Twilight of the Belle Epoque: The Paris of Picasso, Stravinsky, Proust, Renault, Marie Curie, Gertrude Stein, and Their Friends through the Great War, McAuliffe - B-

                                               This book's predecessor was reviewed here last month. It had the political and historical events as a framework; the artistic side was supplementary. This book is the opposite. There is much greater attention to the group biography of the artistes than to world events. While the painters painted and the musicians composed, businessmen also prospered. The men behind Coty and L'Oreal  began to manufacture and distribute perfumes and hair dyes, respectively.  Renault and Citroen were building automobiles and the Curies won a Nobel for their scientific research. Michelin manufactured tires and published a travel guide to enhance the driving experience. But this was the city that saw an explosion of artistic creativity and those events are center stage.
                                              The Entente Cordial, whereby the UK and France made an alliance, is the first significant political news reported and even then, not until the sixth chapter. Nationalism in France had once been the exclusive property of the far right. This was particularly true through the long Dreyfus Affair and its aftermath. As the first decade of the century passed and international tensions rose throughout the Balkans and northern Africa, all sides of the French body politic viewed Germany warily. In early 1914, Georges Clemenceau told an American reporter that his readers "scoff at talk of war" and, "Paris is gay, elegant, luxurious....Paris is now the important place for unimportant things."  In August, like people around the continent, Parisians hailed the coming of war. "Vive la France and Vive l'Alsace" rang out. Such enthusiasm quickly faded as the Germans almost reached Paris and the war began its grinding, lethal stalemate. The Germans shelled and bombed the City of Light and reached the Marne, just forty miles away, in August 1914, and a second time in 1918. Now Prime Minister, Clemenceau rallied the nation and became known as 'Father Victory'.
                                              "It was as France began to realize the depth of its war-inflicted wounds that its prewar world increasingly acquired the aura of a golden age." "The Belle Epoque had never been as radiantly perfect as enshrined in memory." Life in the capitals of pre-war Europe has been idealized as the ultimate 'fin de siecle'. That is true of London, Berlin and particularly St. Petersburg and Vienna. But no city of the era shines quite as brightly as Paree.