Café Le Zimmer

The history of this brasserie is closely tied to the Théâtre du Châtelet, since there was a door leading directly from the theatre’s lobby into the restaurant. The name comes from the surname of an Alsatian family, the Zimmers, who left Alsace and moved to Paris in order to remain French (France had lost Alsace to arch-rival Germany in 1871). Their brasserie, when it opened, occupied four floors of the building and was elaborately decorated, in keeping with the lavishness of the Théâtre du Châtelet.

The establishment was immediately popular and trendy. Its clientele was directly linked to the two theatres that flank the Place du Châtelet: Sarah Bernhardt, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Arturo Toscanini, Claude Debussy, Edmond Rostand, Igor Stravinsky, Émile Zola, Marcel Proust, Serge de Diaghilev, Vaslav Nijinski, Apollinaire, Pablo Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Jules Verne. During WWII, French resistance fighters held meetings in the basement.


In the year 2000 Paris-based world renowned decorator Jacques Garcia was hired to restore the Beaux-Arts spirit of the interiors, returning Café Le Zimmer to its former glory as a place to see and be seen.

Café Le Zimmer
1, place du Châtelet
Open 7 days, 8:00a-1:30a; terrace seats 30, capacity 150 inside
tel.: 01 42 36 74 03

Métro: Châtelet

Salle Pleyel Concert Hall

The Pleyel piano manufacturer had long had an intimate concert hall in Paris at rue Rochechouart (see etching above), where 19th century notables such as Chopin played. However, the piano company established a greater prominence by building a much larger new concert hall entirely devoted to concert music. This 3,000 seat auditorium, not far from the place de l’Étoile on Rue du faubourg Saint-Honoré, was constructed in Art Deco style (contemporary for the period). Salle Pleyel opened in 1927 with a monumental orchestral concert of music by Wagner, de Falla, Stravinsky, Franck, Dukas, Debussy and Ravel.
A fire ravaged the hall less than nine months after its opening. Unfortunately, the acoustics suffered from the rather slap-dash renovations that were undertaken (the economic crisis of 1929 resulted in extremely modest funds available for repairs). The branch of the maison Pleyel that managed the building never recovered from the financial shock, and in 1935 the hall, reduced to 2,400 seats, became the property of the Crédit Lyonnais bank that originally granted the loan.
Salle Pleyel became one of the most celebrated concert halls in Paris. It was here that Stravinsky directed Agon (1957) and Threni (1958), and where Otto Klemperer gave his celebrated interpretations of Mahler’s 9th Symphony and Beethoven’s Eroica. The Orchestre de Paris took up residence and gained an international audience under Daniel Barenboïm. Over the decades many of Europe’s finest orchestras graced its stage, as well as legends from the world of jazz, such as Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald, and world musicians, including Ravi Shankar. In fact, the Salle Pleyel became known as the “Carnegie Hall” of Paris.
In 1998, following financial difficulties by Crédit Lyonnais, the Salle Pleyel was put up for sale. Its new proprietor, M. Hubert Martigny, awarded the artistic direction of the hall to Carla-Maria Tarditi, until it closed in 2002 for renovation work costing €30 million.


The work completed in 2006 restored the simplicity and purity that characterized the original Art Deco aesthetic. The renovations of the façade, hall and foyer reconfigured the spaces to allot more room to the public and performers. Great effort was made to improve the hall’s acoustics, as well. There was a further reduction in the number of seats, presently 1,913 compared to 3,000 in 1927, and a choir of 160 voices can be accommodated at the back of the stage.

The inaugural concert in the refurbished Salle Pleyel took place on September 13, 2006, with a performance of the appropriately-named “Resurrection Symphony” of Gustav Mahler.
A restaurant, Café Salle Pleyel, is on the premises (lunch M-F, dinner on concert evenings).
Salle Pleyel
252 rue du faubourg Saint-Honoré
Métro: Ternes

PARIS: Hôtel de Beauvais

At number 68, rue François Miron, is the Hôtel de Beauvais, originally the home of Catherine Bellier, known as “One-Eyed Kate,” the lady-in-waiting who in 1654, at age 40, deflowered the 16-year-old future King Louis XIV - at the request of his mother! Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII, feared that her son might be frigid like his father, so she asked her principal servant, Catherine, to do the deed. Success! Madame Bellier was rewarded with a fortune, mostly to appease her spouse, Pierre Beauvais, who was outraged when he found out about the arrangement. She and her merchant husband were given a baronetcy, and thus made nobles. They purchased a city lot and built a magnificent edifice, where the 7-year-old Mozart later stayed with his father and sister in 1762, when the house was home to the Bavarian ambassador. It is worth seeking out the courtyard, which is even more impressive than the street façade. You may view the courtyard but not enter the building, which is occupied by administrative offices on the Court of Appeals. The courtyard photo above attests to the luxe digs enjoyed by the young Mozart.

