I witness the assassination of Paris , 1979
By Robert Mendoza
“…one of the last vestiges of the old Paris -- the Paris one still talks about but which is no longer there.”
- Paul Auster
“I want to talk about Paris and I find myself recounting my life.”
- Daniel Halevy
In 1991 Hachette published an edition of its Guide du Routard (the “hip” backpacker's guide) dedicated to forgotten Paris. The neighborhoods featured had somehow managed to dodge developers and remain islets of 19th-century charm. Nowadays, all of these once-recondite vestiges have either been gentrified or become destinations for mainstream (Frommers, Conde Nast) tourism. I, however, after a decade, can still recall the ill-repressed smugness with which I turned the pages of the Guide. For I had “discovered” and walked the streets of these quartiers in 1978.
As readers of previous installments will recall, I averaged 10 miles a day in wandering all over the city. The major motivation for this strenuous pedestrianism was my inability to secure a decent place to stay. Albeit extreme, my lodging problem was not unique. Paris' vibrant café and street life are a necessary concomitant to the grim, cramped, and often insalubrious housing endured by many of its inhabitants. American tourists, inured to their stateside front lawns, entertainment centers, and basement gyms, often return home convinced that most Parisians are alcoholics or hopelessly addicted to foosball.
Paul Theroux has famously, if not terribly originally, asserted that the most arduous of travel seems romantic in hindsight. In that spirit, I am compelled to be grateful that precarious lodging forced me into the streets where I stumbled upon many of the most elusive mysteries of Paris . From a vantage of 25 years on, many of my travails in “forgotten Paris ” have been transmuted into the fondest and most indelible of memories.
It must have been the last week of October 1978 that I turned the acacia-lined corner of the Rue des Morillons and was confronted by an enormous stone bull. This supersized boeuf guarded what had been the easternmost entrances to the Abattoir de Vaugirard. This vast slaughterhouse complex was in the throes of being demolished. A haze reeking of manure, offal, and pulverized stone hung in the air.
Odors notwithstanding, I seized the opportunity to explore several of the 19th-century pavilions that remained standing. Their intricate cast-iron lacework reminded me of photographs of Les Halles, Paris ' vanished central market. Other pavilions were guarded by gargantuan pigs, enormous sheep, and a magnificent horse presided over what had been the equine auction hall.
Bemused by visions of the vast herds of creatures who had met their demise, and of the generations of butchers who had blunted their knives on the premises, I headed back toward the center of Paris .
As I trudged eastward (orienting my course by means of the Tour Montparnasse's black obelisk), I began to notice that large sections of the neighborhoods were either demolished or undergoing drastic “renovation.” Entire ranks of 19th-century buildings, many with lush, leafy courtyards, had succumbed to the wrecking ball. Some of their replacements were already well under construction: bland pastel concrete and glass apartment flats flanked by brutalist tower blocks.
These contiguous neighborhoods in the 14th and 15th arrondissements had once been the village of Plaisance , prior to its 19th-century engulfment by Paris . Surviving street names such as Rue du Chateau and Moulin Vert evoked a vanished bucolic past. Louis Chevalier's book, The Assassination of Paris, would eventually detail the machinations of the developers and their corrupt accomplices within the Paris prefecture, but in 1978, I was merely a stray traveler saddened by what was clearly a wanton sacrifice of the city's heritage.
However, I managed to set my grief aside as I realized that all this chaos provided the perfect opportunity to explore the interiors of the surviving and vacant buildings. I devoted several hours to familiarizing myself with what had once been impenetrable premises. (Parisians are notorious for their reticence to allow non-intimates access to their domestic turfs.) I even managed to enter, with the connivance of indifferent construction workers, buildings in the process of demolition. Having funded my foreign travel with construction work, I was fascinated by French procedures and marveled at the “things they carried.” Why did they eschew the claw hammer? What was it like to clamber about on a stepladder that tapered to a point?
The untimely arrival of the work crew's patron forced me to break off my inquiries and eclipse myself by means of an adjoining villa's wall. I stretched out beneath a stand of doomed elms and got out my notebook to dutifully sketch Warrington hammers and pointy ladders, all the while munching on overripe espaliered St. Jean pears abandoned by vanished gardeners.
The lengthening shadows conjured up a fine drizzle that persuaded me to quit my splendid isolation and stride purposefully down the Rue Raymond Losserrand. At its intersection with Rue de Chateau, I spotted a likely bar. The Au Cadran's façade projected into the intersection like the prow of an advancing, somewhat grim Art Deco brick vessel. The bar's interior, featuring a long zinc bar running the length of the intricately tiled walls, had obviously not been altered since the 1920s. (During the 1940s' occupation, Nazis assiduously recycled Paris bartops into munitions for the Wehrmacht.)
A rear wall in the adjacent dining area was dominated by a framed 1930s movie poster illustrating the bar's namesake, depicting a pair of lovers melodramatically rendezvousing beneath a large train station clock (cadran).
At this hour, no one was meeting up with anyone at the Cadran. An old man nursed his calvados in the corner by the Toilettes-Telephones, while the owner polished wineglasses. I sipped the contents of my scalding demitasse, admired the subtle harmony of the gray-green and mauve tile, and wondered if this bar would avoid the wave of demolition rushing into Plaisance.
In It All Adds Up, Saul Bellow returned to his old Montparnasse neighborhood after a 30-year absence. He was, predictably, dismayed by the crass new apartments and office buildings, but acutely aggrieved by the “disappearance of certain cheap conveniences.” Bellow noted the absence of family-owned bistros that had served delicious, inexpensive lunches. Cabinetmakers, watch-repairmen, a congeries of “dusty old shops that had once supported honest tradesmen” were all gone, replaced by vendors of gleaming appliances.
As I finished my drink and stepped out into the rainswept Rue du Chateau, I was, of course, unaware that one day, years later, I would not only return to Au Cadran, but become one of its most loyal habitués. That at my approach, the efficient yet curt Pierre would interrupt his glass-washing, solemnly shake my hand, and lead me to “my table” by the front window. Or that his partner Annie would take my order without ever having to ask whether I prefer fries or pommes rissoles with my braised hare.
To be continued. . . .
