# What was going on in Paris in 1912? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 4, 2005, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706 "2005-04-04T18:30:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/1 "2005-04-04T18:30:18Z")
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?) ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/2 "2005-04-04T18:38:21Z")
Here is [an interesting timeline of events in France](http://www.timelines.ws/countries/FRANCE1870_1920.HTML) from 1870 to 1920, and as we know, anything worth reating in France hapened in Paris. Some highlights from Paris: > [@](#): > > 1912 Mar 7, French aviator, Heri Seimet flew non-stop from London to Paris in three hours. > (HN, 3/7/98) > > 1912 The Archbishop of Paris stated that “Christians must not tango.” > (SFEC,11/30/97, Z1 p.3) > > 1912 Helena Rubinstein, following her success in Australia and London opened a beauty salon in Paris. > (SFEM, 8/23/98, p.29) > > 1912 The 1st neon sign illuminated the Palais Coiffeur, a Parisian beauty shop. > (SFEC, 8/13/00, p.T6) ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/3 "2005-04-04T18:48:27Z")
That _is_ helpful, thanks—how did you cut and paste from that site? I couldn’t highlight any text on it. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/4 "2005-04-04T18:53:29Z")
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_. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/5 "2005-04-04T19:06:41Z")
…and for the establishment side of things, [here’s](http://www.musicaltimes.co.uk/archive/obits/191209massenet.html) a contemporary obit for Massenet, who dies that August. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/6 "2005-04-04T19:09:08Z")
It looks like Picasso was painting like crazy: [http://www.tamu.edu/mocl/picasso/gallery/w12.html](http://www.tamu.edu/mocl/picasso/gallery/w12.html) Henri Poincaré died: [http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/p/poincare.htm](http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/p/poincare.htm) Politically, France established a protectorate over Morocco [http://www.collectornetwork.com/article\_spanish](http://www.collectornetwork.com/article_spanish) Lenin left Paris to go to Krakow: [http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/lenin/timeline.html](http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/lenin/timeline.html) Ravel released his ballet “Daphnis and Chloe”. ---
**Author:** ![merrily](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@merrily](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/merrily)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/7 "2005-04-04T19:13:14Z")
Picasso in Paris in 1912: [http://www.tamu.edu/mocl/picasso/](http://www.tamu.edu/mocl/picasso/) That was also the year of the Titanic, although that wasn’t Paris. Wikipedia for 1912 --some france related: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1912](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1912) ---
**Author:** ![merrily](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@merrily](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/merrily)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/8 "2005-04-04T19:34:33Z")
It looks like Le Petomane may have been there at that time! [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le\_P�tomane](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_P%E9tomane) [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1\_394.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_394.html) ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/9 "2005-04-04T19:38:46Z")
Oh, thanks, all, lots of helpful stuff here to bookmark and print out! I must thanks the “Teeming Millions” in this next book. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/10 "2005-04-04T19:40:37Z")
(Especially if I get to mention Helena Rubinstein, Ravel and Le Petomane in the same sentence!) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/11 "2005-04-04T20:46:59Z")
We should get **Eve** in here… She’s usually the one to ask about what was happenin’ where, historically. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/12 "2005-04-04T21:02:33Z")
With your user name, I’d figure you were. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/13 "2005-04-04T21:41:57Z")
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!) [Women’s Suffrage and Social Politics in the French Third Republic, by Steven C. Hause, Anne R. Kenney](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691101671/qid=1112650269/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/102-4419936-7156925?v=glance&s=books) [Disruptive Acts : The New Woman in Fin-de-Siecle France, by Mary Louise Roberts](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0226721256/qid=1112649336/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-4419936-7156925?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) [Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man, by Joan Wallach Scott](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0674639316/qid=1112649452/sr=1-10/ref=sr_1_10/102-4419936-7156925?v=glance&s=books) [Housewife or Harlot: The Place of Women in French Society, by James F. McMillan](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312393482/qid=1112649959/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-4419936-7156925?v=glance&s=books) [Elegant Wits and Grand Horizontals, by Cornelia Otis Skinner](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/9997549872/qid=1112650036/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-4419936-7156925?v=glance&s=books) is a lot lighter, but may be too early for your needs. [Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin-De-Sicle Paris, by Vanessa R. Schwartz](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0520221680/ref=pd_sim_b_1/102-4419936-7156925?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance) Or do a search for names including Marguerite Durand, Madeline Pelletier, and Hubertine Auclert. Yeah, I 've been doing some research of my own. This ain’t light reading! ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/14 "2005-04-04T23:39:40Z")
A few thoughts: 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](http://www.wesleyan.edu/dac/exhb/past/2000b.html) 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. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/15 "2005-04-04T23:43:46Z")
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. Thanks again, all! ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/16 "2005-04-05T00:28:04Z")
As for the Big Crime, search for Bonnot the tiger bandit. Also search for the “Auto bandits.” STarted in the Winter of 1911-1912, but still big stuff in the Spring. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/17 "2005-04-05T01:06:25Z")
Thanks, will do–and now I read that Gaby Deslys was indeed back in Paris and dancing with Harry Pilcer by the spring of 1912 . . ---
**Author:** ![chukhung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@chukhung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chukhung)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/18 "2005-04-05T01:08:31Z")
Some political notes: [ul] [_]On January 10, 1912, the [Calliaux](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Caillaux) 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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Poincar%E9) 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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Fez) was signed on March 30, 1912, making Morocco a French protectorate. This was in response to the [Agadir Crisis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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] ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/19 "2005-04-05T12:33:38Z")
“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.” ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706/20 "2005-04-05T13:12:30Z")
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! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-going-on-in-paris-in-1912/297706.md?page=2)