Paris - Père Lachaise - 19e

Plate CIXX – Pere Lachaise – Edith Piaf …

It is said that over forty thousand people accompanied Edith Gassion on her final journey to Père Lachaise. It is not hard to understand why. Better known as Edith Piaf, La Môme, or (France’s) Little Sparrow, the four feet ten inches tall singer in her customary costume of a simple black dress will, to me and many others, forever remain the defining voice of Paris.

I had to find her. To the south-east of the graveyard in a simple polished black granite grave, surmounted by a crucifix such as had become her trademark, and engraved with the name Famille Gassion-Piaf, Edith now rests alongside family members unable to give her the strength and support she craved in her life.

From the accordionists busking in the underground metro stations, or the Wurlitzer sounds of the carousels of the city, to the cd vendors with their portable players on the pavements outside Galeries Lafayette it is unlikely during a city visit that you will not somewhere hear the music of Piaf. Through a life that was always tinged with tragedy, starting in the back streets and brothels of Montmatre, Edith Piaf became the best known French entertainer in the world. Her love affair with America (excepting for its food) ensured her international renown. With a voice that used none of today’s musical contrivances Piaf could express the gaiety and laughter of a city at play one minute to the sadness of a bereft lover the next. She is unique.

I would be leaving Paris shortly. I knew I would come back again. In my head Piaf was singing… 

Je pense à toi sans cesse.

Paris, je m'ennuie de toi, mon vieux.

On se retrouvera tous les deux,

Mon grand Paris………

Paris - Montmartre - 18e

Plate LXXXIX – Montmartre …

To the north of Paris is a hill known as the Butte Montmartre. Some 130 metres above the city and crested by the brilliantly off white basilica of Sacré Coeur it beckons the city’s visitors to come and explore the myriad winding streets and alleys that make up the district to which it lends its name. The name itself derives from a translation of ‘the mountain of the martyr’, referring to St. Denis, former bishop and patron saint of the city, decapitated here in around 250 AD. Originally outside the city limits, it owes its early public popularity to its former tax free status - and reputedly also to the wine made by the local nuns. (It remains a popular drinking area to this day, and having personally enjoyed a robust burgundy or two in it’s precincts I can highly recommend it). Long known also as a place of worship, the church of St Pierre (now dwarfed by the new basilica) is reputedly the oldest of God’s houses in the city. I had, on the day of my visit, been told of the sudden death of a dear friend back home, and it was in the silent still darkness of St Pierre’s that I lit my first ever votive candle. Despite being neither Catholic nor deeply religious it seemed the proper thing to do, and it somehow did make me feel spiritually closer to a bereaved distant family. St. Pierre’s is reputedly where the Jesuit order was founded.

Best known as the home of artists and musicians, Montmartre was inhabited by this community from the early nineteenth century right through to the middle of the twentieth. Famous names associated with the area, too exhaustive to list completely, include Baker, Brissaud, Bruant, Degas, Derain, Matisse, Modigliani, Piaf, Picasso, Pissaro, Renoir, Satie, Toulouse-Lautrec, van Gogh and Utrillo. Many mourn the passing of those bohemian years, so poignantly expressed in Charles Aznavour’s lyrics to La Bohème, but the often gritty reality of life in Montmartre was so brilliantly captured in the film La Môme, with Marion Cotillard in her Oscar winning portrayal of Edith Piaf. A more sanitised depiction of the area was seen in the movie Amélie.  Now designated an historical district, building development is restricted, and the character of the streets will be well preserved. Still populated by a diverse range of individuals including restaurateurs, accordionists, pick-pockets, painters, sketchers, silhouette artists, con artists and hookers, and with a vast number of restaurants and cabarets including the Moulins – Rouge, and de la Galette - and the Lapin Agile, a stroll along the steep sloping alleys cannot fail to bring back some feeling of the decadence of a past life in the city’s north.