1936 On the Continent

“right people,” in the exclusive residential district of Auteuil and Passy, which adjoins the Bois de Boulogne in the west, and, in the north, the Champs Elysées and the Avenue de la Grande Armée, its extension beyond the Etoile. Still further north the dignified restfulness and peace of this specifically residential quarter is relieved by the gay life of the Ternes district, whose smartness naturally also has its seamy side. For just as in Montmartre (but not in Montparnasse), the amusement industry in this quarter comprises a large quota of a certain element, and if to the superficial observer the Ternes district appears to be dominated by ladies of the “half-world,” to the initiated it is clear that it derives its characteristic tone from their male protectors, which is naturally one of the least gratifying aspects of Parisian life. During the Stavisky case, in particular, a great deal was said and written about the “gangsters of Ternes,” of “Joe le Terreur” and his gang, and the whole unwholesomely glamorous agglomeration of shady financiers, impresarios, unsuccessful boxers, sinister men-about-town, film hangers-on, and members of the “upper underworld.”
    But all this is only evident to the initiated, and it should not be assumed that the district is “dangerous” to the foreign visitor; to say that would be utterly ridiculous. The romantic age, when the underworld held up individual persons demanding their money or their life, is as distant as the post-chaise and wigs. These people operate on a large scale and in an up-to-date manner; they do not worry about trifles.
Champs Elysées to Montmartre
    On both sides of the Champs Elysées there are high-class residential areas, which, as you proceed along the Champs Elysées, merge into the shopping district, continuing along the Nord-Sud line from the Gare Saint Lazare as far as the Place de la Concorde, bordering on the centre.
    The whole of this middle-western part of the city is still in the sign of the Second Empire and the famous MonsieurHausmann, Prefect of Napoleon III, who built the wide avenues and boulevards.
    To the north of the city, beyond the Boulevard Hausmann and the great boulevards, is a business quarter which, however, is already palpably under the influence of Montmartre, which towers above it. The small shops so typical of Paris, the little stationery, hardware, provision and other shops, alternate in colourful variety with the places of amusement in the Rue de Faubourg Montmartre, the Rue Pigalle, etc. The Casino de Paris and the Folies Bergère are here, in addition to countless establishments which by day modestly conceal behind a modern, respectable façade their anything but respectable nocturnal functions.
    East of this we come upon the large railway station, Nord and Est, to the Boulevard Strassbourg—the “Chinese Wall”—at which we began our circular tour. To the north lies Montmartre itself.
“Gents” in Bowlers
    What is the Montmartre like by day? A hill crowned with a vast, fortress-like church; a late medieval village with narrow streets, steps, corners, cats, children, sleepy prostitutes, bumpy pavements, and refuse boxes at every turn. That is the enchanted panorama of the slopes which were formerly covered with luxuriant vineyards. But the southern slope of the hill looks down on the famous series of northern boulevards (Clichy, Rochechouart and La Capelle); and upon these are strung, like coloured pearls, the Place Clichy, Place Pigalle, and Place Blanche. It is true that many respectable citizens live on Montmartre, and it is equally true that the majority of its inhabitants belong to the industrious, hard-working part of the people of Paris. And yet the people here give the impression that they have not had sufficient sleep and as though their real existence only began when the lights blazed up in the evening.
    You also see in the cafés, particularly in the vicinity of the Place Pigalle, from early afternoon onwards, those peculiar men who seem to have been born with their hats on their heads and a cigarette stuck into the corner of their mouths, men who, in some indefinable manner,betray at a first glance that they belong to the class that supplies most of the material for the more thrilling columns of the daily papers.
    Finally, still farther north, on the other side of Montmartre, there is another belt of miserable proletarian quarters, from Batignolles to La Chapelle, and it is here that,