Most Serene Federal Republic of Montmartre

The Most Serene Federal Republic of Montmartre (or the Serene Republic of Montmartre and Her Dependencies, or in brief the Republic of Montmartre) is either a micronation or an extended political satire. It is mostly within the boundaries of New York City's Manhattan.

Not to be confused with Montmartre in Paris, France; or la République de Montmartre.
Most Serene Federal Republic of Montmartre
Micronation
1977 listing in New York Telephone phone book's government pages, p. 949
1977 listing in New York Telephone phone book's government pages, p. 949
Organizational structureFederal republic[1]
President 
• c. 1965–present
Barry Alan Richmond[1][2]
Establishment
• Declared
Purportedly 1636 (1636).[1]
Otherwise c. 1965 (1965)
Area claimed
• Total
1,294 km2 (500 sq mi)[3]
or maybe much less[4]
Population
• Estimate
16 million;[3][5]
or maybe far fewer.[4]

C. 1965,[6] Barry Alan Richmond (born c. 1933),[4] a stage actor/director,[7][8][9] theatrical designer,[5][10] and theatre promoter,[11] author of articles on the Grand Guignol,[12] proclaimed the Most Serene Federal Republic of Montmartre's existence and borders (mostly within Manhattan's theatre district, "roughly 39th to 59th Street with a strip up the Hudson River to where the boat basin is, and from the middle of Fifth Avenue over to what international laws call the thalweg, which is the navigable channel in the middle of the Hudson River")[6][5]... but set its origin at 1636. To some extent this may have been a piece of performance art in itself;[13] but it exchanged mutual recognition with other such small organizations (micronations and governments-in-exile), and was acknowledged by the International Micropatrological Society.[1][6][14] Richmond is named as its 47th president,[1] among other titles.[2]

Phone book listing

On June 24, 1977, a New York Public Service Commission hearing was held in the World Trade Center's South Tower to resolve a dispute between Richmond and New York Telephone, concerning the "Montmartre Govt Of" listing in the blue-pages (government) section of the phone book, as depicted to the right. NYT wanted to remove that listing; Richmond wanted it kept. On June 29, Richmond sought an injunction in federal court to stop the removal; he didn't get one.[13] On June 30, the PSC's hearing examiner ruled in favor of NYT, but on July 7 the PSC said that statement was "vacated". This dispute was reported before the hearings in Mother Jones magazine,[4] and the month after the hearings in the Los Angeles Times (on the front page)[13] and New York Magazine.[1]

So the game is over. Some laughter is still heard on Olympus, however.

— editorial comment,
"The Montmartre Caper"
Stevens Point [WI] Journal
(July 7, 1977)[15]

I'm not sure who's winning, but I hope it's Montmartre.

— Denny MacGougan,
The News Tribune
(August 7, 1977)[16]

On August 23, 1977, NYT began distributing 955,000 new phone books, without the listing for Montmartre.[17][18] An early April 1978 AP news item reported that Richmond had just lost a court case (on April 5) seeking the inclusion of that listing.[19] In early December 1979, Richmond announced that the PSC had ruled in his favor and Montmartre's listing would be restored to the NYT phone book; news quoted an NYT spokesman complaining that this was "simply not fair".[20][21][22]

Grand Guignol

In a January 2001 article for the Financial Times, Mark Wallace reported that Richmond was focusing on a revival of the Grand Guignol (a grotesque theatre style from the original Montmartre in Paris), to which he then held the rights.[4][23][24] The project was to be funded by selling Richmond's extensive collection of theatre and movie memorabilia, including original film programs, e.g. from Star Wars and Gone with the Wind.[6]

Richmond's trademark for "Grand-Guignol" was last renewed in May 2002, but expired in January 2016.[24]

