The Wilde side of Paris
As a hit film turns the spotlight on the great writer’s last days, Hero Douglas takes a deeply personal tour of the dramatic city where he died
Nineteen-year-old Hero Douglas, granddaughter of the 12th Marquess of Queensberry, has a key family connection to the series of notorious events that brought down Oscar Wilde. With the release of a new film chronicling the sad final months of the great writer, Hero visits the city where Wilde died ‘beyond his means’…
Writer and wit Oscar Wilde (deceased 1900) and The Doors frontman Jim Morrison (departed this life 1971) have been locked in an unlikely post-mortem struggle for supremacy at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
Other famous ‘residents’ here include Chopin, Edith Piaf and tragic lovers Abelard and Heloise: but while these are doughty Alisters, surprisingly none can hope to match the pulling power of Wilde or Morrison.
Those who monitor such things are now reporting that, in terms of visitor numbers, Wilde seems to be outpacing the once-dominant Morrison. And their combined tourist pulling power is reckoned to match the seven million who annually visit the Eiffel Tower – you have to pay for the Eiffel Tower, of course, while the cemetery is one of Paris’s great free attractions.
There have long been signs that Wilde’s popularity was on the rise: so many visitors were leaving red lipstick kisses on the limestone used by designer Jacob Epstein for the tomb that the grease was eating it away. Wilde would have been delighted.
So seven years ago, a protective glass screen was installed around the tomb. The tomb can expect to attract even greater attention over the coming months with the release of Rupert Everett’s Wilde biopic The Happy Prince – an agonising portrayal of Wilde’s final few years as a transient vagabond exiled in Europe.
Fleeting flashbacks give glimpses of the author’s immense success but mostly Everett focuses on the jaded, love-torn spendthrift who admits: ‘I am dying beyond my means.’ The bow ties and bouquets of his former life are exchanged for bars and brothels as the movie embraces the tragedy of the great man’s decline.
The tragedy has a particular resonance for me – the relationship between Wilde and my great-greatgreat-uncle, Bosie Douglas (the third son of the 9th Marquess of Queensberry), led to the court case that caused the author’s dramatic downfall: two years in Reading Gaol followed by the sordid, selfimposed exile in France and then his death. Travelling to Wilde’s Paris, therefore, was a very personal pilgrimage.
Standing before the famous tomb was surprisingly moving. I pushed my lips against the screen and mouthed the word ‘sorry’. I can’t help but feel a familial guilt for the love-hate relationship that Wilde had with my ancestor that eventually destroyed him. T he Wilde connection is important to my family and my mother has frequently met his grandson Merlin, of whom she is very fond. I’ve had a book of Wilde’s witty phrases by my bed from early childhood and last year I had the wonderful experience of playing Sybil in his play The Picture Of
Dorian Gray, so this trip to Paris and paying my respects at his grave felt like the right thing to do.
When Wilde came to France at the end of the 19th Century, it was a journey that involved a stormtossed, cross-Channel ferry journey. How he would have enjoyed boarding a train at London’s St Pancras instead for the two-and-a-halfhour journey to Gare du Nord. From London, Paris is as easy to reach as Manchester.
While at Pere Lachaise I searched for Chopin’s burial site and took a moment to think of all his wonderful compositions that are so much a part of my life as a fresher studying music at Christ Church, Oxford.
I had wanted to find Edith Piaf and Jim Morrison, too, but the map was terrible (or perhaps it was just my navigational skills) and it was time to finish paying my respects to the deceased and make my way to L’Hotel, where I was staying. This was also the place where Wilde ended his days – with a joke of course: ‘My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death – one or the other of us has to go.’
Wilde died at the hotel in the Rue des Beaux Arts, aged just 46. Officially the cause of death was cerebral meningitis, although it has been suggested that he succumbed to syphilis (this gossip quickly attaches itself to any celebrity who dies after enjoying too much, too young).
I’m not sure what the wallpaper was like when Wilde was in residence and why he found it so deplorable but these days it all seems rather tasteful. Also on display at the hotel is his final bill, accompanied by a letter from the manager inviting the author to pay it as soon as possible. Wilde couldn’t (‘I can’t even afford to die,’ he wailed) – the bill was finally settled two years after his death.
I was worried it would feel a little macabre staying in the place where he died but those thoughts vanished as soon as I walked through the front door of L’Hotel. It was like being transported into a glamorous, bygone era.
It wasn’t always such a wonderful
place. I learned on my Oscar Wilde tour that, when he was languishing there in the final months of his life, L’Hotel was grimy budget accommodation frequented by prostitutes and undesirables.
Its wonderful domed ceiling was open to the elements and when it rained those in the communal areas got wet as well.
One of the great pleasures of staying at L’Hotel is that you are only a stone’s throw from the world’s largest art museum, the Louvre. I made a beeline, along with every other tourist it seems, to see Da Vinci’s masterpiece the Mona Lisa.
Smaller than I imagined, I joined in the sashaying of the visitors from one side of the room to the other, and yes, her eyes do seem to follow you wherever you stand. This was obviously the most crowded room but I was surprised how tranquil many of the other areas were, even though they contained ancient Greek and Roman treasures, works by Old Masters and Egyptian antiquities.
After hours focusing on art, it was time for a break – and a boat trip with Bateaux Parisiens along the Seine. It was a wonderfully relaxing way to see Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower without having to take a step.
I tried to live up to the Wilde dream by enjoying some very agreeable meals and the occasional strong drink but, as a 19-year old, I found that bars were surprisingly reluctant to serve me.
One evening I joined friends as we shivered outside a seemingly closed barber shop. I was trying to get into the exclusive bar Gentlemen 1919 and had been given a number to call on arrival.
Once I’d followed my instructions, a suave man appeared to unlock the security grilles and led us through the nondescript entrance to the secretive, legendary cocktail bar within.
I ordered a Pornstar martini – a combination of champagne, passion fruit and sweet vanilla vodka. It must have been strong as I can only remember snippets of the rest of the night. I’m sure Wilde would have approved.
Another night ended in the early hours at Le Duc de Lombards, a great jazz club where I saw the incredible Clayton Brothers.
The Parisian high life is not for the frugal, as Wilde sadly discovered in his final months. But the great man would have wanted me to enjoy La Vie Parisienne in its finest form, whatever the cost. And, of course, he had a great quote for every situation: ‘What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.’
I advise all visitors to Paris to go Wilde in Paris. C’est magnifique!
I PUT MY LIPS TO OSCAR’S TOMB AND SAID SORRY