LEAVE THE PASSAGE TO COME UPON A PLACE WHERE CARS ARE ALMOST ABSENT
(RUE CHRISTINE)
Passage Dauphine and corner rue Christine / rue des Grands Augustins
At n° 5 is the apartment where the Gestapo came to arrest
Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas: Not finding them it made off with the silverware and rugs, leaving the "degenerate art."
"Matisse, Cezanne, Picasso, the Stein adventure"
Facing it is a theater for Hollywood classics:
Studios Christine
One of the small cinemas that make Paris the movie capital.
Picasso painted Guernica on the next street, which is almost as quiet:
A plaque that recalls that achievement.
At the corner on the river, a restaurant where 19th-century tycoons invited the most dazzling courtesans:
If you ask very politely during off-hours,
an attendant may show you the private salons...
with mirrors that the ladies would scratch to make sure that the diamonds their admirers offered were real. A walled-off door is said to lead by underground passage to the Senate, to ensure that senators' trysts would stay unknown. Couches remained until a generation ago.
Those private salons are still known for their personnel's discretion, which can be politically useful.
The almost empty street brings fashion shoots...
The exceptional shops are mostly gone:
Next is one that remains.
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