A Wanderer in Paris

by E. V. Lucas

That was Heine! and we,
Myriads who live, who have lived,
What are we all, but a mood,
A single mood, of the life
Of the Spirit in whom we exist,
Who alone is all things in one?
Spirit, who fillest us all!
Spirit, who utterest in each
New-coming son of mankind
Such of thy thoughts as thou wilt!
O thou, one of whose moods,
Bitter and strange, was the life
Of Heine—his strange, alas,
His bitter life!—may a life
Other and milder be mine!
May'st thou a mood more serene,
Happier, have utter'd in mine!
May'st thou the rapture of peace
Deep have embreathed at its core;
Made it a ray of thy thought,
Made it a beat of thy joy!

Heine has many illustrious companions. If you would stand by the grave of Berlioz and Ambroise Thomas, of Offenbach, who set all Europe humming, of Delibes the composer of Genée's "Coppélia," of the brothers Goncourt, of Renan, who wrote the Life of Christ, or of Henri Murger, who discovered Bohemia, of De Neuville, painter of battles, of Halévy and Meilhac the playwrights, or of Théophile Gautier the poet, you must seek the Cimetière du Nord.

Montmartre in the evening centres in the Boulevard de Clichy—a high-spirited thoroughfare. Many foreigners visit it only then, and the Boulevard spreads its wares accordingly, and very tawdry some of them are. Here, for example, is a garish façade labelled "Ciel," in which a number of grubby blackguards dressed as saints and angels first bring refreshments at a franc a glass, and then offer the visitor a "prêche humoristique" followed by variations of Pepper's ghost in what are called "scènes paradisiaques," the whole performance being cold, tawdry and very stupid. Next door is "Enfer," where similar delights are offered, save that here the suggestion is not of heaven but hell. Instead therefore of grubby blackguards as saints we have grubby blackguards as devils. On the opposite side of the road is the Cabaret du Néant, where you are received with a mass for the dead sung by the staff, and sit at tables made of coffins.

It is hardly necessary to say that very few Parisians enter these places. The singing cabarets, however, are different: they are genuine, and one needs to be not only a Parisian but a very well-informed Parisian to appreciate them, for the songs are palpitatingly topical and political. The Quatz'-Arts, the Lune-Rousse and the Chat-Noir (once so famous, but now lacking in the genius either of Salis, its founder, or of Caran d'Ache, Steinlen or Willette, who helped to make it renowned) are all in the Boulevard de Clichy. So also is Aristide Bruant's cabaret, where an organised shout of welcome awaits every visitor, and Aristide—in costume a cross between a poet and a cowboy—sings his realistic ballads of Parisian street life. Here also is the Moulin-Rouge, which in the old days of the elephant was in its spurious way amusing, but is now rebuilt and redecorated out of knowledge, and for all the words you hear might be on Broadway.

Here also, at the extreme western end of the Boulevard, is the Hippodrome, now a hippodrome only in name and given up to the popular cinematoscope. I regret the loss of the real Paris Hippodrome. Paris still has her permanent circuses, but the Hippodrome is gone. It was there that, one night, in 1889, I chanced to sit very near the royal box, into which, with much bowing and scraping of managers, a white-haired old gentleman with the features of a lion and an eagle harmoniously blended was ushered. He was only seventy-nine, this old gentleman, and he was in the thick of such duties as fall to the Leader of the Opposition and promoter of Home Rule for Ireland; but he followed every step of the performance like a schoolboy, and now and then he sent for an official to have something explained to him, such as, on one occasion, the workings of the artificial snow-storm which overwhelmed Skobeleff's army. That ill-fated Russian general was the hero of the spectacle, a remarkable one in its way; but to me the restless animation and whole-hearted enjoyment of Mr. Gladstone was the finer entertainment.

Montmartre has also three dancing halls, two of which are genuine and one a show-place. The genuine halls are the Moulin-de-la-Galette, high on the hill on the steepest part of it above the Moulin-Rouge, and the Elysée in the Boulevard de Rochechouart, which are open only two or three times a week and which are thronged by the shop-assistants and young people of the neighbourhood. The spurious hall is the Bal Tabarin, which is open every evening and is a spectacle. It is, however, by no means unamusing, and I have spent many pleasant idle hours there. Willette's famous fresco of the apotheosis of the Parisian leg decorates a wall-space over the bar with peculiar fitness. At all the bals the men who dance retain their hats and often their overcoats, and for the most part leave their partners with amazing abruptness at the last step. Some of the measures are conspicuous for a lack of restraint that would decimate an English ballroom; but one must not take such displays "at the foot of the letter": they do not mean among these Latin romps and frolics what they would mean with us, whose emotions are less facile and sense of fun less physical.

And so we come to midnight, when Montmartre enters its third, and, to a Londoner exasperated by the grandmotherly legislation of his own city, its most entertaining phase. The idea that Paris is a late city is an illusion. Paris is not a late city: it is a city with a few late streets. Paris as a whole goes to bed as early as London, if not earlier, as a walk in the residential quarters will prove. Montmartre is late, and the Boulevards des Capucines and des Italiens are late, although less so; and that is about all. When it is remembered that Paris rises and opens its shops some hours earlier than London, and that the Parisians value their health, it will be recognised that Paris could not be a late city. One must remember also that the number of all-night cafés is very small, so small that by frequenting them with any diligence one may soon come to know by sight most of the late fringe of this city, both amateurs and professionals. One is indeed quickly struck by their numerical weakness.

There is a fashion in night cafés as in hats; change is made as suddenly and as inexplicably. One month every one is crowding into, let us say, the Chat Vivant, and the next the Chat Vivant kindles its lamps and tweaks its mandolins in vain: all the world passes its doors on the way to the Nid de Nuit. What is the reason? No one knows exactly; but we must probably once again seek the woman. A new dancer (or shall I say attachée?) has appeared, or an old dancer or attachée transferred her allegiance. And so for a while the Nid has not a free table after one o'clock, and on a special night—such as Mi-Carême, or Réveillon, or New Year's Eve—it is the head-waiter and the door-keeper of the Nid into whose hands are pressed the gold coins and bank notes to influence them to admit the bloods and their parties and find them a table. A year ago the douceur (often fruitless) would have gone to the officials of the Chat Vivant.

They remain, when all has been said against them, simple and well-mannered places, these half-dozen famous cafés on which the sun always rises. To think so one must perhaps graduate on the Boulevards, but once they are accepted they can become an agreeable habit. Sleepiness is as unknown there as the writings of Thomas à Kempis. Not only the dancers de la maison but the visitors too are tireless. There may be ways of getting ennui into a Parisian girl, but certainly it is not by dancing. Nor does the band tire either, one excellent rule at all of them being that there should be no pause whatever between the tunes, from the hour of opening until day.