learn to bring the
out-of-doors into city life? Until we do learn the big American city
will be intolerable in the summer months. Paris, built on ancient
foundations, has increased to a city of millions, and one still feels
that an outing does not mean going to the country. Boulevards and
_quais_ are lined with trees. Every open spot has grass and flowers.
Best of all, when you want to sit down to read your paper or look at the
crowd, there is always a bench. You do not have to go home or indoors to
rest, and wherever you live, a park or boulevard is near at hand.
Parisians are as closely huddled together as New Yorkers. But they can
spend all their leisure time in the open. The privilege of sitting down
on a bench is a blessing. All the year round you can eat or drink out of
doors. I have often marveled at the criticism that the French dislike
open air, simply because they, like other Europeans, do not keep their
windows open at night. The Parisian lives far more in the open air than
the American does. To be out of doors day and night is a natural
instinct from the cradle to the grave. Trees and benches are a large
part of the spell of June in Paris.
Then there were the omnibuses with their _impériales_. When we did not
have the price of a cab, we could get on top of the Montsouris-Opéra or
Odéon-Clichy bus, and go for a few sous from south to north across the
river through the heart of Paris. We climbed to the _impériale_ of the
tram at Saint-Sulpice and rode to Auteuil, on the horse-drawn omnibus
from the Madeleine to the Bastille, from the Place Saint-Michel to the
Gare Saint-Lazare, from the Gare Montparnasse to La Villette, from the
Bourse to Passy, from the Panthéon to Courcelles. Alas! horses and
_impériales_ disappeared before the war. The last omnibus with three
horses abreast was the Panthéon-Courcelles line. It was replaced by
closed motor-bus in 1913. Each year, when June comes round, I long for
these rides. Horses, I suppose, are gone forever. But we still hope for
the revival of an upper story on our motor-buses. There never was--or
will be--a better way of having Paris vistas become a part of your very
being.
_Foire_ means fair. But the term is used for a much more intimate and
vital sort of a fair than we have. The French have big formal fairs in
buildings and grounds, where a little fun is mixed in with a lot of
business. But they have also small street fairs, solely for amusement,
and selling street fairs, where amusements have their full share. The
Paris _foires_ are a distinct institution. There is a regular schedule
for them, as for Brittany _pardons_. From the end of March to the
beginning of November you can always find a _foire_ in the city or the
suburbs. They are held out of doors, generally in the center of a
boulevard. Some of them are important institutions. In the business
_foires_ you range from scrap-iron, old clothes and nicked china and
disreputable furniture at the Porte Saint-Ouen and on the Boulevard
Richard Lenoir to the costliest Paris has to offer on the Esplanade des
Invalides and building materials and engines in the Tuileries. The
purely amusement _foires_ on the Quai d'Orsay, the Boulevard de Clichy,
and at Saint-Cloud stretch for blocks and are attended by all Paris. To
go to them is the thing to do.
But each quarter has its _foire_, underwritten by the shop-keepers and
café proprietors of the neighborhood. They are never widely heralded,
you stumble upon them by chance. And if you want to see real Paris the
little _foires_ give you the closest glimpse it is possible to get of
Paris at play. At the _foires de quartier_ there are no onlookers.
Everybody is taking part. If you do not feel the impulse to get on the
merry-go-round, the dipping boats, the scenic-railway; if you are averse
to having your fortune told; if you feel doubtful of your ability to
throw a wooden ring around the neck of a bottle of champagne; if you are
indifferent to the mysteries of the two-headed calf and the dancing
cobra; if your stomach does not digest _pain d'épice_ and candy made of
coal-tar; if you think your baby ought not to have a rubber-doll or a
woolly lamb or a jumping rabbit made of cat's fur--for heaven's sake
stay away from the _foires_!
Most of the neighborhood _foires_ are held in June. Whatever direction
you take for your evening walk, your ears will give you a goal towards
which to work. The merry-go-rounds have the same class of music as in
America, and the tricks of the barkers--their figures of speech
even--are the same. But the difference between our amusement parks and
the Paris _foires_ is the spontaneous atmosphere of the _foires_, their
setting improvised in the midst of the city, and the amazing childlike
quality of the fun. Seven or seventy, you enjoy the wooden horses just
as much. And there is no dignity to lose. You do not care a bit if your
cook sees you wildly pushing a fake bicycle or standing engrossed in the
front row of the crowd watching a juggler.
The glorious days of June, when we put work deliberately out of our
scheme of things, furnish opportunities for excursions of a different
character than those of Sunday. At the risk of being ridiculed again by
my critic, who has read my praise of _repos hebdomadaire_, I must
confess that Sunday has its drawbacks. The whole city is out on Sunday,
and every place is crowded. Your good time is somewhat marred all day
long by the anticipation of the crowded trains and trams, for a place in
which you wait with much less equanimity than when you left home in the
morning. On week days there are no waits and plenty of room. I can
entice my husband from his work--if it is June!
It is surprising how far afield it is possible to go at little drain on
your strength and pocket-book on a June week-day. We wanted just the
country sometimes. Then it was the valley of Chevreuse,
Villers-Cotteret, luncheon in a tree at Robinson, or the Marne between
Meaux and Château-Thierry. On a very bright day one could choose the
shade of Compiègne, Chantilly, Rambouillet, Versailles, Marly,
Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Cloud, Fountainebleau, forests and parks
incomparable. Cathedral-hungry or in a mood for the past, Amiens,
Beauvais, Evreux, Dreux, Orléans, Mantes, Chartres, Sens, Troyes,
Rheims, Laon, Soissons, Noyon, and Senlis are from one to three hours by
train. A good luncheon at little cost is always easily found. And after
lunch you have no difficulty in getting a _cocher_ to take you to the
ruins of a castle or abbey for a few francs.
Inexhaustible as is the _banlieue_ of Paris you are always glad to get
back. From whatever direction you return, the first you see of the great
city is the Eiffel Tower. It beckons you back to the spell of June--in
Paris.
1913