Saturday, June 18, 2022
Rue de Dunkerque
Located in the heart of le 10ème arrondissement and a ten-minute walk from la Gare de l’Est, la Gare du Nord is the first station in Europe and the third station in the world in terms of flow since it welcomes more than 220 million visitors per year. Departing trains serve northern France, but also international destinations such as London via Eurostar, Belgium and the Netherlands via Thalys and Germany.
La Gare du Nord was inaugurated on June 14, 1846 with the opening of the Paris-Amiens-Lille line. Today we admire its modern neoclassical style and its majestic facade decorated with twenty-three statues by famous sculptors.
Translation:
Frenchman: I did not vote on Sunday.
Macron and Mélenchon: Would you like to see us argue a little more to motivate you?
My morning routine continued as I walked to la Gare du Nord to pick up a copy of Le Parisien.
I noticed a commemorative plaque on one of the walls of la Gare du Nord. There are others.
La Gare du Nord, like the other Parisian train stations, was held until the last minute by the occupying troops. Its garrison, made up of Wehrmacht soldiers and Reichbahnof agents, would patrol the adjacent streets, and arrest passers-by and FFIs (French Forces of the Interior), and carry out summary executions. Until August 25, 1944 it was particularly dangerous to approach the station. Many were the victims.
André Dubois, aged 23, was a student peacekeeper who was arrested. He was carrying his service weapon, and was immediately shot against the wall of the station.
My morning routine continued with breakfast at Jules Jo. I’m old school, and so I’ve always enjoyed the relaxation of having breakfast with a coffee and a newspaper. It was a plus to have the whole restaurant to myself.
After breakfast, I was off to le Cimetière Père Lachaise which was a 35-minute métro ride on Ligne 12. I had pre-booked a 3-hour French guided tour for 14h:30 with Thierry Le Roi. I highly recommend this guide if you speak french. Thierry is an excellent guide who is organized, well prepared, and with a great sense of humour. I will be booking with him again when I return to Paris.
I was the only Canadian in the group. Everyone else was from other parts of France. Thierry made sure to announce that he had a French Canadian in the group from Vancouver, and so I acknowledged this by raising my hand, and the group approved with clapping of hands. I talked to a few in the group, and laughed during this excellent tour. I believe two in the group were from Dijon and so one of them told me that 80% of mustard seeds used by the French are imported from Canada.
With the cemetery tour starting at 14h:30, this gave me plenty of time to have some déjeuner (lunch) somewhere in the arrondissement (20ième). I’m happy that I discovered these great brasseries without the assistance of Trip Advisor. Looking at that website once back in Canada reassured me that my experience differed from the majority. I read too many negative comments, and most from people who do not speak french, and do not understand the French culture. Not one Frenchmen was rude with me. Je répète, pas un Parisien.
Le Café des Banques is another restaurant that I highly recommend. I had bavette d’aloyau grillée (grilled sirloin steak) with sauce au poivre (peppercorn sauce). I didn’t dine out at Michelin-starred restaurants, but can tell you that my dining experience was memorable. It is no surprise that in 2010, the French gastronomic meal and its rituals have been recognized as an intangible UNESCO cultural heritage.
After I ordered my meal, I saw someone from the kitchen wearing an apron run down la rue Malte Brun (86 metres) and return with a basket of baguettes.
For dessert, I had Salade de fruits frais (fresh fruit salad). Delicious.
Cimetière du Père Lachaise
This hill, originally a Jesuit property outside Paris, was a vast site for rest and convalescence for this religious order, which was rich and powerful back then. Amongst the Jesuits residing there was a very important man, Père de la Chaise, who was father confessor of King Louis XIV for 34 years.
Père Lachaise (map) also known as the “East Cemetery” of Paris opened on May 21, 1804. There are more than 5,000 different species of tress spread over an area of 44 hectares, which makes the place the biggest green space in Paris. The cemetery has more than 70,000 graves.
Even the dead, it seems, cannot escape the rocketing property prices of Paris. Who can be buried in a Parisian cemetery? Anyone who is a Parisian resident, no matter where they died; anyone who dies in Paris, no matter where they live. Burial plots are 1 meter x 2 meters.
