In the France of the Belle Epoque, the anxiety is focused on safe the apache, the figure of a juvenile from the working class, but more or less at odds with the world of work. Popular songs of Aristide Bruant Celebrate the Paris Apache and we are here thread.
* We will consider first the origin, immediate and remote, the term Apache and its distribution during the first quarter of the twentieth century. (This article)
* then we will try to paint a picture of these bands of young thugs described at length article by the popular press (their codes, territories).
* We will focus in particular methods of Apaches. The newspapers attributed their great variety of crimes, but focus on the night attack, new anxiety that comes with the appearance of the modern city. (Aristide Bruant "Night Attack") *
depravity and violence attributed to the Apaches safe fueling anxiety. Some denounce the "crisis of repression", that is to say the supposed leniency of the courts. (Aristide Bruant: "A la Roquette)
**************** From 1900, availing itself of the Paris newspapers apache term to refer to young offenders Parisian suburbs out of family or workshop. The term perfect symbol they think the emergence of youth crime and help crystallize the anxiety a changing industrial society. We raise the question about the reasons for this appellation.
Apaches in 1900. Manda Leca stabbing in front of Golden Helmet, reconstructed scene ( © Roger-Viollet ). * The origin of the term "Apache" remains highly uncertain.
This designation highlights the fascination of the French then for exotic stories of popular literature. Immediately after the Restoration, the novels of James Fenimore Cooper generate an extraordinary popularity. A parallel is soon made between the struggle of Indian tribes and insurgency of silk workers in Lyon (November 1931). This results in an association "between wild from outside and those inside, between the frontier and the suburbs, [which] contributes to the gradual decline of the noble savage. " [see: D. Kalifa] The time is indeed the "barbarians", "dangerous classes", products of a society devastated by the economic and social transformations.
interest for Indians in general and the Apaches in particular, is further strengthened during the Second Empire with the development of a project French intervention in Central America. While the civil war ravaging the United States, the mineral wealth of the northern Mexican border are appealing to the French diplomatic service. In the area of the Sonora , the French discovered while Apache Indian tribes that impede this ambitious attempt at French settlement in the Americas. In this context, the first French novels of the American West appeared. Indian novels of Gabriel Ferry and Gustave Aimard and have the framework for no man's land between the desert Mexico and the United States. The Apache is described as cruel, devious, evil. It embodies the highest degree of savagery. These pictures are spread rapidly in France in the second half of the nineteenth century. Thus Pierre Larousse dictionary describes them as " the most warlike of all the savage tribes of New Mexico . " They opposed the greatness of the Comanches, their rivals.
fascination / repulsion for the Indians did not disappear with the Third Republic. The last Indian wars waged against the Apaches of Geronimo are staged by the Wild West Show of Buffalo Bill who moved Porte Maillot in 1889. Yet it was during these years that correspondence between American Indian tribes and the Paris lowland sketched. However, the choice of the Apache is not surprising. Dominique Kalifa said: " (...) It would be wrong to see in an Indian Apache among others. (...) With a strong Indian culture, the French Belle Epoque know well what differentiates an Iroquois of Cheyenne and Sioux a Comanche. "It remains the representative of a tribe seen as rebellious and assimilated.
Buffalo Bill and his Native American players at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889. But at the same time, the figure of the thief assassin of the scarp, became the supreme peril. Literature, large provider of social models, looks at Parisian slums. With The Mysteries of Paris Eugene Sue conducts its many readers in the footsteps of wildlife that frequents disreputable dens of the city. In Les Miserables Hugo portrays a band of young miscreants led by the sinister Patron-Minette. The press is no exception and journalists emphasize the connections, their eyes visible between the Parisian hooligans and "wild" Indian, particularly the Apaches, seen as the last rebel tribe, a people assimilate.
The term is therefore perfectly to describe people that some see as the residue of industrial society, resistant to any social integration. Like the "wild" of Sonora, the Parisian apache is immoral, violent, he shares the same exotic customs and language which reflect fully the lyrics riddled with slang terms of "Apache song" written by Bunting.
