Berlioz in Paris
41 rue de Provence
The flat at 41 rue de Provence was Marie Recio’s – Berlioz started to stay there from some time in 1844 until April 1848, though his legal address remained 43 and later 65 rue Blanche, where Harriet Smithson continued to reside during the same period.
The photos below show the present no. 41 rue de Provence. It is
however unlikely that this is the building of Berlioz’s time, although it is
seemingly mentioned as such in Jacques Hillairet’s Dictionnaire historique des rues de Paris,
vol. II p. 307. Although the building to its right has the number 43 and bears a
plaque with the date 1842, the present nos. 39 and 41 are aligned further back
and may date from the time of the creation of the rue Lafayette in 1862 which
intersects the rue de Provence. The opening of the rue Lafayette at a sharp
angle with the rue de Provence may not only have caused a renumbering of the rue
de Provence (there are gaps in the numbers after no. 25, which bears a date of
1921), but will have involved the destruction of a substantial number of
buildings, not accounted for in the present numbering which goes straight from
no. 35bis on one side of the rue Lafayette to no. 37 on the other. It is thus
possible that Marie Recio’s flat at the then no. 41 rue de Provence has
disappeared altogether. We are grateful to M. Ludart for help on this matter.
© 2000-2006 (unless otherwise stated) Michel Austin and Monir Tayeb for all the photos, engravings and information on this and other Berlioz in Paris pages
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