Montmartre: Onward and Upward

Past the red windmill of the Moulin Rouge, we begin our slow climb up the winding streets of Montmartre. We pass the Love mural, bursts of graffiti, and even the café made famous by the film Amélie. Our first real stop: the modest home once shared by Vincent van Gogh and his younger brother, Theo.
Pausing outside, we glance up at the second-story window and the small plaque that marks his stay. It’s easy to imagine the arguments that rattled within those walls—between Vincent, his long-suffering brother, and Theo’s wife. “I’m sorry, my wife says you have to leave. Your ear is bleeding on the carpet again.” Cruel, perhaps, but history rarely tidies up after genius.
Turning away from the building, we see the same broad view Vincent once painted from his window. And when I say the same, I mean almost the same—minus a million changes that time and progress have inflicted. Still, if you rub your eyes hard enough, you can catch the ghost of swirling light and color that might remind you of Van Gogh’s sunflowers.
Further up, the neighborhood reveals more stories. Here stood Picasso’s early studio, and here too, Gertrude Stein once refused to pay him for her portrait—though she later relented, proudly hanging it in the least exalted of spots: her ground-floor restroom.
At an old public fountain that once kept Montmartre supplied, I stop for a sip. (Don’t worry, I’ll test it for giardia back at the hotel.) But the real highlight comes a few steps later: the statue of Le Passe-Muraille, the unfortunate clerk Dutilleul immortalized in stone, caught mid-passage in the wall.
The story goes like this:
Dutilleul, a humble government employee in Montmartre, discovers—quite by accident during a blackout—that he has the peculiar gift of walking through walls. At first, he uses it to torment his overbearing boss, then graduates to burglary, strolling in and out of buildings like a phantom. He even allows himself to be arrested, only to vanish from his cell, baffling the police.
Romance complicates matters when he begins nightly visits with a married woman while her husband is away. But fate has a cruel sense of humor: after taking a certain medication and exerting himself too much, Dutilleul’s strange gift fails him. He becomes trapped in the stone, suspended forever between two worlds.
And you thought your problems were bad. This statue is one of my favorite stops in Montmartre, and I think of poor Dutilleul often.
Feeling in need of cheer and perhaps a bit of divine guidance, I continue upward and meet my newest spiritual leader: Saint Denis, the headless cleric himself. But that story, along with a touch of revolution, will have to wait until next week.