TERRIFYING OUTSKIRTS

PUT THE PRESENT IN PERSPECTIVE WITH A NOVEL AND AN OLD-TIME MAP

A heroine escapes from apaches in a forsaken land of crime...

An enlarged, cleaned-up Bièvre river illustrates another part of the story

"At last she was out of the horrible cave!...

She found herself in an abandoned cabin, and the icy wind blew through its decrepit walls. A moment later she was outside, in a wasteland that sloped steeply toward the valley of the Bièvre.

The opaque black, the black of an underground tomb, was gone. Far away street lights glimmered. She was free! ...

She had one thought only: get away from the bandits... " 

-- The Caporal by Lucien Victor-Meunier, 1909 (translated and slightly adapted). 

For more extracts, please click.

            Plan of 1900 / zoom

# # #

On a Tuesday, Friday or Sunday morning, start at the market next to place d'Italie 

Stroll up the slope 

(On rue des Cinq-Diamants)

Imagine the residents knowing from the smoke, cries and firing

that the Versaillais soldiers are about to arrive

(They climb up passage Barrault below)

Pass the seat of Les Amis de la Commune de Paris * with its mosaic of General Wroblewski

* Friends of the Commune of Paris

At the grocery take your right to place de la Commune and its

street art

Rue de la Butte-aux-Cailles

Then turn back along the street of restaurants, cafés and very few cars...

   The restaurant Le Temps des cérises, named after a famous song that recalls La Commune 

When you come to a playground...

 Paul Verlaine park

"Book nest: take one and put another in its place." 

...turn back toward the grocery and look down a street where little has changed: Quarries prevented heavy construction and

preserved the small houses 

Corner, rue de la Butte aux Cailles and rue des Cinq Diamants

Zoom

The towers will seem like science fiction 

and you will be sorry to leave this peaceful haven.

*     *     *

Next,

 In the "demons' " footsteps