Near the top of Montmartre, all Paris is
at the feet of these visitors.
Sunshine On Montmartre
Summer Visit To Old Favorite
By Richard Erickson
Paris Kiosque - September 1999 - Volume 6, Number 9
Copyright (c) 1999 Richard Erickson - used with permission
After Augusts's special-effects celestial events, I think it is time to
get back on the road of walking around Paris.
It
is still summertime, so this is not going to be
serious. There is this magnetic effect though - I can't
walk my new neighborhood into familiarity in the first four
weeks - this has to take its time, and there
is going to be plenty of it.
I have a
feeling that I am being pulled to see what it
looks like up on Montmartre. I know what it looks
like on Montmartre, but every day is a new day,
so I will see what it is like today.
Last
night's TV-weather forecast had a north-central-France triangle of a window
of fair-weather opportunity, for the morning only. This morning's Le
Parisien's weather map has no such window at all. It's
the same for Saturday and Sunday.
Regardless of weather maps,
when I go out to get the paper the sunny
triangle-shaped good-weather window is over Paris. For how long? With
so much pessimism, I better get going.
It is not
hot. As they say, it is a bit 'below normal.'
I wonder what 'normal' is - 'normal' for where? Glasgow?
I do
not even consider taking the bus. As it
is, this fine, but cool weather-opportunity, may be short. Even
riding the métro, it may be over when I get
up there.
Of the two-dozen ways
to the top of the 'Butte,' this is one of
them.
Ah, the richness of the métro. I can
take line 4, direction Porte de Clignancourt; to change at
Montparnasse to line 13 - direction Porte de la Chapelle
- or take the line 4 up to Marcadet-Poissonniers and
catch line 13 going the other way, coming down to
the Butte by the back door.
This is the way I decide to go; I
don't feel like changing at Montparnasse today. By going up
past Gare de l'Est and Gare du Nord, I'll see
everybody heading for the trains. It's the mid-August going-home weekend.
As it turns out, the few people with bags and
packs get off at neither station. Some got off at
Saint-Michel and Châtelet, leaving even fewer heading north.
This line
4 goes through Barbés-Rochechouart. It occurs to me there might
be something to see of the renovation of the métro
line 2; and there's always something going on at Barbés.
I get off at Barbés.
Coming out underneath the overhead
line 2, there is tremendous noise. There are provisional barricades
everywhere and provisional direction sign to the provisional substitute bus
that is supposed to fill the gap in the métro
line. On the Boulevard de Rochechouart the sun is still
operating and there is a clot of people provisionally waiting
for this bus.
The shoppers are as thick as ever
around the boulevard and all its textile shops. I vaguely
remember there is a diagonal street going up to the
Halle Saint-Pierre, but I have to walk around a bit
before finding the Rue d'Orsel, which I find is called
Rue Livingstone at the top end by Saint-Pierre, by coming
up the Rue Seveste.
For years I've had the intention
of going through all the textile places around Barbés. I
feel that
there are things to find out in them.
Rue d'Orsel bends and crosses over to the Rue de
Steinkerque, and the textile shops are everywhere. You can get
dish-towels, sheets, curtains or wedding dresses.
The Halle Saint-Pierre is
closed. It has low-key exhibitions; usually of a naive character
- often it is interesting stuff. Open or closed it
is a good landmark, because it leads to the bottom
of the stairs of the Rue Ronsard - often photographed
in winter or fog.
At the top there is an
irregular place where the Rue Maurice Utrillo joins it, plus
the Rue Muller and the Rue Feutrier. There are normally
three cafés here, but today the oddest-shaped one is being
renovated. The one in shadow at the top of the
stairs is getting ready for lunch, and at the one
in sun a few people are finishing their breakfast cafés.
I go up the Rue Paul-Albert to see if the
place near the top looks as deserted-village-like as last time.
It does, because its café is between owners. It is
a very sunny place, with the morning sun. From it
there is a steep stairway going down and east to
Rue Ramey, called the Passage Cottin.
Across the Rue Lamarck
and up another set of stairs, the Parc de la
Turlure is on the right. From it, to the east,
there some chimneys in front of the east Paris skyline
and to the southwest there is the back of Scare-Cœur
and its spacy bell-tower.
Although the park is not big,
it has great views and is very calm, with plenty
of benches and a sort of arbor for sitting under
the shade of leaves of vines of some sort.
A
gong from the bell-tower rattles the neighborhood. I go around
the back end of the church past the school and
all of a sudden it is the Montmartre of the
postcards and of the people who buy them; stuck in
a bunch in the Rue du Chevalier-de-la-Barre - watching one
of the countless immobile human statues.
