The Mount of the Martyrs where, according to the tradition, Saint Denis prayed to heaven, is a surprising place which even today has managed to keep its look of a village, even though the flow of tourists tends to spoil it. The place where the Paris Commune started, its legend really came about when the artists and intellectuals took it over, attracted by its taverns and its cabarets. The great period was between 1870 and 1914.
Caf'conc' (cafe concert - a cafe with entertainers), poets' circles (like that of the Hydropathes), songs by Aristide Bruant, drawings by Caran d'Ache, the Moulin Rouge where Yvette Guilbert, Valentin le Desosse or Jane Avril performed under the odd stare of a funny little man with a black bowler hat, studios where Picasso, Braque and so many others tried to survive whilst giving birth to au cubism, bars where Maurice Utrillo struggled against his bad temper, all that has helped to create the legend of Montmartre, carefully maintained since. Of course, it is annoying today to see it debased with these pseudo-painters who churn out street urchins or some vaguely post-impressionist views of Paris for clients who get off coaches for tourists... There are still some half-blocked lanes with staircases, some small country-style houses, some unexpected stretches of garden, which have allowed the Butte (the Hillside) to still look like a village; and if the basilica that crowns it, with its milky white domes, does not add anything to the architecture, you are forced to agree: the view across the capital is matchless here!
The Place du Tertre (image above) is the old village square, lined by little houses and planted with trees. It has conserved its rural appearance. At least, in the morning before it becomes a centre of tourism on the hill, with cosmopolitan crowds whom numerous artists offer charcoal portraits.
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