When the actress Elizabeth Taylor made the film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story, The Last Time I Saw Paris, in 1954, she was 22 years old and arguably the most beautiful woman in the world. A few years later, the first time I saw Paris, I was 18, homely, and dumb as a brick. I was savvy enough, however, to realize that the “City of Lights” was a unique place, and I needed to visit it while I had the chance.
My ship was cold iron, and I had managed to trade some port duty days with enough shipmates to finagle a 72-hour pass, so I caught the “Le Train Bleu” (the Blue Train) from Nice to Paris. This was a daily luxury overnight train, running from Calais on the English Channel, through Paris, to the Rivera, and terminating in Mentone on the Italian border, retracing its route the following day. Once it had the same cachet as the famous Orient Express which ran from London to Istanbul, but by 1960, the French national railway had added second class cars to accommodate low-ball day tourists like me. It was called the Blue Train because that was the color of the over-night sleeping cars, and it took almost 20 hours to make the trip from the Cote d’Azur to Paris, which didn’t leave me much time to sightsee. Other than sitting up all night, the worse part of the ride was smelling those awful Gauloise cigarettes which, if required to be labeled like alcohol, would have been at least 150 proof nicotine. When this train was replaced by the TGV high speed train in the 1980s, the transit time was cut to just 5 hours.
Although I knew I didn’t have much time to look around, I knew the major sights I wanted to see: Notre Dame, the Saint-Chapelle, the Tuileries, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Palais Royale, the Champs-Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe, Napoleon’s Tomb, etc. It sounds ambitious, but most of those sites are within walking distance of each other, and Paris has an excellent subway system to reach the rest.
Another consideration was the volatile political situation in France. President Charles de Gaulle, a hero of World War II, had unilaterally decided to grant independence to the French colony of Algeria, and it seemed as if most of the French population disagreed with him. It was de Gaulle, you will remember, who saved France from a possible Communist takeover after World War II. Leaders of the Resistance against the Nazis, they expected to be rewarded with victory at the postwar polls. De Gaulle, however, dismissed the possibility of a Communist France with a sneer, saying: “How can a single party govern a country which has two hundred and forty-six varieties of cheese?”
High ranking members of the French army, especially those in the French Foreign Legion, were against Algerian independence, and there were even rumors of an attempted coup against de Gaulle’s government. Paris, and the towns along the Mediterranean closest to Algeria, such as Nice, Toulon, Marseille, etc., were on high alert also because of the actions of the “pied noirs” (black feet – French citizens born in Algeria) who had a nasty habit of setting off plastique bombs in public places to call attention to their opposition to Algerian independence. They had just blown-up part of the Galleries Lafayette department store in Nice a few days before I left for Paris.
Getting off the train at the Gard du Nord (North Station), I caught the nearest subway to the cheapest part of town, which in those days was Montmartre, long the headquarters of artists, writers, musicians, and anarchists. Walking to the subway, I encountered my first “pissoir,” or outdoor sidewalk urinal for men, which were once ubiquitous on Paris streets. I was already familiar with the unique nature of Turkish and near-eastern toilets, which lack commodes, but the acrid smell and public nature of the pissoir was a shock to me.
The 17th of Paris’ 20 arriondissements, or districts, Montmartre was once a hilltop village on the city’s northern edge. Legend says that around AD 250 when Paris was a Roman outpost known as Lutetia, the Pope in Rome sent a priest named Denis and six others there in an attempt to convert the heathen Gauls, as the natives were known. They soon came in conflict with the Roman authorities who demanded that they make sacrifices to the Roman gods. Refusing, they were all beheaded on the summit of the highest hill around, which became known as the mount of the martyrs or “Montmartre.” Here the legend gets even more interesting. Upon losing his head, Denis, now Saint Denis in the Catholic Church, calmly picked it up and set off down the hill. As he walked, for a total of two miles before finally dying, he preached a sermon on love and forgiveness. I know it seems far-fetched, but as a 20th century savant succinctly put it: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
While I did manage to see most of the sites on my Parisian bucket list, Montmartre turned out to be the quintessential Paris for me. Although it officially became part of Paris in 1860, it had retained a small-town ambience with its narrow streets crowded with Citroen 2CV automobiles, outdoor cafes, and ancient one-star hotels. I checked into one such establishment, the aptly named “Hotel Montmartre,” and found about what I expected for the price – a third-floor room about the size of four telephone booths, containing a single bed with yellow but clean sheets, a bidet, and a water nozzle over a drain in the corner of the room serving as the shower. Apparently, it was customary to bring your own soap. Of more interest to me was the self-operated, one capacity, birdcage-like elevator suspended from a frayed-looking steel cable stretching up into the darkness. It was so small that, if I had any luggage, which I didn’t, it would have taken two trips. Many things were invented in France, including the bicycle, the #2 pencil, the periscope, margarine, the catalytic converter, the polo shirt, and even neon lights – but not the elevator.
