We meet in the afternoon and take a stroll around the left bank, learning about its history of literature and music. We see key places in the lives of Left Bank residents like Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir—plus a long list of LGBTQ+ personalities from the lesbian flappers of the 1920s to James Baldwin, who wrote his first novel in a Left Bank Café. Our afternoon ends at the hotel where Oscar Wilde lived his last years and died—the place where he said his famous last words: “Either this wallpaper goes, or I do.” The owner in Wilde’s time was very supportive of his famous/notorious guest, and today’s owners have celebrated him by opening the Oscar Wilde lounge, where we will have a drink together to celebrate Mr. Wilde, LGBTQ+ Paris, and our tour!
Today is a day for Paris’ fabulous cemeteries. In the morning, Père Lachaise, the most visited cemetery in the world—famous for its astonishing list of residents, including some straight people like Maris Callas and Jim Morrison, but also a many LGBTQ+ people, starting with the famous tombs of Oscar Wilde and Gertrude Stein (and her wife Alice B Toklas), as well as Proust, Colette, and a host of others, including great gay icons like Edith Piaf. We will learn about France’s elimination of sodomy laws—at the tomb of the man who may be responsible—the first modern novel with a gay character, Chopin’s love letters to a young man, and many other fascinating stories. We have lunch at one of the great 19th century Paris brasseries—a place that has hosted people like Picasso, Modigliani, Henry Miller, and Anaïs Nin, and appears in a whole series of Vuillard paintings, as well as Truffaut’s The 400 Blows. Then it is off to another, shorter cemetery walk in the less known but equally charming Montmartre Cemetery, where we see the tomb of the woman who inspired The Lady of the Camellias, La Traviata, Cuckor’s Camille, and Pretty Woman, as well as LGBTQ+ people like the great dancer and choreographer Nijinsky. Then we take a quick stroll to one of Paris’ most charming and least known museums, the Musée de la Vie Romantique, full of memories of the great queer woman author George Sand and her fragile, tubercular, gay or bisexual lover Chopin. We can end our afternoon at the museum’s lovely garden café or (if you like) go around the corner to a harem-themed bar in what was a 19th century brothel….
This morning, we go on a “gay secrets” tour of the Louvre. The Louvre has many of the greatest LGBTQ+ artworks in the world, from the ancient Roman Hermaphrodite (reclining on the mattress made for them by Bernini in the 17th century!) to Michelangelo’s highly erotic “Dying Slave” and Leonardo’s St John the Baptist (or is it Bacchus?)—almost certainly a portrait of his life-long crush, GianGiacomo Caprotti, whom Leonardo nicknamed Salaì, Florentine dialect for “devil.” We have lunch as a Classic Parisian bistro nearby and then visit the gardens of the Palais Royal—the palace of Louis XIV’s gay/queer brother Philippe (known as the time simply as “Monsieur”) with its fascinating history as an 18th century fashion mall, a den of Revolutionary intrigue—and later the home of Colette, whose tomb we saw yesterday—a woman whose writing and life story are both full of varied LGBTQ+ loves.
