Twilight of the Belle Epoque
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Twilight of the Belle Epoque
Twilight of the Belle Epoque
The Paris of Picasso, Stravinsky, Proust, Renault, Marie Curie, Gertrude Stein, and Their Friends through the Great War
Mary McAuliffe
Rowman & Littlefield
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Copyright © 2014 by Mary S. McAuliffe
When not otherwise noted, all translations are by the author.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McAuliffe, Mary Sperling, 1943–
Twilight of the Belle Epoque : the Paris of Picasso, Stravinsky, Proust, Renault, Marie Curie, Gertrude Stein, and their friends through the Great War / Mary McAuliffe.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4422-2163-5 (cloth : alkaline paper) — ISBN 978-1-4422-2164-2 (electronic) 1. Paris (France)—Intellectual life—20th century. 2. Intellectuals—France—Paris—Biography. 3. Paris (France)—History—1870–1940. 4. Paris (France)—Social conditions—20th century. 5. Social change—France—Paris—History—20th century. 6. Social conflict—France—Paris—History—20th century. 7. World War, 1914–1918—Social aspects—France—Paris. I. Title.
DC735.M44 2014
944'.3610813—dc23
2013047607
™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
In memory of my parents
Betty F. Sperling and Godfrey Sperling Jr.
Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Enter the King
Chapter 2: Bohemia on the Seine
Chapter 3: Death of a Queen
Chapter 4: Dreams and Reality
Chapter 5: Arrivals and Departures
Chapter 6: Alliances and Misalliances
Chapter 7: Wild Beasts
Chapter 8: La Valse
Chapter 9: Winds of Change
Chapter 10: Unfinished Business
Chapter 11: Idyll
Chapter 12: Deep Waters
Chapter 13: Between Heaven and Hell
Chapter 14: Dancing on the Edge
Chapter 15: Fireworks
Chapter 16: “Dear France, dear country”
Chapter 17: “This war which never ends”
Chapter 18: “Ils ne passeront pas”
Chapter 19: Dark Days
Chapter 20: Finale
Notes
Bibliography
About the Author
Acknowledgments
As always, my first debt of gratitude is to the City of Light itself, which for more than twenty years has nourished my sense of beauty and deepened my appreciation of history. No matter how much I research and write about this remarkable subject, there is still so much to discover. Paris is indeed a feast, and I have benefited immeasurably from the opportunity to partake of it.
I would like to thank the New York Public Library for providing me a place in its Wertheim Study Room, a quiet sanctuary for scholars in the heart of its vast research facilities in the renowned Forty-Second Street Library. In particular, I would like to extend my thanks to Jay Barksdale, the senior librarian in charge of the Wertheim Study Room, for his ever-ready assistance in solving the variety of problems that can confront a researcher.
Along the way, many people have generously provided a wide array of assistance. Gilles Thomas, who knows more about underground Paris than anyone can possibly imagine, has for years shared his vast historical as well as geographical knowledge of the city with my husband and me. It was Gilles who insisted that we come with him to visit the extensive caverns of Chemin des Dames, outside of Paris, because (as he put it) we are Americans and we should see them. He was right: the wall carvings made during World War I by lonely American soldiers on this front-line position—all too close to Paris—moved us deeply and added an important element to my understanding of the war and its impact on Parisians.
I would also like to thank Gérard Duserre and Jean-Luc Largier for their unflagging commitment to historical preservation and for their enthusiasm in sharing their discoveries with us. Our friend Ray Lampard has also generously shared his interest in Paris’s past, going well out of his way to show us the Paris and its environs that he loves.
This is the third book that I have published with Rowman & Littlefield, and I have been blessed throughout with an extraordinary editorial staff. Special thanks to my editor, Susan McEachern, who has regularly held my hand along the road to publication, providing invaluable expertise and guidance along the way. My thanks as well to my longtime production editor, Jehanne Schweitzer, who has never met a problem or a complexity she could not master. I am also grateful for the assistance of my patient copy editor, Catherine Bielitz, and to assistant editor Carrie Broadwell-Tkach, who makes so many things happen, and so smoothly.
Last, a special thank-you to my husband, Jack McAuliffe, who throughout the gestation of four books and more than one hundred articles on Paris and France has unsnarled the inevitable travel snafus and provided valuable insights and photography along the way. I have had the joy of discovering Paris with him, and that is the best of all.
Paris, 1900–1918. © J. McAuliffe
Key:
A. Musée du Louvre
B. Sorbonne and Latin Quarter
C. Panthéon
D. 27 Rue de Fleurus (Gertrude Stein)
E. Hôtel Biron (Rodin)
F. Les Invalides
G. Place de la Concorde
H. Théâtre des Champs-Elysées
J. Etoile
K. 102 Boulevard Haussmann (Proust)
L. Café du Dôme and Café de la Rotonde
M. La Ruche (Chagall)
N. Porte Dauphine
P. Bateau-Lavoir (Picasso)
R. Père-Lachaise Cemetery
Paris’s twenty arrondissements are indicated by number.
