The House I Loved
Authors: Tatiana de Rosnay
Rue d’Erfurth and Fountain, circa 1865. This photograph was taken before Baron Haussmann’s massive modernization of Paris, when many narrow streets were destroyed to make way for the city’s current broad boulevards. Rose Bazelet’s beloved house can be seen in the center (white); though it was torn down in the renovations, Rose’s secrets linger on here today.
This is for my mother, Stella, and for my House Man: NJ
Acknowledgments
My first thanks go to historian Didier Le Fur, who initiated me into the world of the Bibliothèque Nationale, and to Véronique Vallauri, whose flower shop is the inspiration for Alexandrine’s.
Author’s Note
Born and bred a Parisian, I love my city like most Parisians do. I have always been fascinated by its richness and history. Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann, between 1852 and 1870, gave Paris a new and much-needed modernity. They shaped the city into what it is today.
But I often wondered what it must have been like, as a Parisian, to witness those changes. And what it must have meant to lose a beloved house, like Rose does. Those eighteen years of “embellishments,” before the Commune insurrection stormed the city, were no doubt hell for Parisians. Zola artfully described it, and criticized it, in
The Kill.
Victor Hugo and Baudelaire also voiced their discontent, as did the Goncourt brothers. But however much Haussmann was resented, his work remains essential to the creation of a truly modern Paris.
I have taken very few liberties with dates and places in this novel. The rue Childebert, the rue Erfurth, the rue Taranne and the rue Sainte-Marguerite did exist, 140 years ago, within Saint-Germain-des-Prés. So did the place Gozlin, the rue Beurrière, the passage Saint-Benoît and the rue Sainte-Marthe.
The next time you walk along the boulevard Saint-Germain, go to the corner of rue du Dragon, just in front of the Café de Flore. You will notice an entire line of ancient buildings, miraculously standing between Haussmannian ones. Those are the vestiges of one side of the old rue Taranne, where the fictitious Baronne de Vresse used to live. A famous American designer has a flagship store there that could very well have been the Baronne’s home. Have a look inside.
When you walk up the rue des Ciseaux, toward the church, try to ignore the noisy boulevard in front of you, and imagine the small and narrow rue Erfurth leading you straight to the rue Childebert, which used to be exactly where the metro station of Saint-Germain-des-Près now stands, on the left. And if ever you glimpse a coquettish silver-haired sexagenarian with a tall brunette on her arm, then you may just have seen Rose and Alexandrine on their way home.
TR
Paris, April 2011
Paris slashed with saber cuts, its veins opened.
—
ÉMILE ZOLA,
The Kill
, 1871
The old Paris is no more (the shape of a city changes faster, alas! than the human heart).
—
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE,
“The Swan,” 1861
I wish for all this to be marked on my body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography—to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings.
—
MICHAEL ONDAATJE,
The English Patient
Contents
Photograph of rue d’Erfurth and Fountain
MY BELOVED,
I can hear them coming up our street. It is a strange, ominous rumble. Thuds and blows. The floor aquiver under my feet. There are shouts too. Men’s voices, loud and excited. The whinny of horses, the stamp of hooves. It sounds like a battle, like in that hot and dreadful July when our daughter was born, or that bloody time when the barricades went up all over the city. It smells like a battle. Stifling clouds of dust. Acrid smoke. Dirt and rubble. I know the Hôtel Belfort has been destroyed, Gilbert told me. I cannot bear to think about it. I will not. I am relieved Madame Paccard is not here to see it.
I am sitting in the kitchen as I write this to you. It is empty, the furniture was packed up last week and sent to Tours, with Violette. They left the table behind, it was too bulky, as well as the heavy enamel cooker. They were in a hurry and I loathed watching that being done. I hated every minute of it. The house stripped of all its belongings in one short moment. Your house. The one you thought would be safe. Oh, my love. Do not be afraid. I will never leave.
The sun peeks into the kitchen in the mornings, I’ve always appreciated that about this room. So dismal now, without Mariette bustling about, her face reddened by the heat of the stove, and Germaine grumbling, smoothing back wisps of hair into her tight chignon. If I try, I can almost pick up the enticing wafts of Mariette’s ragout weaving its slow path through the house. Our once-cheerful kitchen is sad and bare without the gleaming pots and pans, kept scrupulously clean by Germaine, without the herbs and spices in their little glass bottles, the fresh vegetables from the market, the warm bread on its cutting board.
I remember the morning the letter came, last year. It was a Friday. I was in the sitting room, reading
Le Petit Journal
by the window, and drinking my tea. I enjoy that quiet hour before the day begins. It wasn’t our usual postman. This one, I had never seen. A tall, bony fellow, his hair flaxen under the flat green cap. His blue cotton blouse with its red collar appeared far too large for him. From where I was sitting, I saw him jauntily touch his cap and hand the mail over to Germaine. Then he was gone, and I could hear his soft whistle as he marched up the street.
