Clichy (ave. Anatole France)
avenue Anatole France in the 1930′s
A plaque on the wall of number 4 avenue Anatole France in Clichy marks Henry Miller’s stay here between 1932 and 1934. This apartment was Miller’s first fixed address in Paris. After living on the bum for two years, shuttling between cheap hotels and the hospitality of friends, he moved in 1932 with his friend Alfred Perlès to the flat in Clichy. Here, he worked voraciously on his writing, completing his first published book, Tropic of Cancer and begin writing Black Spring and Tropic of Capricorn. Miller later wrote extensively of his experiences in this working class suburb of Paris in Quiet Days in Clichy.
It is strange that I always think of this period as “quiet days.” They were anything but quiet, those days. Yet never did I accomplish more. I worked on three or four books at once. I was seething with ideas. The Avenue Anatole France on which we lived was anything but picturesque; it resembled a monotonous stretch of upper Park Avenue, New York. Perhaps our ebullience was due to the fact that for the first time in many a year we were enjoying what might be called a relative security. For the first time in ages I had a permanent address, for about a year.
—Henry Miller, Remember to Remember
Miller and Perlès moved here primarily to save money. They split the rent (about 300 francs per month each), which was much cheaper than the rates of the cheap hotels they were accustomed to paying. The flat was equipped with a small kitchen, allowing them to further economize by cooking their own meals. Miller became an accomplished cook, often preparing his favorite dish, the French classic pot-au feu, for which he acquired a special cauldron.
Perlès described the apartment in My Friend Henry Miller:
Our flat consisted of two rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. The hall separated Henry’s room from mine, so that we could come and go and receive our visitors without inconveniencing each other. We only had to share the bathroom and the kitchen. This was no drawback, for we usually cooked and ate our meals together in the kitchen.
Part of Miller’s daily routine at the Clichy apartment was to strip down, climb into his pajamas and take an afternoon nap. These naps, he said, put “velvet in his vertebrae”. Miller believed that dreaming was an important part of his work—things would happen to him when he slept,—and his creativity was refreshed. He began keeping a dream diary at this time and many passages in Tropic of Cancer have a surreal, dreamlike quality. In the afternoons he would take a bike ride or long walk, exploring the neighboring districts of Paris:
I can’t remember any period of my life when the time flew more quickly than it did at Clichy. The acquisition of two bicycles worked a complete metamorphosis in our routine. Everything was planned so as not to interfere with our afternoon rides.
—Henry Miller, Remember to Remember
Anaïs Nin visited frequently, as she wrote to Miller, “I love to go to Clichy, and I love sitting in the kitchen with you and Fred, and all the books on the table.” Nin and Miller were lovers at this time and having a stable residence removed from her husband’s view allowed the couple to explore their sexual passions freely. The two referred to the apartment as their “black-lace laboratory.” After sharing dinner with Fred, they would retire to Miller’s bedroom for a session of what Nin described as “acute core-reaching fucking.”
Miller’s creativity was at its most fecund in the Clichy apartment. He covered the walls of his room with large sheets of brown wrapping paper on which were scribbled notes and diagrams of his plans for novels, as well as photographs, pages torn from his favorite books and lists of exotic words he wished to incorporate in his writing. He could often be heard clattering away at his typewriter while he chain-smoked Gauloise Bleues. At his height, Miller was producing twenty pages a day of the manuscript of Tropic of Cancer, which reached a total of approximately 900 pages before being trimmed down for publication.
Miller left Clichy in early 1934, staying briefly with Anaïs Nin in Passy, followed by several months back on the hotel circuit before settling in to the Villa Seurat in September 1934.
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| Henry Miller’s apartment in Clichy | Miller and Perlès in the Clichy apartment |
Furthermore
Around the corner from Miller’s apartment is a cemetery (Cimetière Sud de Clichy, beginning at the corner of the rue des Cailloux and rue Chance Milly) that Miller and Perlès visited frequently: “There was a cemetery a few blocks from the house to which we repaired in the evenings, always with one eye open for an agent.” (Henry Miller, Remember to Remember, 354)
Location
4 avenue Anatole France
Clichy, 92110
map
11 comments on "Clichy (ave. Anatole France)"
A new fact or two I didn’t know…
Thanks.
I’m mooving soon to this building. Do you know by any chance on which floor was located Miller’s apartment.
Many thanks,
Sophie,
I don’t know which floor Miller’s apartment was located on, but it appears to have been above the ground level. Alfred Perlès writes of looking down from the kitchen window at the street below:
The kitchen was light and roomy. There was a window looking down on a dreary, suburban panorama, to which we couldn’t get accustomed for a long time.
