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.
All photographs on this page were taken by Michel Austin. © Monir Tayeb and Michel Austin. All rights of reproduction reserved.
© 2000-2010 Monir Tayeb and Michel Austin for all the pictures and information on this page.
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