Montmartre In the Rain

Toni and I ventured up to Montmartre today and it is up. Stairs and more stairs and streets that just go uphill. And it was raining. Not hard, but wet, though the air was warm, still in the 60s. We stopped in a café and strolled the square called the Place du Tertre where modern street artists ply their trade and sell their works. Even in the rain, it was bustling. A lot of them do portraits; I was tempted. Enough so I might go back another day and actually sit for one.

Montmartre is famous for its artists: Salvador Dali, Modigliani, Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh—they all lived or worked there. And Toulouse-Lautrec, of course. We visited the Musée de Montmartre, which had a number of Toulouse-Lautrec's works. He used to do publicity posters for the cancan clubs up there. The museum attempts to capture the history of the village. The main bit of information I walked away with was an understanding of how Montmartre became the center of the dance hall culture, which is one of the places where it connects to my novel.

The biggest piece has to do with the wall around Paris that I wrote about a couple days ago, the Wall of the Farmers-General, which was put up late in the 18th century just before The Revolution and was used to collect taxes on goods entering Paris. Because of the tax, goods sold in Montmartre, which was just outside the city walls, were cheaper—including wine and alcohol, and food. Furthermore, when Haussmann started transforming Paris, large sweeps of land near the center of the city found its way into the hands of his friends and financial supporters, forcing the original inhabitants to the edges of the city—and to Montmartre.

Gérard de Nerval, a poet who makes a brief appearance in my novel (along with his pet lobster) was one of the early artists to make his way up to Montmartre. And of course, I've already talked about the fact that Gericault's aunt and lover, Alexandrine Caruel, lived in Montmartre with her husband. And then there's this story I've bumped into abut the Summer of 1831 when a bunch of the jeunes France, (Hugo's followers—including Nerval and Gautier) camped in tents in Montmartre. Inspired by Lord Byron, they slept on animal skins and ran around naked "emitting animal howls" until the neighbors drove them out. So far that's all the information I have on the subject. I'm looking for more.

The guinguette (dancehall) culture got started because the places in Montmartre could undersell similar ones in Paris, and because some of the nuns up there made darn good wine. (The word guinguette comes from the name of a local white wine.) The guinguettes were popular (and so avant garde) in 1830 that Hugo passed out free tickets in them for Hernani. He expected their clientele to support his controversial play—and, indeed, they did.

The Chat Noir was a famous 19th century club that began as a salon in a private home and evolved into a public cabaret located on Blvd Rouchechouart, the main street I walk when I go to catch the Metro. The place still exists. Eric Satie (I love his music) used to play piano there in the 1890s. We walked past the building where he lived. Apparently Chat Noir was one of Picasso's favorite spots, and Debussy too spent time there.

At the museum we saw one of the only grape arbors that has survived, but in the early 19th century, the hills were dotted with vineyards and, even more wonderfully, with moulins (as in the Moulin Rouge)—that is, windmills.

The number of artists connected with Montmartre makes my head spin. Some names to add to those already mentioned, include: Henri Matisse, Jean Cocteau, Gertrude Stein, Henri Rousseau, Camille Pissarro, Renoir, Degas and Édith Piaf, of course—(Montmartre was the setting for La Môme). And I'm just naming the people I know about. As I'm quickly learning, most of the names I'm unfamiliar with (as an English-speaking American) have fascinating stories to tell.

One final word: Gericault should be considered a Montmartre artist. I keep finding references to the fact that he lived in Montmartre, referring to his studio at 23 Rue des Martyrs. It's an easy mistake to make, Rue des Martyrs does go up the hill into Montmartre, but No. 23 was inside the city walls.

But Gericualt clearly spent time in Montmartre. He painted this picture, Le Four à Platre, after walking there. It's of one of Montmartre's gypsum mines, which I learned about today. Alabaster comes from gypsum and much of Paris was built from the gypsum mined in Montmartre. They closed down the mines around 1830 because of the instability of the ground. Before that, they were haunted by the underbelly, thieves and dangerous characters. Once they begin to close those people moved on and Montmartre became safer, again increasing the migration to the village both to live and for the pleasure of the dance halls.

The last piece about Gericault is the most curious. I've been thinking he must have been riding in Montmartre when he injured himself. He fell from a horse and the resulting injury cost him his life. According to one of the French sites about him, I am correct. "His passion was to ride on the Butte Montmartre." And the injury that killed him was from a fall at the Barrière des Martyrs—the gate in the Wall of the Farmers-General that's now called Place Pigalle. I walk across Place Pigalle everyday to the Metro. In fact, I walked there today on my way to Montmartre. (This is the intersection about 100 years ago.)