In the Days of the Last Vespasians

Extract

Yes, even the last ones are threatened, and it becomes a matter for congratulation, let alone relief, to catch sight of the one opposite the Palais de Justice, or the few they have left in the Latin Quarter, outside the Ecole de Médecine or opposite the Place de la Sorbonne. Other visual clichés of Parisian life are disappearing, too, for ever. A few weeks ago, unthinkable red and grey buses began to appear on a few Paris routes, heralding the disappearance of the familiar ugly green monsters with their capacious platforms, still the best, if somewhat unstable, way of seeing the city. By 1966 at least one Métro line will be running without drivers and dispensing tickets from machines (it’s always been supposed that if they allowed people to travel free on the Métro and dispensed with drivers and clippies the loss of revenue would be less than the wage-bill . . .). And an old landmark is about to disappear from the skyline at the end of the long perspective of the rue de Rennes, where the Gare Montparnasse is making way for a vast new office-block and modernised station. The present station is inadequate to deal with the vast increase of traffic, but some memories will go with it: the ghosts of Modigliani and Soutine haunt it and it was here von Choltitz surrendered to Leclerc when the city was liberated in 1944.