Since Montmartre is located on the highest point of Paris, well into the first World War it had as many as 30 windmills, primarily to turn grain into flour for the “patisseries” (bakeries) of the city. When I first visited, only two remained, including one on top on the famed Moulin Rouge night club, home of the “cancan,” at the bottom of the hill. It also had the only operating vineyard in Paris, turning out about 700 bottles of wine each year. There was an abundance of street art, too, like we are beginning to see in Hattiesburg; as well as “free float” bicycles to be ridden and left at your destination.
The most interesting physical feature of Montmartre for me, however, was the Basilica of Sacre-Coeur (Sacred Heart) which sits on its summit and offers an unrivaled panorama of Paris, even better than from the top of the Eiffel Tower, without climbing all the steps. (The Eiffel elevator is for sissies). Some ten million people visit it each year, making it Paris’s second most popular tourist attraction after the Eiffel Tower. In fact, some estimate that more post cards are sold of it than of the Tower. The building has always been controversial. Some said that the design was more suited to the Kremlin than to France; others said that it was an opera house without music; its domes were also compared to turnips. Construction started in 1875 and was not completed until after the first World War. A main attraction is that it is constructed of travertine, a locally quarried limestone that reacts with rainwater to produce calcite, a natural whitener. Unlike Notre Dame, which needs repeated cleaning. Sacre-Coeur will always remain white.
The main attraction of Montmartre for me, however, was what I could not see. I knew that it was one of the primary haunts of what Gertrude Stein called “The Lost Generation.” This group of people, many of whom were American expatriates, lived in the aftermath of World War I and shared several characteristics: youthful idealism, a search for the meaning of life, heavy drinking, multiple love affairs, a rejection of modern American materialism, residence in Paris, and the writing of novels considered literary masterpieces. Whenever I walked its streets, I felt as if I could hear the steps and see the shadows of such famous people as John Dos Passos, Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his brilliant but unhinged wife, Zelda, who died in a fire at her North Carolina mental institution.
The painters Matisse and Picasso also had studios in Montmartre during this period. One of the more intriguing members of this group was the Black American exotic dancer, Josephine Baker, who had a popular club a few doors down from the Moulin Rouge. Starting as one of the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the “Folies Bergère” in Paris, with her costume, consisting only of a short skirt of artificial bananas and a beaded necklace, she became an iconic symbol of the Jazz Age. She later became the first Black woman to make a motion picture and, during World War II, a valued and decorated member of the French Resistance against the Germans.
Before I caught the train back to my ship, I bought a small souvenir, a collectible tchotchke, from a street side glassblower – a small glass swan with delicate, gossamer wings. By some miracle, I still have her today, even after she accompanied me for thirty more years of service on at least six more ships in just about every ocean of the world. I had no idea how much I paid for her because the French government had just devalued the “old” franc and brought in the “new” franc (NF). They did this by overnight removing the zeros from all the money – 100 old Francs became 1 NF. Being mathematically challenged, I never really knew how much money I had. It wasn’t until France adopted the euro in 2003 that I got it straight.
In 1966, when I was on a ship out of Newport, there was a big story there about another person who had collected a small swan, only hers was silver and she was Doris Duke, one of the richest women in the world. It seems she had “accidentally” crushed the gentleman who curated her art collection against the gate to her mansion by stepping on the gas instead of the brake of her car. Suspiciously, this was the day he had flown in from California to resign and she had been overheard expressing her rage at his quitting by her servants. Shortly after she was cleared by an investigation, the police chief retired, moved to Florida, and paid cash for two condominiums. Within weeks, Duke established the Newport Preservation Society, and personally paid for the renovation of 84 colonial-era Newport homes. I’m not implying anything was related, or much less quid pro quo. Just saying.
Sadly, the Montmartre of that early visit is long gone, given over to upscale apartments and tourist traps. Looking back over the many years, it’s funny what I remember about my first trip to Paris. Despite all the famous sites and sights I saw that hurried weekend, what is most vivid in my mind is sitting in a booth in a little brasserie, eating a bowl of “cassoulet” (traditional poor folks’ fare of beans and meat stew), listening to a blind accordionist, and watching the people pass on the street. As Hemingway famously remarked, “Everyone should spend their youth in Paris: it is a moveable feast.” Subtracting travel time, my first visit was only about a day, but I have feasted on the memory all my life.
Light a candle for me.
Benny Hornsby of Oak Grove is a retired U.S. Navy captain. Visit his website, bennyhornsby.com, or email him: villefranche60@yahoo.com.
