Promenade Littéraire #7: Stendhal, Le Havre, Seine-Maritime (76)

#7 Stendhal, the former Tour François 1^er. Stendhal mentions this in Mémoires d'un touriste. His character contemplates the town from the tower, which stood at the entrance to the port until 1861.

Stendhal in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône (13)

14 Rue Venture, Marseille.

'EN 1805 ET 1806

STENDHAL

AVANT D'ÉCRIRE

LA CHARTREUSE DE PARME

VEÇUT QUELQUES MOIS

DANS CETTE MAISON'

I suppose it shows how famous Stendhal is to put up a plaque informing viewers that he spent several months living there before creating his masterpiece La Chartreuse de Parme. The implication, I think, it that it was conceived here. 

Constance de Salm: Vingt-quatre heures d’une femme sensible ou Une grande leçon (1824; repr. 2007)

Constance de Salm (1767-1845), who was born Constance de Théis, wrote poetry and plays and came to be known as the 'Boileau des femmes.' She was an influential figure in intellectual and political spheres and her salon – one of the most frequented in Paris – was noted for such guests as Alexandre Dumas fils and Stendhal.*

In 1824 Salm anonymously published her first and only novel, the epistolary Vingt-quatre heures d’une femme sensible ou Une grande leçon ('A Sensitive Woman's Twenty-four Hours: or, an Important Lesson'), which was rescued from oblivion several years ago by Claude Schopp, incidentally an expert on Dumas.

Salm – who wrote Vingt-quatre heures a number of years before it was published – was something of a proto-feminist who disliked sentimentalism and subservient women, and wrote this novella as a reply to reproaches she had received about her work being too serious and philosophical. She wanted to paint a complete picture of what it is to be a woman, or show the heart of a woman, at the same time as giving women a lesson, showing them to what point they can be driven by the passing 'disorder' that is love.

The work consists of forty-six letters, almost all of which are written by the narrator to the man she loves, during one night and angst-ridden day in which she reveals her jealous torments after seeing her lover leave a concert on the arm of another woman: madame de B.... The fact that her lover doesn't come to her later that night triggers off the series of letters by this increasingly desperate and even (in her later stages) deranged woman.

In the course of twenty-four hours the narrator not only writes the letters (some of which are very short) but fruitlessly visits her lover's house and has to be taken back home unconscious: her lover has left for the country with madame de B...; she later learns that her lover is marrying madame de B... and prepares to kill herself. However, through a twist in the story she is saved by her lover's letters informing her that madame de B... is clandestinely marrying his uncle – a man whose earlier intention was to marry the narrator – and that her lover's main desire is to marry her.

This short novel is written in a very powerful language and is in fact much better than my unfortunately very reductive summary of it might sound.

*Salm was previously married to Jean-Baptiste Pipelet, whom she divorced in 1799, and a 'Mme Constance Pipelet' appears in Stendhal's autobiographical work, the unfinished Vie de Henry Brulard (1890).

The Molière Fountain (Fontaine Molière, 2nd arrondissement, Paris, France: Literary Île-de-France #27

The fountain at the junction of rue Richelieu with rue Molière was in fact known as Richelieu's until 1838, but was destroyed as it was encumbering traffic. Joseph Régnier of the Comédie-Française (the national theatre) proposed that a newer, more recessed fountain ­— but of Molière (whose house used to be at number 40 rue Richelieu) rather than Richelieu ­— replace the first one.

It was built in 1838 by several sculptors under the direction of the architect Louis Tullius Joachim Visconti, who also designed the fountain in place Saint-Sulpice.

The statue of Molière himself is in bronze by Bernard-Gabriel Seure.

The two female figures, in marble, are said to represent serious and light theatre.

The woman on the right here, with her rather stern expression, must be the serious one.

And the woman on the left, with her rather revealing gear, must be the light one.

I'm not too sure the plays named on the scrolls they're holding marry up neatly in any such way at all, in fact I'd often say the reverse, but then maybe that's the idea, and anyway can Molière's writing be binarized in such a fashion? I don't think so.

