Home > Places > Hotel du Caveau

Hotel du Caveau

 "At night now Loretto and I would wander off with someone to other neighbourhoods. There were the bals musettes down by the Bastille, the Pigalle bars, and the Hotel du Caveau on the rue de la Huchette; then back to our roosting place to find amusement in the antics of strangers."

Much of Morley's time is spent exploring various Parisian hotspots with his wife Loretta Callaghan.

 

 

 

When 1920s writer Eliot Paul first walked onto the Rue de la Huchette, he commented ‘There, I found Paris’; thus suggesting that this area is the heartland of the city. Described as ‘the crossroads of daily life’ (Dumble 1942), the Hotel du Caveau was even more popular than the Ritz – according to R. Dumble. Wilson, it was where ‘you find the Huchette dwellers sipping their wine’ and ‘discussing Proust and Debussy, Rodin and Cezanne’ (Dumble 1942). In fact, the entire east end of the Huchette was said to revolve around the Hotel so much so that all residents were described as one ‘weirdly assorted family’ (Coulam 2012).

You will see the mention of various hotels and apartments appear quite frequently in the text. This is because the 'lost generation' as they were branded, did not tend to stay in one place for an extended period of time - for example, expatriates like Callaghan and Hemingway stayed in Paris a short time as part of this sweeping artistic period in the 1920s, before moving on again - in the text, we see Callaghan's move from Toronto, to Paris, back to America again, full circle.

For an idea of today's Hotel du Caveau, the basement has been transformed into a thriving jazz club that is considered one of the most important contributions to Parisian nightlife!

Works cited.

Wilson, R. ‘The Engineers’ Bookshelf’ 25, no. 7 (June 1942): 12–13.

Coulam, Des. ‘“The Last Time I Saw Paris” - Eliot Paul’, October 29, 2012. http://soundlandscapes.wordpress.com/tag/rue-de-la-huchette/.