The Real Latin Quarter Part 1

The Real Latin Quarter.

by F. Berkeley Smith.

INTRODUCTION

"Cocher, drive to the rue Falguiere"--this in my best restaurant French.

The man with the varnished hat shrugged his shoulders, and raised his eyebrows in doubt. He evidently had never heard of the rue Falguiere.

"Yes, rue Falguiere, the old rue des Fourneaux," I continued.

Cabby's face broke out into a smile. "Ah, oui, oui, le Quartier Latin."

And it was at the end of this crooked street, through a lane that led into a half court flanked by a row of studio buildings, and up one pair of dingy waxed steps, that I found a door bearing the name of the author of the following pages--his visiting card impaled on a tack. He was in his shirt-sleeves--the thermometer stood at 90 outside--working at his desk, surrounded by half-finished sketches and ma.n.u.script.

The man himself I had met before--I had known him for years, in fact--but the surroundings were new to me. So too were his methods of work.

Nowadays when a man would write of the Siege of Peking or the relief of some South African town with the unp.r.o.nounceable name, his habit is to rent a room on an up-town avenue, move in an inkstand and pad, and a collection of ill.u.s.trated papers and encyclopedias. This writer on the rue Falguiere chose a different plan. He would come back year after year, and study his subject and compile his impressions of the Quarter in the very atmosphere of the place itself; within a stone's throw of the Luxembourg Gardens and the Pantheon; near the cafes and the Bullier; next door, if you please, to the public laundry where his washerwoman pays a few sous for the privilege of pounding his clothes into holes.

It all seemed very real to me, as I sat beside him and watched him at work. The method delighted me. I have similar ideas myself about the value of his kind of study in out-door sketching, compared with the labored work of the studio, and I have most positive opinions regarding the quality which comes of it.

If then the pages which here follow have in them any of the true inwardness of the life they are meant to portray, it is due, I feel sure, as much to the att.i.tude of the author toward his subject, as much to his ability to seize, retain, and express these instantaneous impressions, these flash pictures caught on the spot, as to any other merit which they may possess.

Nothing can be made really _real_ without it.

F. HOPKINSON SMITH.

Paris, August, 1901.

CHAPTER I

IN THE RUE VAUGIRARD

Like a dry brook, its cobblestone bed zigzagging past quaint shops and cafes, the rue Vaugirard finds its way through the heart of the Latin Quarter.

It is only one in a score of other busy little streets that intersect the Quartier Latin; but as I live on the rue Vaugirard, or rather just beside it, up an alley and in the corner of a picturesque old courtyard leading to the "Lavoir Gabriel," a somewhat angelic name for a huge, barn-like structure reeking in suds and steam, and noisy with gossiping washerwomen who pay a few sous a day there for the privilege of doing their washing--and as my studio windows (the big one with the north light, and the other one a narrow slit reaching from the floor to the high ceiling for the taking in of the big canvases one sees at the Salon--which are never sold) overlook both alley and court, I can see the life and bustle below.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LAVOIR GABRIEL]

This is not the Paris of Boulevards, ablaze with light and thronged with travelers of the world, nor of big hotels and chic restaurants without prices on the menus. In the latter the maitre d'hotel makes a mental inventory of you when you arrive; and before you have reached your coffee and cigar, or before madame has b.u.t.toned her gloves, this well-shaved, dignified personage has pa.s.sed sentence on you, and you pay according to whatever he thinks you cannot afford. I knew a fellow once who ordered a peach in winter at one of these smart taverns, and was obliged to wire home for money the next day.

In the Quartier Latin the price is always such an important factor that it is marked plainly, and often the garcon will remind you of the cost of the dish you select in case you have not read aright, for in this true Bohemia one's daily fortune is the one necessity so often lacking that any error in regard to its expenditure is a serious matter.

In one of the well-known restaurants--here celebrated as a rendezvous for artists--a waiter, as he took a certain millionaire's order for asparagus, said: "Does monsieur know that asparagus costs five francs?"

At all times of the day and most of the night the rue Vaugirard is busy.

During the morning, push-carts loaded with red gooseberries, green peas, fresh sardines, and mackerel, their sides shining like silver, line the curb in front of the small shops. Diminutive donkeys, harnessed to picturesque two-wheeled carts piled high with vegetables, twitch their long ears and doze in the shady corners of the street. The gutters, flushed with clear water, flash in the sunlight. Baskets full of red roses and white carnations, at a few sous the armful, brighten the cool shade of the alleys leading to courtyards of wild gardens, many of which are filled with odd collections of sculpture discarded from the ateliers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (donkey cart in front of market)]

Old women in linen caps and girls in felt slippers and leather-covered sabots, market baskets on arm, gossip in groups or hurry along the narrow sidewalk, stopping at the butcher's or the baker's to buy the dejeuner. Should you breakfast in your studio and do your own marketing, you will meet with enough politeness in the buying of a pate, an artichoke, and a bottle of vin ordinaire, to supply a court welcoming a distinguished guest.

Politeness is second nature to the Parisian--it is the key to one's daily life here, the oil that makes this finesse of civilization run smoothly.

"Bonjour, madame!" says the well-to-do proprietor of the tobacco-shop and cafe to an old woman buying a sou's worth of snuff.