How do you make room, you ask? After 4 years and if there are no more descendants, then bodies are exhumed (bones placed in a box and placed in the ossuary which is closed to the public) and the plot is re-leased. Paris has the following plot lease agreements:
10 years costs 1,000 Euros
30 years costs 2,800 Euros
50 years costs 4,800 Euros
Perpetuity is 15,000 Euros
The last monument is that of an anonymous Lebanese Christian Family in the surveillance industry that bought a 48-ton Carrara marble for 1.5 million Euros.
While walking on this tour I talked to a few people from different parts of France, I talked with and laughed with two men who were from Dijon. One of them told me that 80% of mustard seeds come from Canada, something that I was not aware of. I also talked to a woman who was from Marseille. She told me that she had visited Quebec and Montreal. It happened to be her birthday on this day.
Le Cimetière des Innocents which dated from the 9th century and was the oldest cemetery in Paris was in the heart of the capital. Both the church and its cemetery were dedicated to the children killed in Judea by order of King Herod. The Cimetière des Innocents was decommissioned in 1780.
For sanitary reasons, the cemeteries inside the city walls, as le Cimetière des Innocents (today Place des Innocents – the bones that have been collected there have been transferred to the catacombs) were destroyed, and new necropolises built on the outskirts of the city.
With Père Lachaise opening in 1804, ten years later, there were only 2,000 registered burial plot concessions on the initial 17 hectares of the cemetery which was far from the city. How were they going to get people to be buried here? You bring in celebrities. The remains of both Mollière and LaFontaine were finally brought to Père Lachaise in 1817. Five years later, in 1822, 13,000 concessions were sold. In 1830, 33,000 concessions were sold. The marketing worked. Celebrities attract people, the last one being Gaspard Ulliel. More on him later.
Pyramids and obelisks are considered to be the very essence of an ancient Egyptian identity. Back in those days, there were catalogs of Neo-Egyptian monuments. The funeral world wanted these monuments and so they were being sold to people. Halfway thru the tour, our guide stopped in front of this one pyramid. This particular one dated back to 1990. The guide took out a tablet out of his used brown leather crossbody bag to show us a video of the time this monument was being built. This pyramid is empty. The retiree, Jean Louis Charles Saquet became an Egyptologist is still alive.
The guide went on to tell the group what he was showing us on this video is what you see from 6,000 years ago in Egyptian tombs. Since the owner is not a Pharoah, there is no Egyptian cartouche, an ancient name plate that features Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. Except for the masonry and the pyramid, Jean Louis Charles Saquet worked on this on his own, taking him 5 years. It’s 2 meters deep. The enclosed space is there. The sarcophagus, a container that holds the coffin, weighs 5 tons and the cover weighs 1 ton. The owner will be embalmed and bandaged. On top of the sarcophagus, there will be 365 amulets; one for each day of the year.
Marcel Proust
Born on July 10, 1871
Neuilly-Auteuil-Passy, France
Died on November 18, 1922
Paris, France
(aged 51)
Marcel Proust’s mother was Jewish, but he was baptized Catholic.
In his seven-volume autobiography, À la recherche du temps perdu (1908-1922), Marcel Proust pours out with a keen sense of narcissism (and dramatization) the procrastination of idle life, rich in anecdotal detail, aesthetic considerations and worldly relationships. Probably homosexual, he never recovered from the loss of his friend Albertine, whom he intended to marry. On his deathbed, Marcel Proust receives a visit from his brother Robert, a well-known and respected doctor. Marcel, who had asthma, died at the age of 51 on November 18, 1922. This year marks the centenary of his death.
Baron Félix de Beaujour
Born on December 28, 1765
Callas, France
Died on July 1, 1836
Paris, France
(aged 70)
The French diplomat and historian, Baron Félix de Beaujour studied at Aix-en-Provence and Paris, joined the diplomatic service and served as French consul-general in Greece in 1794, in Washington in 1804-1811 and in Smyrna [Izmir] in 1816. His description of Albania, published in the two-volume book “Voyage militaire dans l’Empire Ottoman” (Military Journey through the Ottoman Empire), Paris 1829, is primarily geographical, with an eye to military issues, but he also mentions the people of the country.
This monument is 21 metres high and you can see the top of it from other places in Paris.
Fun fact: The architect of this chimney-shaped tower monument, the highest in the cemetery, is François Alexis Cendrier. The translation of cendrier to English is ashtray.
