Friday, June 17, 2022
Avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy
Named after French Resistance hero Henri Rol Tanguy who led the uprising that helped to liberate Paris.
This avenue is located in the Montparnasse and Petit-Montrouge districts of the 14th arrondissement of Paris, and has the particularity of being extremely short (50 meters), to the point of appearing as wide as it is long. Moreover, it only serves two buildings, located on either side: the Paris quarry administration building on one side and the Resistance museum on the other side. Two road numbers were still assigned to each building, perhaps to justify the name avenue to this road: 2 and 4 on one side facing 1 and 3 on the other.
Translation:
Macron: We will win! We will win!
Zelenski: Thank you for those words of encouragement.
Macron: I’m not talking about you.
Friday morning started with a Café Expresso and a croissant around 7h30 at Le Clignancourt, a brasserie with a terrace opposite of the Porte de Clignancourt metro station (Ligne 4) just up the street from my hotel. There was a newspaper kiosk just a few steps away on the corner street. I must have waited until 8h30 for it to open so that I can get my copy of Le Parisien.
The Lion of Belfort statue was built in memory of Colonel Denfert-Rochereau, defender of Belfort during the Franco-Prussian War. Sculpted by Fréderic Bartholdi (1834-1904), best known for designing the Statue of Liberty, he exhibited a plaster model at the Paris Salon Exhibitions of 1878.
The model was then purchased by the city of Paris. The two ton copper statue is four meters high by seven meters long. A bronze medallion with the effigy of the colonel was added in 1920. The current medallion is a substitution dating from 1979. The Lion of Belfort statue was inaugurated in 1880.
Les Catacombes de Paris
I had booked a guided tour of the Catacombs. This semi-private tour for 13:30 was with a small group of eight people. I did my best to try and book a french-speaking tour, but could not for this one. Our female guide, originally from Florida, was excellent. She moved to Paris about 40 years ago. She was with Memories France, a local operator based in Paris. In our small group, there was a couple from Denver. There was even another Canuck in the group which was welcomed. She was from Quebec. She laughed when I joked to her in french that I tried to book a french-speaking tour because I didn’t want to be translating for other tourists. We both laughed. Actually, I wanted to immerse myself in French and avoid speaking any English.
I arrived early enough that I could go for a cold one across the street before going several six feet unders. I do have a funny story tell about my beer order, and it will be told later while at le Musée d’Orsay. One other funny story from Le Café du Rendez-Vous was of this couple from the U.S.A. sitting next to me, probably in their late forties or early fifties. They call over the young female server to their table. It looked like they had a quarter left of their crêpes on their plates.
English sentences don’t translate at all in the head of the majority of the French and so I’m laughing in my head when I heard the American male tell the server “these are not very good.” His wife had Nutella with hers while the husband had jam with his. Poor Suzette, she did not understand what he was complaining about.
It wouldn’t surpprise me if the couple Google translated Crêpes from the menu and voilà, he must have said chérie, how about we have pancakes. I did not see an image of thick buttermilk pancakes inside a cartoon thought bubble above his head. Growing up, I knew the difference between one crêpe and and the next crêpe, plus they totally taste different. I would love to read his comments on Tripadvisor.
The Catacombes de Paris, the Parisian ossuary covers 11,000 m² of underground space where the bones of the remains of six million Parisians from various Parisian cemeteries rest in the 1.7 km labyrinth of tunnels. The height of the passages is 1.8 m and the temperature is around 14 degrees.
The parts of the Catacombes de Paris which are accessible to the public remain manicured, curated, and easy to navigate. A little less than two miles are marked with helpful signs that are visited by tourists every day.
A number of notable people likely had their bones transferred to the Catacombs. The list includes writers Jean de La Fontaine (Fables) and Charles Perrault (Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty, and Bluebeard), painter Simon Vouet (Baroque style of painting), and architect Salomon de Brosse (Luxembourg Palace). During the Revolution, people were buried directly in the Catacombs. Guillotine victims ended up there, too, including the likes of Maximilien Robespierre, Antoine Lavoisier, and Georges Danton, all beheaded in 1794.
There’s a secretive community of street artists, history buffs and other Parisians, known as cataphiles, who regularly prowl the subterranean network. The bulk of the network — more than 170 miles of tunnels and other chambers — has been off-limits to legal passage since 1955 and is a legacy of early quarrying in Paris. That is where the cataphiles roam. They’ve mapped and memorized hundreds of entry points.
