La Pipeletfe

Behind a glass door near the entrance to every apartment house in Paris sits a well-upholstered Cerberus who can purr contentedly or breathe fire at will. She (usually it is a she) is the Parisian concierge. Parisians call her La Pipelette, after Mme. Pipelet, a garrulous character in a popular French novel (The Mysteries of Paris). Paris knows her well, courts her favor, dreads and cherishes her power and protection. Last week, La Pipelette's very existence was threatened, and with it a bittersweet slice of Parisian life.

For a Consideration. In a moment of ill-advised generosity, France's Chamber of Deputies voted to up the concierge's wages by 300%. Thrifty Parisian landlords were sacking their watchdogs right & left. By last week, some 6,000 had lost their jobs.

To many a visitor from foreign lands, La Pipelette might seem expendable. The concierge's duty, wrote a German essayist some years ago, is "to open the front door for tenants because they have no keys. Why have they no keys? Because there is a concierge to open the front door."

This Teutonic definition totally missed the point. Opening the front door is a purely incidental duty for La Pipelette. She has chores which include leasing apartments, delivering mail, sweeping the halls, and collecting both garbage and rents. She is the voice of conscience and the threat of retribution. She sees everything and understands much. Monsieur, she notices, is taking on weight. La Pipelette has a brother-in-law who is concierge at an establishment where gentlemen's waistlines are held in check by fencing or judo. For a consideration, Madame could make arrangements.

For the bachelor who receives visitors at odd hours, La Pipelette can keep a discreet tongue in her head--for a consideration, of course. For the brave young couple on the fifth floor struggling along on nothing a year--well, La Pipelette might act as baby-sitter for one evening, and there would be no charge.

One Never Knows. For years, department-store credit managers, income-tax investigators and the parents of the girl engaged to the young man upstairs have come regularly to La Pipelette for information about her tenants. They are answered in direct ratio to the generosity of the tips Madame has received at rent-collecting time, at New Year's and for special services. Even the Paris police call on her for information. During the war the Resistance used the concierge as a perfectly positioned spy. Allied airmen shot down over France were passed safely across Paris from one concierge to another till they found a chance to escape.

At all times, La Pipelette must be circumspect. In Paris at present there are three unions of concierges, one Catholic, one Communist, one in the center (Force Ouvriere). A quarter of Parisian concierges are members of all three, for "after all, Monsieur, one never knows how it may all turn out, n'est-ce pas?"

Next week the concierges of Paris will hold a mass meeting in protest against the wholesale dismissals, without, of course, giving up what the government had given them. Most Parisians will be staunchly on the side of La Pipelette. No matter how the world's affairs turn out, La Pipelette should be kept there, at her glass door, seeing everything.

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