Tuileries Garden - awaiting spring

My shortest post so far. (A combination of a PC problem and a flu.) 

Behind this door was a theatre...

There are two buildings facing each other, Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie. One of them is quite well known to most of us, the restaurant / café “Le Procope”. It opened around 1686 and is generally considered to be oldest restaurant still in operation in Paris and with a lot of its own history, especially during the revolutionary years.

But this post is rather about the building on the opposite side of the street. 

At that time, official theatre companies and actors were named (designated) by the Royal court. They moved around a lot, but finally found a rather long-lasting place to perform - in this building. They moved in three years after the opening of “Le Procope”, in 1689, after having transformed a “jeu-de-paume” (the predecessor to our modern tennis) court to a theatre and played here until 1770, which means that many works have had their world-première here with authors like Voltaire, Diderot, Beaumarchais… Among the first actors and actresses, who were referred to as the “comédiens ordinaires”, you may mention Armande Béjart, Molière’s widow – Molière was already dead, in 1673. It’s obvious that this part of the street was very much in fashion during a number of decades - actors, authors, intellectuals, nobility… 

What we refer to as the “Comédie Française” had actually been founded by Louis XIV, by merging different “companies” a few years earlier, in 1680, before the opening of this theatre, but it took some time to find a suitable place for performances. As said above, the theatre company remained here until 1770 and after moving around again for a while, they finally settled in a fixed theatre, in 1799, the theatre we know today (although of course remodeled since) at the Palais Royal (see previous posts here).  

So, what can we find of this 1689-1770 working theatre? Not much. The front building has got one or two additional floors since then. What remains of the original façade is a sculpture representing “La Minerve”, executed by Etienne Le Hongre (1628-90), who has also left a number of statues around the Louvre, Versailles… .  

I have searched rather desperately to find information about the theatre, but have been able to find only very little information (I was able to “steal” only one recent artistic drawing of what the theatre may have looked like - see the lower left corner on the below collage), nothing about the when it was demolished… . 

When you open the gate you will find a courtyard. Obviously this is where the theatre once stood. Where the stage curtain once was would correspond to the modern building / façade which obviously dates from 1989, but seems to be completely abandoned. I also understand that the “Comédie Française” used the premises for some time as a storage space. I would be happy to learn more, if someone knows…  

   

Some odd photos, statues…

Some odd photos, which I have not been able to incorporate in any “real” blogposts.

This is a statue, called “La Seine”. You can find it close to the Pont d’Alma. The sculptor is Gérard Choain ( 1906-88). He obtained the “Grand prix des Beaux Arts de la ville de Paris” in 1962 for this one. Gérard Choain has made a number of monuments which you can find in France and abroad, e.g. a monument dedicated to the Mauthausen deported at the Père Lachaise cemetery.

Very close to this statue you can find another one, “A la France, la Belgique reconnaissante, 1914-18” (see also top picture). It has been here since 1923 and is a gift by Belgium in recognition of the Belgian-French friendship during WWI. The sculptor is Isisdor de Rudder (1855-1943). Two ladies representing the two nations face each other, the French one with her Phrygian cap, the national Marianne emblem. The exact address where you find it is Place de la Reine Astrid. Queen Astrid was born as a Swedish princess (Bernadotte) and was later married to the Belgian King, Léopold III. She died accidentally in 1935. She was the mother of the future Kings, Baudouin I and Albert II and grandmother to the present king, Philippe.

A third statue, a bit further away, close to the Pont des Invalides, is named “Le Messager”, (the Messenger), by Ossip Zadkine (1898-1967).  This is a bronze copy of an original wooden sculpture which was placed here to decorate an Exotic Wood pavilion, part of the 1937 Paris International Exposition – when the Palais de Tokyo, the Paris Museum for Modern Art, the present Trocadero installations… were also opened, when Picasso’s Guernica was exhibited at the Spanish pavilion… .

The statue seems to have other names as well – “Le porteur des présents” or “Le navigateur”. I don’t know if it was meant so, but the little ship we can see may refer to the one we can see on the Paris coat of arms, originally the symbol of the 14^th century powerful corporate “Marchands de l’eau” with the motto “Fluctuat nec mergitur” (She is tossed by the waves, but does not sink). This corporation, controlling the river traffic, ended up as the Paris municipal representation. 

Here we can see (photos “stolen” from the net) what the German and Soviet pavilions, facing each other, and what the Exotic Wood pavilion (where you can see Zadkine’s sculpture facing the river) looked like during the 1937 event.

Zadkine has a number of statues around Paris, a street name and his own museum. I talked about it in my previous blog, here.

Of course, nothing to do with this, but...

… and to finish this post, I would like to show you a rose, which has resisted the (so far fairly mild) winter. 

The Paris sewer system

You can visit a little part of the Paris sewer system. The entrance is close to Pont d’Alma. You can read more about it here.

Actually what you find today underground is a combination of the sewer system and the double water supply network, drinking and non-drinking water. The same corridors and tunnels are used. All in all there are today 2.400 km (1.500 miles) of tunnels.

Walking around for about an hour, you will notice that the water leaving our buildings and streets is not quite clean. It’s good to know that it’s not going back to the Seine as such, but is brought far away and well cleaned before finally finding its way back to the river, far away downstream.

You will be taught the history of how Paris has taken care of its water supply and sewer system from ancient times until today and you can also see some of the tools in use, or previously used. The different corridors have the corresponding street names indicated. 

Snow... more or less.

There was a little bit of snow in the air last Friday. I took a walk in “my” park, Square des Batignolles.

I was alone… except for the birds of course.

The snow never appeared on the ground or the flowers - only as raindrops.

I could notice all the same that spring is under preparation.