From the street level to the Catacombs, visitors descend through a series of rocky strata that date from about 45 million years ago. During that geological era, Paris and the surrounding area were covered by a tropical sea. Several meters of sediment and mud accumulated at the bottom of this sea and became limestone over time.
The level of the Catacombs corresponds to this limestone layer, which represents the period known as “Lutetian”, in reference to Lutetia, the name of Paris in Roman times. From 40 to 48 million years old on the geological scale, this bank ranges between the upper, middle and lower Lutetian.
The quarries occupied the upper and middle levels, while a well nicknamed “bain de pieds des carriers” (Quarriers’ Footbath) in the center of the circuit descends all the way to the lower level. This precise site, where the bank strata have been identified and described, has become an international reference for geological strata.
photo on left – Quarrymen extracting Lutetian limestone from an underground quarry at Bagneux in 1906. The difficult conditions were the cause of many accidents. Ceiling height was about 1.5 metres (5 feet), it was dimly lit, cold, damp, and there was a constant risk of injury or being crushed.
photo on right – The blocks of stones were cut up in the quarry before being hauled to the surface in a special shaft. The deeper quarries reached a depth of 30 metres. (98.4 feet)
All along the underground route are engraved inscriptions of this type: 5.J.1847, meaning that this pillar was the fifth of a series executed in 1847 under the orders of Juncher, Inspector General of Quarries from 1842 to 1851.
There are old tool marks on the ceiling made by the kevel hammer. These marks were made when the ossuary was opened to the public. There’s a black mark on the quarry ceiling which allowed 19th century visitors to get their bearings in the galleries.
A quarryman named François Décure, working between 1777 and 1782, sculpted an alter used for the blessing of the bones and also a footbath for the workers. Prior to his work below Paris, however, he had served in Louis XV’s armies during the Seven Years War (1756-1763) and had
been held captive by the English at the Port-Mahon fortress located in the major city of the Spanish island of Menorca.
But within a small room off the tunnel now known as the Port Mahon corridor, he also spent five years secretly carving a small group of sculptures, doing so
during lunch breaks and after or before his work shifts. He worked with the simple tools of his quarryman’s trade, lighting his work with
torches.
The Port-Mahon corridor is so named because of Décure’s sculpture depicting that fort. There are also sculptures depicting Port Phillipe and the Quartier de Cazerne, the most detailed of the three. The depictions were carved from memory, and reflect considerable artistic license.
Yet they are fairly complex – the port city, for example, is roughly 40 feet long, and built perfectly so that the natural water that pools within the catacombs comes up to the correct level at the edge of the city. There are both bas-relief and protruding elements in each of these sculptures.
Décure was crushed during a cave-in that occurred while he was carving a separate stairway that would have allowed easier access to his sculptures
from street level.
There were four inspectors who worked for 15 years on the service reconstruction, and also on the reconstitution of the quarries Atlas, which were done with the help of De Fourçy. These four inspectors were: Descottes (1872-1875), Tournaire (1875-1878), Gentil (1878-1879), and Roger (1879-1885). One of them was very friendly.
They did lots of work in the south of Paris, essentially bourrages of search galleries. Roger also worked in le 15ième arrondissement and under Montsouris where some of his classification slabs can be found.
Translation:
This work started in 1777 by Décure (known as Beauséjour), veteran of his Majesty, and finished in 1782.
Named bain de pied des carriers (quarrymen’s footbath), this well was an initiatory place for quarrymen and more recently for students graduating from the Ecole des Mines that get themselves baptized in this fountain, whose water is so pure that one can soak one’s feet involuntarily if one does not pay attention. This water flushes from the ground water and previously allowed to measure the variations in the water’s height, as well as draw water for the surrounding working sites around.
Arrête! C’est ici l’empire de la Mort
The entrance to the ossuary bears a haunting inscription, which can be translated to ‘Stop! This is the Empire of the Dead’.
Translation:
Catacombs established by order of Mr. Thiroux de Crosne, Lieutenant General of Police, by the care of Mr. Charles Axel Guillaumot, Inspector General of Quarries, in 1786. Restored and enlarged by order of M. le Comte Frochot, State Councilor, Prefect of the Department of the Seine, by M. Hericart de Thury, Chief Engineer of Mines, Inspector General des Carrières in 1810.