Honoré de Balzac
Born on May 20, 1799, Tours, France
Died on August 18, 1850, Paris, France
(Aged 51)
On April 28, 1838, Balzac and fifty writers, including Victor Hugo, George Sand, Théophile Gautier and Alexandre Dumas, met with Louis Desnoyers, director of the famous newspaper Le Siècle. Together, they drew up the statutes of the Society of People of Letters (SGDL). The social reason for this unprecedented association? Defend the moral rights and the patrimonial and legal interests of the authors of the writing. Rights and interests of contemporaries, but also of future generations.
Eugène Delacroix
Born on April 26, 1798
Saint-Maurice, France
Died on August 13, 1863
Paris, France
(Aged 65)
Eugène Delacroix was the most important of the French Romantic painters. Delacroix’s use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement. A fine lithographer, Delacroix illustrated various works of William Shakespeare, the Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott, and the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Michel Delpech
Born on January 26, 1946
Courbevoie, France
Died on January 2, 2016
Puteaux, France
(Aged 69)
In 1963, Michel Delpech released his debut hit “Anatole” on Disques Vogue. In 1964, Delpech met Roland Vincent, and a long singing songwriting partnership ensued, with Delpech being signed to Festival French record label.
In 1965, he took part in the music comedy Copains Clopant that had a six-month run and made him popular, particularly through his interpretation of “Chez Laurette. He was the opening act for Jacques Brel’s goodbye concert at the Paris Olympia. In 1967, he collaborated with Johnny Stark. In 1968, he won the Grand Prix du Disque award for Il y a des jours où on ferait mieux de rester au lit.
Delpech left Vogue to sign with Barclay Records. At the peak of his success, he recorded Wight Is Wight in tribute to the Isle of Wight Festival, a famous rock festival on the Isle of Wight that became his best known song. It sold over one million copies in Europe, and was awarded gold disc status.
Pour Un Flirt was a second smash hit. It charted in the French-speaking countries around the globe as well in the
Netherlands, and a version in German brought him charts success in West Germany, Austria and Switzerland. An English translation, Flirt, made the Top 20 in the UK.
Allan Kardec
Born on October 3, 1804
Lyon, France
Died on March 31, 1869
Paris, France
(Aged 64)
Allan Kardec is the pen name of the French educator, translator, and author Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail. He is the the founder of Spiritism. With the teachings he received from higher spirits through various mediums, he wrote five books that would become the basis of the Spiritist Doctrine: The Spirits’ Book, The Mediums’ Book, The Gospel According to Spiritism, Heaven and Hell and The Genesis.
He also left unpublished writings, which were collected 21 years after his death in the book Posthumous Works, and several other books of initiation to the doctrine which has not yet being translated to English. Rivail started using the pseudonym Allan Kardec many years later, when he got in contact with Spiritist phenomena.
Gaspard Ulliel
Born on November 25, 1984
Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
Died on January 19, 2022
La Tronche, France
(Aged 37)
Gaspard Ulliel was a French actor. He was known for having portrayed the young Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal Rising (2007), fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent in the biopic Saint Laurent (2014), and for being the face of Chanel men’s fragrance Bleu de Chanel for twelve years.
On 18 January 2022, Ulliel was critically injured while skiing at the La Rosière resort in Savoie, France, when he collided with another skier at an intersection between two blue/intermediate slopes after turning left, presumably to join his friends on an adjoining slope, and suffered serious brain trauma. He died the following day at the age of 37.
Michel Legrand
Born on February 24, 1932
Paris, France
Died on January 26, 2019
Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
(Aged 86)
The music of the composer, singer, arranger, conductor, jazz musician and producer Michel Legrand went on glowing long after many of the 250-odd films he had written soundtracks for had fallen by the wayside.
Legrand became obsessed with the music and life of Franz Schubert, and – with Nadia Boulanger among his teachers – won a raft of prizes on a variety of instruments at the Paris Conservatoire, which he began attending as a 10-year-old in 1942. But a 1947 Paris concert by the bebop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and his big band thrilled him with the sound of jazz.
But if some of the film vehicles for Legrand’s artistry were outlasted by his music, several became famous, including The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and Norman Jewison’s The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), with Noel Harrison singing The Windmills of Your Mind, which won Legrand’s first Oscar, for best film theme song, in 1969. Another Oscar followed for The Summer of ’42 two years later – this time for best film music. Its theme, The Summer Knows, was recorded later that year by Barbra Streisand, whose 1983 film, Yentl, won him his third Oscar, again for best music.
