![]() Rue de la Pompe | |
Length | 1,690 m (5,540 ft) |
---|---|
Width | 15 m (49 ft) |
Arrondissement | XVIe 16th |
Quarter | Muette / Porte Dauphine |
Coordinates | 48°52′6″N2°16′53″E / 48.86833°N 2.28139°E |
From | Avenue Paul Doumer, Paris |
To | Avenue Foch, Paris |
Construction | |
Completion | Opened around 1730 |
Rue de la Pompe is a street in Paris, France, which was named after the pump which served water to the castle of Muette. With a length of 1690 metres, Rue de la Pompe is one of the longest streets in the 16th arrondissement. It runs from Avenue Paul Doumer (in the district of Muette) to Avenue Foch (in the district of Porte Dauphine).
Originally, it was a small way and first mentioned in 1730. For a long time, Rue de la Pompe, which runs from South to North, was together with Rue de Longchamp (which runs from East to West) the main axis of Passy whose terrain was mainly used for agricultural reasons until it became a part of Paris on 1 January 1860.
The house with number 1 lies in the southern part of the street and (with view from there) on the left side. Brigitte Bardot has spent a part of her childhood here. [1]
Just a few steps further on the same side of the street – at the place where today is house number 11 – once stood a country house in which the writer and journalist Jules Janin moved around 1850: "It surely needs a lot of courage to settle in this wilderness, on a scarcely discernible way. The first three winters we have spent alone here, surrounded by this frightening isolation and this total silence." [2] During the summer of 2010 Jessica Talley, noted American photographer and dancer lived with the notorious socialite Eliza F M Wright on the top floor of number 11.
In direct neighborhood grew up at nearly the same time the writer and caricaturist George du Maurier who was born on 6 March 1834 in Paris. In his first novel Peter Ibbetson (published in 1891), which has some autobiographical tendencies, the author is telling about happy days of childhood in the Rue de la Pompe:
"Our house, an old yellow house with green shutters and Mansard-roofs of slate, stood between the garden and the street - a long winding street ... on either side of the street (which was called "the Street of the Pump"), as far as the eye could reach looking west, were dwelling-houses just like our own, only agreeably different; and garden walls overtopped with the foliage of horse-chestnut, sycamore, acacia, and lime; and here and there huge portals and iron gates defended by posts of stone gave ingress to mysterious abodes of brick and plaster and granite, many-shuttered, and embosomed in sun-shot greenery." [3]
Not only his granddaughter, the writer Daphne du Maurier, was of the opinion that his depictions brought to life again old Passy and the Rue de la Pompe: "Kicky … was a happy little boy – or so he believed, when fifty years later he wrote about his childhood in Peter Ibbetson – and the scents and sounds of pre-imperial Paris, the rumble of wheels on cubbled stones, the crack of a whip, the white dust at the corner of the Rue de la Pompe, the chestnut trees in flower – even the small burnt bread, black coffee, and tobacco on the warm spring air – rise from the pages of his novel …" [4]
Wistfully, George du Maurier has also dealt with the rapid alterations, Passy had been involved - especially as a result of the annexation to Paris on 1 January 1860. 12 years after he had been taken away from his beloved Passy to London by his uncle, his protagonist Peter Ibbetson returns to Passy for the first time: the old house was no more, but in its place a much larger and smarter edifice of sculptured stone. Also from the trusted apple-tree remained the stump only. But the old gate at least had not disappeared. "I feasted my sorrowful eyes on these poor remains, that looked snubbed and shabby and out of place in the midst of all this new splendor." [5]
The old park hedge, which they often had crossed through a gap inside it, to get faster to and from the Bois de Boulogne, had also disappeared and "the very park itself was gone, cut up, demolished, all parcelled out into small gardens with trim white villas, except where a railway ran through a deep cutting in the chalk. A train actually roared and panted by, and choked me with its filthy steam as I looked round in stupefaction on the ruins of my long-cherished hope." [6]
At what is now a junction of Rue de la Pompe and Rue de Siam, between buildings numbered 43 and 45, there used to stand a hotel of unidentified name. In 1877-1880 it was inhabited by Carlos de Borbón, the Carlist claimant to the throne of Spain, his wife Margarita de Bourbon-Parme, their 5 children and the quasi-court of royal servants, assistants, advisers and secretaries. At that time Rue de la Pompe was home to international politics, intrigues and police surveillance. As the presence of the Carlist claimant was increasingly inconvenient for the French authorities, he was made to leave the country in 1880. Some time afterwards the hotel building was demolished upon construction of Rue de Siam. [7]
Some decades letter grew up another writer in the same street - and his childhood memories sound very similarly atrabilious like the narration by Du Maurier: "When I stroll around Passy I feel like wandering inside myself and always I am faced with my own childhood." [8]
With the same melancholy, Du Maurier felt a century before, Julien Green is also writing about the many changes his home has suffered in time: "It is amazing how a quarter century could deprive all the former charm from this part of town. I know that it is useless and ridiculous to moan about vanished stones, but my impression is without leniency when I have a look at these tenements which are now occupy the heights in which I remember to have seen many old-fashioned elegant villas, and gardens who kept their silence and the singing of the birds like treasures." [9] "And when I stroll down from the heights of Passy to the banks of the Seine, I sometimes ask myself where I am and if I have not dreamed." [10]
Green lived on the left side of Rue de la Pompe (there where the odd numbers are) and visited Lycée Janson de Sailly with number 106, just across the street. Because he heard nothing but English at home (his parents were Americans) and nothing but French in school, Green described the Rue de la Pompe as "my Atlantic Ocean". [11]
Also in opposite to the mentioned high school lived the French general Joseph Jacques Césaire Joffre (1852-1931) for 10 years, as a commemorative plaque on house number 115 reveals.
