THE PROBLEM OF HOUSING
When you are in Paris without children you can get along in a hotel or a
_pension_: and you can probably live as cheaply as, if not more cheaply
than, in a home of your own. There are several combinations. Inexpensive
rooms (in normal times) can be found in good hotels: and there are lots
of hotels that take only roomers. You do not, as at a _pension_, have to
be tied down to at least two meals where you live. The advantages of a
furnished-room or a _pension_ are: easy to find in the quarter you wish
to live in; no bother about service; and no necessity to tie yourself up
with a lease. But if you are making a protracted stay, it is wise to
weigh at the beginning the disadvantages with the advantages. You get
tired of the food; you have to associate daily with people whom you do
not like; and--especially if you are of my sex--you have no place to
receive your friends. I think in the end most people who go to Paris and
who follow the line of least resistance, either because it is that or
because they have the idea that they can learn French quicker in a
"French _pension_," regret having missed the opportunity of a home of
their own, of a _chez soi_, as the French say. For you really cannot
feel that you belong in Paris unless you are keeping house. "Be it ever
so humble," you can set up your own home, if you are determined to do
so. There are innumerable wee apartments--a hall big enough to hang up
your coat and hat, a kitchenette, and a room where your bed can be a
couch disguised with a rug and pillows during the day. Studios furnish
another opportunity of making a home of your own. Of course, during the
war and since Paris has been overcrowded. But there will be a return to
normal conditions.
And if you have a family--even one baby--hotel or _pension_ life becomes
unendurable.
When Herbert came back from Turkey in the summer of 1913, we found the
three little rooms and kitchen of Thirty-eight Rue du Montparnasse too
small for us. The first thing Herbert did was to "give notice." The
Paris system of renting is very advantageous if one is looking for a
modest apartment. Your lease is by the term--a term being three
months--and can be canceled upon giving one term's notice. This means
that you're tied down for only six months in the beginning, and after
that for only three months. One can buy simple furniture, as we did in
the Rue Servandoni, and sell it at the end of the year without a great
loss. It is possible to rent an apartment for a year, furnish it and
sell out, at about the same price you would pay for a furnished
apartment. And you will have had the pleasure of being surrounded by
your own things.
The proposition of a furnished apartment looks better than it is. The
French are the worst people in the world for biting a penny. They are
meticulous to a point incomprehensible to Americans. The inventory is a
horror! In taking a villa, whether it be in Brittany, in Normandy, at
Aix-les-Bains, or on the Riviera, you are handed sheets of paper by the
arm's length, on which are recorded not only the objects in each room
but the state of walls, garden, woodwork, carpets, mattresses, pillows
and blankets. You wrestle with the agent when you enter. But he is
cleverer than you are. And when you come to leave, he finds spots and
cracks, nicks in the china, ink-stains, and all sorts of damages you
never thought of. He points to your signature--and you pay! You replace
what is broken or chipped by new objects. You repaint and repaper and
clean. The bill is as long as the inventory. And you find that your
original rent is simply an item.
I do not want to infer that you are entirely free from this annoyance
and uncertain item of expense when you lease unfurnished. Your walls and
ceilings and floors, your mirrors (which in France are an integral part
of the building) and your _charges_ are to be considered. An architect,
if you please, draws up the _état des lieux_, which you are required to
sign as you do the _inventoire_ of a furnished apartment. But the longer
you remain in an apartment the less proportionately to your rent are
the damages liable to be. As for the _charges_, by which is meant your
share towards the carpets in the halls and on the stairs, the lighting,
elevator, etc., in many leases they are now represented by a fixed sum,
and where they are not, you can have a pretty definite idea as to what
they are going to be. The unexpected does not hit you.
Most Paris leases are on the 3-6-9 year basis. You sign for three years.
If you do not give notice six months before the end of the three-year
term, the lease is automatically continued for another equal period. For
nine years, then, you are sure of undisturbed possession, and your
_propriétaire_ cannot raise the rent on you. Leases are generally
uniform in their clauses. You bind yourself to put furniture to the
value of at least one year's rent in the apartment to live in it
_bourgeoisement_ (that is, to carry on no business), to keep no dogs or
other pets,[D] and to sublet only with proprietor's consent. On his
side, the proprietor agrees to give you proper concierge and elevator
service, to heat the apartment for five months from November first to
March thirty-first, and to furnish water, hot and cold, at fixed rates
per cubic meter. The lease is registered at the _mairie_ at the
_locataire's_ expense.