Simone Signoret
Born on March 25, 1921
Wiesbaden, Germany
Died on September 30, 1985
Autheuil-Authouillet, France
(Aged 64)
Born Simone Henriette Charlotte Kaminker in Wiesbaden, Germany, she was the eldest of three children by André Kaminker, an Army officer and linguist, and his wife, Georgette Signoret. The family later moved to the Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, where Signoret learned and eventually taught English. As a young woman, she moved with an intellectual, politically informed crowd at the Café de Flore in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter that would have a profound influence on her own commitments to political and social causes.
The German occupation of France in 1940 forced Signoret’s father, a Polish-Austrian Jew, to flee the country and join General Charles de Gaulle’s opposition in England. In need of a means to provide for her mother and younger brothers, Signoret began working as a movie extra. Billed with her mother’s maiden name to avoid Nazi scrutiny, she worked steadily in bit roles that frequently hinged on her earthy sensuality, dancers, call girls and the like.
In 1944, she caught the attention of director Yves Allegrét, who cast her in her breakout film, Dédé d’Anvers (1948) as a prostitute in love with a young Italian soldier. He also became her first husband and father of her only child, future actress Catherine Allegrét. Their union would run its course by the release of their second screen collaboration, Manèges (The Cheat) (1950), but by then, Signoret had become a star in her own right.
She had also forged what would become her most enduring personal relationship with actor Yves Montand, who became her second husband in 1950, as well as her most devoted supporter. The 1950s were the high point of Signoret’s career and personal life, but also one of her most turbulent decades. She became one of France’s most acclaimed actresses with a series of acclaimed portrayals of women in the grip of turbulent love affairs; in Jacques Becker’s Casque d’Or (1952), her underworld moll unwittingly launched a chain of violence in her attempt to seek a loving relationship, while Marcel Carné’s Thérèse Raquin (The Adulteress) (1953) put her at the center of a love triangle with a thoughtless husband (Jacques Duby) and a handsome truck driver (Raf Vallone).
Her most enduring film from this period was undoubtedly Les Diaboliques (1955), a harrowing thriller from Henri-Georges Clouzot, with Signoret and Vera Clouzot as the mistress and wife, respectively, of a cruel schoolmaster who became the target of their complex murder scheme. The film’s success established Signoret as one of France’s biggest stars, and she parlayed her fame into drawing attention to various political causes. With Montand by her side, she openly voiced her opposition to Russia’s involvement in Hungary, the U.S. in Vietnam, and her own country in Algiers.
Oscar Wilde
Born on October 16, 1854
Dublin, Ireland
Died on November 30, 1900
Paris, France
(Aged 46)
Oscar Wilde, Irish wit, poet, and dramatist whose reputation rests on his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), and on his comic masterpieces Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). He was a spokesman for the late 19th-century Aesthetic movement in England, which advocated art for art’s sake.
Oscar Wilde married Constance Lloyd in 1884 and had two sons in 1885 and 1886. After Oscar’s conviction and imprisonment for homosexual acts in May, 1895, she and the children fled to Switzerland to escape the backlash of his scandal, changing their surname to Holland, an ancestral family name already adopted by her brother, Otho, who was avoiding creditors after financial difficulties.
In 1908, Oscar Wilde’s literary executor Robert Ross chose Jacob Epstein for the commission of the tomb at a cost of two thousand pounds, which had been anonymously donated for this purpose. The monument began as a 20-tonne block of Hopton Wood stone in Derbyshire, England, unveiled to the London press in June 1912. Epstein devised a vast winged figure, a messenger swiftly moving with vertical wings, giving the feeling of forward flight; the conception was purely symbolical, the conception of a poet as a messenger.
Oscar Wilde was originally buried at Bagneux before his remains were transferred to Père Lachaise.
A tradition developed whereby visitors would kiss the tomb after applying lipstick to their mouth, thereby leaving a “print” of their kiss. Lipstick contains animal fat, which sinks into the stone and causes permanent damage. Cleaning operations to remove the lipstick grease have caused the stone to become more porous. It is therefore even harder to clean in subsequent attempts, necessitating more drastic and surface-damaging procedures. In 2011, the creation of a glass barrier to make the monument ‘kiss-proof’ was begun. They completed the barrier in 2014. However, it only covers the lower half of the tomb.