Jean-Jacques Pradier made the figures, and I'm reminded of François Weyergans's Goncourt-winning novel Trois jours chez ma mère, of the fleeting bit where the narrator writer François Weyergraf mentions speaking to Delphine, in relation to the muses, of Baudelaire's hatred for Pradier. I digress. A wonderful piece of art, though.

And just along the road a little, a plaque at 61 rue de Richelieu states that Stendhal lived here from 1822 to 1823, and that at number 69 he wrote Les Promenades Dans Rome (lit. Walks in Rome) and Le Rouge Et Le Noir (The Red and the White).

Below is a link to a post I made on Molière's birthplace:

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Molière's two birthplaces

Montmartre Cemetery / Cimetière de Montmartre, 18th arrondissement, Paris, France: Literary Île-de-France #13

'ÉMILE ZOLA

1840—1902

A REPOSÉ ICI DU 5 OCTOBRE 1902

AU 4 JUIN 1908, DATE DE SON TRANSFERT AU PANTHÉON'

[RESTED HERE FROM OCTOBER 1902

TO JUNE 1908, THE DATE OF HIS TRANSFER TO THE PANTHÉON]

Zola died in his Paris home in rue de Bruxelles, 9th arrondissement, on 28 September 1902: the flue had not been drawing properly, and he was poisoned with carbon monoxide. His J'accuse article in L'Aurore had brought him many enemies and although it is possible that there was foul play, nothing was ever proved. His wife Alexandrine survived, and she ensured that Zola's other partner, Jeanne Rozelet, and her two children by Zola — who lived in Verneuil close to the Zolas other home in Médan — were informed of the event.

The funeral on 5 October was attended by 50,000 people.

Eugène Labiche (1815—88), a dramatist best known for farces about the middle class, such as Le Chapeau de paille d'Italie (1851) and Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon (1860).

George Feydeau (1862—1921) was also a dramatist best known for his farces, such as La Dame est chez Maxim (1899) and Occupe-toi d'Amélie (1908).

The family grave of the romantic poet, novelist and playwright Alfred de Vigny (1797—1863).

The Goncourt brothers, both writers, but best known for the establishing of the Académie Goncourt as a result of Edmond's will.

Edmond de Goncourt (1822—96).

Jules de Goncourt (1830—70).

Ary Scheffer (1795—1858) was a painter who frequently took his subjects from literature, notably from the works of Dante, Byron and Goethe. Interestingly, he also did a portrait of Pierre-Jean de Béranger, whose joint tomb with his friend Jacques-Antoine Manuel was featured in my blog post on the Cimetière Père-Lachaise.

Detail of distressed angel over the lintel.

Ernest Renan (1823—92) married Cornélie Henriette Scheffer, Ary Scheffer's niece.

Renan was very interested in science, particularly in Darwin's evolutionary theories. His seven-volume Histoire des origines du christianisme (1863 to 1881) argued that Jesus's life should be considered in the same way as anyone else's, and that the Bible should be subjected to the same critical analysis as any other written work. Unsurprisingly, this caused anger in the Catholic Church.
 

Alexandre Dumas fils (1824—95), a dramatist and novelist best known for La Dame aux camélias (1852).

The mask of death.
 

'À

HENRI MEILHAC

AUTEUR DRAMATIQUE

MEMBRE DE L'ACADÉMIE FRANÇAISE

EN TÉMOIGNAGE DE SINCÈRE ADMIRATION

ET D'AFFECTUEUSE GRATITUDE

CE MONUMENT FUT ÉLEVÉ

PAR UN AMI

1900'

Meilhac (1837—97) worked on Offenbach's La Belle Hélène (1865) and La Vie parisienne (1867).
 

Henri Murger, author of the once very fashionable sentimental novel Scènes de la Vie de Bohème, later adapted into Puccini's La Bohème.

Henri Beyle (Stendhal) (1783—1842), most noted for the novels Le Rouge et le noir (1930) and La Chartreuse de Palme (1939).