On 6th Aug,1920, Rabindranath started for Paris.Some ex-students of Bolpore school namely Himangsu Roy,Tapan Mohan Chattopadhyay, Nalini Gupta helped them to avail of the train in Victoia station and Miss Kling Hofferand Milburn was present in the station to see him off.In an inclement weather they crossed the English channel and reached Paris on 6th aug in the evening.
Sudhir Kumar Rudra, son of the principal of St. Stephen College Sushil Kumar Rudra, was present at Paris.He made arrangements for their accommodation in Rue Cambon, a metropolitan Hotel. Rabindranath became pleased for a chnge of weather though the hotel was not so good.
After many attempts a nice guest house Autour du Monde, situated in 9 Quai du Quatre Septembre, BoulogueSur Seine, was made available to them at the suburban of Paris and he became guest of a rich Jewish
Albert Kahn , the owner of the guest house. Mr. Chatterjee of YMCA made an arrangements for them a show in a grand opera, Foust in the evening.The sight of the place was very beautiful. Being pleased Rabindranath said that after leaving his country he was placed in a homely place.
Andre Karpeles ( 1885-1956) and Suzanne Karpeles was introduced earlier with Tagore family when they had come to India.Having known the arrival of Rabindranath Tagore both of them used to come to Rabindranath everyday.The elder onr Andre had drawn of Rabindranath and the younger one was translating the poems of Rabindranath from Lipika. Rabindranath was going to recite the poems in English and she was translating them instantaneously in French.
In their house Rabindranath and others met with Prof. Golobew and Fino and previously known Professor of Harvard University Prof James Woods and his wife .
On being invited Rabindranath and his party went to see the Golobew Musee Guimet on 14th Aug.Golobew showed them the sample collected from East Indian Statues in slides.and wanted to present some of the copies of these slides to Ashram in Santiniketan.
They also met there Miss Comptesse de Brimontwho was the the 2nd female modern poet among the female poets of France. She invited them in a tea party.
They got the first hand information about the then painters of France with the help of Andre. Their pictures did not get any place in the Govt. sponsored Museum at that time. The artists were Suzzanne, Manne, Renowa, Gongo, Van Gogh, Rande. Andre took them to Place de Madeleine, a shop of Pictures to show them some pictures of those artists. Rathindranath wrote ,' the effect on us was overwhelming.
Van Gogh specially impressed me.