Victor Noir
Born on July 27, 1848
Attigny, France
Died on January 10, 1870
Paris, France
(Aged 21)
It is an astonishing story that of Victor Noir, whose real name is Yvan Salmon, who was shot by Napoleon III’s cousin, Prince Pierre Bonaparte. Victor Noir, a journalist opposed to imperial power, has been the object of an irrational cult for more than fifty years. Or rather his recumbent figure, a bronze statue in his effigy, lying on his tombstone is particularly flattering.
Beneath the open frock coat and waistcoat, and the trousers worn high on the waist, a roundness pleasantness made this young man famous.
Urban superstition lent astonishing powers, pertaining to magic. “A fortune-teller claimed that by kissing Victor Noir’s lips and by slipping a flower into his hat, the women alone found a husband within the year“. A guide noted, “in the early morning, a woman was straddling the recumbent, holding on to her shoes”. Parisiennes passed on the word: by caressing Victor Noir’s penis, they became fertile.
Henri Salvador
Born on July 18, 1917
Cayenne, French Guiana
Died on February 13, 2008
Paris, France
(Aged 90)
Henri Salvador had set up his offices on the top two floors in 1958, then his apartment in 1962 and immediately afterwards his recording studio, first installed in the living room, then in a separate room.
Henri was the first French artist to have his own label, Rigolo, and his home studio. He wanted to be independent and create his music without constraints of money or time. Salvador lived at 6 Place Vendôme. It was his ivory tower, his refuge. There is a plaque on the building wall with his name on it, like Frédéric Chopin, who lived at 12.
Édith Piaf
Born on December 19, 1915
Paris, France
Died on October 10, 1963
Grasse, France
(Aged 47)
Born Édith Giovanna Gassion in Paris, Édith immersed herself in the world of the arts and the stage from her earliest childhood. Her mother was an Italian singer and her father, a circus acrobat.
At only 15, the young teenager is already singing in Parisian cafés. But it is a chance meeting in the street that seals her fate.
Cabaret director Louis Leplée discovers her as she sings a song on a street corner. Under his tutelage, Édith was introduced to cabaret scenes and became the Môme Piaf.
Her funeral is absolutely grandiose. Thousands of people jostle through the streets of Paris to le Père-Lachaise where Edith Piaf finds her final resting place.
Antoine-Augustin Parmentier
Born on August 12, 1737
Montdidier, France
Died on December 17, 1813
Paris, France
While the potato was becoming a part of European cooking ever since the Spaniards brought them to the continent in the mid-1500s, the French refused to accept the vegetable, referring to it as “hog feed” and believing that these tubers caused leprosy. In fact, the French Parliament officially banned potatoes in 1748.
Along came Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, a French pharmacist who served as an army pharmacist during the Seven Years’ War between 1754 and 1763. It was during this time that the Prussians captured and imprisoned him, forcing him to eat potatoes as his prison rations.
Parmentier’s prison experience was transformational. He had eaten potatoes and survived — no leprosy or other diseases. When he was released at the end of the war, Parmentier returned to his studies in Paris. By 1772, his mission was to prove to the French that potatoes were delicious and good for you, and in that same year, the French government repealed the potato ban because of Parmentier’s pioneering work. In 1773, he even won an award from the Academy of Besancon for research that proved potatoes were a great source of nutrition for people suffering from dysentery.
Today, many French potato dishes are named for Parmentier. There is Hachis Parmentier, which is similar to shepherd’s pie with a mashed potato crust, and Potage Parmentier, which is potato and leek soup.
Molière
Born on January 15, 1622
Paris, France
Died on February 17, 1673
Paris, France
(Aged 51)
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world literature.
A true star of his time that knew how to portray with mischief in such human comedies, Molière became the tutelary figure of the theater. The best known and most performed French playwright in the world, it is said, the man was elevated to the rank of national hero in the 19th century, to the point of giving his nickname to the French language like English became that of Shakespeare, but also to theatrical awards, with these famous statuettes bearing his effigy.
