Paris after the Liberation 1944-1949

the sights to be seen at the Ritz was Ernest Hemingway. His room was the first port of call for Mary Welsh, who had worked for the London bureau of
Time, Life
and
Fortune
throughout the war, and managed to reach Paris in time to cover de Gaulle’s triumph down the Champs-Élysées. Another star of the Ritz was Marlene Dietrich, who used the hotel as her Paris base while she travelled back and forth to thefront, singing to American troops. Hemingway had known her for ten years and they were still close – she used to wander into his bathroom in the Ritz and chat to him while he shaved – but he emphasized that he had never slept with her.
    Hemingway did not stay only at the Ritz. He also used the Hotel Scribe, near the Opéra, which had been taken over as a centre for war correspondents. The lines of olive-green US army staff cars and jeeps with large white stars made the place look like a headquarters, an impression reinforced by the cluster of Allied flags over the entrance. The Parisians were envious of its privileged rations. Simone de Beauvoir, who visited the Scribe with a French journalist on
Combat,
wrote disapprovingly: ‘It was an American enclave in the heart of Paris: white bread, fresh eggs, jam, sugar and Spam.’
    The Hotel Scribe rapidly became a subject of folklore. The rooms were full of military impedimenta – jerrycans of petrol, ration packs, waterbottles, weapons and ammunition. One visitor recalled seeing in every window of the central light-well a journalist in an army shirt with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, tapping away furiously.
    During the course of that autumn and winter, the Scribe’s inhabitants included Robert Capa, William Shirer, Bill Paley, Sam White, Cy Sulzberger and Harold Callender of the
New York Times
; William Saroyan; Helen Kirkpatrick of the
Chicago Daily News
; Janet Flanner, the
New Yorker
diarist for Paris since 1925; Virginia Cowles, who had covered the fall of France in 1940, and her friend Martha Gellhorn.
    George Orwell, a much later arrival, was delighted to be in Paris in uniform. Having heard that Hemingway, whom he had never met, was also at the Scribe, Orwell went to his room and knocked on his door.
    ‘I’m Eric Blair,’ he announced hesitantly.
    Hemingway was packing. He looked up, displeased at seeing a British war correspondent – he was going through a strongly anti-British phase. ‘Well, what the ying hell do you want?’
    ‘I’m George Orwell.’
    ‘Why the zing hell didn’t you say so?’ bellowed Hemingway. He pushed the suitcases aside, bent down under the bed and emerged with a bottle of Scotch. ‘Have a drink. Have a double. Straight or with water? There’s no soda.’
    Orwell had more in common – including the same tutor at Eton and a love of Dickens, Kipling and Hopkins – with the philosopher A. J. Ayer, who was also in Paris at the time. Freddie Ayer, the author of
Language, Truth and Logic,
had been an SOE officer and had a roving commission reporting on the liberated areas of France. For this task, he had acquired a large chauffeur-driven Bugatti in which he installed his army radio transmitter. He had now returned to Paris to work as an attaché at the British Embassy, where he impressed important guests by being able to explain what existentialism was.
    In January 1945, Hemingway was visited by Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. They found him in bed with a heavy cold, wearing a green newspaperman’s eyeshade.
    Hemingway promptly grabbed Sartre by the hand enthusiastically. ‘
Vous êtes un général!
’ he exclaimed, embracing him. ‘
Moi je ne suis qu’un capitaine: vous êtes un général
.’ Bottles of Scotch were produced and the drinking began. Sartre later admitted that it was one of the few occasions when he had passed out from alcohol. Around three in the morning, he recovered and, opening one eye, watched in astonishment as Hemingway tiptoed round the room, collecting up the empty bottles to hide them from members of the hotel staff.
    Allied officers benefited from what might be termed unofficial privileges in Paris. Establishments, including all the
bonnes adresses
of the Occupation, were compulsively generous to senior Allied officers. They were allowed to dine free at the Tour d’Argent, they were given scent for their wives by Guerlain, and shirt-makers fell over each other to offer them prices so special that they were almost free. Even the grandest institutions were not averse to political