Tagged With "Berlioz"

Poor Mme Derval, who seems not to have had a name.

I noticed that...but for me, the hardest moment of the afternoon was the sense of relentless mortality I felt at the grave of Louise Weber, "La Goulue." To look at the severe and confining stone box, and think at the same time of the image we carry of her...

Speaking of la Goulue, you know the neighborhood, PHeymont. She could have just about fallen off the stage at the Moulin Rouge into that box. The famous nightclub is at the bottom of Rue Lepic, mentioned in a recent blog, and some of my "best friends" were can-can dancers. Before someone asks, not la Goulue. And don't feel bad, P., she's enjoying the rest.

She died nearby, as well. She returned to Montmartre in 1928, a year before her death, and eked out a living selling matches and peanuts on a corner near the Moulin Rouge.

Hmm, that sounds pretty good, ending my days in the old neighborhood, selling peanuts to supplement my Social Security. What I don't sell, I can eat. I can think of worse ways.

For reasons I can’t completely explain, the great cemeteries of Paris are among the city’s major tourist attractions. There is the amazing statuary to be seen, yes. There are the graves of the rich and famous, certainly....