oscar wilde`s paris

OSCAR WILDE’S PARIS
LEFT BANK CAFÉS, RESTAURANTS & BARS c.1860-c.1914
As far as we know, Wilde was in Paris for three weeks in August 1867; and came
again in August 1875. He was there January to May 1883, and on his honeymoon in
June 1884. He does not seem to have been there again until February 1891, staying
until March and returning from October to December. He visited in April and
November 1892 and in February and April 1894.
He presumably passed through
Paris on his way to and from Monte Carlo in February 1895. He did pass through on
his way to Naples in September 1897. Finally, after leaving Naples in January 1898,
short breaks apart, he spent most of the rest of his life in the French capital.
Although before 1895 he would occasionally dine at the apartment of a friend, he
would have depended for the most part on cafés and restaurants for his meals,
expensive ones when he was well off, cheap ones in the days of his impoverishment.
The names of some of these are known; where he ate otherwise can only be
conjectured.
Here we publish a list of Left Bank establishments that he either
frequented or could have done so. Many, perhaps most, of them have vanished and
for some of them their exact address has still to be established.
Recommended reading:
Evelyne Saëz: Cafés, restaurants & salons de thé de la Belle Epoque à Paris. Editions
Ouest-France 2013.
ADDRESS
NAME
ARR
1.
rue des Écoles ¬ boulevard St
Michel
The Café Vachette.1
2.
rue Galande
Le Drapeau.
3.
rue de Jussieu (19 or 29)
Chez Cosson.
4.
place Maubert
Père Lunette.
5
5.
place Maubert 27
‘Le 27’, a soldiers’ café.
5
1 Now
either a clothes shop or a branch of the Société Général, depending on which corner.
5
5
5
6.
rue Monsieur-le-Prince ¬.
L’Œil de Verre.
5
7.
rue Monsieur-le-Prince 41
Polidor
5
8.
rue Royer-Collard ¬ boulevard
St Michel 69
Café François Premier.
5
9.
L’Académie (tavern).
5
10.
boulevard St-Michel 1 ¬ quai StMichel
Café de l’Avenir / Soleil d’Or / Café
du Départ.2
5
11.
boulevard St-Michel 40-42
The café Sherry Cobbler, frequented
by Mallarmé, Alphonse Allais, Villiers
de l'Isle-Adam
5
12.
boulevard St-Michel 47
Café Harcourt.3
5
13.
boulevard St-Michel ¬ rue Cujas
Café de la Rive Gauche.4
5
14.
boulevard St-Michel ¬ rue Royer
Collard
Café François Premier.
5
15.
boulevard St-Michel 63 ¬ rue
Soufflot
Taverne du Panthéon.5
5
16.
place St-Michel 5
Taverne de la Palais.
5
17.
rue de la Sorbonne 6
Franco-British Guild 1900.
5
18.
rue Soufflot
Restaurant
Cocher’.
rue St-Jacques 176
19.
rue
Michel 63
Soufflot
¬
boulevard
St
Tarle
a.k.a.
‘l’ancien
5
Taverne du Panthéon.
5
20.
rue de l’Ancienne Comédie 13
Café Procope.
6
21.
rue de Bondy 50
Gosselin’s restaurant.
6
22.
rue de Fleurus 2
Café Fleurus.
23.
in or off the rue Gît-le-Cœur
The Bol de Cidre.
24.
rue de la Grande Chaumière 13
The Crémerie Charlotte.
25.
quai des Grands Augustins 51
Restaurant Lapérouse.
2
Now the Café du Départ St Michel.
3
closed 1940 ; now a clothes shop
6
6
6
6
Now (April 2004) either a man’s clothes shop or a branch of the Banque Nationale de ParisParisbas, depending upon which corner.
5 Now (April 2004) either the ‘Quick Hamburger Restaurant’ or a branch of ‘MacDonald’s’,
depending on which corner.
4
26.
rue Jacob
The Taverne Alsacienne (Clarisse).
6
27.
rue Jacob 42
Chez Béchet.6
6
28.
rue Jacob ¬ rue de Seine
Picot’s restaurant.
6
29.
rue Mazet
Magny’s Restaurant.
30.
boulevard Montparnasse 59
Créé en 1858, devenu Bouillon
Édouard Chartier en 1903 (dont le
décor Art nouveau, toujours visible
de nos jours, est entrepris en 1906).
6
31.
place de l’Odéon 1
Café Voltaire.7
6
32.
rue des Poitevins
The pension and café Laveur.
6
33.
rue Racine 3
Bouillon Racine
lunched here).
6
34.
rue Rotrou ¬ rue de Vaugirard
Café Tabourey.
6
35.
boulevard St-Germain 151
Brasserie Lipp.
6
36.
boulevard St-Germain 170
Les Deux Magots.
6
37.
boulevard St-Germain 172
Café de Flore, from 1885.
6
38.
boulevard St-Michel ¬ rue des
Écoles
The Vachette.8
6
39.
boulevard St-Michel ¬ boulevard
St-Germain
Café de la Musée de Cluny.9
6
40.
rue des Saint-Pères 29
Michaud’s restaurant.10
6
41.
rue de Seine ¬ rue Jacob
Picot’s restaurant.
6
42.
rue Serpente
Le Père Laveur.
6
43.
rue Tournon 18
Le Tournon
6
44.
rue de Tournon 33
Hôtel & Restaurant Foyot11.
6
45.
rue de Vaugirard 6
The Brasserie Furet (Madame Elise). 12
6
6
(Raoul
6
Ponchon
Wilde would eat here in his last period. Vyvyan Holland: Time Remembered After Père
Lachaise. London: Gollancz 1966 p.10.
7 More likely no.3 because of shield outside, now (May 2004) a shop.
No. 1 is now
Flammarion, the publisher.
8 Now (April 2004) either a clothes shop or a branch of the Société Général, depending on
which corner
9 Now, presumably, the Café de Cluny.
10 Now Le Comptoir des Saints-Pères.
11 Whistler stayed here in January 1892 and Beardsley stayed here in September 1897.
Closed 1938.
12 Now (April 2004) a travel agent.
46.
rue de Vaugirard ¬ rue Rotrou
Café Tabouret.
6
47.
rue Monsieur
Restaurant de la Couronne.13
7
48.
boulevard St-Germain 285
The Cercle Agricole.14
7
49. rue Gazan 20
Le Pavillon Montsouris.
50. rue du Départ 1-3 ¬ boulevard
Montparnasse
Lavenue’s Hotel and Restaurant.15
51. rue Léopold Robert
Crémerie Léopold Robert, a haunt of
Constance Gore-Booth.
14
14
14
Kept by père Trin. George du Maurier: Trilby, A Novel. London: Osgood, McIlvaine & Co
1895 p. 32.
14 Nicknamed the Pommes de Terre.
15 Now the Hippopotamus Grill.
13
Taverne du Panthéon
Paul Verlaine at the François Premier