Paris Noir
Authors: Jacques Yonnet
Jacques Yonnet
The Secret History of a City
translated with an introduction and notes by Christine Donougher
Published in the UK by Dedalus Limited, 24-26, St Judith’s Lane, Sawtry, Cambs, PE28 5XE
Email: info@ dedalusbooks.com
ISBN printed book 978 1 903517 48 2
ISBN e-book 978 1 907650 36 9
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Publishing History
First published in France in 1954
First published by Dedalus in 2006, reprinted in 2009
First e-book edition 2011
Rue des Maléfices © copyright Editions Phébus, Paris 1987
Introduction, notes and translation © copyright Christine Donougher 2006
The right of the estate of Jacques Yonnet to be identified as the copyright holder and Christine Donougher to be identified as the translator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patent Act, 1988
Printed in Finland by WS.Bookwell
Typeset by Refine Catch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A C.I.P. listing for this book is available on request.
Christine Donougher’s translation of
The Book of Nights
won the 1992 Scott Moncrieff Translation Prize.
Her translations from French for Dedalus are: 6 novels by Sylvie Germain‚
The Book of Nights
‚
Night of Amber
‚
Days of Anger
‚
The Book of Tobias
‚
Invitation to a Journey
and
The Song of False Lovers
‚
Enigma
by Rezvani‚
The Experience of the Night
by Marcel Béalu‚
Le Calvaire
by Octave Mirbeau‚
Tales from the Saragossa Manuscript
by Jan Potocki‚
The Land of Darkness
by Daniel Arsand and
Paris Noir
by Jacques Yonnet.
Her translation from Italian for Dedalus are
Senso (and other stories)
by Camillo Boito‚
Sparrow and Temptation (and other stories)
by Giovanni Verga.
Christine Donougher is currently translating
Magnus
by Sylvie Germain for Dedalus.
French Literature from Dedalus
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par excellence
of literary fantasy.
The Land of Darkness
– Daniel Arsand £8.99
Séraphita
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The Quest of the Absolute
– Balzac £6.99
The Experience of the Night
– Marcel Béalu £8.99
Episodes of Vathek
– Beckford £6.99
The Devil in Love
– Jacques Cazotte £5.99
Les Diaboliques
– Barbey D’Aurevilly £7.99
Milagrosa
– Mercedes Deambrosis £8.99
An Afternoon with Rock Hudson
– Mercedes Deambrosis £6.99
The Man in Flames
– Serge Filippini £10.99
Spirite (and Coffee Pot)
– Théophile Gautier £6.99
Angels of Perversity
– Rémy de Gourmont £6.99
The Book of Nights
– Sylvie Germain £8.99
The Book of Tobias
– Sylvie Germain £7.99
Night of Amber
– Sylvie Germain £8.99
Days of Anger
– Sylvie Germain £8.99
The Medusa Child
– Sylvie Germain £8.99
The Weeping Woman
– Sylvie Germain £6.99
Infinite Possibilities
– Sylvie Germain £8.99
Invitation to a Journey
– Sylvie Germain £7.99
The Song of False Lovers
– Sylvie Germain £8.99
Parisian Sketches
– J.K. Huysmans £6.99
Marthe
– J.K. Huysmans £6.99
Là-Bas
– J.K. Huysmans £8.99
En Route
– J.K. Huysmans £7.99
The Cathedral
– J.K. Huysmans £7.99
The Oblate of St Benedict
– J.K. Huysmans £7.99
Lobster
– Guillaume Lecasble £6.99
The Mystery of the Yellow Room
– Gaston Leroux £7.99
The Perfume of the Lady in Black
– Gaston Leroux £8.99
Monsieur de Phocas
– Jean Lorrain £8.99
The Woman and the Puppet
– Pierre l ouÿs £6.99
Portrait of an Englishman in his Chateau
– Pieyre de Mandiargues £7.99
Abbé Jules
– Octave Mirbeau £8.99
Le Calvaire
– Octave Mirbeau £7.99
The Diary of a Chambermaid
– Octave Mirbeau £7.99
Sébastien Roch
– Octave Mirbeau £9.99
Torture Garden
– Octave Mirbeau £7.99
Smarra & Trilby
– Charles Nodier £6.99
Manon Lescaut
– Abbé Prévost £7.99
Tales from the Saragossa Manuscript
– Jan Potocki £5.99
Monsieur Venus
– Rachilde £6.99
The Marquise de Sade
– Rachilde £8.99
Enigma
– Rezvani £8.99
Paris Noir
– Jacques Yonnet £9.99
Micromegas
– Voltaire £4.95
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– ed T. Hale £9.99
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The Decadent Gardener
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The Watchmaker of Backward-Running Time
The Man Who Repented of Betraying a Secret
The Shipwreckage Doll
‘Your Body’s Tattooed’
Enemy Tattoos
The House That No Longer Exists
Alfophonse’s Moniker