[D] This clause is a dead letter almost everywhere. You are much more
apt to be refused an apartment because you have children than because
you have dogs or birds. In fact, although you often see a sign or are
greeted by the statement NI CHIENS NI ENFANTS, the prohibition, when you
press the concierge, is limited to children. My bitter criticism of the
people among whom I live is the attitude of a large part of them towards
children. They do not like children. They do not want them. And they do
not understand why any woman is fool enough to have "a big family," as
they call my four. This is the most serious problem of contemporary
France. It makes the winning of the war a hollow victory.
You pay the taxes, which are collected directly from you. The municipal
tax runs to about sixteen percent of the annual rental, and now includes
in a lump sum the old taxes for windows and doors. In addition, you pay
a very small tax to recompense the city for having suppressed the
_octroi_ on wines and liquors and mineral waters. A new tax, which no
resident in France who has an apartment can escape, is the income tax.
But unless you are a French subject, you are not compelled to make a
return of your sources of income. Should you choose to be taxed
_d'office_, the collector assesses you on a basis of having an income
seven times the amount of your rental. The concierge is forbidden to
allow you to move from your apartment until you have shown him the
receipts for the current year for all your taxes.
Once you have signed your lease and have arranged to move in, your
troubles are not yet over. Proprietors furnish no chandeliers or other
lights, not even the simplest. You have to go to an electrician, buy
your fixtures, and have them installed, if you have not bought the
lights in the apartment from the previous _locataire_. You must sign
contracts and make deposits for your gas and electric light. The gas
company will rent you a stove and a meter. You pay the charges for
connecting you up. Telephones are in the hands of the government. If you
want a direct telephone, you have to sign a contract. If you want to
have your telephone through the concierge's _loge_, the telephone
service is charged on your quarterly rent bill. In any case, you pay for
the instrument and bell box and the charges for installation. A private
line is not much of an advantage in Paris. The service is scarcely any
quicker. With your telephone by way of the concierge, a message can be
left if you do not answer, and the person calling you is informed if you
are out of town.
The last of your troubles is fire insurance. Thanks to the solid
construction of Paris and careful surveillance, fires are very rare.
During all the years I have lived in Paris I remember no fires except
those caused by the German bombs. However, you do not dare not to
insure. For French law holds you responsible for damage to neighbors'
apartments from water as well as fire, if the fire starts in yours. Your
insurance policy insures your neighbors as well as yourself. The French
law is excellent. It makes you careful. French law, also, by the way,
holds you liable for accidents to your servants, of any kind and no
matter how incurred. You cannot fall back on the joker of contributory
carelessness. All the servant has to prove is that the accident happened
while working for you.
I have forgotten to mention one further formality that was not of
importance before the war but is indispensable now. An old French police
law requires all foreigners to secure a _certificat d'immatriculation_
from the Prefecture of Police as the _sine qua non_ to residence in
Paris. Before the war, no one ever bothered about this. The only
foreigners watched by the police were Russians, due to a provision
France ought never to have agreed to in the alliance with Russia. When
the war broke out and my husband went to get his _permis de séjour_, he
was asked for the first time for this paper. And we had been living in
France on and off for six years, and had leased three apartments! This
was a reason for loving Paris. Nobody bothered you, and you could live
as you pleased and do as you pleased so long as you behaved yourself.
Foreigners were never made to feel that they were foreigners. They
enjoyed equality before the law with Frenchmen. Paris was cosmopolite in
a unique sense. Hindsight blamed the laxity of the French police. But
let us fervently hope that the old spirit of hospitality may not have
changed with the war and that France in regard to Germany may not be as
Rome in regard to Greece. Why be victor if one has to adopt the habits
of the vanquished?
I have gone into the question of the housing problem with too much
precision and detail, I fear, for a book of Paris sketches. But so many
friends have asked me, so many strangers have written me, about taking
up their abode in Paris that I feel what I have said about it will be of
interest to all who are interested in Paris.
We had three months to our new residence. You always have three months
at least in Paris. It is not enough if you are undecided or lazy. It is
plenty if you go about hunting for a home with the same energy and
persistence and enthusiasm that you put into other things. After all,
what is more important than a home? We tramped the quarter, as we had
done in the summer of 1909. But we now had a large family. And we had
realized the fundamental truth of the beautiful old Scotch saying,
"Every bairn brings its food wi' it." So we were able to aspire to two
salons and three bedrooms, to _confort moderne_ (which means central
heat, electric light, bath-rooms, elevator and hot water), and to palms
and red carpet in the doorway.
For us the heart of Paris at that time was where the Boulevard du
Montparnasse is crossed by the Boulevard Raspail. On the Boulevard du
Montparnasse, between Baty's and the Rue Léopold-Robert, a new apartment
house was being built. Before the stairs were finished we climbed to the
sixth floor, lost our hearts to a view of all Paris, and signed a 3-6-9
lease. The war has come and gone. We are still there.
1914