Before tens of thousands of Russians flooded into France following the forced migrations of WWI and the Bolshevik revolution, a Russian community of an artistic nature had already taken root in Paris. In the early 1900s, Sergei Diaghilev and his Russian ballet became a cause célèbre in the French capital…
“Writing is bosh. There is only one way to make money at writing, and that is to marry a publisher’s daughter. But you would make a good waiter if you shaved that moustache off. Wait till I can bend this accursed leg, mon ami. And then, if you are ever out of a job, come to me.”
On the 29th of March 1929, days after discharging himself from the Hôpital Cochin, Eric Blair (the future George Orwell) attended the funeral of Maréchal Foch. The former WWI Supreme Allied Commander was honoured with a full, state-funeral carriage procession that set out from the Arc de Triomphe and ended at the gold-domed Invalides where the French Maréchal was laid to rest opposite Napoleon.
He signed in as Arthur Blair, once again gave his incorrect year of birth (1902), and was assigned a ward where the foreigners outnumbered the French.
“In the year 1929 I spent several weeks in the Hôpital X, in the fifteenth arrondissement of Paris. The clerks put me through the usual third-degree at the reception desk…”
If Eric Blair had come to Paris to broaden his outlook, the Hotel at 6 Rue du Pot de Fer fitted the bill perfectly. The Hotel des Bons Amis* (renamed L’Hotel des 3 Moineaux in the book) catered for a demographic that was largely made up of immigrants and those passing through.
“Well, he died young. He was very talented. He did two Orwells for us but was also known for his excellent Russian translations of Bulgakov. He was one of the best, but had…health problems. What did you want to ask him?”
At the end of WWI, a few thousand Russian officers were stationed in the northwestern French town of Laval while the powers that be decided on their fate. They hadn’t been involved in combat operations since the spring of 1917…
An extract from Chapter 2 of ‘Orwell in Paris – Down & Out with the Russain Captain’.
We follow over Eric Blair’s shoulder in 1928 as he discovers the streets around his hotel.
A microfilm extract from the Paris police archives shows that Eric Blair registered with the Paris police on the 20th of June 1928. It appears to be in his own hand. He gives his address & (not for the last time) his incorrect date of birth. The “SP” just under his nationality stands for “Sans Papiers” meaning he had no, or at least presented no, ID papers.