Questions and Answers

As I discovered last week, it is impossible to come to Paris and not encounter something that relates to GertrudeandAlice, even if you’re not specifically looking for something pertaining to them.

We had made plans about a month ago to end our around the world trip with seven days in a rented apartment in Paris. We’d rented apartments in the city before and our primary criterion this time as it was August, was to find a place that had air conditioning. It was a smart decision as the temperatures during our stay were in the upper 80s, low 90s.  We found a rental on rue de Seine.

It was not until the taxi that had picked us up from the airport (after a ten and a half hour flight from Bangkok and the brief hour flight from Frankfurt) and dropped us in front of the building on rue de Seine that I noticed a commemorative sign above the entryway. It was one of those  plaques which appear on many edifices in Paris and London letting you know that someone of importance had either lived or died in or near the building you were about to enter.

The sign read:

So, two famous people had slept here, the writer George Sand and the brother of modern dance innovator Isadora Duncan, Raymond. (The exterior of 10, rue de Seine is used in the movie JULIE AND JULIA as Julia and Paul  Child’s first apartment in Paris.)

Raymond had not only slept here, but had done a lot more as 31, rue de Seine had been the location of the art academy he had started with his wife Penelope. (What a perfect name for the wife of someone who along with his family dressed in Greek garb and tried to emulate the ancients’ life-style as much as possible.)

Several friezes in the courtyard of the building attest to some of the training that must have been at the core of the school’s studies.

And that’s the Gertrude connection. Not the Grecian inspired flowing robes, though Gertrude did from time to time wear amply tailored, full-figured garments which caused some to mistake her for a Catholic cleric, but the connection was the hand-made Raymond Duncan sandals. They offered comfort and that de rigueur Bohemian look that graced Gertrude’s feet, as well as the feet of the whole Duncan clan and their followers. Whether Alice also fell under the Duncan sandal spell isn’t clear, but in some photos of Alice in her later years, she is wearing very sensible, almost sandal-like shoes – maybe more Dr. Scholl than RayDu originals.

The Duncans and Steins had known each other in Oakland, California in the 1880s during pre-sandal days (both Raymond and Gertrude were born in 1874)  and one story tells of  the Duncan siblings often taking fruit from the trees in the Stein’s orchard. It’s not clear, however, at what point Gertrude decided to contact her former neighbor in Paris to order her first pair of sandals.

Rue de Seine is a good twelve block stroll from rue du Fleurus and I wonder how often GertrudeandAlice visited the Duncan compound for a fitting or to preview the season’s latest sandal couture?

Or maybe Raymond just loaded a saddlebag full of samples and joined GertrudeandAlice for tea and baklava at rue du Fleurus.

COPYRIGHT HANS GALLAS ©2009