MAIS ABSOLUMENT!
Noticing what makes no sense or is blotted out changes the story and universally applies.
- For example, when houses crowded up to the facade of Notre-Dame Cathedral...
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Twelth century, Grez computer image |
The space in front of the church was used for a market, for religious performances and for the condemned to ask pardon before execution. But it was small.
...the edifice surged up over daily life, the impression its builders intended.
Claude Abron
- But the huge esplanade of 1853 leads to seeing it from afar. It then seems smaller and less imposing, and the reminder of eternity vanishes.
Uncredited photos are mine.
More alternatives to what is usually said:
For major topics that are almost never mentioned, please scroll down.
"Contents" gives the complete list of topics. "Menu" summarizes them. "Index" gives immediate access to the main ideas. "History that illuminates" shows their relevance now.
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- Challenge it: the Sacre-Coeur, Napoleon's tomb, the Arc of Triumph and the Opéra.
- Go beyond it: the Louvre (click here for the visit, here for the palace), place des Vosges, Palais-Royal, pont Neuf, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Versailles.
- Explain the known but forgotten (Louis XIV's arc at the Saint-Denis gate, the church of Saint-Paul Saint-Louis, a band of gardens that pierces eastern Paris and another that covers over a canal).
For major topics that are almost never mentioned, please scroll down.
"Contents" gives the complete list of topics. "Menu" summarizes them. "Index" gives immediate access to the main ideas. "History that illuminates" shows their relevance now.
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This "blook" (book-blog) makes its points briskly through headlines and pictures. It stresses observation for the present and the underlying economy for the past.
My background: a French-American who has lived in Paris for decades, a professor of history in the U.S. who became a tour guide there. Once a member of the Office of Tourism (for seven years), I know the usual story well.
There's space for comments at the end of each page: political discussions welcome.
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TRAILERS TO UNVEILING THE ALMOST NEVER SAID
1. THE PRESENT:
THE COMMERCIAL VIEW EXTOLS THE FABLED CULTURE,
OMITTING BRANDS' CONQUEST OF THE HISTORIC CENTER
THAT GIANT ADS LOOM OVER...
The passage under the aerial métro in the 13th, illuminated by voters' choice through 2026.
...hosts two festivals: ten days of new or popular arts...
...and the three weeks of the Chinse New Year.
Boulevard Vincent Auriol, 13th
Street show the day before the parade.
A few media did notice its giant parade after 40 years (in 2025). They still ignore its other festivities.
IMMIGRANT ENERGIES,
LARGELY SKIPPED
- Maghrebin Barbès may be the most ebullient part of the city, due to the low prices of the market under the aerial métro and the ribbon of shops that runs along it. During Ramadan, gourmet specialties sold next to the tracks draw cordial crowds.
- La Goutte d'Or, the largely African area north of Barbès, is poor. An anchored French middle class lives there too, but delinquency, prostitution and drugs are real.
That concert will last until 4 a.m.
...where an amiable art of communicates through personal appearance flourishes through...
- Prints whose interest is starting to be acknowledged:
"Wax" at the entry of the Louvre, 2022
- Tailors whose animated workshops one sees from the street.
- Beauty salons and barbershops, whose styles "Gauls" timidly copy:
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| Bouno coiffure, 51 rue de la Goutte d'Or, 18th One of a cluster that stay open until 10 or 11 p.m. |
Their posters adapt African market signs...
 Panel from Abidjan's Treichville market, 1973 (notice the "Kennedy" haircut). |
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...that "Gauls" timidly copy.
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Tip Top Couture, 84 rue de Ménilmontant 20th (a trendy neighborhood) |
- Costume can be a composition:
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| On rue Doudeauville, "Main Street" |
The Communards (please scroll down) defined art as any creation that adresses the public and is done with passion, and an esteemed critic said, "Art must express a philosophy, or it is just decoration."
By expressing an upbeat affirmation of individual uniqueness in the context of a homogenous, supportive community such "looks" fit those definitions and suggest a view of human relationships to ponder.
2. THE PAST:
KINGS' GRANDEUR
AND ELITES' DREAD OF INSURRECTION
ARE THE MAIN REASONS FOR THE CITY'S ALLURE.
BOTH ARE FORGOTTEN.
Except for the Louvre, a former palace impossible to ignore, almost nothing is said of the majesty the kings bequeathed.
As for the terror insurrections brought, it has to be overlooked since the upheavals themselves are. Take the belief that these iconic figures are storming the Bastille, though the forgotten Revolution of 1830 inspired the work:
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La Liberté guide le people by Eugene Delacroix, 1830-1831 (cropped) / zoom*
*Clicking on "zoom" leads to the original image and information about it.
- The three days of street fighting in 1830 ended the transformation that the French Revolution began — erasing nobles' power, which let capitalism take off. Then life became even more difficult for the humble, leading to endemic revolts and to a full-blown insurrection by a conscious working class in 1848.
Le Combat à la porte Saint-Denis, 1848, anonymous lithograph / zoom
- Modernizing the medieval city was a necessity, but "barbarians" so terrified the privileged that it became a militarily-inspired metamorphosis of which the void before Notre-Dame is a part.
- The last, most tragic and most important upheaval, that of the Paris Commune, happened when military defeat and government myopia brought an explosion which led to young idealists taking control of the city in 1871. Backed by the humble, they kept the continent's largest city (population a million and a half) running for 72 days, in spite of the flight of seasoned administrators, siege and war. They also sketched out a society that was genuinely democratic.
Proclamation de la Commune le 26 mars 1871, anonymous engraving / zoom
The name "Bloody Week" recalls the ferocity of their repression.
Un Peloton d'exécution [firing squad] pendant la Semaine sanglante [Bloody Week] by V. Sarday / zoom
A painting made a generation later, based on prints of the time and opponents' grudging statements of respect.
They still inspire the left.
Commemorative parade, 2021
Most narratives dismiss the social conflict that permeates the Parisian past. The musée Carnavalet (the historical museum) presents the French Revolution as almost peaceful and...
- relegates 1848 to a single sentence at the back of a room while turning its barricades into a game for kids.
- Sandwiches La Commune into a four-meter passage between rooms about elites. On one side are portraits of people who were marginal or irrelevant, including a huge image of a rebel's later girlfriend. Reflections on a glass showcase hide the two very small images of carnage, sole references to Bloody Week.
For schoolbooks, please click here and here. For how even a Social-Democrat municipality adopts the victors' point of view, here.
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BLOOK II:
AN APPROACH TO THE PAST
THAT IS CROSS-CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC
History from a Fresh Perspective hows how societies with a common material base react to economic change in similar ways.
One example: elites' ostentation erases profits that would challenge their society if invested.
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A Royal Army on the March,16th-century tapestry (detail), Renaissance Museum |
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Please click.
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This blook includes drawings by Harald Wolff.
Like the vast majority of Parisian artists he is foreign (German), and lives not in the places associated with them (Saint-Germain, Montmartre, Montparnasse) but in a plebeian suburb (Montreuil) where rents are lower. So he fits the city that these pages describe.
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