Montmartre, Paris

This little museum in Rue Cortot (No. 12) offers a nostalgic view of earlier days in Montmartre. It occupies a picturesque 17th century building which became the home of many artists who gained an international reputation. Auguste Renoir had his studio here in 1876, and he was followed later by Susanne Valadon and her son Maurice Utrillo, Emile Bernard, Maximilian Luce and Maurice Delcourt.Among the exhibits displayed in the museum are the original sign of the "Lapin Agile", sketches of posters by Théophile Steinlen (mainly advertising the popular "Chat Noir" cabaret) and humorous studies of the Montmartre milieu by Francisque Poulbot.

Saint-Vincent-de-Paul (1844), the most important church to be built in the reign of Louis-Philippe (1830-48), was designed by the Cologne- born architect Jacob Ignaz Hittorf (1792-1867), who combined the Christian architectural form of a five aisled basilica with Roman and Greek elements (a Roman triumphal arch, Ionic and Corinthian columns). Notable features in the sumptuous interior are the fresco "Procession of the Saints" (1849-53) by Hippolyte Flandrin and the sculpture by François Rude (1784-1855) on the altar.

The Montmartre cemetery, the second largest in Paris, was opened in 1795. It contains the graves of Heinrich Heine, Jean- Honoré Fragonard and Hector Berlioz (Avenue Hector Berlioz), Théophile Gautier (Avenue Cordier), Edgar Degas (Avenue de Montebello), Jacques Offenbach (Avenue des Anglais), Stendhal (Avenue de la Croix), Emile Zola (Carrefour de la Croix), François Truffaut, Samuel Beckett and many other notable figures.

The Butte Montmartre is a place of legend and of history. From the 12th C this was the site of a large convent of Benedictine nuns, Saint- Pierre-de-Montmartre, which was razed to the ground in 1794: only the name of Place des Abbesses is a reminder that it once stood here. For a time during the Revolution the hill was renamed Mont Marat, after the revolutionary killed by Charlotte Corday. In 1871 it was the scene of the bloody beginning and the still bloodier end of the Commune, whose defenders made their last stand here and on the Buttes Chaumont. The old village, which was incorporated in Paris only in 1860, owed its international fame to the artists' colony which grew up on the Butte towards the end of the 19th C and attracted chansonniers, writers and painters from far and wide, among them Manet, van Gogh, Toulouse- Lautrec, Utrillo, Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Picasso, Braque, Vlaminck, Emile Bernard, Courteline and Pierre MacOrlan. Picasso's studio, the "Bateau-Lavoir", became the center of the Cubist movement, while the "Lapin Agile" with its chansonniers was the rendezvous of bohemian Paris. After the First World War, however, the artistic and intellectual hub of Paris moved steadily to the Montparnasse quarter.But the charm of Montmartre lies not only in its memories. Although art and commerce have become one and the same thing in the Place du Tertre and people may argue about the "wedding- cake" architecture of the Sacré-Coeur, it is still true that if you take time to stroll about in the narrow streets and the steep flights of steps of Montmartre and enjoy the many, often quite unexpected, views of Paris it will be borne in on you very strongly what Paris has to offer - an infinite variety of impressions.

In the steep Rue des Saules (No. 22) in Montmartre is another turn-of-the-century relic, the "Lapin Agile" ("Agile Rabbit"). This famous cabaret takes its name from the sign painted by André Gill showing a rabbit jumping out of a cooking-pot. Celebrated artistes performed here, including the chansonnier Aristide Bruant immortalized by Toulouse-Lautrec and his friend Frédéric Gérard, known as Père Frédé, who entertained their mostly middle-class audiences with witty and disrespectful songs. The "Lapin Agile" still has talented chansonniers who appeal to a wide public - though nowadays everything is rather dearer than it used to be.The tradition of literary evenings at the Lapin Agile (every night except Mondays, at 9 p.m.) began with Francis Carco, Roland Dorgelès, Pierre Mac Orlan and Picasso.

In Place Emile-Goudeau in Montmartre, a little tree-planted square, is an unremarkable, rather irregular house at No. 13 (originally, before the square had a name of its own, 13 rue Ravignan) which was the birthplace of Cubism. A long series of famous painters had their studio in this house, the Bâteau-Lavoir, lived here or came as visitors, including Paul Gauguin, Juan Gris, Otto Freundlich, Max Jacob, André Salmon, Brancusi, Modigliani and Picasso, who moved in here in 1904 and a year or two later painted his "Demoiselles d'Avignon", the first Cubist picture. In those days the house had neither heating, running water or electricity. It was burned down in 1970 but was later rebuilt by the city in its original form, with modern artists' studios.

The church of Saint-Pierre in Rue du Mont- Cenis in Montmartre is a relic of the 12th C Benedictine convent whose last abbess died on the guillotine in 1794. Four black marble columns in the choir and at the west end of the nave have survived from the original Merovingian church built in the seventh century on the site of a Roman temple of Mercury. The present church is mainly Early Gothic; the choir was consecrated in 1147 in presence of the great Catholic reformer Bernard of Clairvaux.

The Musée de la Vie Roantique in Rue Chaptal (No. 16) in Montmartre displays numerous mementos of the artistic and literary figures who frequented the salon of the Dutch painter Ary Scheffer (1795-1858) in this elegant villa of the Restoration period, among them George Sand and Chopin, Delacroix, Liszt, Ingres, Lamartine and Turgenev.

The Bateau-Lavoir was destroyed in a fire in 1970. This small building which was once a piano factory was the place where Cubism was created by Picasso, Braque and Juan Gris. It has since been rebuilt and is now used as apartments and artist studios.

The Musée Dalí in Paris contains paintings and sculpture by Salvador Dalí.Espace Dali has the only permanent exhibit entirely deddicated to Dali. Many of the sculptures illustrate literature such as Romeo and Juliet, Don Quixote and excerpts from the Bible.

In the triangular Place des Abbesses is one of the handsomest of Paris's Métros, with an Art Nouveau entrance by Victor Guimard. Opposite it is the church of Saint-Jean- l'Evangéliste (by Anatole de Baudot, 1904), a concrete structure faced with red brick notable for its simplicity and clarity of form.

The Napoleonic memorabilia Masson fund visit by request only. Library that specialised in the history of France in the nineteenth century, installed in the private mansion of Thiers.

Montmartre, Paris's highest hill, has its only funicular, running between Place Saint-Pierre and the Sacré-Coeur.

The Moulin de la Galette is the last of Montmartre's windmills. It formed the inspiration for a number of painters including Renoir and Van Gogh.

This Paris museum contains over 1,200 pieces of Baccarat crystal illustrating its development from 1828 to the present day.

This is the house and studio of the Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau (1826-98), now a museum, with around 1,000 paintings and 7,000 drawings.

This is the smallest museum in the world. It is the former home of the 20th century composer.

The Musée Roybet-Fould in Paris contains dolls and toys; sculpture by Antoine Carpeaux (19th C.).

Halle Saint-Pierre is redeveloped by Pavillon Baltard. There are permanent collections of naive art from around the world.

This is the museum of Jewish art and contains art objects from Poland.There are tomb stones, models of synagogues and a specialized book shop.

This exhibition displays over 110 vehicles in a 10,000 sq. area.

There are documents tracing back the history of the Order in France.