Walking Paris with Henry Miller

For Henry Miller, the view of the Sacré Coeur from the rue Laffitte was an emblematic vision of the ideal Paris that had formed in his mind long before he arrived in Europe.

The nadir of Henry Miller's life in Paris occurred over the course of several weeks he spent living as a flunky in the apartment of N. P. Nanavati in August, 1930. Nanavati was an Indian pearl merchant whom Miller had met in New York prior to sailing for Paris. Miller impressed Nanavati with the generosity he displayed toward the Hindu telegraph messengers under his employ at Western Union and Nanavati regaled Miller with visions of a "luxurious suite of rooms" he occupied on the impressively named rue Lafayette.

Henry Miller visited the Folies Bergère in the early 1930’s when the cabaret’s best-known performers were Mistinguett and a banana-skirted Josephine Baker. Though not a customer, in Tropic of Cancer, Miller describes how he received a surreptitious backstage tour of the cabaret by helping a Russian emigré unload barrels of insecticide.

I like my cheap hotel—like its crazy wallpaper, the stains on the wall, the odor of mildew, the broken things, etc. Even the noise! For I have selected the very busiest district imaginable—one short block from the Rue Lafayette, from Chicago Tribune, from Folies-Bergère—etc. I like the bustle and smell and sweat and dirt—for a while anyhow.