I need to know about Paris in the spring and summer of 1912—what was going on artwise (who the big stars were, the up-and-coming artists), as well as politically and any other events: grisly murders, horrible weather (the Seine flooding?), etc., etc. Googling “Paris-in-1912” has been highly unsatisfactory.
Anyone know of any good books or web sites that would be specific enough to zero in year by year on Paris? (Maybe a good, in-depth biography of someone who was becoming famous then and there, like Maurice Chevalier or Colette?)
Two important ballets & music: Debussy’s L’apres-midi d’un faune premiered in May 1912, and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe the next month. Both were controversial creations from Nijinsky, who (literally) caused a riot the following year with the Rite of Spring.
Some interesting books on the feminist movement in France in that era have come out in the past few years. Women were agitating for the right to vote along with many other basic rights. (They didn’t get the suffrage until 1945!)
There was a close-to-total partial eclipse of the Sun visible from central Paris on 17th April. This is probably best remembered via a celebrated (at least amongst those of us interested in the history of astronomy) Atget photo of a crowd watching it from the Place de la Bastille. If it’s any use, an excellent article by Owen Gingerich prompted by the photo suggests that a rich source of contemporary accounts about the eclipse can be found in L’Astronomie, Bulletin de la Societe Astronomique de France, 26 (1912). (Gingerich’s article itself is mainly concerned with how rare such an event is in Paris and so is more about probabilities than the social history.)
In literature, a series of extracts from what was to become A la Recherche du Temps Perdu started appearing in Le Figaro, beginning on March 21st. But I don’t think these attracted much attention at the time.
Moving back into 1911, there were several big stories from the end of the year that were probably still being talked about into 1912 and which feature particularly choice names.
One scandal that was all over the French papers in late 1911 was the revelation of the affair between Marie Curie (who’d been widowed after Pierre stepped under a wagon in 1906) and Paul Langevin. To add to the general hysteria, she won her second Nobel Prize in the midst of the controversy. But she seems to have spent most of 1912 ill in bed. Captain Amazing has mentioned Picasso. His friend Apollinaire got involved in a huge story about nicking stuff from the Louvre in the middle of 1911 and Picasso got dragged in as well. On top of which, the Mona Lisa got nicked on August 21st. Both stories spill over into the next year. The second volume of the John Richardson biography of Picasso gets into all this in detail - and has a good general portrait of the art scene in the city in 1912.
In-teresting, esp. the eclipse of the sun. I’ve been doing some searching, and I see that Colette and Maurice Chevalier and Mistinguette were playing the music halls in the spring of 1912, but Parisienne star Gaby Deslys was off in NYC, making her B’way debut.
[ul]
[]On January 10, 1912, the Calliaux government resigned. (Unfortunately, the most memorable event in Joseph Calliaux’s political career didn’t occur until 1914 when his wife shot the editor of Le Figaro…)[]Four days after Caillaux’s resignation, Raymond Poincaré became Prime Minister of France (he later served as President during the Great War). Poincaré was noted for his anti-German and pro-Russian views. (He was also related to the mathematician Henri Poincaré who died in 1912. See the link in Captain Amazing’s post.)[]As Captain Amazing has also noted, the Treaty of Fez was signed on March 30, 1912, making Morocco a French protectorate. This was in response to the Agadir Crisis caused by the deployment of a German warship to the Moroccan port of Agadir in the summer of 1911. It was British backing for France during the Agadir Crisis that really solidified the Entente Cordiale between Britain and France.[]In October, 1912 the First Balkan War began. France wasn’t directly involved, but there was some feverish diplomacy going on among all the Great Powers before and after the outbreak of hostilities and I’m guessing that after the Agadir talk had died down, the Balkan situation was the hot topic of discussion for French citizens interested in the European political situation that year. There are lots of works discussing the origins of World War I that talk about the First Balkan War and France’s diplomatic activities during this period, but they all seem to have an axe to grind, so I’m not sure what to recommend.[/ul]
“Helena Rubenstein, fresh from her successes in Australia and London, decided to celebrate her good fortune by attending the 'fartiste” Le Petomane’s landmark performance of Ravel’s ‘Bolero.’ She was so inspired by the experience that she immediately developed one of her best selling blushes, “Rasberry Cheeks.”
I wonder if there was ever an early “sound on disk” talking film of Le Petomane . . . Imagine the amazement of the people who found only the film or only the recording!