Paris Bouquinistes: part of a dying breed
June 21, 2006 - Agence France Presse
“That guy’s a book thief.” Twenty seconds later, “this one is a well-known, third-generation photographer. I’ve known all three.” After 30 years on the Paris quays, Alain Frolich seems to know every other person who walks past his second-hand book stand.
Frolich, 65, is a bouquiniste, one of about 250 sellers of old books, magazines, souvenir posters and trinkets hawking their wares from the dark green boxes that line the River Seine.
But slowly the Internet is changing the way bouquinistes do business.
And Frolich, who retires at the end of June, is one of the last of a dying breed and one of the few who still specializes in old books, instead of catering to tourists with popular souvenirs such as mini Eiffel Towers.
Chez Frolich, the definition of “old” seems a few decades behind that of other book lovers. He flipped through the pages of a book printed in 1944, which doesn’t even make the cut. Later, he scanned a copy of the Gazette, which he said was the first newspaper in France, first printed in the 1600s.
Smoking a mini Davidoff cigar, he read the Gazette as if it was today’s Le Monde, interested in finding out what was going on in the world 350 years ago.
Most of his books are works of art in themselves, beautiful, gold-lettered, leather-bound volumes written by authors like Emile Zola and Marcel Proust.
He hasn’t always been in the book trade.
“One day I was walking along the quay and a guy asked me if I’d watch his stall.”
A former jack of all trades, with previous careers such as a musician and actor, Frolich quickly fell for the job.
“There are no set hours, I’m not afraid of hot or cold. I love to read, I’m talkative and I’m curious,” he said. “It was perfect for me.”
“I didn’t know anything about books, but as the years go by, you begin to understand.”
Now, he makes what he calls an “average” living. “It’s neither great nor bad,” he said, estimating that the old book specialists on the quays make about “1,000 to 1,500 euros (1,200 to 1,900 dollars) per month - some more, some less.”
“Before, we made more money, but with the Internet, it’s gone down.”
It took him about 10 years to get a solid handle on the job, and he has been adding to his expertise ever since. “Now, if you’re starting in the business how do you find the price of something? You look on the Internet.”
Frolich does not yet feel pushed out by the Web, but he knows he soon would be. “The Internet is the biggest bookstore in the world,” he said, adding that bouquinistes just cannot match the selection.
Being able to quickly look up books, prices and locations online undercuts much of Frolich’s 30 years of experience with a couple of clicks.
His clients are a special breed, tending to be the book-hunting equivalent of antiques collectors or vinyl record aficionados.
He had set aside a copy of the 16th-century French poet Pierre de Ronsard’s “Sonnets Pour Helene” for one of his customers, Patrick Remoissenet, a computer service technician “with a preference for poetry” from the town of Velizy.
Remoissenet has a keen sense of where Frolich’s micro-industry is heading.
“There are fewer and fewer people who sell old books along the quay,” said Remoissenet. “More and more, it’s becoming stuff for tourists.”
Once Frolich is gone, it will be up to the city to decide who gets his spot. “They have a waiting list with a hundred or two hundred people who are waiting to do it,” he said. Existing bouquinistes get first refusal, followed by others on the list.
So does he hold out hope for the future of old-school bouquinistes like himself? Will his profession still be there in 10 years?
“I have no idea. The world’s already going too fast,” he said. “It will stay something for people who are passionate about books, but in the long term, I’m not sure they can hold out.”