In 2006, more than 200 skeletons were discovered in mass graves unearthed under
a Monoprix Réaumur-Sébastopol on boulevard de Sébastopol (2ième arrondissement). Under the Félix-Potin building once stood the cemetery of the Trinity Hospital, founded in the 12th century but destroyed at the end of the 18th century.
Eight mass graves were discovered and one thing seems certain: the deceased died en masse.
(images below)
Translation:
left – Bones collected under the pavement of the church of St. Nicholas des Champs,
deposited in 1859 in the western ossuary and transferred to the catacombs in September 1859.
middle – Bones of the Trinity Hospital on St. Denis and Grenata streets, January 6, 1814.
right – Where is death? Always future or past. Hardly is she present than already gone.
(images below)
left – The Crypt of the Sepulchral Lamp, the first made in the ossuary, was used to burn pitch resin as the air was gradually corrupted by the deposits of bones, which made it difficult for the workers in charge of the transfers to breathe. Maintaining a hearth was indeed the best way to ensure ventilation during underground work. It was thus used to watch over the dead, and more commonly to improve air circulation, before the construction of ventilation shafts.
middle – Plaque commemorating the Insurrection of 10 August 1792 during the French Revolution, when armed revolutionaries in Paris, increasingly in conflict with the French monarchy, stormed the Tuileries Palace. The conflict led France to abolish the monarchy and establish a republic. Many of those killed in this event had been buried directly in the Catacombs.
D.M. (Latin: Dis manibus, English: to the spirits of the dead)
This 2-hour tour that included access to parts of the Catacombs closed to the general public was incredibly fascinating.
Now, I was off to another cemetary, le cimetière du Sud, commonly called le Cimetière du Monparnasse which opened its doors on July 25, 1824. It was a 6-minute walk from Caracombs, along rue Froidevaux.
The street is named after lieutenant-colonel of the Paris firefighters, François Xavier Eugène Froidevaux (1827-1882), who died in a huge fire in a household utensil factory located at 63 boulevard de Charonne in Paris. He is buried in the Montparnasse cemetery.
Good thing I did not need a haircut. I had a choice between Jules or Giulia. Don’t know who would have made the cut.
Cimetière du Monparnasse
Jacques Chirac
Born: November 29, 1932, Paris, France
Died: September 26, 2019, Paris, France
(aged 86)
A towering figure in French politics for five decades, Jacques Chirac will be remembered for his opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, his pragmatic statesmanship and his advocacy of the European Union.
In 2011, the former French president was handed a two-year suspended prison sentence after being found guilty of embezzling public funds while he was mayor of Paris.
Serge Gainsbourg
Born: April 2, 1928, Paris, France
Died: March 2, 1991, Paris, France
(aged 62)
Serge Gainsbourg, France’s most adored singer-songwriter, lover of Jane Birkin and Brigitte Bardot, was born Lucien Ginsburg in Paris in 1928. When he started writing songs and performing in clubs, Lucien Ginsburg changed his name to Serge Gainsbourg because he wanted something more punchy and artistic and ‘Lucien’ reminded him of a gentleman’s hairdresser.
Gainsbourg was a classically trained musician who earned his living playing piano in cabarets and casinos. He showed talent as a painter and attended the Académie des Beaux-Arts, but eventually realized he had to earn a living.
He started to write successful songs for others and then, later, himself. He wrote and directed 4 movies and acted in 29. He became really famous at 40 with the orgasmic Je T’Aime . . . Moi Non Plus, then even more so with songs that ranged from lush and romantic melodies to Surrealist poetry to caustic and dark concept albums.
Pierre Larousse
Born October 23, 1817, Toucy, France
Died January 3, 1875, Paris, France
(aged 57)
Pierre Larousse was a French grammarian, lexicographer, and encyclopaedist. He published many of the outstanding educational and reference works of 19th-century France, including the 15 volume Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle.
The Larousse dictionary was what we used in school.
The mythical couple of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre are simply two unmissable Parisian figures, prominent existentialist thinkers who were both born and died in the capital city. They paced the cafés and streets of the left bank. A square located in front of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés church bears the name “Sartre-Beauvoir”.
Sartre died in 1980, almost blind. 50,000 people were present to accompany him to his last resting place in the Montparnasse cemetery. Beauvoir joined him 6 years later.
