http://maelicia.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] maelicia.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] revolution_fr2009-09-16 03:40 pm

Of Questionable Sense of Humour and Questionable Street-Naming in Paris.

Hello there, Revolution-lovers. I am living in Paris for the next four months (oh, yes) in the 17e arr., and for now I got the time to partially see the Parc Monceau, and on my way there, the famous Lycée Carnot in front of which Pierre Chaunu needs to spit every time he passes in front of it -- or so he says.

Today, I ventured to discover the Rue Saint-Just of Paris:



Here comes the joke about it -- prepare to laugh: I really love how it's a tiny, ridiculously tiny street almost out of the "walls" of Paris, that there's nothing worth seeing, and not even actual houses, and that it also happens to be connected to the "Avenue du cimetière des Battignoles". Oh, yes, because not only is it a dead-end, but it leads to a cemetary and all the addresses at the street are thus cemetary-related businesses:








No kidding.

Flowers for the dead, undertakers, marble for the tombstones and vaults, burial maintenance. Oh, the joke. Saint-Just appreciates the macabre humour, guys. It's really subtle. Subtler than that, you're called Simon Schama. Someone lol'ed himself to death when he gave him that street. Seriously. I'd like to see the minutes of the council that decided to attribute him that street... At least Robespierre's got a métro station, even if it's technically outside the 'walls' of Paris! Still better a métro station in a communist commune than a macabre intramuros street...

I think I stayed just two minutes on the actual street, because it was really almost, well, like they say la zone. It was really lost, and there were random people staring at me oddly or angrily or wtf-y, probably wondering why I was taking photos of the entrance of the cemetary, of the tiny businesses, and of the street panels, because none of them probably know who poor Saint-Just is.


--And, erm, because it just had to happen, as I was walking back the Avenue de Clichy to get the farthest from there, that's what I found:



Ooooooooooooooh dear. Now that's more of that same humour, isn't it? Oh dear.

[identity profile] sibylla-oo.livejournal.com 2009-09-16 07:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, I am afraid they know too well who he was. As far as I know the older generations spent whole year dealing with the FR in the history class in the high school. Maybe this makes the things even worse, doesn't it?

[identity profile] 10littlebullets.livejournal.com 2009-09-16 09:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Must've been the same person with the sick sense of humor who put the Louise Michel Métro station in Neuilly-sur-Seine.

And hey, I'll be living in the 9e for the next ten months! I know I never post here and I'm more of a nineteenth-century gal, but I just had to give a shoutout because yay, a fellow nerd in Paris.

[identity profile] missweirdness.livejournal.com 2009-09-16 11:11 pm (UTC)(link)
well that is interesting..xD the flowers are beautiful though.

[identity profile] hanriotfran.livejournal.com 2009-09-17 04:41 am (UTC)(link)
Ugh...That's really creepy. Poor little Toine! I think he wouldn't like to be remembered in such a way. However, I share Missweirdness comment: My! Those flowers are really beatiful! I like them very much, and I'm sure Saint-Just loved flowers. (Remember "Danton" movie, when he brings Robespierre some beatiful little white flowres to show his friend that Springtime was ready to start? So romantic!

By the way, Maelicia...I know I'm bothering you, but since you are in Paris and I think I will not travel there after some loooong time ....may you take a little pic of "François Hanriot" street, at Nanterre, the place he was born in? I know there's a quite long street there with his name, and since nobody speaks about him...

Of course, you may ask anything from Buenos Aires! My camera is always reading to take good sights of historical places. Nothing historical of my country -Argentina- even escaped to my objective! :D

HanriotFran.

[identity profile] sneerbite.livejournal.com 2009-09-18 12:10 am (UTC)(link)
Heh. This made me smile. Thanks for going where the rest of us were too cowardly or lazy to venture! I have always wondered what this street looks like - now I know. And to think Cambon has one right next to Madelaine. It's a mad world.

[identity profile] victoriavandal.livejournal.com 2009-09-28 01:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Didn't one of the 19thc French historians claim that he liked to hang around in cemeteries in his youth (an 18thc version of 'Harolding', as in the film 'Harold and Maude', meaning to hang around cemeteries like a goth)? I think it was the same historian who had the black with skulls/tears wallpaper story. Maybe the town planners were thinking of that!

Maybe it's not so bad - some graveyards are tourist attractions e.g. Highgate cemetary in London (my favourite) or Pere Lachaise...better a graveyard than a road full of fur coat and handbag boutiques for stupid millionaires!