Engraved by L. Poulmarie and printed by Gaston Maillet. Plan Monumental Paris Versailles, c. 1925. Paper, 20 “ x 26” Published by A. Leconte and L. Guilmin, Paris. (Public Domain: France and the U.S.)
Confession: When we came across this beautiful 1920s vintage map of Paris (with a plan of Versailles on its verso) today for one of our projects, it inspired more than a little bit of wanderlust, and even the desire to step back in time to the Jazz Age.
Collecting maps is an art unto itself. Maps of Paris extend back hundreds and hundreds of years to when the area was known as Lutèce (under the Romans). But, of course the ancient city, its walls and layout, were organized very differently, as they have been throughout history. We certainly wouldn’t see the clockwise spiral of 20 arrondissements extant today, at least not before the late 1850s, when Baron Haussmann, Napoleon III’s Prefect of the Seine, began transforming Paris, re-designing the urban center and wiping out parts of the old Medieval city (and dislocating many of its 19th-century inhabitants) in order to erect modern apartment buildings, create public parks, and establish the safer, more spectacular Grand Boulevards celebrated in paintings by artists such as Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Gustave Caillebotte. Even embedded in the statement, we are reminded of how maps are never neutral, but rather bear layers of political and social history.
During the 1920s, the so-called “années folles,” when this deco-style map was made, the city was experiencing an efflorescence. The City of Light was particularly attractive to Americans, who flocked to it for the culture, the novel experiences, the alcohol (during prohibition), and the liberation from some of the social mores back home. Some were soldiers who stayed in Europe after serving in WWI, others sailed over from the U.S. in the early ‘20s, profiting from the favorable exchange rate and able to live out a dream. Famous expats who arrived during the decade included Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, Sara and Gerald Murphy, Langston Hughes, Stuart Davis, Aaron Copeland, Cole Porter, Alexander Calder, and Josephine Baker, among so many others. They were greeted by an open-minded atmosphere that lauded creativity and innovation, and found themselves considered exotic by the French. The cafes and nightclubs were rife with cultural exchange - animated with discussion and debate among artists and writers - and hot jazz inspired everyone.
Hemingway described Paris as “a moveable feast,” in reference not only to delicious Parisian food, but the total banquet of experience a stay in Paris represented - a unique stimulation for all the senses including one’s brain.
Aaaahhh, it would be so nice to be in Paris right now, strolling along the Seine, visiting the Musée d’Orsay, getting glâce (icecream) at Chez Berthillon in the Marais, and then sitting at a cafe, maybe Les Deux Magots, with a strong espresso in hand, people watching. But that’s our travel wish. Maybe there is a different place in the world that you would like to visit. Today is a day for imaginative wanderlust, especially with all the recent COVID restrictions. Let your mind wander. If money, time, and other restrictions were no longer factors, where would you you go? Would it be Paris or somewhere else?