Patrick Marnham

When Paris was the only place to be

For the first half of the 20th century the city proved a mecca for dozens of writers and artists keen to reinvent themselves, says Marie-José Gransard

Gertrude in Stein at home in Paris [Alamy]

For more than 100 years Paris has been as much a symbol and a myth as a geographical reality. The enchantment dates back to the end of the 19th century, when ‘le bordel de l’Europe’, in words quoted by Marie-José Gransard, was transformed into ‘la capitale de l’amour’. In Twentieth Century Paris she traces the growth of the community of mostly foreign artists and writers who created this international brand.

By the 1890s Paris had recovered from defeat by Prussia and the atrocity of Bismarck’s bombardment in 1870 and had become the capital of more than ‘l’amour’.It ran a colonial empire powerful enough to deprive the Kaiser of his ‘place in the sun’. At the same time, it gained the reputation as a centre of individual freedom, a city that was tolerant of eccentricity and behaviour that was elsewhere regarded as immoral or against the law. Samuel Beckett put it best, returning after years of absence: ‘Being back here’, he wrote, is ‘like coming out of jail in April.’

Bad news, Marshal. The Denver coach has been held up again.’

There were practical reasons for the city’s popularity with young writers and artists. Perhaps the most important was the abundance of cheap accommodation. Haussmann’s sanitary but ruthless achievements between 1855 and 1880 had flattened hills and destroyed entire districts. Thousands of hovels were replaced by apartment blocks for the working inhabitants. In what remained of the older Paris, garrets, studios and cheap hotels became widely available. Oscar Wilde, who died in one of those hotels in 1900 — famously complaining about the wallpaper — might be gratified to see that there is now a plaque by the entrance recording his departure, though the prices have long since risen beyond the means of an impoverished genius.

First Montmartre, in the north, and then Montparnasse, on the Left Bank, became havens for men and women succumbing to the irresistible temptation to transform themselves into someone completely different.

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