There have always been
a few of these around - at Palais Royal and
on the Pont des Arts when the sculpture show was
on it - but there has been a vast increase
in their population this season.
They just have to
stand very still for long periods, wearing some sort of
a costume, and people toss
money at their hats. On the
Rue du Cardinel Guibert beside the church, there are three
more of them, plus a mime; each with a fascinated
audience.
The little train runs up from the métro at
Pigalle.
Visitors are littering the steps of Scare-Cœur and all
of the many steps leading up to it from the
Square Willette. They are doing what they usually are doing
- resting after the walk up, catching the sun on
the steps, photographing each other or looking out over a
big view of hazy Paris.
It is a bit like
watching ants; they are all so busy - except for
the few who are having a big sit-down - who
are probably wondering 'what it all means' while I am
wondering if they are wondering this, instead of wondering 'what
it all means' myself.
Since the eclipse on Wednesday, I
have been trying to figure out why I am not
being philosophical. Maybe just wondering this is being philosophical -
or it is a double-negative - as in, I am
not being not philosophical.
Maybe I am never philosophical; maybe
it is just August and I have a fried brain
even though I am not laid out like a grilling
sardine on a Spanish beach.
Around the corner of the
Rue Azaïs and up the Rue Saint-Euthère to the place
in front of the church, I pass a pair of
'living statues' - posing as Elvis Presley's marriage to Bobby's
wife in 'Dallas.' Or was that some other lady?
Anyhow,
they've gotten themselves up as a wedding-cake-couple, with frilly platform
and a bower looping over them. They've gone to a
lot of trouble with the costumes and the decor, but
the guy looks more like a tall Jack Kerouac -
maybe it's not Elvis at all?
A lot of them
do it as Egyptian mummies, so this is quite a
wide departure from the standard fare. Imagine, a pair of
mummies named Presley, on a wedding cake, on Montmartre.
The
Place du Tertre is its usual semi-hectare of terrace cafés
- with only a few diners - with its fringe
of artists for 'local color.' The Rue Norvins is plugged
with people - as usual.
They've been here for
over a hundred years; but now they are dressed more
informally and more of them are speaking Spanish. These are
dressed more formally than many others, but about as they
would be dressed in Madrid at this time of year.
In the Rue Lepic it is like August in
the rest of Paris - closed shops and cafés, and
few pedestrians. For years I have wanted to walk its
whole length, but part of it zigs off as a
marché street. I either do it and get no further
than Rue des Abbesses, or I do the curving top
part like today, and continue along Abbesses instead of going
down the marché part.
It is always further from the
downturn of Lepic to the métro Abbesses than I remember.
The stretch is less marché; more it is a series
of lively cafés. Just
after the métro exit, Abbesses turns down
too, but becomes Rue des Martyrs until it hits the
junction of the Boulevards Clichy and Rochechouart.
There are the
cafés in the Place du Tertre, and there are others
just around a corner.
I stop in the last bar
on the left to offer myself a drink. It comes
with ice, which I offer back. A long, narrow bar,
with a serpentine zinc top. On the Rue des Martyrs
side, the Divan du Monde is across the street. 'Bab
El Baraka.'
Towards the intersection, as a client leaves, I
think for a moment that there should be bat-wing doors.
That there isn't, reminds me the forecast 'triangle' of good
weather is lasting a lot longer than its prediction.
So
I follow the boulevards towards the Place to Clichy -
past the music dealers, the underwear dealers - latex! -
and all of the peep shows; with maybe the biggest
single concentration of daytime neon in the city - past
the Moulin Rouge and two dozen less well-known cabarets. Even
the pharmacies look racy.
This last part is a strolling
search for the week's posters. It is a pretty thin
week for them, although I could get a half-dozen Morris-columns
- all the new French movies seem to be advertised
on them instead of the sidewalk poster displays.
If I
had known the weather was going to hold, I could
have done something more ambitious. But it is summer in
Paris; what's the hurry?
At Clichy, I take the métro
line 2 to Etoile and change there for line 6
to Denfert. I get a window seat on the left
side of the train. Just before it leaves Etoile I
am surrounded by Chinese from somewhere; about a dozen of
them, wearing badges saying 'Jet-Tours' or something..
They take photos
of each other sitting in the métro wagon as the
train waits at the Kléber station like usual. As the
train later leaves the Passy station I stand up and
poke the camera out of the open window top.
I
have time to squeeze off two shots aimed at the
Tour Eiffel. Luckily no train is coming the other way.
It is something I've been intending to do for years.
Weather, and the right seat, permitting.
Richard Erickson, living in Paris for the last twenty years, has been putting
Paris online as long as anyone. More of his writings can be found in
Metropole Paris
where this article first appeared.
He can be contacted via
erickso@world-net.sct.fr.
