SubscribeLouveciennes
Louveciennes is a quiet residential town about thirty minutes away from Paris by train which was established by the Romans in the fourth century. Anaïs Nin and her husband Hugh arrived here in 1931, moving into a home that had once belonged to the estate of Madame DuBarry, a famous mistress of Louis XV. They remained at Louveciennes until 1935.
Henry Miller met Nin through their common friend, Richard Osborn, — Hugh’s coworker who was then providing Miller a place to sleep in his apartment. Nin’s curiosity was aroused when Osborn showed her the article Miller had recently published on the filmmaker, Luis Buñuel. Enamored of the vigorous writing style, Nin commented in her diary, “the words are slung like hatchets, explode with hatred, and it was like hearing wild drums in the midst of the Tuileries gardens”. She invited Osborn and Miller to Louveciennes for a meal.
This meeting took place at the end of November, 1931. At the time, Nin was 28 years old and had just completed a book about D. H. Lawrence (D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study). Miller was 39 and working on Crazy Cock, a novel which would not be published during his lifetime.
Nin’s diary records their first encounter: “I have met Henry Miller … When he first stepped out of the car and walked towards the door where I stood waiting, I saw a man I liked. In his writing he is flamboyant, virile, animal, magnificent. He is a man whom life makes drunk, I thought. He is like me.”
Miller’s was impressed by Nin’s exotic flair for decor: “The place is an astrologic den, with violet blue lights and zodiacs on the wall, apricot-colored dining room and peach blossom bedrooms, black painted bookcases, bowls filled with strange stones.”
Miller and Nin became lovers in 1932 following a series of flirtatious meetings at Le Viking. “Come and be my husband for a few days,” she would write to Miller when Hugh remained away on business. Miller often stayed overnight or on extended visits of four or five days. When Hugh was at home Miller would sometimes be secreted away in a guest room. At one point, Nin set aside a room for Miller to use as an office in the former billiard room of the old DuBarry estate. He worked on Black Spring here.
Here in the billiard room where the rats once scurried, sit Anaïs and I—or I pace up and down, gesticulating while I explain to her the bankruptcy of science, or the meta-anthropological crisis. Here, at her desk, littered with shattered material for the future, I hammer out my impetuous thoughts and images. Here all the images that grip and invade us are given free rein and new cosmological frontiers established. —Henry Miller writing in Nin’s diary, Incest
Nin’s diary recounts, “when he is here, Louveciennes is rich for me, alive. My body and mind vibrate continuously. I am not only more woman, but more writer, more thinker, more reader, more everything.” And Miller, also writing in Nin’s diary, confides, “Louveciennes becomes fixed historically in the biographical record of my life, for from Louveciennes dates the most important epoch of my life.”
Miller never discussed his affair with Anaïs in print, a promise he kept to her in order to avoid jeopardizing her marriage. He did however publicly champion her writing, most notably in an essay on her work titled, “Une Etre Etoilique” (A Star-like Being), published in the October 1937 edition of The Criterion. He wrote to his friend Emil Schnellock, “I know no woman writer of any period who has the courage to express herself as Anaïs does.”
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Location
2 bis, rue Monbuisson, Louveciennes - see the map
Directions
From Paris, go to Gare St. Lazare and take the Transilien train in the direction of St. Nom la Bretèche. Descend at the Louveciennes station (about 30 minutes outside of Paris). It’s a short walk from here. Turn right when getting off the train and the first cross street you will encounter is rue Monbuisson. Turn left onto rue Monbuisson and follow to number 2 bis.
Download a Paris regional train map. The Louveciennes and St. Lazare stations have been marked with red Xs.
Notes
Follow the rue Monbuisson a short distance beyond Nin’s house as it veers off to the right at the entrance to the former home of painter, Auguste Renoir, who lived here from 1897 until 1914.
