MONTMARTRE.

Western Star, 31 March 1911, Page 4

MONTMARTRE.

THE NIGHT CAPES.

j Paris is not a lat a city ; it is a ! city with a few late streets. Paris | as a whole goes to bed as early as j London, if not earlier, as a walk in I the residential quarters will l prove, j Montmartre is late, and the Boule- { vards des Capucines and dcs Italiens j are late, although less so ; and that |is about all. When it is remembered | that Paris rises and opens its shops j some hours earlier than London, and that the Parisians value their health, 1 jt will be recognised that Paria could | not be a late city.' One must rememifecr also that the number of allnight j cafes is very small, so small that by frequenting them with any dilij genco one may soon come to know by sight most of the late fringe of : this city, both amateurs and professionals. One is indeed quickly struck by their numerical weakness. There is a fashion in night cafes as in hats ; change is made as suddenly and as inexplicably. One month every one is crowding into, let us say, the Chat Vivant, and the next the Chat Vivant kindles its lamps and twinkles its mandolins in vain ; all the world passes its doors icn the way' to thu Nid de Nuit. i What is the reason ? No one knows ! exactly ; but we must probably once again seek the woman. A new dancer (or shall I say attachec ?) has appeared, or an old dancer or attacheo transferred her allegiance. And so for a while the Nid has not a free table after one o’clock, and on a special night—such asi Mi-Carcme, or Roveillon, or New-Year’s Eve — it is the head waiter and the doorkeeper of the Nid into whose hands ore pressed the gold coins and bank notes to influence them to admit the bloods and their parties and find I them a table. A year ago the douceur (often fruitless) would have gone to the officials of the Chat Vivant. They remain, when all has been said against them, simple and wellmannered places, these half dozen famous cafes on which the sun always rises. To .think so one must j perhaps graduate on the Boulvards, • Nut once they are accepted they can j become an agreeable habit. Slcepi--1 ness is as unknown there as the ! writings of Thomas a Mempis. Not i only the dancers de la maisora hut ! the visitors too are tireless. There | may be ways pf getting ennui into a i Parisian girl, but certainly it is not by dancing. Nor does the hand tire . either, ones excellent rule at all of them being that there should be no i pause whatever between the tunes, from the hour of opening until day. There lies before me as I write an amusing memorial of the innocent high spirits / that can prevail on 1 such a special all-night sitting as ; Roveillon ; one of the; tails of a dress •coat, lined with white satin cn | which a skilful hand has traced with a fountain pen . (my own) two very ‘ intimate scenes of French life. These ; drawings were made between five and ’ six in the morning in tho intervals j of a dance, the artist, lacking paper, ■ having without a word taken a table ! knife and shorn off his coat-tails for j tho purpose. His coat, I may say, J was already being worn inside out, j with one of the leather buckles of j his braces as a button-hole. A tall j burly man,) with a long red Boule--1 vard beard, he had thrown out signs 'of friendliness to l mo at once, and |we became) as brothers. He drew my i portrait on tho table-cloth ; I afI fected to draw his. He showed me where I was wrong and drew it right, jHo then left me, in order to walk |or a while on an imaginary tight/Topa across the floor, and having safely made the journey and returned again, with infinite skill in his recoveries from falling and the most dexterous managing of a balancingj pole that did not exist, he leaped Ilightly to the earth again sat by me ! and resumed his work ; finally, after | other diversions, completing the chef , d-oeuvre that is now lying on my ! desk and lending abandon to- what is j otherwise a stronghold of British decorum. We parted at seven. I have ' never seen him since, but I find his | name often in the French comic | papers illustrating yet other phases 1 of their favourite pleasantry for tho I entertainment of this simple and tireless people. j Another incident I . recall that is . equally characteristic of Montmartre. j'“Oa' no fait rien,” said a head waiter I when he had expressed regret on ; hearing of tho maltrc d’hotel, for whom (an old acquaintance) we had j been asking. “Ca ne fait rein : it is I necessary to order supper just the isame.” True. True Indeed cvery--1 where, but particularly true on Mont- ! martre.—“A Wanderer in Paris.”