Jean de La Fontaine
Born on July 8, 1621
Château-Thierry, France
Died on April 13, 1695
Paris, France
(Aged 73)
Today, Jean de La Fontaine is the best known of the French poets of the seventeenth century, and he was in his time, if not the most admired, at least the most read, in particular thanks to his Tales and his Fables. A dazzling stylist, he brought the fable, a minor genre before him, to a degree of accomplishment that remains unsurpassable. Moralist, and not moralizing, he takes a lucid look at power relations and human nature, without forgetting to please in order to instruct. No one reads the Fables rightly who does not read them with a smile—not only of amusement but also of complicity with the poet in the understanding of the human comedy and in the enjoyment of his art.
Théodore Géricault
Born on September 26, 1791
Rouen, France
Died on January 26, 1824
Paris, France
(Aged 32)
Théodore Géricault was born in Rouen to wealthy middle-class property owners, who moved to Paris when Géricault was about five years old. He was a poor student at the Lycée Impérial, indifferent to most subjects except drawing and classics. His father opposed his son’s decision to pursue artistic training. However, thanks to his uncle’s subterfuge and his mother’s bequest, in 1808 the boy secretly entered the studio of Carle Vernet (1758-1836), a painter of modern military and genre subjects that featured Géricault’s lifelong mania, horses; he officially acknowledged Vernet as his master two years later.
In February 1811, Géricault entered the École des Beaux-Arts, listed instead as a student of Pierre-Narcisse Guérin (1774-1833). Within a few months, Géricault quit attending his master’s studio regularly, and turned to intensive study of the old masters on his own, copying paintings at the new Musée Napoléon (an early phase of the Louvre), until he was permanently expelled from the museum for assaulting a fellow student there in May 1812. He nonetheless competed regularly in the École competitions.
Before beginning the Raft of the Medusa Géricault had been consumed by the story of the murder of a government official, Fualdés. As much as the Fualdés murder and Medusa shipwreck were political events, they were also popular scandals and their stories were endlessly disseminated in newspapers and magazines — and the stories’ darker elements of murder, death and cannibalism inspired Géricault artistically.
Gericault returned to Paris in December 1821 in declining health, which he aggravated by subsequent riding accidents. During those final years, the quantity of works he produced was small, but the power of the finished paintings–the ten portraits of the insane and the Lime Kiln–was compelling. Bedridden for most of 1823, he began studies for two projected modern history paintings, African Slave Trade and Opening of the Doors of the Inquisition. He died in January 1824. That autumn, after repeatedly failing while Gericault was alive, the director of the Louvre, le Comte de Forbin, finally was authorized to buy Raft of the Medusa for the museum.
Alain Bashung
Born on December 1, 1947
Paris, France
Died on March 14, 2009
Paris, France
(Aged 61)
Alain Bashung was a French singer, songwriter and actor. Credited with reviving the French chanson in “a time of French musical turmoil”, he is often regarded in his home country as the most important French rock musician after Serge Gainsbourg. He rose to prominence in the early 1980s with hit songs such as Gaby oh Gaby and Vertige de l’amour, and later had a string of hit records from the 1990s onward, such as Osez Joséphine, Ma petite entreprise and La nuit je mens.
Bashung had an influence on many French artists, and is the most awarded artist in the Victoires de la Musique history with 12 awards obtained throughout his career. Bashung’s Play blessures (1982), Osez Joséphine (1991), and Fantaisie militaire (1998) have made multiple French lists of the greatest albums. L’Imprudence (2002) and Bleu pétrole (2008), the last two studio albums released during his lifetime, also garnered acclaim. Bashung died at 61 after a two-year fight with lung cancer.
Jacques Higelin
Born on October 18, 1940
Brou-sur-Chantereine, France
Died on April 6, 2018
Paris, France
(Aged 77)
Pioneer of French rock, singer Jacques Higelin was born into a working class household. Higelin grew up to the sound of the piano. As a child he enjoyed singing and learned the great popular songs of the period, by everyone from Maurice Chevalier to Charles Trenet, musical influences which were to persist throughout his musical career. Encouraged by his father, Higelin began little by little to sing in cinemas during the intervals.
He began attracting popular attention through his live concerts, typically held in smaller venues, and released his first solo album in 1971. In the same year he sung a version of The International at the celebration of the centenary of the Commune, the violent Nineteen century working class revolt in Paris. In this period many of Higelin’s songs were effectively blacklisted from French radio because of his controversial left wing political beliefs, and his association with socialist groups.
