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Flâneurs Flâneurs in in Paris Paris and and Berlin
Berlin
Esther Leslie
The flâneur is a figure of rumor, perhaps larger in fiction than in life, more often
described and defined than glimpsed walking on city streets. But if the flâneur has
indeed paced real city streets, he would have been hard to spot, for unobtrusiveness
is his aim. The flâneur is likely to be a black-suited insubstantial presence, out and
about, snooping on the bustle of the world, then moving on. (The pronoun and the
attire are apposite – fictional and factual flânerie is, in the main, a male pursuit –
though recently female flânerie has been discussed and delineated). 1 The flâneur
is allied to the dandy, but where the usually aristocratic dandy is known for his
immaculate attention to dress and a desire for self-display (and self-publicity,
hence renowned individuals such as Count Alfred D’Orsay, Prince de Sagan, and
Beau Brummel), the flâneur is anonymous, passing by unnoticed, a product of
hearsay. Or, he never appears simply as a flâneur, but in other guises: as poet,
journalist, critic, detective, spy, shopper, gambler or crook. Flânerie may be a
pretext – the promenade is for information-gathering, a reconnaissance, a stimulus
to create, an excuse for a story. Perhaps he lives only to flâner or maybe his
dallying is a temporary pursuit, and tomorrow he resumes his routine. Little is
certain about the flâneur, and much is gossip, often put in circulation by the flâneur
himself.
The first flâneurs were native to France, indeed Paris alone, and thrived best in
the nineteenth century. The flâneur’s special way of inhabiting the streets is not
exported in those years – English dictionaries translate the word as “idler,”
unaware of the sheer energy and initiative that it takes to dwell in the streets in his
way. In 1862 a study of France in the Second Empire, aimed at English speakers,
appeared under the title Ten Years of Imperialism in France: Impressions of a
Flâneur. The anonymous author describes himself as a flâneur, but in his preface
finds it necessary to gloss the term:
In offering his impressions to the public, the “Flâneur” must apologise for his foreign
name, and explain its meaning. His apology is that no word exists in the English language
which would convey a correct idea of a Flâneur. He is not an “Idler” as is generally
supposed; on the contrary, intense activity of all faculties is one of the most necessary
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