Lop, Lop,
Lop, Lop, Lop,
Lop, Lop, Lop, Lop, Lop...’
The Antilopes held that the Master (as he was always addressed) was not merely on the wrong track but that his motives were wholly evil. As he discoursed to his disciples in the Coupole, the Antilopes would interrupt with vociferous charges that he was a hireling of the Communist Party, that he was in the pay of the banking interests, that he was planning to take over the Latin Quarter by armed force, that if elected he would introduce Triple and perhaps Quadruple Summer Time. Everyone knew, they would clamour, while the Lopistes shook outraged fists at them, that poverty should not be suppressed until 11.00 pm at the earliest and that it was the Boulevard St Germain rather than the Boulevard St Michel which should be extended to the coast. ‘A bas Lop! Down with the Boulevard St Michel!’
At the meetings periodically convened by Lop to clarify his theories (as if they needed any clarification), Lopistes and Antilopes bawled impassioned insults at each other. I was present at one especially violent gathering. Lop concluded his speech (‘Yes, ladies and gentlemen, to the coast, I say!’) and invited the audience, university students most of them, to put any questions they might wish. A young man rose to his feet and spoke with undisguised emotion. ‘For years,’ he said, ‘I have been a Lopiste, unswerving in my loyalty to the Master. Recently, however, I was shown a photograph of undeniable authenticity which has caused me to revise my position radically. This photograph, my friends, taken during the war, showed the interior of a German submarine. And those present in that submarine consisted of Hitler, Goring, Goebbels—and Ferdinand Lop! I accuse Ferdinand Lop of having masterminded the U-boat campaign!’
‘A vile falsehood, a calumny!’ bellowed Lop. ‘At no time did I respond to the approaches made to me by Hitler and his associates. The photograph in question can only be a montage concocted by my enemies. De Gaulle? Churchill? A certain waiter at the Coupole known to all of you for his anti-Lop sentiments? It is for you to discover the ruffian responsible.’
The meeting, as they say, broke up in disorder. To cries of ‘Lop, the war criminal!’ from the Antilopes, the Lopistes responded with a sacramental rendition of the Lopiste hymn:
'Lop, Lop, Lop,
Lop, Lop, Lop,
Lop, Lop, Lop, Lop, Lop...’
With half humanity cringing in case some nitwitted sophomore should accuse them of a breach of political correctness, it seems almost incredible that there was a time when students were able to take life light-heartedly. They could, though, and they did. There must be a large number of lawyers and notaries and surgeons who remember Ferdinand Lop with gratitude as an unfailing begetter of laughter.
What I found peculiarly appealing about all the nonsense of Monsieur de Beauharnais and Ferdinand Lop was that nobody ever jeered at them. Both were treated with respect—mock respect, of course, but with no mockery apparent. But was Lop, in particular, as barmy as he appeared? Or was he diverting himself by seeing how far he could carry absurdity without cracking our courteous deference?
The possibility first crossed my mind one evening when Pierre and I were drinking at the Coupole. The Master joined us at our table. ‘This is in the strictest confidence,’ he told us with deep solemnity, ‘but I know I can count on your discretion.’ He looked around to make sure nobody was eavesdropping. ‘My engagement to Princess Margaret has definitely been broken off.’
Pierre, always equal to any occasion, adopted an expression in which incredulity and perturbation were impeccably blended. ‘But, Maître, surely this can be no more than a regrettable lovers’ tiff. With so much depending on the marriage ...’
‘No, mon cher,’ Lop replied. ‘Our Government has informed me that in no circumstances can it countenance the match.’
‘Incredible, Maître! What inconceivable short-sightedness! These politicians! Can they not see what such a union would do to cement relations between England and France?’
Lop smiled wearily. ‘Of course, of course, mon cher. But you overlook a fundamental difficulty. Were I to enter into marriage with Her Royal Highness I would be compelled to take up residence at Buckingham Palace. The Government cannot agree to my leaving France at this critical time.’
In the intervals between saluting Monsieur de Beauharnais and listening to Ferdinand Lop’s closely reasoned arguments in favour of extending the Boulevard St Michel, we could always cluster round the Coupole’s resident scholar. We never knew his name. To reveal it, he explained, would place him in mortal danger. As the repository of certain vital secrets, he was being sought by the intelligence services of half-a-dozen powers. The fiends would stop at nothing to prevent him from telling all he knew. We could call him Monsieur X.
If he didn’t tell us all he knew, he told us enough to demonstrate that he was a man of prodigious erudition. Science, literature, history—he was at home in every field of human knowledge and we learnt things we had never suspected. Constantinople, for instance—none of us had realised until Monsieur X threw out the information that Constantinople was a mediaeval poet, unduly neglected but whose compositions were on a par with those of Vercingetorix. We hadn’t known that Newton’s Fourth Law was embodied in British jurisprudence and that it stipulated the penalties for housebreaking and counterfeiting. Hieroglyphs, Monsieur X explained to one of his listeners, were only dangerous in the mating season and were at all times notably less aggressive than cosines.
We were so awed by Monsieur X’s scholarship that it came as no surprise to us when he obtained an appointment as a high-school teacher. A newspaper report which appeared not long afterwards shattered us all. Monsieur X, it stated, had been arrested and sentenced to a prison term for having used forged papers to get the post. At least that was the official story. Our own view was that one of the intelligence services must have caught up with him at last.
For me, there was no other place quite like the Coupole. The Dôme was never so welcoming. However hard you tried (supposing you wanted to try) there was no hope of summoning up the ghosts of Hemingway and his friends. The Select, across the road, was brisk, too brisk to make a suitable setting for Monsieur de Beauharnais and Ferdinand Lop. A few hundred metres away was the Closerie des Lilas. Little brass plates were fixed to certain tables bearing the names of celebrated clients who had sat there. Lenin was one of them. It was unlikely that he would have chosen to infest the Closerie in its present guise. The decor was refined. The clientele was well dressed, well behaved and well heeled. Lenin would no longer have felt at home there and the prices would be well out of his reach. They were certainly out of mine.
If you went outside Montparnasse (but habitués like myself didn’t often do anything so bizarre) you could choose between the St Germain cafés. I was quite happy to leave the choosing to other people. The Deux Magots (or was it the Flore?) was full of tourists, when these started coming back to Paris, all looking for some existentialists to make an appearance. Lipp specialised in serving politicians. Unless you had spent some years making a public pest of yourself as a minister or deputy (and collecting a fortune in the process) you were made to feel an intruder.
But there was never a moment when your heart wasn’t lightened by the prospect of dropping in at the Coupole to shake hands with the waiters, all of them old friends, to listen to Robert’s ironic reflections on life and the vagaries of customers, to eat a couple of sausages with fried potatoes (the cheapest dish on the menu and no less delicious for that) and to drink a sérieux of beer. (If someone else was paying, you ordered a formidable instead.) The Coupole was more precious to us than the Louvre. And we didn’t have to look at Sartre in his corner.
