Only in Paris by Duncan J.D. Smith

64 24 5 th Arrondissement An Historic Jazz Cellar 5 th Arrondissement, Le Caveau de la Huchette at 5 Rue de la Huchette Métro 4 Saint-Michel Paris has been crazy about jazz ever since the First World War, when black American ragtime and jazz bandleader James Reese Europe led an army-band tour across France, kick-starting a dance-hall craze. American GIs reignited the craze after the Second World War, and these days it is performed in a variety of venues from smoky piano bars to smart concert halls. Undoubtedly the most historic is Le Caveau de la Huchette in an atmospheric cellar at 5 Rue de la Huchette (5 th ). Situated in the Quartier Latin the Rue de la Huchette is one of the oldest streets on the Left Bank. Fortunately the area was spared Baron Haussmann’s wrecking ball after he lost his job during the upheavals of 1870; he only got as far as demolishing the buildings around Rue de la Harpe as part of an unfulfilled plan for road-widening. This left amongst others number 10, where a young and unknown Napoleon Bonaparte lived in 1795. The narrow street is first documented in 1200 as Rue de Laas be- cause it ran alongside a vineyard known as the Clos de Laas. During the 1280s it then took the name of a house on the street belonging to the Notre-Dame chapter À la Huchette d’Or . The origin of the word Huchette is obscure although it may be derived from Hutchet , being an old term for a bugle. The building in which the Caveau de la Huchette is located dates from the 16 th century but its cellar is much older. It is alleged to have been used as a secret meeting place by the Knights Templar during the late 13 th century and the Freemasons in the 1770s. It also served as a prison, court, and place of execution during the Revolution, and was a hiding place for resistance fighters during the Second World War. During the 1920s and 30s the building became a hotel and was frequented by the American author Elliot Paul (1891–1958); his novel The Last Time I Saw Paris recalls many of the street’s characters from that time. Paul was a great admirer of the work of fellow American and Francophile Gertrude Stein (1874–1946), equating her “feeling for a continuous present” with the jazz genre. It seems therefore entirely fitting that in 1948 the hotel was transformed into the city’s first jazz club. Since then the ancient cellar walls of the Caveau de la Huchette