Café · Alésia (14th) · 14e arrondissement

Le Zeyer

The buildingStill standing

Getting inIn, as a customer

What's there nowStill the same

Still a working café-brasserie on the same corner. Historical accounts sometimes give the address as 230–234 avenue du Maine; the public entrance today is on the rue d'Alésia side of the same building.

A corner café-brasserie in Alésia where Henry Miller met regularly with Alfred Perlès and Michael Fraenkel during the years that fed into Tropic of Cancer. Still trading on the same corner.

Address: 62 rue d'Alésia, 75014 Paris
Years: A regular meeting place for Miller, Perlès and Fraenkel in the 1930s

The place, briefly

The Zeyer sits on the corner where the rue d'Alésia meets the avenue du Maine, in the fourteenth. Older accounts give its address as 230–234 avenue du Maine and current ones as 62 rue d'Alésia — the same building, entered from a different side, which is worth knowing if you are following a bibliography.

Henry Miller met here regularly with Alfred Perlès and Michael Fraenkel during the 1930s. Fraenkel matters more than his obscurity suggests: it was in argument with him that Miller worked out a good deal of what became his method, and their exchange later ran to a long published correspondence about Hamlet.

That is what this café is for on the map. The Dôme and the Rotonde are where Miller is pictured; the Zeyer is where three writers with no money sat for hours arguing about books, which is the activity the pictures leave out.

It is also, like the Bouquet d'Alésia a few hundred metres away, a long way south of the Montparnasse of the legend. The Alésia cafés are Miller's actual neighbourhood in the years around 18 villa Seurat.

Still open, and still a brasserie you can sit in.

Key facts

Who met here: Henry Miller, Alfred Perlès and Michael Fraenkel
When: The 1930s — the years feeding into Tropic of Cancer
Why Fraenkel matters: Miller worked out much of his method arguing with him; the exchange became a published correspondence on Hamlet
The address confusion: Older sources say 230–234 avenue du Maine; the entrance today is 62 rue d'Alésia — same building
Today: Still a working café-brasserie

Timeline

1930s
Miller, Perlès and Fraenkel meet regularly at the Zeyer during the Tropic of Cancer years.
1934
Tropic of Cancer is published in Paris.

On the map

Questions before you go

Who met at the Café Zeyer?

Henry Miller, Alfred Perlès and Michael Fraenkel, regularly, through the 1930s. Fraenkel is the least famous of the three and the most consequential for Miller's thinking — much of his method was worked out in argument with him, and their exchange became a long published correspondence about Hamlet.

Is the Zeyer at 62 rue d'Alésia or on the avenue du Maine?

Both — it is a corner building. Older accounts give the address as 230–234 avenue du Maine; the public entrance today is at 62 rue d'Alésia. If you are following an older source, you are looking for the same place.

Can you go in?

Yes, it is still a working café-brasserie. It pairs naturally with the Bouquet d'Alésia a few hundred metres away and with 18 villa Seurat — the three make a short Miller walk in the 14th, well away from the Montparnasse cafés he is usually associated with.

Writers who knew this place

Henry Miller

American · The Brooklyn dropout who arrived in Paris broke at thirty-eight and wrote the exuberant, banned books that ended American censorship.

Frequented by

A regular meeting point for Miller, Alfred Perlès and Michael Fraenkel in the 1930s — the arguments with Fraenkel fed the method behind Tropic of Cancer.

— The Hamlet Correspondence

Within walking distance

Café · Alésia (14th)

Le Bouquet d'Alésia

A corner café-brasserie in the 14th, and one of the few Paris addresses Henry Miller names himself. In a manuscript dated 17 March 1937 he places himself here, examining a section of the café's marble counter with the painter David Edgar.

Visit the place

The Villa Seurat today — pale modernist façades, black-framed studio glazing, and cobbles down the private lane

Apartment · Parc de Montsouris

18 Villa Seurat

Henry Miller's studio flat from 1934 to 1939 — the headquarters of the Villa Seurat circle, and the address where Tropic of Cancer was delivered to the door the day he moved in.

Visit the place

Street · Plaisance / Montparnasse

Rue du Château

A workers' street behind the Montparnasse yards with two literary lives — the surrealists' communal house at No. 54, and Henry Miller's broke wanderings looking for a friend and a meal.

Visit the place

Landmark · Denfert-Rochereau (Montparnasse's southern edge)

The Catacombs of Paris

The Catacombs are a municipal ossuary in a disused limestone quarry twenty metres under the 14th arrondissement, holding the remains of several million Parisians moved out of the city's overflowing graveyards from 1786 onward. The visit is a 1.5 km one-way walk, 131 steps down and 112 up, at a constant 14°C. Open Tuesday to Sunday, 9.45 a.m.–8.30 p.m., last admission 7.30 p.m.; full rate €31.

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.