T. S. Eliot's Parisian Year

2. Daily Life in Paris in 1910–1911

· 2 · Daily Life in Paris in 1910–1911 In order to convey a comprehensive sense of Eliot’s experience of living in Paris in 1910–1911, in this chapter I reconstruct the practical aspects of the city, beginning with a brief history from 1848 to 1911 to set the stage and then describing a wide variety of topics including domestic and international politics, the economy, buildings and landmarks, transportation, communications, electricity, sanitation, entertainment and photography, science and medicine, the status of men and women, and sports. History of Paris from 1848 to 1911 The Paris of 1910–1911 can best be understood by returning to the mid-nineteenth century and the advent of the Second Republic and then tracing the major historical developments of the ensuing sixty years. After the Revolution of 1848, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the nephew of Napoleon I, was elected President of the Second Republic and in 1852 was proclaimed Emperor with the title Napoleon III. As Barbara Stern Shapiro points out, “The Second Empire was his creation, with his political imprint as the first modern dictator and with his social stamp, whereby festivities and the active pursuit of pleasure were the order of the day” (11). During this period, France enjoyed tremendous power and prosperity, with the arts as an important feature, with elegance and gaiety as dominant traits, and with the bourgeoisie as an increasingly significant political, economic, and social force. One of the most important and far-reaching accomplishments was GeorgesEug ène Haussmann’s massive renovation and modernization of Paris that included boulevards, parks, squares, public buildings, transportation facilities, a central marketplace (Les Halles), and a sewer system. However, the Second Empire came to a catastrophic and humiliating end with the Prussian defeat of Napoleon III’s army of 80,000 men at Sedan in September 1870. Two days later, the Third Republic was created with Adolphe Thiers as its first president. It attempted unsuccessfully to hold off the invading Prussian army, 60 . T. S. Eliot’s Parisian Year which besieged Paris until surrender was declared in January 1871. The French lost Alsace and Lorraine to the German Empire and had to pay huge reparations, “grievous losses which . . . caused permanent repercussions” (Shapiro 11). Worse yet, Prussian troops occupied Paris, representing yet another powerful blow to national pride (Evenson 8). Close on the heels of these devastating events came the debacle of the Paris Commune, a revolutionary municipal government which in March 1871 set itself against the new Third Republic seated at Versailles. After two months of bitter fighting, the Communards were defeated by the army of the National Assembly, but not before they destroyed a number of Parisian monuments, most notably the column at Place Vendôme, and set fires which raged throughout the city. As retaliation, mass executions of Communards took place, so that the Seine ran red with their blood (Evenson 9). Amazingly, Paris and the nation recovered quickly, rebuilding not only the portions of the city which had been destroyed but also—and more importantly— national strength, stability, and confidence. Despite an unstable internal political situation which saw sixty different governments between 1870 and 1914 (Jones 221), the French embarked on a period of enormous financial prosperity, technological progress, and intellectual and artistic prestige. Paris was the acknowledged world center of culture and pleasure, symbolized by the completion in 1875 of the Opéra, designed by Charles Garnier. Indeed, in 1876, Henry James wrote in his Parisian Sketches, published in the New York Tribune, of “the amazing elasticity of France. Beaten and humiliated on a scale without precedent, despoiled, dishonored, bled to death financially . . . [,] Paris is today in outward aspect as radiant and prosperous . . . as if her sky had never known a cloud” (40). This period, called La Belle Époque, The Miraculous Years, or The Banquet Years, has been variously dated as beginning in 1875 with the completion of the Opéra, in 1878 with the Exposition Universelle, in 1880 with the Bastille Day celebration (Shapiro 12), or in 1885 with the massive state funeral of Victor Hugo (Shattuck 4–5). On the other hand, there is complete agreement that it ended in 1914 with the outbreak of World War I. The Paris that Eliot encountered during his sojourn there in 1910–1911 was very much the product of the rapid developments that occurred during this period, however we choose to date its beginning. As Péguy remarked in 1913, “The world has changed less since Jesus Christ than it has...