Montmartre

Montmartre is a hill in the north of Paris, France, in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the "Right Bank". The name "Montmartre" comes from "Mont des Martyrs" because the bishop Saint Denis (patron saint of France), the priest Rustique, and the archdeacon Eleuthere were all decapitated there around the year 272. Here in 1534 Ignatius Loyola and seven companions took the vows that led to the creation of the Jesuits. A large nunnery once stood on the hill. For many years the vineyards and windmills gave Montmartre an air of the country in the middle of Paris. During the Revolution it was renamed "Montmarat" to commemorate the assassinated revolutionary Jean Marat, but the name did not stick.

When Napoleon III and his city planner Baron Haussmann planned to make Paris the most beautiful city in Europe, a first step was to grant large sweeps of land near the center of the city to Haussmann's friends and financial supporters. This drove the original inhabitants to the edges of the city: to the districts of Clichy, La Villette, and the hill with a view of the city, Montmartre.

Since Montmartre was officially outside the city and free of its taxes, and the nuns there made wine, the hill did not take long to become the place to go to get drunk cheaply. From there, it was only a short step for Montmartre to become the center of free-wheeling and decadent entertainment in the years at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, especially in the popular cabaret the "Moulin Rouge" and at "Le Chat Noir" where some of the city's most famous artists, singers and performers regularly appeared.

Montmartre's Basilica of the Sacré Coeur was built here from 1876 to 1912 by public subscription as a gesture of expiation after the defeat of 1871 in the Franco-Prussian War. Its white dome is a highly visible landmark in the city where just below it, artists still set up their easels each day amidst the tables and colorful umbrellas of Place du Tertre.

At the beginning of his political career, the future French statesman Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929) was mayor of Montmartre.

Near the end of the 19th century, Montmartre and its counterpart on the Left Bank, Montparnasse, became the principal artistic centers of Paris. Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani and other impoverished artists lived and worked in a commune, a building called Le Bateau-Lavoir during the years 1904-1909. Artist associations such as Les Nabis were formed and individuals such as Vincent Van Gogh, Pierre Brissaud, Alfred Jarry, Gen Paul, Jacques Villon, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Henri Matisse, André Derain, Suzanne Valadon, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Maurice Utrillo, Camille Pissarro, Toulouse-Lautrec plus many other artists worked in Montmartre and drew part of their inspiration from the area. The very last of the bohemian Montmartre artists was Gen Paul (Eugene Paul), (1895 - 1975), born in Montmartre, a friend of Utrillo, whose calligraphic expressionist lithographs, sometimes memorializing picturesque Montmartre itself, owe a lot to Raoul Dufy.

There is a Musée de Montmartre, where the painter Maurice Utrillo lived and worked in a second-floor studio. The mansion in the garden at the back is the oldest hôtel on Montmartre, and one of its first owners was Claude Roze - also known as Roze de Rosimond - who bought it in 1680 - he was the actor, who replaced Molière and died on stage, like his predecessor. The house was Pierre-Auguste Renoir's first Montmartre address and many other names moved through the premises.

Many of these renowned artists are buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre and the Cimetière Saint-Vincent.

Day and night, tourists visit such sights as the Place du Tertre and the cabaret du Lapin Agile.

Montmartre is an officially designated historic district with limited development allowed to maintain its historic character.

Downhill to the southwest is the red-light district of Pigalle.

Vie quotidienne a Montmartre au temps de Picasso, 1900-1910 was written by Jean-Paul Crespelle, an author-historian who specialized in the artistic life of Montmartre and Montparnasse