André Citroën
Born February 5, 1878, Paris, France
Died July 3, 1935, Paris, France
(Aged 57)
André Citroën founded the Citroën automobile company in 1919, and was the first European to produce cars on an assembly line. It is reputed that the young André was inspired by the works of Jules Verne and had seen the construction of the Eiffel Tower for the World Exhibition, making him want to become an engineer.
Graduating from the École Polytechnique in 1900, he visited Poland, the birthland of his mother, who had recently died. During that holiday he saw a carpenter working on a set of gears with a fish-bone structure and learned the principle of power transmission via angled gearing. These gears were less noisy and more efficient.
Citroën bought the patent for very little money. Shortly thereafter, he began the production of angle-toothed and spiral-helical gears and reduction gears for automobiles in the form of double angles – or “double chevrons”, the basis on the company’s logo that still exists today.
Catulle Mendès
Born May 22, 1841, Bordeaux, France
Died February 9, 1909, Paris, France
(Aged 67)
Prolific French poet, playwright, and novelist, most noted for his association with the Parnassians, a group of French poets who advocated a controlled, formal art for art’s sake in reaction to the formlessness of Romanticism.
Charles Pigeon
Born March 29, 1838, Le Mesnil-Lieubray, France
Died March 18, 1915, Paris, France
(Aged 76)
Charles-Joseph Pigeon and his wife Marie. She is stretched out and he is half-lying on his left, turned towards her leaning on one elbow, a pencil in his right hand, a half-open notebook in his left hand and having the revelation of what was to become his invention.
At the end of the 19th century, lighting came mainly from kerosene lamps and candles. Charles Pigeon, owner in Paris of a business selling, maintaining and repairing light fixtures, decided to manufacture mineral oil lamps. They were previously considered dangerous since they ignited and exploded.
However, he discovered a technical process that eliminated these risks and filed a patent on June 9, 1884 before investing to equip his workshops. Sure of his product, he undertakes to offer a good sum of money to whoever manages to blow up his lamp. Success is there and a new factory is built on rue Montgolfier in Paris. The Pigeon lamp was officially presented and displayed at the Universal Exhibition of 1900. In 1902, eight million lamps were manufactured.
The company Les Établissements Pigeon took over and continued to produce lamps and stoves until its legal liquidation in December 1960. The brand was taken over by the Navarre factories in Évreux, which closed in 2004.
Translation:
Ernestine Davidoff / Ernestine Dem (DEM is an acronym from the initials of her surname, first name, and first name of her spouse Marc Wolfson). She was a ceramist, sculptor. She lived here from 1920 until 1942. She was arrested on July 16, 1942. She disappeared at Auschwitz.
This commemorative plaque is affixed to the building at 272, boulevard Raspail not too far from le Cimetière du Monparnasse.
My Friday night would end at Le Courlis, another great brasserie restaurant (14ième) that I highly recommend. The menu is written on a chalkboard and everything is faite maison (homemade). I tried my best in avoiding crowded places or places that looked touristy. I only saw the one chalkboard in the distance.
The ownner who worked the bar inside the restaurant came to my table to greet me. When I asked him if he had a menu, he told me he did. He had a smile on his face and so did I when he brought the à la carte menu to my table. His son was the server.
Father and son were super nice. I talked to both, and the son who looked quite young (he was in his thirties) told me this was a family business. I believe his mother was in the kitchen. This conversation came about from asking the server if he was the lone server.
Poulet de ferme and frites maison. Miam! I also love that meals are served with slices of baguette. Like croissants and butter, Dijon mustard is a big deal in France. In every traditional bistro you will find Dijon mustard in the regular company of the salt and pepper. Dijon is great with fries. Note: 80% of mustard seeds are imported from Canada. For dessert, I wanted something light, and ordered crêpes. I asked the server if he can add one scoop of vanilla ice cream. Miam!
Back at the hotel at 20h:39, the lady in red on BFM TV, a 24-hour rolling news and weather cable channel), was informing me that it was going to be really hot tomorrow. The word canicule was now part of my vocabulary.
Also all over the news was that one of France’s most distinguished actors, Jean-Louis Trintignant died at his home in southern France at the age of 91. In 1969 he won the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for his performance as a magistrate investigating the assassination of a Greek politician in Costa-Gavras’s political thriller “Z,” which also won the foreign-language Oscar that year.
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