Apartment · Plaine Monceau · 17e arrondissement

93 rue de Courcelles

The buildingStill standing

Getting inOutside only

What's there nowA private home

The building stands and is private; the apartment cannot be visited.

The sixth-floor former studio near Parc Monceau where Colette and Willy lived while the Claudine novels appeared under his name.

Address: 93 rue de Courcelles, 75017 Paris
Years: 1896–1902

Illustration The 93 rue de Courcelles frontage in colour, its stone façade and street-level shops near Parc Monceau

The building today, near Parc Monceau in the 17th.

Editorial illustration

The place, briefly

From 1896 Colette and her husband Willy lived at 93 rue de Courcelles, in a sixth-floor former painter's studio near the Parc Monceau. These are the years the Claudine novels began to appear — Claudine à l'école in 1900 — published under Willy's name, though Colette had written them. The books were a commercial sensation, and the household ran on their success.

The couple moved a few doors up the same street, to 177 bis, in 1902. The building stands in the 17th arrondissement.

Key facts

Address: 93 rue de Courcelles, 17th arrondissement
Who lived here: Colette and her husband Willy
When: 1896–1902
Why it matters: Home during the launch of the Claudine novels, published under Willy's name
Today: Private residence; the building stands

In images

Pen-and-ink illustration of the Haussmann façade at 93 rue de Courcelles, ground-floor shopfronts below ornate balconies and a carved carriage door — 93 rue de Courcelles, where Colette and Willy lived as the Claudine novels began to appear.Editorial illustration

The 93 rue de Courcelles frontage in colour, its stone façade and street-level shops near Parc Monceau — The building today, near Parc Monceau in the 17th.Editorial illustration

Timeline

1896
Colette and Willy move into a sixth-floor studio at 93 rue de Courcelles.
1900
Claudine à l'école is published under Willy's name and becomes a hit.
1902
The couple moves up the street to 177 bis rue de Courcelles.

On the map

Writers who knew this place

Colette

French · The French novelist who wrote the Claudine books under Willy’s name, earned her independence on the music-hall stage, and made women’s private lives a serious literary subject.

Lived here · 1896–1902

A sixth-floor former studio near Parc Monceau where Colette and Willy lived as the Claudine novels began to appear under his name.

— Société des amis de Colette — Lieux de vie; Société des amis de Colette — Chronology

Within walking distance

Apartment · Étoile / Champs-Élysées

14 Rue de Tilsitt

F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's Right Bank apartment in the year of Gatsby — a furnished fifth-floor flat by the Arc de Triomphe, and the address where Ernest Hemingway first came to lunch.

Visit the place

The same Haussmann-era building rendered in colour, an imagined reconstruction

Apartment · Plaine Monceau

177 bis rue de Courcelles

The larger apartment of the Claudine years, where Colette kept a gymnasium and her marriage to Willy came apart.

Visit the place

Nightclub · Champs-Élysées

Le Bœuf sur le Toit

The bar-cabaret Louis Moysès opened in 1922, named for the Cocteau–Milhaud ballet — headquarters of the postwar avant-garde around Jean Cocteau, and one of Blaise Cendrars's regular Paris stops.

Visit the place

The imagined Colette beauty-shop storefront in colour, a dark-green front with gold lettering and a display of perfumes

Shop · Madeleine

6 rue de Miromesnil

The beauty shop Colette opened in 1932, selling cosmetics she made herself — her attempt to turn her fame into a business.

Visit the place

The Friday Letter

Paris, one address at a time.

The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.