To celebrate François Mitterrand’s election victory in May 1981, Higelin gave a concert with the band Téléphone, in the centre of Paris, the ‘Place de la République’.
Jim Morrison
Born on December 8, 1943
Florida, United States
Died on July 3, 1971
Paris, France
(Aged 27)
Jim Morrison died on the weekend of the American national holiday of July 4th, and the United States embassy could not confirm his death until the 5th. Pamela Courson, long-term companion of Morrison, bought a concession at Père-Lachaise and Morrison was buried there discreetly on July 7th.
There were only five people present, Morrison’s partner, his secretary, his friends Agnès Varda and Alain Ronay and the Door’s manager, Bill Siddons, who arrived from the United States. The ceremony was over in ten minutes. Only Pamela takes the floor to read one of her poems. She inherited from him in 1974, before also disappearing, from a fatal dose of drugs, at the age of 27, like her Jim.
At the center of the grave marker is a metal plaque, faded with time, bears the name of the poet and singer, the years of his birth and death, and the famous ancient Greek inscription kata ton daimona eautou (translated as true to his own spirit or true to his own demon, thus leaving it open to multiple interpretations).
Visitors often stick chewing gum on a nearby tree as a sign of independence and flouting of authority — hallmarks of Morrison’s life.
Michel Petrucciani
Born on December 28, 1962
Orange, France
Died on January 6, 1999
New York, United States
(Aged 36)
Michel Petrucciani lived as fast and intensely as his fingers ran on the keyboard, playing like others paint or box.
Petrucciani was born to Italian parents in Montpellier, France. He could not walk and his bones fractured constantly. He grew to only three feet tall and weighed barely 50 pounds. Petrucciani had to be carried on
to the stage and had a special attachment to use the sustaining pedal of the piano. Yet his long, graceful fingers played with a seemingly tireless energy and verve.
Pierre Desproges
Born on May 9, 1939
Pantin, France
Died on April 18, 1988
Paris, France
(Aged 48)
Pierre Desproges was a French humorist renowned for his black humor, his non-conformism and his sense of the absurd. He was famous for his elaborate, eloquent and most of all, cutting jibes criticizing anything and everything, best characterized by his satirical observation of the world: “On peut rire de tout, mais pas avec tout le monde” (“We can laugh about everything, but not with everyone”).
Desproges admitted himself that he made no significant achievements before the age of thirty. From 1967 to 1970, he worked as a life insurance salesman, opinion poll investigator, a lonely-hearts columnist, horse racing forecaster and a sales manager.
In 1987, doctors discovered he had inoperable lung cancer in an advanced stage, and his relatives, in agreement with the doctors, decided to hide the condition from him, so he could spend his final days quietly. He died in 1988, from a disease he had bitterly laughed at time and time again, often saying “I won’t have cancer: I’m against it”. His epitaph reads: “Pierre Desproges est mort d’un cancer, étonnant, non ?” (“Pierre Desproges died of cancer, astonishing, isn’t it?”)
Frédéric Chopin
Born on March 1, 1810
Żelazowa Wola, Poland
Died on October 17, 1849
Paris, France
(Aged 39)
Romantic composer par excellence, Frédéric Chopin was born in Poland in 1810 and then lived in Paris where he died of tuberculosis at the age of 39: a short life but an immense posterity. Even today, a few notes from his melancholic piano are enough to arouse great emotion in the listener. Chopin’s works are part of our lives without us even realizing it.
An example ? The famous “funeral march” that accompanies the funerals of heads of state is taken from his sonata no. 2. Another? The hit “Lemon Incest” sung by Charlotte Gainsbourg is based on her study op. 10 no 3, which is also called “Sadness”. It is this work that the listeners of Radio Classique elected number one during the Piano Elections.
Serge Gainsbourg, who revered Chopin, also remembered his prelude No. 4 in his song “Jane B.”. The same one that inspired NTM for its track “That’s My People”. And Donna Summer’s disco hit “Could Be It Magic” covered in French by Alain Chamfort, the group Alliage and the Enfoirés? Chopin again with his prelude No. 20!
To end my day, I returned to Studio 28 at 21h00 for Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg’s long-awaited new film Les Crimes du Futur (Crimes of the Future) which premiered at Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2002 to a polarizing audience — one that saw dozens walk out midway through the premiere, and one that honoured the film with a seven-minute standing ovation.
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