LITMIR.BIZ

      “Other secret sex-workers visit the art exhibitions, the art auctions at the Hôtel Drouot, lecture-halls, the reading rooms at Bon Marché and the Louvre, and the National Library – so familiar to those who work with their minds. In such places they sight serious men, pretending that they are themselves interested in art, sport, literature, and all intellectual pursuits. These are often the most astute – they are the most educated and can converse best.”

      Not even in the Bibliothèque nationale are you safe – from your own fantasies! Needless to say, “depravity” is only ever an aspect of femaleness, upon which male lust is then projected.

      Subconsciously Uzanne uses a special metaphor, which reveals how strongly a male glance at a Parisienne is affected by fantasies of prostitution. He describes women as “living coins”. It is in fact coins that determine sexual transactions.

      Alongside this image of women as a venal “work of art”, however, stands the “artifice” of prostitutes. Metamorphosis and disillusion complement each other: “The prostitute is a child of misery and vice. Her distinguishing mark is artificiality.” For Uzanne, does the “common prostitute” not project merely a negative image of all the qualities he praises in the Parisienne? “She (the common prostitute) wears an apron, fills in her wrinkles with brick-dust, blackens her eyebrows with a burnt matchstick, and sleeks back her greying hair with jasmine or pomade of roses, at two sous [pennies] a box.”

      The visitor to Paris awakens from his dream of an erotic Eldorado with crass realism. Intoxication is followed by a sober disenchantment: “The [prostitutes’] main stamping ground is the boulevard. In the cafés to which they have access, they have a better chance of meeting a prosperous gentleman – even if it were only a foreigner of the type who frequent these places because they have a worldwide reputation for sensual opportunities. Furthermore, this reputation is remarkably proper and artificial. Nothing is more monotonous than whoredom; the so-called “pleasure establishments” of Paris bear a fatal similarity to those of all other European metropolises – they are in no respect more fun. Prostitutes everywhere are stupid, mercenary, as bored as they are boring; only when they are drunk will they do anything debauched, and then their sense of fun is even sadder and more depressing than their usual apathy. You’ve got to be quite an optimist to derive any pleasure from following how they move, or what they say and do. A prostitute is a cowed, often starving beast – and she practises a ghastly trade.”

      In this way, our image of the Parisienne fluctuates between a transfigured image of a potential mistress always ready for passion and the disenchanted picture of a depraved whore. The two are as closely linked as fantasies are to the real world.

      The Parisienne is a phantasm who colours the whole city: Paris itself becomes a female city – desired and disparaged both at once. The fact that this city was able to establish itself throughout Europe and the whole world as being the focus of erotic desires has its reasons in the city’s historical foundations.

      Roberty, c. 1890. Watercolour.

      Roberty, c. 1890. Watercolour.

      Paris could only grow into a topos of erotic fantasy by combining these two developments. By the end of the Middle Ages, Paris was already a city with “metropolitan” forms of life, meaning that a lot of what was later called “Parisian” was in fact simply metropolitan. Moreover, Paris was heavily influenced by a royal Court whose way of life was determined by a dissipated and dissolute life of luxury, and which set an example of licentious morals that invited emulation. The 18^th century, in particular, which was also the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution, was largely responsible for the freedom of morals. These historical experiences continue to this very day in our collective subconscious – and also have an effect on the image Paris still enjoys abroad.

      During these years, a kind of public began to develop who removed “love” – itself a relatively recent historical phenomenon – from the sphere of private life and made it a social plaything. The Goncourt brothers provide a relevant description of a typical French woman of this period:

      The 18^th century French woman has an original quality about her. Her face changes expression under different regimes. But although her features might be noble under Louis XIV, witty under Louis XV, movingly simple under Louis XVI, her world always remains a stage. The public is constantly upon her, and in the end she performs her play so naturally that she appears artificial when she happens to want to be truthful. Her role in life is hard to play; for this reason a woman must start learning in good time. No matter how far she gets in life, appearance is the key.

      On this stage, witty coquetry could be seen. Flirting and wit intertwine and turn love into a social art. This may well have irritated many visitors to Paris – especially German ones.

      Gutzkow acknowledges what nowadays we would call the “emancipatory element” of “French

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