"Bonjour, monsieur," replies the woman with a nod.

"Merci, madame," continues the fat patron as he drops the sou into his till.

"Merci, monsieur--merci!" and she secretes the package in her netted reticule, and hobbles out into the sunny street, while the patron attends to the wants of three draymen who have clambered down from their heavy carts for a friendly chat and a little vermouth. A polished zinc bar runs the length of the low-ceilinged room; a narrow, winding stairway in one corner leads to the living apartments above. Behind the bar shine three well-polished square mirrors, and ranged in front of these, each in its zinc rack, are the favorite beverages of the Quarter--anisette, absinthe, menthe, grenadine--each in zinc-stoppered bottles, like the ones in the barber-shops.

At the end of the little bar a cocher is having his morning tipple, the black brim of his yellow glazed hat resting on his coa.r.s.e red ears. He is in his shirt-sleeves; coat slung over his shoulder, and whip in hand, he is on the way to get his horse and voiture for the day. To be even a cocher in Paris is considered a profession. If he dines at six-thirty and you hail him to take you as he rattles past, he will make his brief apologies to you without slackening his pace, and go on to his plat du jour and bottle of wine at his favorite rendezvous, dedicated to "The Faithful Cocher." An hour later he emerges, well fed, revives his knee-sprung horse, lights a fresh cigarette, cracks his whip like a package of torpedoes, and goes clattering off in search of a customer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (rooftop)]

The shops along the rue Vaugirard are marvels of neatness. The butcher-shop, with its red front, is iron-barred like the lion's cage in the circus. Inside the cage are some choice specimens of filets, rounds of beef, death-masks of departed calves, cutlets, and chops in paper pantalettes. On each article is placed a bra.s.s sign with the current price thereon.

In Paris nothing is wasted. A placard outside the butcher's announces an "Occasion" consisting of a mule and a donkey, both of guaranteed "premiere qualite." And the butcher! A thick-set, powerfully built fellow, with blue-black hair, curly like a bull's and shining in pomade, with fierce mustache of the same dye, waxed to two formidable points like skewers. Dangling over his white ap.r.o.n, and suspended by a heavy chain about his waist, he carries the long steel spike which sharpens his knives. All this paraphernalia gives him a very fierce appearance, like the executioner in the play; but you will find him a mild, kindly man after all, who takes his absinthe slowly, with a fund of good humor after his day's work, and his family to Vincennes on Sundays.

The windows, too, of these little shops are studies in decoration. If it happens to be a problem in eggs, cheese, b.u.t.ter, and milk, all these are arranged artistically with fresh grape-leaves between the white rows of milk bottles and under the cheese; often the leaves form a nest for the white eggs (the fresh ones)--the hard-boiled ones are dyed a bright crimson. There are china hearts, too, filled with "Double Cream," and cream in little brown pots; Roquefort cheese and Camembert, Isijny, and Pont Leveque, and chopped spinach.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (overloaded cart of baskets)]

Delicatessen shops display galantines of chicken, the windows banked with shining cans of sardines and herrings from Dieppe; liver pates and creations in jelly; tiny sausages of doubtful stuffing, and occasional yellow ones like the odd fire-cracker of the pack.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (women at news stand)]

Grocery shops, their interiors resembling the toy ones of our childhood, are brightened with cones of snowy sugar in blue paper jackets. The wooden drawers filled with spices. Here, too, one can get an excellent light wine for eight sous the bottle.

As the day begins, the early morning cries drift up from the street. At six the fishwomen with their push-carts go their rounds, each singing the beauties of her wares. "Voila les beaux maquereaux!" chants the st.u.r.dy vendor, her sabots clacking over the cobbles as she pushes the cart or stops and weighs a few sous' worth of fish to a pa.s.sing purchaser.

The goat-boy, piping his oboe-like air, pa.s.ses, the goats scrambling ahead alert to steal a carrot or a bite of cabbage from the nearest cart. And when these have pa.s.sed, the little orgue de Barbarie plays its repertoire of quadrilles and waltzes under your window. It is a very sweet-toned organ, this little orgue de Barbarie, with a plaintive, apologetic tone, and a flute obbligato that would do credit to many a small orchestra. I know this small organ well--an old friend on dreary mornings, putting the laziest riser in a good humor for the day. The tunes are never changed, but they are all inoffensive and many of them pretty, and to the shrunken old man who grinds them out daily they are no doubt by this time all alike.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (cat on counter)]

It is growing late and time for one's coffee. The little tobacco-shop and cafe around the corner I find an excellent place for cafe au lait.

The coffee is delicious and made when one chooses to arrive, not stewed like soup, iridescent in color, and bitter with chicory, as one finds it in many of the small French hotels. Two crescents, flaky and hot from the bakery next door, and three generous pats of unsalted b.u.t.ter, complete this morning repast, and all for the modest sum of twelve sous, with three sous to the garcon who serves you, with which he is well pleased.

I have forgotten a companionable cat who each morning takes her seat on the long leather settee beside me and shares my crescents. The cats are considered important members of nearly every family in the Quarter. Big yellow and gray Angoras, small, alert tortoise-sh.e.l.l ones, tiger-like and of plainer breed and more intelligence, bask in the doorways or sleep on the marble-topped tables of the cafes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (woman carrying shopping box)]