Introduction
My last book on Paris, Dawn of the Belle Epoque: The Paris of Monet, Zola, Bernhardt, Eiffel, Debussy, Clemenceau, and Their Friends, took the reader from the multiple disasters of 1870–1871 through the extraordinary reemergence of Paris as cultural center of the Western world, ending with the triumphal Paris Exposition of 1900.
It was not, of course, as if Paris and Parisians experienced no trials or tribulations during these years. The poor continued to suffer, and their advocates, such as Georges Clemenceau and Louise Michel, continued to have their work cut out for them. Moreover, a prolonged period of economic listlessness provided an ongoing undercurrent of anxiety, exacerbated by debacles such as the Union Générale
bank crash and the Panama Canal scandal—thoroughly avoidable disasters that wiped out the life savings of so many who could not afford to lose a sou. In addition, the unsettled nature of the Third Republic itself undermined confidence. Monarchists and the Church continued to battle republicans of all stripes, while anti-Semites and nationalists, feeding upon the swirling undercurrent of fear, almost tore the nation apart in their victimization of an innocent Jewish soldier, Captain Alfred Dreyfus.
And yet, somehow, a remarkable series of artists and innovators emerged during these years, battling traditionalists and—at least for a substantial number—achieving success. Claude Monet, Emile Zola, Sarah Bernhardt, and Gustave Eiffel were well-to-do or even wealthy by the turn of the century, as was that innovative founder of the Samaritaine department store, Ernest Cognacq. Auguste Rodin and Pierre-Auguste Renoir had also attained financial success, and others among their acquaintances had likewise left their years of poverty far behind. There would always be those such as Paul Gauguin who would die impoverished, and the market for paintings by Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, and Paul Cézanne did not really take off until after their deaths. But a surprising number of the starving artists and entrepreneurs of the 1860s and 1870s had, by the turn of the century, found fame and fortune in Paris.
A new cast of characters greets the reader in this book, starting with nineteen-year-old Pablo Picasso, who arrived late in the year 1900 to visit the Paris exposition and glory in the fact that one of his youthful paintings was hanging in the Spanish pavilion. The new century would soon belong to Picasso, as well as to Henri Matisse, Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Marie Curie, Gertrude Stein, Marcel Proust, Jean Cocteau, and Isadora Duncan. It would belong just as rightly to Louis Renault, André Citroën, Paul Poiret, François Coty, and all those innovators and entrepreneurs who created new technologies and far-flung businesses based in Paris, as well as to those magnificent men—and women—who added excitement and adventure to the Paris scene by piloting some of the era’s earliest automobiles and flying machines.
This did not mean that the leading lights of the previous century had somehow stepped aside. Sadly, Edouard Manet and Berthe Morisot had departed, and Zola was about to make his dramatic exit, but Monet and Renoir continued to paint for wealthy collectors, and Sarah Bernhardt soldiered on, reaping accolades and gamely entertaining the troops during World War I despite her recently acquired wooden leg. Gustave Eiffel, disgraced in the aftermath of the Panama Canal scandal, would keep his word and never build another bridge or tower, but his experiments in radio communications and aerodynamics would keep him fruitfully active for the rest of his long life. Claude Debussy, after two decades of battling traditionalists, was about to emerge as a giant on the music scene, while Georges Clemenceau would eventually cap a roller-coaster career in politics by stepping in at the age of seventy-six to lead his country to victory in war.
These years, from 1900 for more than a decade, were remarkable ones—remembered in the Great War’s aftermath as the Belle Epoque. They were years of extraordinary achievement in almost every field of endeavor, marked by a dizzying sequence of breakthroughs. Yet they were also years of shadows, and those shadows were growing longer as war approached—a cataclysm that tested the mettle of the City of Light, even as it brought the end of an era.
Chapter One
Enter the King
(1900)
It was mid-October 1900 in the City of Light when Pablo Picasso arrived from Barcelona at Paris’s bustling new railroad station, the Gare d’Orsay.1 He was almost nineteen years old and filled with bravado. After all, the Spanish pavilion at the Paris Exposition of 1900 had included one of his paintings in its exhibit. What a coup! And what a way to make his entrance into Paris! Scrawling on a self-portrait soon after learning that he would be making the trip, Picasso had euphorically written, “I, the king.” Not once, but three times. It would prove to be amazingly accurate.
He arrived with his best friend, Carles Casagemas, an aspiring artist and poet who was similarly yearning to experience the Paris art scene and its famed bohemian life. The exposition was due to close on November 12, giving the young men little time to dally if they intended to see it.
