The Real Montmartre
In sum, the Butte, the real Montmartre, seems at first view to be one-half country village and one-half large provincial town. In the rue St. Vincent, the rue Mont-Cénis, the rue des Saules, rue de la Fontaine-du-But, rue de la Borne, rue St. Rustique, rue Norvins, and rue de l’Abreuvoir, where one is scarcely a twenty minutes’ walk from the Grands-Boulevards, one would believe himself more than two hundred miles from the metropolis,—so different are these streets from the average metropolitan ways,—were it not for the constant outlooks on Paris spread out beneath one, for the large proportion of Angoras among the ubiquitous cats, and the phenomenal savoir-vivre, good-nature, and friendliness of the dogs; were it not for an indefinable coquetry, tell-tale of Parisianism, about the little garden-girdled houses and a hundred artistic whimsicalities, such as are represented by a windmill studio and a tram-car dwelling; were it not also that certain vistas are closed by the flippant entrance to the Moulin de la Galette, that sundry glimpses of studio interiors are vouchsafed, and that silhouettes of long-haired, capering artists and of artists’ models loom up fitfully against the sky; and were there not a sort of vagabond humour in the very atmosphere that accords ill with provincial straight-lacedness.
As the Butte wears the general aspect of a provincial community, so it has the provincial community’s spirit of neighbourliness; but, as its provincial aspect is enlivened by coquetry and mirth, so its provincial neighbourliness is happily modified by being shorn of the meddling spirit. The Montmartrois is not indifferent to the welfare of his fellow-Montmartrois; but he minds his own business, which the neighbourly provincial rarely, if ever, does. He is as willing as the most naïve countryman to lend a helping hand upon occasion; but, the occasion passed, he speedily effaces himself. He does not feel entitled to enter into your intimacy, to summer and winter with you, so to say, because he has done you a casual good turn.
When I entered Montmartre, as most fellows enter it, with my lares and penates enthroned on a hand-cart, and experienced the difficulty other fellows, thus encumbered, have experienced in scaling the Butte, a butcher’s boy and an artist who was sketching in the street were prompt to put their shoulders to the wheel (to the tail-board, to be strictly accurate); but they did not by the same token cross-question me regarding my antecedents and intentions, as countrymen, in the same circumstances, would have done. They gracefully accepted my invitation to a social glass at an adjacent wine-shop, then went their ways to their respective tasks; and that was the end of it.
The Butte, then, the real Montmartre, is in Paris, but not of it, and yet, of necessity, perpetually conscious of it,—a community which is and which is not a provincial town, which has an esprit de corps not inconsistent with independence, a unity not destructive of variety, and a sociability admirably accordant with a seemly privacy; while the Montmartrois sees Paris without being blinded by it, touches Paris without being crushed by it, and is stimulated by Paris without losing his identity therein.
“J’ vis en philosophe et p’tê’t’ bien
Qu’étant presqu’heureux avec rien,
J’ai su résoudre un grav’ problème,
A mon septième,”
sings a chansonnier of Montmartre. And it is indeed this ability to “be almost happy with nothing,” this fairy-godmother power to transform by a simple flourish a pumpkin into a coach, a dowdy into a fair princess, and a cabbage into a rose, this talent, amounting to genius, for squeezing so very much more out of life than there really is in it, that lifts completely out of the commonplace the life of Montmartre.
For four hundred to five hundred francs a year, monsieur and madame,—as in the Latin Quarter every Jack has his Jill, so on the Butte every Montmartrois has his Montmartroise,—monsieur and madame may have a logement,91 consisting of two or three rooms and a kitchen with peerless views of Paris and the valley of the Seine; and in the shops of the brocanteurs they may procure antique furnishings of real beauty and durability, not, alas! for the proverbial song, but for less than the bourgeois pay for their ugly, up-to-date flimflams.
Prices are dearer at Montmartre than in several other parts of Paris. Nevertheless, there is no district where, day in and day out, there is so much genuine poetry and so much honest zest in living.
Louise France,92 a dramatic artist of vigorous talent, who has been associated with nearly all the important literary movements of Montmartre, is said to have welcomed a party of friends to her modest logement one day with, “Maintenant, en guise d’apéritif, je vais vous offrir une vue splendide sur Paris: c’est tout ce que je possède.”
Good Madame France is a thorough Montmartroise, and the incident is admirably representative of the jocund humour of the Butte. The Montmartrois will not only regale himself with a view from a window in lieu of an apéritif, but he will merrily substitute a chanson for a roast, console himself with a kiss for the absence of the dessert, and warm himself, as my friend L——, who has not had a fire for three winters, expresses it, with sunsets and tobacco smoke,—his own, if possible.
During the periods of moving (namely, the 1st to the 15th of January, April, July, and October) the essential domesticity of the Butte is amply and amusingly revealed, and the complete congruity of domesticity and the arts is graphically demonstrated.
Chiffonniers lord it over model-thrones, paint brushes peep over the rims of soup-kettles or hide their heads in coal-scuttles, manikins fraternise with hat-trees and colour-boxes with stew-pans, stretchers snuggle up to pillows, pastels and aquarelles lie cheek by jowl with dish-towels and table-cloths, brooms pay court to easels, palettes make eyes at feather dusters, and impressionistic landscapes dazzle mirrors. Monsieur, aided by a chum, tugs a precariously loaded hand-cart,93 or, if the distance to be traversed makes the hand-cart unnecessary or a lack of funds makes it impossible, he staggers, sweats, and swears under the weight of trunks, chests, bureaus, and wardrobes; and madame, bareheaded, in wrapper and slippers, proffers highly unwelcome caution and advice while carrying the company coffee-cups or the parlour lamp.
Like most other localities that partake of the idyllic, Montmartre is most idyllic in the spring. Then painters work at their easels in its streets, while their mesdames, who have followed them forth with camp-chairs, sew and chatter in the nearest shade. Then its poplars and limes are the same crisp, inviting green as the salads that pass in the hand-barrows. Then its myriad lilac, horse-chestnut, and acacia clusters are thyrsi awaiting the rhythmic wavings of the bacchanals, and then its circumambient fragrance would inflame a Hippolyta’s blood, trouble a Vestal’s vows, and make a Diana’s senses reel. Then, too, models, posing in court-yards and back gardens for the supernal effects of sunlight on flesh, are like great pink-and-purple-dappled exotic blooms escaped from Shelley’s pages.
The spirit of nature that with soft music is bursting the bonds of winter, and the spirit of the artist, spontaneous, impulsive, capricious, and free, are in absolute accord. One breathes contempt for prudery and custom with the very air. Nature’s upward-rushing sap and the artist’s careering fancy alike defy repression.
“Tout être a le droit d’être libre,” the splendid throbbing lyric climax of Charpentier’s Montmartre opera, Louise, had here its origin.
“Tout être a le droit d’être libre!”—the careless attire, unconstrained mien, and the sans-gêne of the lovers of Montmartre proclaim it.
“TOUT ÊTRE A LE DROIT D’ÊTRE LIBRE!” the Montmartre winds and birds and rivulets sing.
“Et que faudrait-il faire?
*****
Calculer, avoir peur, être blême,
Préférer faire une visite qu’un poème,
Rédiger des placets, se faire-présenter?
Non, merci! non, merci! non, merci! mais chanter,
Rêver, rire, passer, être seul, être libre,
Avoir l’œil qui regarde bien, la voix qui vibre,
Mettre, quand il vous plaît, son feutre de travers,
Pour un oui, pour un non, se battre—ou faire un vers!
Travailler sans souci de gloire ou de fortune,
A tel voyage, auquel on pense, dans la lune.”94