PARIS: St-Gervais (le Marais)

Église St-Gervais-et-St-Protais
 
During the reign of the Carolingians (Charlemagne in the 800s), Paris began to be built up on the right bank, notably the Port du Grève, where todays’ City Hall (Hôtel de Ville) stands, and the Église St-Gervais-et-St-Protais, an unusual church with a seventeenth century neo-classical façade (the first of this style in Paris) tacked onto an earlier Gothic church. Its origins date back to the fifth century, making it one of the oldest churches in Paris, dedicated to the martyred twin brothers St-Gervais & St-Protais, the patron saints of Milan.
During the Middle Ages this church was the seat of the powerful brotherhood of wine merchants, and residents of the neighborhood would sign contracts and settle debts under the centuries old elm tree in the square in front of the church, resulting in the moniker “Crossroads of the Elm.” An oath made “under the elm” was considered inviolable. That tree was pulled down during the French Revolution, and the one that replaced it was not planted until 1912.

Beginning in 1653, the Couperin dynasty of musicians, most notably Louis and François, was employed by St-Gervais for nearly two centuries. The historic organ they played still exists, including the original 18th-century keyboards (on five manuals). The home of the Couperins still stands next to the church, and there is a plaque noting it.

In more recent times, a WW I German bomb smashed through the roof during Good Friday services in 1918, killing fifty and wounding hundreds. However, the small atmospheric square behind the church was undisturbed, and on a tiny lane leading off it is a French memorial devoted to the Jews tortured and killed by the Nazis – Le Musée du Martyr Juif Inconnu (the Museum of the Unknown Jewish Martyr), housed in a small building at 17, rue Geoffroy l'Asnier. An eternal light burns, and there is a photographic history of the systematic Nazi execution of the Jews.

Since 1975, the church has been home to the brothers and nuns of the monastic order, the Communion de Jérusalem (an Ascetic order, which accounts for the simple, backless benches that serve as seating) , which celebrates mass daily at 7 a.m. 12:30 and 6 p.m., and every Sunday at 11 a.m.

An aside: St-Gervais is the church in which the Chiracs worshiped, and during those times it was so spruced up and clean that you could eat off the floor. Now that Sarkozy is in power, we’ll have to see how well that happy state of affairs continues. Frankly, I’d be happy if Sarkozy, after one of his all-night benders, would atone at the great church of St-Eustache, which is in appalling condition, full of water leaks, mold – and in a state of general decrepitude. The city of Paris should be ashamed of such neglect.

The beautiful façade of the Couperin organ of St-Gervais.

Manufacture des Gobelins

The Manufacture des Gobelins is a tapestry factory at 42 avenue des Gobelins in the 13th arrondissement. It was best known as a royal factory supplying the court of Louis XIV and later monarchs, but is now run by the French Ministry of Culture. The Manufacture des Gobelins is also a school, now 400 years old, that stills trains artisans to make and restore carpets and tapestries, making sure this great French tradition doesn’t die out.

Founded as a dye works in the mid-15th century by Jean Gobelin, Louis XIV purchased the Gobelins works in 1662. Jean-Baptiste Colbert united all the royal artisans, creating a royal tapestry, statue and furniture workshop. Royal painter Charles Le Brun was director and chief designer from 1663 to 1690. Because of the later financial problems of Louis XIV, the Gobelins works were temporarily closed from 1694 to 1697, after which the workrooms specialized in tapestry, chiefly for royal use. The buildings and grounds of the Gobelins factory adjoined the Bièvre river, but the many tanneries and dye works along this narrow stream so thoroughly polluted the water that the smell drove the 19th-century city officials to divert the water into an underground channel, through which it still runs.

The Gobelins rivalled the Beauvais tapestry works until the French Revolution, when work at the factory was again suspended. The Bourbons revived the factory during the Restoration, and in 1826 the manufacture of carpets was added to that of tapestry. In 1871 the main building was partly burned down by the Communards.

The factory still produces tapestries as a state-run institution. Today the operation consists of a set of four buildings dating to the seventeenth century, plus the building on the avenue des Gobelins built by Jean-Camille Formigé in 1912 after the 1871 fire. They contain Le Brun’s residence and workshops that served as foundries for most of the bronze statues in the park of Versailles, as well as looms on which tapestries are woven following seventeenth century techniques.

Factory at 42, avenue des Gobelins. Guided tours Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 2.00 p.m and 2.45 p.m. Admission 8 Euros. Reservations 01 44 54 19 33 and 01 44 08 52 00. Metro: Gobelins.

Louis XIV visiting the Gobelin factory with Colbert and his brother Philippe, 1667. Tapestry from the "History of the King" series designed by Charles Le Brun and woven between 1667 and 1672.

A small sampling of royal decorative items now on display (photos by Jason Whittaker):
www.jasonw.eu