It was early still, I’d had my breakfast a while ago. I went back to my newspaper after a sip of tea. It seemed the Exposition Universelle was all they could talk about these past months. Seven thousand foreigners pouring through the boulevards every day. A whirl of prestigious guests: Alexander II from Russia, Bismarck, the Vice King of Egypt. Such a triumph for our Emperor.
I heard Germaine’s step on the stairs. The rustle of her dress. I do not get much mail. Usually a letter from my daughter, from time to time, when she feels dutiful. Or maybe from my son-in-law, for the same reason. Sometimes a card from my brother Émile. Or from the Baronne de Vresse, in Biarritz, by the sea, where she spends her summer. And the occasional bills and taxes.
That morning I noticed a long white envelope. Closed with a thick crimson seal. I turned it around. Préfecture de Paris. Hôtel de Ville.
And my name, printed large, in black lettering. I opened it. The words leaped out. At first I could not understand them. Yet my reading glasses were perched on the end of my nose. My hands were shaking so hard I had to place the sheet of paper on my lap and inhale a deep breath. After a while I took the letter into my hand again and forced myself to read it.
“What is it, Madame Rose?” whimpered Germaine. She must have seen my face.
I slipped the letter back into its envelope. I stood up and smoothed my dress down with the palms of my hands. A pretty frock, dark blue, with just enough ruffle for an old lady like me. You would have approved. I remember that dress, and the shoes I was wearing that day, mere slippers, sweet and feminine, and I remember Germaine’s cry when I told her what the letter said.
It was not until later, much later, alone in our room, that I collapsed on the bed. Although I knew this would happen one day, sooner or later, it still came as a shock. That night, when the household was asleep, I fetched a candle and I found that map of the city you used to like to look at. I rolled it out flat on the dining room table, taking care not to spill any wax. Yes, I could see it, the inexorable northern advance of the rue de Rennes sprouting straight from the Montparnasse railway station to us, and the boulevard Saint-Germain, a hungry monster, creeping westward from the river. With two trembling fingers I traced their paths until my flesh met. Right over our street. Yes, my love, our street.
It is freezing in the kitchen, I need to go down to get another shawl. Gloves as well, but only for my left hand, as my right hand must go on writing this for you. You thought the church and its proximity would save us, my love. You and Père Levasque.
“They will never touch the church, nor the houses around it,” you scoffed fifteen years ago, when the Prefect was appointed. And even after we heard what was going to happen to my brother Émile’s house, when the boulevard de Sébastopol was created, you still were not afraid: “We are close to the church, it will protect us.”
I often go to sit in the church to think of you. You have been gone for ten years now. A century to me. The church is quiet, peaceful. I gaze at the ancient pillars, the cracked paintings. I pray. Père Levasque comes to see me and we talk in the hushed gloom.
“It will take more than a Prefect or an Emperor to harm our neighborhood, Madame Rose! The church is safe, and so are we, its fortunate neighbors,” he whispers emphatically. “Childebert, the Merovingian King, the founder of our church, watches over his creation like a mother would a child.”
Père Levasque is fond of reminding me of how many times the church has been looted, plundered and burnt down to the ground by the Normans in the ninth century. I believe it is thrice. How wrong you were, my love.
The church will be safe. But not our house. The house you loved.
THE DAY THE LETTER
came, a feverish panic hit our little street. Monsieur Zamaretti, the bookseller, and Alexandrine, the flower girl, came up to see me. They had received the same letter from the Préfecture. But I could tell they knew it was not so bad for them. They could start their business elsewhere, could they not? There would always be a place in the city for a bookstore and a flower shop. Yes, their eyes dared not meet mine. They felt it was worse for me. As your widow, I owned the place. I let out the two shops, one to Alexandrine, the other to Monsieur Zamaretti, as you used to. As your father did before you, and his father did as well. The income from the shops was how I survived. That was how I made ends meet. Until now.
It was a warm, humid day, I recall. The street was soon humming with all our neighbors brandishing the letter. It was quite a sight. Everyone seemed to be outside that morning, and voices rose vociferously, all the way down to the rue Sainte-Marguerite. There was Monsieur Jubert, from the printing house, with his ink-stained apron, and Madame Godfin, standing outside her herbalist’s shop, and there was Monsieur Bougrelle, the bookbinder, puffing away on his pipe. The racy Mademoiselle Vazembert from the haberdashery (whom you never met, thank the Lord) flounced up and down along the cobblestones, as if to flaunt her new crinoline. Our charming neighbor Madame Barou smiled sweetly when she saw me, but I could tell how distressed she was. The chocolate maker, Monsieur Monthier, appeared to be in tears. Monsieur Helder, owner of the restaurant you used to love, Chez Paulette, was nervously biting his lips, his bushy mustache moving up and down.