The Sorry Tale of Théophile Trigou
The Ill-Fated Knees
The Old Man Who Appears After Midnight
The Ill-Fated Knees
Mina the Cat
Keep-on-Dancin’
St Patère
The ‘Bohemians’ and Paris
Zoltan the Mastermind
The Old Man Who Appears After Midnight
Chapter VIII
Rue des Maléfices
The Sleeper on the Pont-au-Double
Keep-on-Dancin’
The Sleeper on the Pont-au-Double
The Sleeper on the Pont-au-Double
Marionettes and Magic Spells
The Old Man Who Appears After Midnight
Zoltan the Mastermind
The Old Man Who Appears After Midnight
On the Art of Accommodating the Dead
Keep-on-Dancin’
Zoltan the Mastermind
The Gypsies of Paris
The St-Médard Concessions
The Gypsies of Paris
Keep-on-Dancin’
The Shipwreckage Doll
Rue des Maléfices
First issued in 1954 under the publisher's choice of title
Enchantements sur Paris
(Paris Spellbound)â reissued in accordance the author's wishes as
Rue des Maléfices
(Witchcraft Street)â Jacques Yonnet's only published book fits into no single category. Personal diaryâ memoir of some of the darkest hours in a nation's historyâ guide to a city's lower depthsâ ethnographical study of an urban population that no longer exists or has been driven elsewhereâ record of a number of paranormal incidents and experiences â
Paris Noir
is all of these.
Jacques Yonnet is twenty-four years old when war breaks out in 1939. Captured by the Germans in June 1940â as France's eastern defences crumble before the invasionâ Yonnet escapes and returns to his native cityâ but not to where he is knownâ at home among old friends and family (of socialist inclinations). A hunted manâ sought by the Nazis and by the collaborationist French policeâ he goes underground in the heart of Parisâ in the âvillages' of the 5th arrondissement on the Left Bank â Maubertâ Montagneâ Mouffetardâ Gobelins. Here he finds refugeâ as though in another worldâ another dimension.
It is a world that would have been familiar to the great French poet of the 15th centuryâ François Villonâ a world peopled by beggars and rag-pickersâ mercenary soldiersâ petty criminalsâ police informersâ penniless artistsâ whoresâ healersâ drunksâ exilesâ exorcistsâ gypsiesâ wayward wives and defrocked priests. And the common ground on which they all meet are the numerous bars and drinking establishments that offer a curious combination of anonymity and communityâ an ideal environment for a young man who is to become active in the Resistance.
Because as the war progressesâ Yonnetâ for all his natural scepticism and non-conformist anarchist tendenciesâ gets involved in clandestine warfare and ends up running a mapping and radio transmission centreâ liaising with London to ensure that Allied bombings on German targets in the Parisian region are carried out with the fewest possible civilian casualties. But far from being motivated by any notion of patriotism or ideologyâ it is a personal sympathy for the plight of a parachutist in hiding that draws him in. It is the individual story to which he responds.
And this curious world that he now inhabits throws up the most extraordinary individual storiesâ which for Yonnet constitute the real fabric of the city he loves: stories of love and hatredâ friendship and betrayalâ obsession and jealousyâ persecution and revenge â but always with a curious edge to themâ a suggestion that things could not have happened otherwiseâ at that timeâ in that place.
What emerges from Yonnet's stories is a sense that it is the city itself that creates its own history. It is not an inanimate construct. It exists on a level that transcends the physical evidence of the here and now. And events are in some mysterious way determined by their locationâ even as the location is defined by the events that have occurred there.
Whilst these are conclusions that Yonnet himself has reachedâ through reflection and observation and extensive reading of historical documents and literature on Parisâ some of the low-life characters with whom he becomes acquainted â the cool killer Keep-on-Dancin'â for instanceâ or the Gypsy who exacts a terrible revenge for being insulted â turn out to be extraordinary repositories of this kind of wisdom about the nature of the cityâ and willing to share their arcane knowledge with him.