Millions that centennial year had already flocked to the Paris exposition, which featured a virtual explosion of the newest and the most breathtaking, including its Palace of Electricity, which was gloriously illuminated by night, and an electrically powered moving sidewalk that magically carried hoards of delighted and possibly footsore visitors around the Left Bank portion of the exposition. This world’s fair, like its predecessors, was meant to overawe, and it succeeded—much to the pleasure of the fifty million visitors who crowded into its acres of amusement and education for the months from April through early November.
The Rolling Sidewalk, Universal Exhibition, Paris, 1900. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, France. Photo Credit: Snark / Art Resource, NY. © Art Resource, NY.
Fantasy, futurism, and the exotic flourished there, but if there was a single style in architecture and decoration that prevailed, it was Art Nouveau—or what by then was referred to in Paris as le style Mucha, named after the Czech artist whose late 1890s posters of Sarah Bernhardt had set off a frenzy in the decorative arts.
Alphonse Mucha had survived years of poverty as a lackluster artist in Paris before unexpectedly creating something entirely new and vibrant when opportunity and emergency combined. Sarah Bernhardt wanted a new theatrical poster at an awkward time, and—like the diva she was—she wanted it immediately. There was no one else to do it but this unlikely artist, who had the sole recommendation of being available. Mucha later claimed to have drawn upon the Czech tradition of folk ornamentation, although it is more likely that a yeasty mixture of Symbolism, Japanese art, and the curved, organic elements of the emerging Art Nouveau movement guided his brush. Whatever happened, he struck gold, metaphorically and otherwise, and from then on his fortune was made.
Called upon in the months leading up to the Paris exposition to plan a grandiose Pavilion of Humanity (which never came to fruition) and to design the entire pavilion for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mucha endured what he later remembered as a “nightmare of hard work.” A notoriously intense worker, who usually started at nine o’clock in the morning and continued until one o’clock the following morning or later, Mucha suffered so much stress that he smoked incessantly and developed nicotine poisoning. That is, until (as his son tells the story) he decided in desperation to go cold turkey and threw all his smoking gear into the oven. This drastic change produced its own dire results, which impelled a doctor to prescribe what sounds like the ultimate Parisian prescription—a bottle of champagne a day!
Thus fortified, Mucha seems to have recovered. He and the jeweler Georges Fouquet successfully collaborated on the exposition’s Bosnia-Herzegovina pavilion, and then Fouquet asked Mucha to design every detail of the new shop he was opening on the elegant Rue Royale, between the Place de la Madeleine and the Place de la Concorde. Mucha accepted and then proceeded to outdo himself, creating a luxurious little oasis of sinuously carved cabinets, intricate flooring, sculpted peacocks, and stained glass windows featuring his characteristically long-tressed maidens. This was in addition to designing the jewelry itself, and it was all done with extraordinary attention to detail and in the very best of Art Nouveau style. Laboring long and hard on this tiny bit of perfection, Mucha managed to complete Fouquet’s jewel box of a shop by 1901.2
Work on a far different scale had already been proceeding for several years in the heart of Paris as engineers and construction workers created urban havoc by tearing up great swaths of streets and sidewalks and digging enormous holes in the most inconvenient places, all in the gigantic effort to build the city’s new underground Métro system. Under the direction of Fulgence Bienvenüe, the eminent but sadly forgotten chief engineer for this difficult project, the first stretch of the new Métro (cro
ssing the city from east to west on the Right Bank) was successfully completed in July 1900—not quite in time for the opening of the exposition, but soon enough to provide a satisfyingly impressive example of French engineering ability for the world gathered at its door. To the gratification of those concerned in this endeavor, the new Métro’s first line carried some seventeen million passengers by the year’s end.3
During the course of his career as a civil engineer, Bienvenüe, known as “le Père Métro” (Father Métro), had successfully supervised the construction of railway lines, aqueducts, and a funicular railway for the steep heights of Belleville in northeast Paris. From 1898 on, this elegant man with the neat white beard and smiling eyes directed a team of some two thousand workmen, who dug their way into and through the urban underbelly of Paris. With a goal of maintaining a distance between stations of no more than four hundred meters, and of keeping the number of necessary transfers down to a minimum of two, Bienvenüe and his army of workmen opened a series of spectacular construction sites during the years from 1900 to 1914—an endeavor that would turn out to be blessedly free from accidents, cave-ins, or other major delays.
Following the July 1900 opening of Line 1, Bienvenüe did not let up but continued to push the envisioned Métro network into reality. By October 1900, the completed section from Etoile to Trocadéro made it even easier for exposition-goers to reach the fair grounds—although it admittedly came a little late for the majority of attendees, since the exposition closed scarcely more than a month later. Also in October, Bienvenüe’s army of workmen began Line 2, a partially elevated line that followed the circular northern, or Right Bank, course of the old Farmers-General wall. They completed a useful section from Etoile to Porte Dauphine in December, and then began on Line 3, which had to pass under the Canal St-Martin—an endeavor that would delay this portion of the line until 1901.