DUSTY GHOSTS OF PARIS

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 230, 28 September 1929, Page 6 (Supplement)

DUSTY GHOSTS OF PARIS

: STREETS UNDER GLASS. I .; '.yJo'ia . ' ■ ■■■;•••-■•■ ■■■■ i ' XrAST CENTUBY ARC ABES. i ■■' , ■■•' '•'•-• '• ■■ ! CONTRASTS AND ANACHRONISMS. » J-i ■ • .-I -: ' ' '• ' l! '. ' "' l>. ''I - '■ Nothing is more characteristic of the ( Paris of the nineteenth century which [ "will soon he no more, than those curi- • otu passages, or glass-covered arcades, '. ivhichstill communicate,with the boulevards. Conceived first hy some architect of the Second Empire, transported '■ by his enthusiasm for the new cosmopolitan elegance of which he rightly : saw Paris as the international capital, ; the these protected streets ;i spread rapidly across Europe from ■ Milan to Moscow. -They immediately .attracted,- shopkeepers : of-. Ja v: peculiar , kind. In the height of .their .success ' the new ..arciides were lined with, the ' brightly-lit, establishments ,of fashion- ,] able; 'jewellers, glovemakers, <bopk- ; .Se]le.r.s, picture dealers' c and; restauVar teiirs.'. I They\ provided, a natural ;resort ■ fpr the.ffa'ne.ur. ~■:.",., ,• . ,--\ : Six of, these arcades have-survived •\ the reconstruction of the :-;ceritre of Paris—the Passages des Panoramas, . des Princes, Jouffrey, Choiseul, and the less-knovyn little. Passages Henri Quatre J and Jabaeh. ,-,A, seventh, the ' famous I Passage de l'Opera, known to two generations of boulevardiers, was recently .demolished... .■• ... . i■_■;■■■ The Survivors. \ ; The survivors haVe "outlived everything, that characterised their period, including its elegance". They are now but dusty ghosts of their own past. The uneven stone paving, the flickering gas lamps, the shabby dress of the shopkeepers, the general air of resignation and decay speak eloquently of the flight of. time, the change in modes, the passing of an epoch. The very kind of commerce done in these glass-covered streets singles thein out'as remnants of a Paris of an earlier day. The sad establishment of a pastrycook elbows that of a book publisher, one of the few of his race who are still booksellers, and who pores all day long in his dimly-lighted shop over brown leather bindings instead of organising literary ; academies which* will -award..prizes to his own authors. • . ,'.■■--'. , v .■ Queer Shops. , Then a little manufacturer of briar pipes, with, a narrow window still charmingly crowded with those big Repp pipes that every art or medical student in Paris once puffed, and other fetishes" of the • smoker's " ritual, in pipeclay and meershaum, ■ amber and cherrywood, making to passers-by a brave show of colour and the promise of a harmless and contemplative joy. Only book.-lovers and; old inert renewing their youth .care now to frequent these old arcades, so pathetic ' their, decay. And yet, and yet—the more Paris changes the' more it remains 1 the same. In the city's tempestuous expansion westward from the Bourse, which once roughly coincided' with the social centre of the city as well as the commercial centre toward the Etoile, where the twin,pillars of the Arc de Tripinphe/bestride the, body of the Unknown Soldier; he Avenue, des.Champs], Elysees is rapidly, replacing'.the Boulevard of the Empire. For half its grandiose -length at is already lined with brilliant stores One of,'its restaurants has -ffiSr . rechris tened itself the Cafe voua of iv T. moi y of a famous rendezhaxmted £\ ing f and > and who charming anahave recentVv' v ppl1 gl ?;^;° ove T ed arcades riElysgee/ U ? ; ,? een built on the Champs