Foreign News: Paris Was Never Lovelier

The August sun beat down on the swarming crowds and the dusty trees along the Champs-Elysées. Never had the Folies-Bergère been more crowded. At the Louvre, tourists lined up in long, patient queues to stare at the Victory of Samothrace and the Mona Lisa. Around the Place de la Concorde, traffic whirled wildly as ever, but the license plates on the cars were predominantly Swiss, Italian, German, British, Danish, Dutch and U.S. The chattering voices in the cafes were British, American, Belgian, German—but not French. The locals had left the city to the invaders. In August, France is “en vacances.” The Lemmings. In France in August, whole industries (automobiles, steel) shut down, whole streets are shuttered, in a migration as inexorable as lemmings. Railroad stations are loud with the shrill confusion that only the French can produce, each family laden with an amount of baggage that would stagger a Sherpa—packing cases, bicycles, scooters, cooking stoves, tents, valises, net bags, fishing tackle, steamer trunks, camping equipment.

From Paris’ ancient gates last week, a steady stream of cars, scooters and motorcycles, with wife or girl mounted behind, poured out of Paris and headed for seashore, mountain, or vacations in Spain (cheaper than the Riviera), Austria, Germany, or even Scandinavia. Before the middle of the month, 2,000,000 of Paris’ 5,000,000 inhabitants will have left, and the rest wish they had.

Among U.S. tourists, the hardest hit is the specialist in out-of-the-way restaurants, anxious to show his friends that little place he discovered two years ago last spring. The doorman whistles for a taxi, then sadly reports: “I’m very sorry, monsieur. So many taxi drivers are en vacances.” Conveyed to the address by a limousine, hired at three times the normal price, the tourists are apt to find the restaurant tightly shuttered and a big sign saying: “Fermeture annuelle.” On the fourth try they may find one open, though the regular chef is “en vacances” and cannot provide his famous sauce.

U.S. residents in Paris find that the neighborhood baker is away, and they must go half a mile for a loaf of bread.

If the bathroom faucet leaks, there is no use calling the plumber until after Sept. 1.

If a case is pending in a Paris court, it has to wait; the judge is sailing a catboat on the Riviera.

The Leavings. By mid-August, the only Frenchmen left in Paris are those frankly catering to the tourists. Hotspots on the Place Pigalle perform with sweaty, nude energy. The Casino de Paris turns away customers every evening, and at Maxim’s the maitre d’hôtel, substituting for Albert (who has gone to Deauville), is hard put to find a latecomer a seat (“And will monsieur have champagne?”).

August is also the time for the piercing locust cries of the hucksters of haute couture, who give interviews about what the new fashion line shall be, but sorry monsieur, no photographs: the Fashion Syndicate decrees no pictures until Aug.

25. Last week Christian Dior was talking up his newest alphabetical sensation—the Y-line—and hoped it would do better than last year’s H-line, which deflated the bosom and was in turn a bust at the box office. Proclaimed Dior: “I have emphasized the bosom. My shoulders are full and rounded, the real shoulders of a happy woman. I am enchanted that a movement in favor of big hats is under way. They bring back dignity to the little faces coiffed in mad-dog style.” This was Paris in the dog days.

All August long in Paris, the public buildings are illuminated at night for the visitors’ pleasure, the fountains are turned on in the Place de la Concorde. Paris, chorus its publicists, was never lovelier.

They just don’t want to be there themselves.