* The first uses the term in France.
In an article in the December 12 1900, the newspaper Le Matin describes these new "barbarians" at the heart of civilization. " We have the advantage to possess a tribe of Apaches Paris [...]. They will kill their man as the most authentic Wild. "
The other major newspapers are not to be outdone, in 1902 Arthur Dupin, journalist Diary portrays complacency brawls between rival gangs (the case Golden Helmet):
" These are the manners of the Apaches, the Far West, unworthy of our civilization . For half an hour, right in Paris in mid-afternoon, two rival gangs fought for daughter of the fortifications, a blonde high chignon, wearing the dog! "
With the development of the media age, this theme is pervasive and stereotyping based on the actual packages of these bands, it is true largely exaggerated by a press that quickly sniffs it rich. The Apaches are indeed a lot to a burgeoning popular press that puts the blood on the front.
One Eye police whose first issue appeared in 1908. The news story is then a windfall for the popular press which seeks to attract a wider readership. Eye police is distinguished by the aggressive use of color. Designers houses (Henry Steimer and Raoul Thomen) depict violence with rare efficiency. * Sparrow and the Paris apache.
The song is the other vector romanticize Apaches celebrated by the popular song and first by Aristide Bruant (1851-1925) . In 1881, Rodolphe Salis hire this singer-songwriter-hall in the cabaret Black Cat, 84 Boulevard de Rochechouart. Sparrow created his famous songs including neighborhoods of Paris. When moving Salis his tavern, Bunting took over the Black Cat he renamed the Mirliton . His friend Toulouse-Lautrec painted posters for him. On some of them, the owner of the tavern appears draped in her long cloak and wearing a black felt. Character
complex Sparrow alternates songs nationalist and anti-working class while writing texts of social protest. It must in any case as a teacher naturalist for the song and participates actively in the development of the mythology of Parisian slums.
Aristide Bruant on a poster of his friend Toulouse Lautrec. Aristide Bruant "Song of Apaches.
1 In a neighborhood bistro in the Viltouse,
The barbs were drinking the health of their
On the poles of Decarre centrouse
And they sang: "Long live freedom! "Hey R
the Apaches! A
we eustache,
lingua in rings, lanyards
assassins
For phoney roussins
And the bellies of cass'roles. 2
Too bad for you, gentlemen of the squeegee,
Too bad for you Distinguished college,
Should not the boys look Vilette,
because their blades are not made for dogs.
3 When we flicards veul'nt belt crook,
We manufacture lead us to turn
su'l'tas Maroons, those days are of the r'biffe
They Z'Y puts his twenty-two in the drum. 4 Must
could not go behind the s'frotter
our little shepherd who s'balad'icigo ... Or
bin without it, beware the buttonhole!
Beware of the quick tip lidonbem's go!
5 First, aut us we did not have political
We always vote for el'gouvernement,
s'fout is the king as ed'la republic
Provided we can work tranquill'ment.
Sources:
- Dominique Kalifa " Archaeology apache .
- Dominique Kalifa: "Crime and Culture in the nineteenth century", Perrin, 2005.
- Michelle Perrot, " the shadows of history . Crime and Punishment in the nineteenth century", Flammarion, 2001.
- UNEDAP " Aristide Bruant.
- "Chronicles of apache Paris (1902-1905)" Mercure de France, 2008. Two quasi-autobiographical narratives which permit "to approach closer to the voice of an Apache and a police officer of the Belle Epoque." Amelia Elias aka Golden Helmet, a young prostitute 23 years, returns in his memoirs of the tragic struggle that pitted two rival gangs in January 1902. Their leaders, Manda and the Courtille Leca Charonne, contended the young woman.
The peacekeeper Corsy Eugene wrote the second story. He recounts the death of one of his young colleagues, Joseph Besse, killed by a pimp one night in July 1905.
* Links:
- Golden Helmet .
- " the eye of the police .
- " Iconography: the Apaches of Paris .