Virginia Oldoini, Countess di Castiglione, an early photographic artist, secret agent, courtesan and mistress to royalty, was bought a small house on the street by Napoleon III in 1857.
In 1919, an apartment at 115 rue de la Pompe became the home of Irène Némirovsky, author of David Golder, Le Bal, and Suite Francaise, among other novels. [12]
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, was an English novelist, biographer and playwright. Her parents were actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and his wife, actress Muriel Beaumont. Her grandfather was George du Maurier, a writer and cartoonist.
George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier was a Franco-British cartoonist and writer known for work in Punch and a Gothic novel Trilby, featuring the character Svengali. His son was the actor Sir Gerald du Maurier. The writers Angela du Maurier and Dame Daphne du Maurier and the artist Jeanne du Maurier were all granddaughters of George. He was also father of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies and grandfather of the five boys who inspired J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan.
The 16th arrondissement of Paris is the westernmost of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. Located on the Right Bank, it is adjacent to the 17th and 8th arrondissements to the northeast, and to Boulogne-Billancourt to the southwest. Opposite the Seine are the 7th and 15th arrondissements.
Pierre Brossolette was a French journalist, left-wing politician and major hero of the French Resistance in World War II. He ran an intelligence hub of Parisian resistance at the Rue de la Pompe, before serving as a liaison officer in London, where he also was a radio anchor for the BBC. Arrested in Brittany as he was trying to reach the UK on a mission back from France alongside Émile Bollaert, Brossolette was taken into custody by the Sicherheitsdienst. He committed suicide by jumping out of a window at their headquarters on 84 Avenue Foch in Paris as he feared he would reveal the lengths of French Resistance networks under torture; he died of his wounds at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital later that day. In 2015, his ashes were transferred to the Panthéon with national honours at the request of President François Hollande, alongside politician Jean Zay and fellow Resistance members Germaine Tillion and Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz.
Passy is a station on Line 6 of the Paris Métro. Located in the 16th arrondissement, it is elevated at its eastern end, while its western end is in the mouth of a tunnel. Passy metro station lies above Rue de l'Alboni where the street becomes pedestrianised as a result of a steep grade.
Rue de la Pompe is a station on line 9 of the Paris Métro, named after the Rue de la Pompe. The station opened on 8 November 1922 with the opening of the first section of the line from Trocadéro to Exelmans.
Passy is an area of Paris, France, located in the 16th arrondissement, on the Right Bank. It is adjacent to Auteuil to the southwest, and Chaillot to the northeast.
Haussmann's renovation of Paris was a vast public works programme commissioned by Emperor Napoleon III and directed by his prefect of Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, between 1853 and 1870. It included the demolition of medieval neighbourhoods that were deemed overcrowded and unhealthy by officials at the time; the building of wide avenues; new parks and squares; the annexation of the suburbs surrounding Paris; and the construction of new sewers, fountains and aqueducts. Haussmann's work was met with fierce opposition, and he was finally dismissed by Napoleon III in 1870; but work on his projects continued until 1927. The street plan and distinctive appearance of the centre of Paris today are largely the result of Haussmann's renovation.
The Château de la Muette is a château located on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, France, near the Porte de la Muette.
Forever is a 1921 American silent romance film, also known as Peter Ibbetson, that was written by Ouida Bergère and directed by George Fitzmaurice. It was adapted from George du Maurier's 1891 novel Peter Ibbetson, which was made into a play of the same name by John N. Raphael.
Peter Ibbetson is a 1935 American black-and-white drama/fantasy film directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Gary Cooper and Ann Harding. The film is loosely based on the 1891 novel of the same name by George du Maurier. A tale of a love that transcends all obstacles, it relates the story of two youngsters who are separated in childhood and then drawn together by destiny years later. Even though they are separated in real life because Peter is unjustly convicted of murder, they discover they can dream themselves into each other's consciousness while asleep. In this way, they live out their lives together. The transitions between reality and fantasy are captured by the cinematography of Charles Lang, as discussed in the documentary Visions of Light (1992).
Peter Ibbetson is an opera in three acts by American composer Deems Taylor from a libretto by the composer and Constance Collier, based on the 1891 novel by George du Maurier.
Henri Paul Nénot was a noted French architect.
While Paris is encircled by the Boulevard Périphérique, the city gates of Paris are the access points to the city for pedestrians and other road users. As Paris has had successive ring roads through the centuries, city gates are found inside the modern-day Paris.
Avenue Henri-Martin is an avenue in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, named after the French historian Henri Martin (1810–1883), onetime mayor of the 16th arrondissement.
Passy, Bridges of Paris, also called Les ponts de Paris (Passy), or Paysage à Passy, is a painting created in 1912 by the French artist, theorist and writer Albert Gleizes. The work was exhibited at the Salon de la Société Normande de Peinture Moderne, Rouen, 1912 (titled Passy); the Salon de la Section d'Or, Galerie La Boétie, Paris, 1912 (titled Passy); Manes Moderni Umeni, Vystava, Prague, 1914 (titled Paysage à Passy); and Galerie Der Sturm, Berlin, July, 1914.
The Hôtel de Valentinois was an hôtel particulier, a kind of large townhouse of France, in Passy, bordering at its greatest extent present-day Rue Raynouard, present-day Rue des Vignes, Rue Bois-le-Vent, to present-day Rue de l'Annonciation.
Peter Ibbetson is a play based on George du Maurier's 1891 novel of the same name. It debuted in the United States in 1917.
Gustave Nicolas Bertinot was a French engraver. He was primarily known for his intaglio work.