The Hector Berlioz Website - Berlioz in Paris Montmartre

Berlioz in Paris

Berlioz at Montmartre

[10 and 12 rue Saint-Denis]

Nothing illustrates better the vast urban growth of Paris since the XIXth Century than what happened to Montmartre: nowadays it is hard to conceive that in Berlioz’s time Montmartre was not part of Paris, but a separate village. To go to Montmartre was to leave Paris for the countryside. From the north-facing slope of Montmartre, where Berlioz and Harriet Smithson lived for much of the time from 1834 to 1836, the eye could contemplate a vast expanse of open ground stretching out to the plain of Saint Denis (but now entirely built up). The cost of living in Montmartre was also lower: unlike Paris there were no tolls on goods coming to Montmartre.

Although Berlioz lived there for only a few years, Montmartre was charged with personal associations, both happy and sad, and his letters provide detailed information about his life there. It was in Montmartre that the couple enjoyed the blissful start of their married life, greeted by exceptionally fine weather in spring and the early summer of 1834. Their son Louis was born there, on 14 August 1834, to the great joy of both parents and especially of Harriet. Montmartre also had the advantage of sheltering Berlioz from unwanted visitors, while still making possible social gatherings of the intelligentsia of Paris – for example, a letter of 12 May 1834 to his sister Adèle describes a party at Berlioz’s house attended by Alfred de Vigny, Antoni Deschamps (who wrote the words for the last movement of the Symphonie Funèbre et Triomphale), Liszt, the pianist and composer Ferdinand Hiller, and Chopin (Correspondance Générale no. 397). But Montmartre also had its drawbacks: Berlioz had to go regularly to Paris, and travel was arduous and expensive; in winter Montmartre was isolated, and Berlioz’s house lacked proper heating; there were also problems with the servants (on all this see for example a letter to his mother of 4 January 1836, no. 99 in Hugh Macdonald’s selection). It was also in Montmartre that fundamental problems came home to the couple: their financial difficulties, Berlioz’s need to write feuilletons instead of being able to compose music, and the inability of Harriet to pursue the acting career which had first brought her to fame in Paris. It was thus inevitable that the couple should eventually return to Paris. Berlioz never lived again in Montmartre, though it was to Montmartre that Harriet returned in 1848 after the breakdown of her marriage with Berlioz; she spent there the remaining years of her life until her death on 3 March 1854. She was buried in the small Saint Vincent cemetery, on the north-facing slope of Montmartre, not far from where she and Berlioz had lived, though her remains were later transferred to the larger Montmartre cemetery (3 February 1864; cf. Memoirs, Postface; letter to his son Louis of 17 March 1864).

Berlioz lived first for a few months in 1834 at no. 10 rue Saint-Denis, then in 1835-6 at no. 12; both addresses have disappeared with the construction of a large block of flats in 1926, and the rue Saint-Denis has been renamed the rue du Mont-Cenis. The site of Berlioz’s house is now no. 22 at the junction of rue du Mont-Cenis and rue Saint-Vincent, and it bears a commemorative plaque. Berlioz’s correspondence of the period provides some detail on both addresses. For example at no. 10 he says he has "a little apartment with four rooms, a garden and a view over the plain of St-Denis" (letter to his sister Adèle of 20 March 1834, shortly before the move; no. 66 in Hugh Macdonald’s selection). No. 12 he describes as "a delightful and inexpensive place; the garden is vast, and the view on the plain of St-Denis is immense" (letter of 6 May 1835 to his father). But the exact connection between these two adjacent addresses is unclear, and Berlioz’s letters do not shed light on the matter. A number of medallions on the block of flats at the corner of rue du Mont-Cenis and rue Saint Vincent seem to be adapted from a XIXth C painting depicting the house in which Berlioz lived. (See also At Berlioz’s Home, published in Le Petit Journal, 13 December 1910.)

The present plaque at no. 22 rue du Mont-Cenis