—My Friend Henry Miller, page 88
And Miller writes of going downstairs to empty the garbage pail in the courtyard and pausing at the staircase window to look at the Sacré Cœur:
Every evening, after dinner, I take the garbage down to the courtyard. Coming up I stand with empty pail at the staircase window gazing at the Sacré Cœur high up on the hill of Montmartre.
—Black Spring, page 24
So, apparently the apartment was on a higher level than the lowest staircase window looking out onto the courtyard. And the kitchen window looked out onto the street. I hope that helps.
It would be great to see a view of the inside of the building. If you get a chance to take some photos of the interior or of the view from the windows, please post links to them here – or you can email them to me for posting on this site at info@millerwalks.com
Cheers
We (me and my lover) are going to Paris next month – thank you for all the precious info! I’m a huge Miller fan and it will surely be an amazing experience to walk the streets that inspired him and be so close to the the house where some of his masterpieces were born!
Thank you Kreg for this information. I’m mooving in next week. I’ll check the views (but we don’t see anymore the hill of Montmarte, too many buildings around!) and will send some pictures.
Sophie
It’s not everyday that someone gets to move into a building where a famous author lived. But the fact that he is also the subject matter of this site, with the addendum that we may also be able to see some photographs of some interiors, makes these photographs all the more interesting. But being such an admirer of the cinema, my mind has all but been poisoned with the interiors that have so far been presented to us from the films Quiet Days In Clichy and Henry and June. From what I can remember from the Claude Chabrol version there was a fair sized space that seemed to double as a study and living room, and from the latter a kitchen that looked as though it had seen better days despite the fact that in real life it had recently been built. But the thought that we can at least get an idea of the dimensions of Miller’s and Perles’ flat is something worth waiting for.
Thank you for you web! It helped me very much in my travel to Paris to find Henry’s clues…
Interesting, this is “my” street, I live there for now five years.
Two years after Henry Miller left this street, a sadly famous french gangster; Jacque René Mesrine, began his childhood in 5 Anatole France Avenue.
Because of unforeseen circumstances last year I was unable to make a trip to Clichy, and which part of was to visit various sites including where Louis-Fedinand Celine lived and the avenue Anatole France. But painstakingly having scrutinised the postcard that Kreg Wallace has posted on this site, I believe that I have found the location of where the photograph was taken. The first thing I did was to have two pages on the screen, and having the postcard on one I had an exact alignment of the same view from the Google Street View on the other. On the far left hand side of the postcard there is the liquor store and after this the bookshop, and when we look to the Google picture we can see that a Tabac is in the same place. But where the store signs adorned the bookshop in the first picture, in this one the space after the Tabac is blank. It is of course conjecture that the buildings are one and the same, though after this in both pictures we are presented with an address that has a door with a window on the left, and to the right a further four. Though what is evident in regarding the Google photograph, is that the first window on the right has been slightly modified to become another doorway. And as is apparent upon closer inspection, the viewer will begin to notice that the contours, spaces, and styles of architecture coupled with the placement of trees also correspond to the dimensions of both pictures. On the postcard it will be noticed that there is a figure on the far right hand side who appears to be standing outside a door, and with after this two windows and a large blank enclosure. Observing the slight mark below the window to the left of the figure, we will see that it is also in the same place as in the colour photograph, and moving the cursor one stop up the road it can be seen that there is indeed a door before the two windows. What is also apparent in the latter photograph, is that after the two small windows the former blank space has now become two large windows, which as can be seen with a close-up is where number 2 stops. Taking everything into account then there can be no doubt that the black and white photograph was taken from the rue des Cailloux, and that the location of the lamppost in the same picture can only correspond to where Miller’s address was.
Thanks for that Kreg, and I think you’re right in terms of the relations of the circles in the photographs to that of the flat. And it’s amazing what a blow-up can bring, and unless you had added it I wouldn’t have noticed that the figures to the right were a woman and child, or that there was a stall next to them.
Good eye, Michael!
I followed your steps in comparing the old postcard with the current Google Street View imagery and I think you’re correct that the postcard is a view from the intersection of rue des Cailloux and avenue Anatole France. It appears that Miller’s address (number 4) is just to the left of the two small dark figures on the sidewalk. Below are a close-up of the postcard and a screenshot of Google Street View, each with a red circle around the approximate location of Miller’s apartment. For quick reference, here is a direct link to the Street Maps view that best matches up with the postcard. And here is a the Street Maps view from directly in front of Miller’s apartment, looking back down the street toward rue des Cailloux.
