SubscribeConrad Moricand & the Hôtel Modial
We’ll begin our tour of the right bank in the ninth arrondisement at the Saint-Georges metro station (line 12). Directly across from the metro station is the Hôtel Modial, which was the home of the Swiss astrologer Conrad Moricand while Henry Miller lived in Paris.
Moricand was born in 1887 to an aristocratic family—his father was a Swiss baron—and he spent the early portion of his life in affluence. For many years he kept an open table at his home in the Pigalle neighborhood of Paris where he entertained the bohemian artists of Montmartre, maintaining close ties with such figures as Max Jacob, Jean Cocteau, Blaise Cendrars, Francis Carco, and Amedeo Modigliani. However, the great depression brought financial ruin to Moricand and in 1935 he was forced to auction his art collection and personal belongings.
Later that year, at the time he was introduced to Miller by Anaïs Nin, Moricand was destitute and enduring a disconsolate bohemian existence in his room on the top floor of the Hôtel Modial. Miller and Nin did their best to help Moricand financially by commissioning him to produce a series of horoscopes of their friends. When they ran out of friends, Miller invented new ones, complete with false identities, birth dates, etc. for Moricand to analyze. On his visits to Moricand’s room, Miller would discreetly leave 50 or 100 francs under a statuette on the dresser.
Moricand was already the author several books on astrology, including Le Miroir d’Astrologie, Les Interprètes and Portraits Astrologiques and Miller was fascinated by his deep knowledge of occult subjects. The two met weekly in Moricand’s room at the Hôtel Modial in order to discuss astrology (Moricand and Miller were both Capricorns). Moricand observed a strange meticulousness in the arrangement of objects in his room and there were always several astrological charts or horoscopes which he was working on pinned to the wall above his writing table:
my mind always reverts to the room he occupied on the top floor of his hotel. There was no elevator service, naturally. One had to climb the five or six flights to the attic. Once inside, the world outside was completely foreign. It was an irregular shaped room, large enough to pace up and down in, and furnished entirely with what belongings Moricand had managed to salvage from the wreck. The first impression one had, on entering, was that of orderliness. Everything was in its place, but exactly in place. A few millimeters this way or that in the disposal of a chair, on objet d’art, a paper knife, and the effect would have been lost—in Moricand’s mind, at least. Even the arrangement of his writing table revealed this obsession with order. Nowhere at any time was there ever any trace of dust or dirt. All was immaculate.
—Henry Miller, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch
Both men shared a taste for exotic subjects and a facility for stimulating conversation. Alfred Perlès, who sometimes accompanied Miller on his visits to Moricand’s room, recalled:
On several occasions I accompanied him there and was enchanted by the facility with which Moricand held forth on the most recondite subjects pertaining to the arcana of magic. The precision and acuity of his thought were astounding. He spoke with great lucidity and the images he employed were always inventive and tinged with a sort of diabolical originality. An evening spent with Moricand was not only enjoyable but fruitful; on leaving him we were always in an exhilarated mood.
—Alfred Perlès, My Friend Henry Miller
In a late article, Moricand wrote of his early friendship with Miller:
Henry Miller was at the time a picaresque, volcanic, quixotic personage. In the margin of a feverish existence, the results of which are his Tropics. Miller, a man of great culture, had recently begun to take an interest in occultism, astrology and magic—all subjects within my jurisdiction, as it were. It was for this triple reason that I associated with him and we soon became great friends. Once every week Miller came to visit me in Montmartre, where I lived and there I taught him the rudiments of the craft (against payment, of course). I lost count of the number of horoscopes he made me do for his friends—the “horoscope factory” was working full steam and overtime.
—Conrad Moricand, quoted in My Friend Henry Miller by Alfred Perlès
Though Moricand is perhaps best known today for his palette of illustrious friends, most of his friendships ended badly. Miller would eventually find his personality, which combined an attitude of superiority with a gloomy, fatalistic outlook, repellent. At one point he described Moricand as “a Stoic dragging his tomb about with him.” Cecily Mackworth recalled Moricand as “a dark, creepy man who made me feel uneasy” and Blaise Cendrars, who had once been fast friends with the astrologer, told Miller he now regarded Moricand as nothing more than a cadaver.
Miller’s personal falling out with Moricand began in 1947 when he invited the penniless astrologer to share his home, along with Miller’s wife and their two small children, in Big Sur, California. Moricand’s aristocratic disposition would prove completely unsuited to life in the Millers’ remote cabin and he refused to make efforts to adapt. In Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch Miller details a litany of futile attempts made to please this most arrogant, ungrateful and petulant houseguest. Eventually, through great effort and personal expense, Miller returned Moricand to France in 1949 and forever severed their friendship. The final straw came, according to Elayne Fitzpatrick in her book, Doing It with the Cosmos, when Miller began to suspect Moricand of pedophilia. Moricand died alone and destitute in Paris in 1954.
 Conrad Moricand’s astrological chart, found on Astrotheme.fr |
 A portrait of Conrad Moricand by Amedeo Modigliani |
A likely incomplete bibliography of Conrad Moricand’s writings
Note: Moricand generally published under the pseudonym “Claude Valence” or “L’ésotérique”
- Les interprètes: essai de classement psychologique d’après les correspondances planétaires (1919)
- Miroir d’astrologie (1928)
- Portraits astrologiques (1933)
- Les traces du culte d’Isis dans le nom, l’emblème et le thème zodiacal de la ville de Paris (1952)
- Les cinquante rames du navire ARGO (1955)
- Les signes du Zodiaque suivi de Comment dresser un horoscope (1966)
Also…
The poetry journal, Le Pont de l’Épée published an issue devoted to Moricand in 1981, titled, “Critiques, Poèmes et l’Affaire Miller”.
Blaise Cendrars’ novel Moravagine includes a drawing of the title character from the hand of Moricand.
Copies of his books are available from AbeBooks.com, listed under the pseudonym Claude Valence and Conrad Moricand.
Location
Hôtel Modial, 21 rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette – See it on Google Maps
Try it out
The Hôtel Modial, which was was established in 1900, is still a working hotel. For information on reserving a room or to see more photos, visit this page.
