La Nouvelle Athènes

It's getting dark. I just came in from my long walking day in the neighborhood. I had a wonderful time and my health seems pretty good. I took a ton of pictures—this is one of my favorites. Apropos of nothing—just life on Rue des Martyrs.

I turned off Rue des Martyrs and headed west on Rue Clauzel, the street that used to be called Rue Bréda... where all the call girls plied their trade. How interesting the street looked as I applied that lens. No balcony seemed innocent.

I had studied the map before I left and thought I knew what I was doing, but one wrong turn and I was veering north instead of south. The reward was delightful... can you see it peeking out from the top of the street? The Moulin Rouge at a distance?

I came back later, at the end of my walk and sat down in a café that looked right at it. I don't know if the windmill blades are original, but they're very cool looking. I'm pretty sure Ary Scheffer could see the Moulin Rouge from his house—that would have been before it was the Moulin Rouge, the Toulouse-Lautrec famous night club, but still.... Scheffer was famous for his salons. It's where I have Tori playing piano. They were attended by Georges Sand, Chopin, Liszt, Delacriox, et al.

At the top of my agenda was Square d'Orleans where Georges Sand and Chopin lived. I'd gone looking for it way back when I first arrived but the double doors leading to it were locked. I'd read it was open on Saturdays, and yes! Square d'Orleans was open.

I'm so glad. It's huge, not at all what I expected. Pictures are hopeless in there because it's like a subdivision of something. The word subdivision is way too crass, but there are three courtyards and one little street and three covered passageways. Georges Sand's home was in one of the covered passageways.

Chopin and Sand each had their own home. They ate meals together. In fact, it was a kind of community. Alexander Dumas, the author of The Three Musketeers lived their too and the opera diva Pauline Viardot—and they all ate together. I'm not sure how big the communal group was, but there were nine numbered homes, all connected and then there was this little alleyway street with a dead end.

It was very narrow with old cobbles and this wonderful balcony with a balustrade. I couldn't find any numbered apartments on the street. One of the public places there is a small French library. I'm going to try to find out more about it online. But mostly, I think people live in the buildings. They aren't offices or businesses.

All of this is in a private world behind tall doors. When you're walking down the street and the doors are closed—like they were the first time I came by—it just looks like doors that ought to open into an apartment building.

Paris doors are simply amazing, actually. There must be a book out just about them. If there isn't, there should be. Each door is a piece of art. This beast is the door knob to Square d'Orleans.

Anyway, I'm so grateful that I got in. It's one of those architectural structures that is simply impossible to understand from pictures. I sketched the layout to make sure I remember how everything fits together.

When I left Square d'Orleans I headed up to the famous Rue de la Tour des Dames, the street where all the neoclassical hôtels were built in the 1820s, mostly for rich actors and actresses. I'd read there was a bridal path going up to the street. It brought me to the back of the most unusual of the hôtels, the one with the concave curves that belonged to Mademoiselle Duchesnois.

I like this close-up; it's an old lamp post in the back. The building curves on both sides. It's a totally wonderful-looking structure—shaped sort of like a crescent moon.

Joséphine Duchesnois was the daughter of a horse merchant—which is how I think she knew Géricault. She was living there when he died. She had three illegitimate children. It seems to me she could have been someone that Géricault or Alexadrine might have confided in. She was about ten years older than Alexandrine, and might have been a kind of mother figure.

I like following the horse mantra, but Joséphine— like just about every incidental character I'm writing about—is also buried in Père Lachaise.

And it may be just "one of those things," but I stumbled onto a New Age bookstore today. I'd given up on the idea of finding Madame Lenormand's tarot deck in Paris. Well, today, low and behold, I found it in my neighborhood.

So, that coincidence got me thinking that the connection between Madame Lenormand and Géricault is Joséphine Duchesnois. Such an interesting looking woman— I believe she's costumed as Phèdre in this painting. Not sure who painted it. She played the role in 1802 and Napoleon was so smitten, he had an affair with her. So, she and Madame Lanormand have Napoleon in common. I don't know what to make of that.

My glorious walk ended at the Hôtel Royal Fromentin, once known as Le Don Juan Cabaret. Yes, I made it to the absinthe bar. I'm very proud of myself and it was totally cool. They brought me the absinthe in a glass, the sugar and one of those silver absinthe spoons to hold it, and they brought a huge goblet of ice water that has a little silver spigot on the side—you can barely see it in the picture.

It smelled like fresh anise. The waiter explained that it's a matter of taste how much sugar and water one uses. I took one cube and put it on the spoon and opened the spout. The water comes out in drops. Drop. Drop. Drop. And as it falls, the sugar melts. I can't believe that my little camera caught a drop falling, but it did. Look at that!

As the sugar dissolved, the absinthe turned milky. It was never green. I read that the color of absinthe varies, that it can even be colorless. This was definitely more yellow than green.

It made me happy and I've been happy ever since. The waiter, who seemed amused, wanted to know if I liked it. He smiled when I said yes. I laughed and said I was writing and that this was research—at least that's what I think I said, since I were conversing mostly in French.

I'd had about half of it when I decided I had to write something down, you know, reporter-on-the-scene style. I wrote, "How clever of me! The tang is sharp, the spoon silver. It tastes of elegance and danger." Obviously inspired, wasn't I? A few minutes later I wrote, "I feel a tad bit silly, which probably means, I'm a tad bit drunk. I'm a tad impressed with myself too—and pleased."

So there you have it. When I saw the reflection, I went for it. Not bad, eh?