French Postcards, Volume One

Confession, the guiltless say, is good for the soul... 

Therefore, I should confess to a certain envy of postcard photographers, especially those who snap shots of the westernmost tip of Oklahoma's Panhandle and convince the viewer that he or she has been given a glimpse of a verdant rainforest temporarily lacking rain and forests...

No such darkroom chicanery is needed by those who photograph the City of Lights...

Thirty bridges span the Seine River as it snakes through Paris.  Archaeologists say humans settled the area as early as 4200 BCE.  Much later, Roman armies swept into the river basin and established a continuously inhabited town first known as Lutetia about a half century before the birth of Jesus.  Four hundred years afterward, it became Paris, renamed for a tribe of Gallic fishermen who'd inhabited the island in the Seine that became the heart of the future city.  This belated honoring of native peoples came in the time of Julian the Apostate, a fourth century emperor who strove mightily to erase Constantine's vision of a Cross against the Sun from the minds of men and restore paganism as the state religion of Rome...



Visionaries of the Future Celebration, August 1893




1900 in Paris



The Eiffel Tower leaps to mind of many people automatically when the capital city of France comes up in conversation but should not be confused with a 70' replica topped off by a red cowboy hat in a northeast Texas city.  Just barely completed, the French version of the Tower welcomed visitors strolling into the 1889 Exposition Universelle.   Once inside, the curious might study the 400 people displayed as part of the Village Negre purporting to depict "primitives" in their "natural" state.  Such human zoos were, sadly, not uncommon during the late 19th and early 20th century in either Europe or the United States.  They often reinforced theories of Caucasian superiority.  Perhaps the nastiest and most blatantly racist of these exhibitions took place in New York in 1906 when Madison Grant, head of the New York Zoological Society, displayed a caged Congolese Pygmy alongside chimpanzees and orangutans with a sign identifying him as the "Missing Link"... 

Basilica of the Sacred Heart

Sacre Couer rises majestically over Montmartre, a district in the city attracting artists, tourists, and persons who operate over-priced open air cafes.  Like the Eiffel Tower, the basilica (consecrated in 1919) is a landmark adored by some in the city and reviled by others.  The former see it as almost magically enhancing the city's beauty.  The latter offer it up as proof that tasteless barbarians have an almost unlimited capacity to create a monstrous eyesore.  Montmartre's cemetery ignores the controversy surrounding the basilica and maintains the neighborhood's artistic reputation by serving as a final resting place for Vaslav Nijinsky, Edgar Degas, and Hector Berlioz.  The traveler with cash in pockets and a way to keep it from pickpockets eventually leaves the district to head north.  Here, he or she stumbles upon Les Puces, the celebrated "Flea Market" of Paris, always crowded and ever a truly fascinating shopping experience...

Jane Avril performing at Moulin Rouge

Montmartre attracted the deformed Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, born in 1864 and the last in an aristocratic family line that stretched back a thousand years before his birth.  At home in the nightclubs and comfortable with the dancers and prostitutes who worked in them because they simply accepted him, Toulouse-Lautrec sketched the scenes around him as he drank.  One of his favorite subjects was Jane Avril.  The painter and the dancer were occasional lovers.  She had been born Jeanne Richepin, daughter of a high-end prostitute.  Avril discovered her talent for dance while convalescing as a mental hospital patient.  At roughly the same time as the Paris World's Fair of 1889, a nightclub manager in the Montmartre hired her to grace the floors of the Moulin Rouge. Years before she worked at that windmill capped symbol of decadence or a diminutive artist celebrated her appearance at the Jardin de Paris, she'd started her career as an entertainer by riding bareback in the circus...



Notre Dame and Eiffel Tower



The Cathedral of Our Lady and the Eiffel Tower compete with one another to be "the" symbol of Paris.  Age gives the former certain bragging rights: stonemasons started work on the cathedral in 1163.  A fine example of French Gothic architecture, Notre Dame suffered desecration during the French Revolution as the mob sought to destroy anything that hinted of kings or priests.  A half century later, it was the setting for Victor Hugo's tragic tale of a hunchbacked "King of Fools"  in love with a gypsy girl, executed after her refusal to submit sexually to a hypocritical prelate.  But, before either torch-bearing peasants or Quasimodo, the Cathedral of Our Lady became the spot from which distances in France are officially measured in 1768.  Visitors to Notre Dame can see the marker outside the western doorway that designates kilometre zero...

Home to the Sun King

Guidebooks tend to say if a person has the chance to visit only one place outside Paris proper, that place should be Versailles.  The magnificent chateau favored by Louis XIII became even grander when his son transformed it into a palace housing 3000 courtiers.  The son, Louis XIV, the Sun King, would reign from 1643 to 1715.  His collecting of aristocrats under one roof was intended to further weaken the power of the nobility.  It did.  But, in doing so, he further eroded the disappearing feudal bonds between rulers and ruled.  This would be one of many factors fueling the Revolution which began when a mob stormed the notorious Bastille Prison in 1789.  Perhaps the most famous single room at Versailles is a 246' long room known to us as the Hall of Mirrors in which an absolute monarch could bask in endless reflections of his own glory...




Young ladies celebrate their national heritage in charming Gallic fashion

 

Twelve avenues, including the world famous Champs-Elysees known for its club Lido, meet at a monument envisioned by Napoleon in 1806 as a lasting testament to conquests made by armies of Imperial France and its greatest Emperor.  Its romantic neoclassical design and height of 162 feet were intended to evoke comparisons to the glory of Rome at its zenith.  Bicycling enthusiasts recognize the Arc as the culmination of the last leg of the Tour de France race.  Since 1920, The Arch of Triumph has performed the more sacred duty of sheltering the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of France...





Paris and but a few of her marvels...

Note: Postcards are from the personal collection of the author.  Photographs of the 1900 Paris Exhibition and Jane Avril were found using Google Images.