Unveiling Belle Epoque period: The unsung era of unprecedented innovation
You can’t stuff a genie back into the bottle.
Or unring a bell.
Or turn back the clock.
That’s what I imagine the irrepressible no-holds-barred Parisian Belle Époque must have been like. Head-spinning. It’s the time period of my novel and it fascinates me.
Readers who love historical fiction often have favorite time periods. Acting like a kind of shorthand, specific names tend to represent a type of story and mood. “World War II” promises stories of bravery and resilience against high stakes and danger. “Wild West” assumes self-reliance and overcoming extreme rough-and-tumble conditions.
My story’s period—La Belle Époque —now that was one nutty time.
Powder Keg of Pent-up Tension
First, Belle Époque (1880-1917) straddles the turn-of-the-century when the calendar flipped from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. The timetable alone was the perfect excuse to leave behind the old century and adopt the new one.
In the late 1800s/early 1900s, Paris is a powder keg of pent-up tension. With wars finally over, (Napoleonic, Franco-Prussian and the Paris Commune uprising), it’s as though Parisians sigh an exhausted collective exhale of relief. Shuttered shops are opening, food is on the table. Cabarets spring up; music, singing, dancing, partying explode. Joie de vivre and optimism are in the air. Parisians feel as though their city is Europe’s shining diamond and destination.
Like Silicon Valley or the California Gold Rush wrapped in one package, the city holds a glittering promise and young people flock to the city. Their energy and hope fill the streets. The future is bright, bright, bright.
One of the biggest draws is art. Young artists seeking fame and fortune show up in droves. Vincent van Gogh is among them, traveling to Paris from the Netherlands in 1886. Popup art schools and studios spring up on street corners. Montmartre, former farmland and a hilly rabbit-warren of streets and houses on the outskirts of Paris, becomes a thriving artist community. I imagine café after café filled with artists arguing and laughing and slamming back beer.
And art dealers, too, move in. With lots of money now in the mix, they street fight to rise to the top of being recognized as the harbingers of taste, self-appointed gatekeepers protecting the status quo and dictating the imperial future they envision. Increasing influence breeds greed, competition, corruption, power struggle, and an effort to control. New ideas are suppressed (like Vincent van Gogh’s style), but like trying to play whac-a-mole, for every new painting technique the old guards whack, another one springs up.
The thing is—you can’t unscramble an egg! The period’s new irreversible, pent-up energy careens through human thought and the status quo has a big obstacle. Old rules no longer apply. An explosion of innovation is changing everyday life with dizzying speed.
For instance, new ways of getting around—like mopeds, scooters, and noiseless carriages (which later evolve to automobiles)—jostle with horse and carriages in the streets. Telephones join telegraphs to magically eliminate distance as a barrier to communication. Electric lights, escalators, diesel engines, dry cell batteries and more become conduits for even more invention.
You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube! (yup, tubed toothpaste was invented then)—change is accelerating, and it wasn’t always comfortable.
My favorite story is the first time a new art form called cinematique is shown, the film shows a locomotive swooping into a train station. Instead of applauding, the audience panics. They bolt to the back of the theater as the locomotive barrels straight at them (on screen – lol!).*
With so much disruption under foot, you know there were folks who longed for the good old days when times were simpler. And while the Belle Époque recalls images of gay partygoers and nouveaux riche, it also included a large underclass of impoverished people who lived in slums. All of this great mix of humanity is bubbling in the Belle Époque soup.
But that’s not all…
Women’s Voices Rise
You know that little uprising called the French Revolution? The one that toppled France’s monarchy and established a republic? Picking up from the American Revolution’s themes, the French, too, established a declaration of the rights of man, impacting ideas about individual liberty and democracy worldwide. And in the BelleÉpoque, these universal ideas about equality were applied to (gulp!) women’s suffrage. It was an unintended consequence, but also a natural outcome of loosening up and freeing thought…so much so that new ideas about women’s roles in society spread.
There were attempts to suppress women’s voices (my heroine Jo had to persist to be heard), but the cat was out of the bag, and ideas of freedom in many forms blossomed.
So, while intellectually I know that a calendar is human-made and inherently meaningless, I like the idea that the turn-of-the-century moment in 1900 held amazing impact. A brand-new century meant a do-over fresh start. Fostering an environment open to possibility broke through barriers from technological to societal. Imagination, fueled by hope and relief, led to astounding innovation and new ways of living.
Because of this, I believe in the power of imagination.
So, while the Belle Époque is unlikely to catch on with historical fiction readers with the same universal recognition that World War II or the Wild West have, it’s a pivotal period and intriguing backdrop for a story. How were world views changing? How did people adapt to innovation? What did they resist? What new seemingly illogical ideas were bubbling up?
As usual, historical fiction shows up as an interesting parallel to the present.
Let me end with a quote from a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who lived during the Belle Époque period, Neils Bohr. He said, “No, no, you’re not thinking; you’re just being logical.”
How’s that for an irrepressible idea?
Warmly,
P.S. *The story of the riot caused by the film of a locomotive is an urban legend, but I enjoy the idea of it. See Silent film that causes stampede.
In addition to film, another critical Belle Époque invention is the Loysel Percolator, capable of making 2,000 cups of coffee per hour. Now that’s progress!
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