See also

References
  1. Cohen, Randy (July 18, 1977). "Ma Bell v. Montmartre: A Ruritanian Melodrama". New York Magazine. Vol. 10, no. 29. p. 56. Retrieved July 2, 2020 – via Google Books. [This reports the June 24 PSC hearing.]
  2. Barry Alan Richmond also appears together with other real people in an entirely fictional mystery novel:
    • Kaye, Marvin (1977). The Laurel and Hardy Murders. New York: Mysterious Press. ISBN 978-0525143970. Retrieved July 2, 2020 – via Google Books. Across three pages, pp. 58–60, the character Richmond declares his complete title for the record.
  3. Torres, John A.; Healey, Tim (2017). The World's Weirdest News Stories. New York: Enslow Publishing. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-7660-8377-6. Retrieved March 22, 2023 – via Google Books. The [directory] entries had been made by Barry Alan Richmond, who claimed to rule sixteen million people within a 500-hundred[sic]-square-mile (1,294 sq-km) territory in New York State.
  4. "And Now, Mes Amis, The King of Montmartre". Mother Jones Magazine "Frontlines". Vol. 2, no. 2. February–March 1977. p. 4. Retrieved July 2, 2020 – via Google Books. [Note: the article refers to Richmond as "king" and "monarch"; Richmond himself asserts the title of "president" as befits the head of a "republic".]
  5. Keiser, Gretchen (February 6, 1977). "Dream country just north of the mind". The Reporter Dispatch. White Plains, New York. p. 2. Retrieved March 18, 2023 – via Newspapers.com. ... Richmond, a 44-year-old theatrical designer and self-proclaimed President of the Republic (elected by popular vote of 16 million Montmartrians), who adds that he registered the name with the county clerk in 1974 and that he pays a dollar a month for each listing in the phone book. ... The boundaries are alternately distinct and vague, including the entire theatrical district of Manhattan from W. 40th Street to W. 59th Street and from Fifth Avenue to the Hudson River, which is Lower Montmartre; 500 miles north of the Croton Reservoir, or Middle Montmartre, and something north of that which is Upper Montmartre.
  6. Wallace, Mark (January 20, 2001). "Drama Unfolds of a Little Empire". Financial Times, weekend section. Archived from the original on March 18, 2023. Retrieved July 2, 2020 – via BoyReporter.com (author's website). Apparently, a group of 17th century French settlers from what was then the village of Montmartre, outside the city of Paris, established a colony on the island of Manhattan 'in what is roughly contiguous with what is now the theatre district'. The year was 1636. ... 'The original colony was cut off from the motherland during the fighting between the French and the British,' Richmond says, referring to the French and Indian war of the 1750s and 1760s. 'A treaty was signed with the British, which the US later had to accept, and to this day we have an independent country inside North America. The original settlement on the island of Manhattan is occupied by the US in a legal concept similar to that of the Panama Canal Zone.'
  7. "Brandeis G&S". Boston Globe. May 1, 1957. p. 30. Retrieved March 21, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. "Scapegoat, The : 'An Imaginative, Stinging and Pertinent Play' by John F. Matthews (Based on 'The Trial' by Franz Kafka). Produced at the Riverside Church Playhouse (NYC - 1961) starring Edwin F. Beschler, Charles Hudson, Anne Draper, etc. Directed by Barry Alan Richmond". Box: 87. Belknap Playbills and Programs Collection, ufplaybills. Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
  9. "G.S. Sock and Buskin Casts Grand Guignol". Barnard Bulletin. New York, New York. December 11, 1961. p. 2. Retrieved March 19, 2023 – via Newspapers.com. The General Studies Sock and Buskin Theatre Arts Program has begun casting for the American Premiere of four plays from the repertoire of the Grand Guignol Theatre of France. ... The four plays to be presented offer a sampling from one of the world's most unusual theatres famed for its broad sex farces and frightening horror plays. The plays, entitled 'In the Lavatory,' 'At the End of the Rope,' 'Orgy in the Lighthouse,' and 'Desire and Disarray,' will be under the direction of Barry Alan Richmond. Mr. Richmond is the author of the film scenario for Hans W. Rosenhaupt'sa 'The True Deceivers'.b
    (a) 1911–1985, long-time director and later president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. He shared with his novel's protagonist being a German-born American who served in WWII as an interrogator with U.S. Army intelligence, per the New York Times review of that book (October 10, 1954, p.BR–37). See also his obituary at the New York Times (April 23, 1985, p. D–27).
    (b) Rosenhaupt, Hans W. (1954). The True Deceivers. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. OCLC 1692644.
  10. Eyer, Ron (January 14, 1974). "A Manhattan Treat: Bronx Opera Group". Daily News. New York. p. 49. Retrieved March 20, 2023 – via Newspapers.com. They are underpinned by a very good orchestra... and their sets and costumes, neatly designed by Barry Alan Richmond and Dona Granata, no doubt are the best their money can buy. This adds up to a serious production that is not to be sniffed at.
  11. Also with an IMDb page;
    and see "Crew worked with" on his ElCinema profile.
  12. E.g. • Richmond, Barry Alan (May 1995). "The Grand-Guignol Theater of Paris". In Rupe, Shade (ed.). Funeral Party Volume 1. Horror Society of New York University. ASIN B001S2TO6K. Archived from the original on October 27, 2015. [Now out of print, and a collectors' item; expensive.]
    The above article is mentioned in: • Groves, Adam (2023). "Books about the Grand Guignol (Commentary)". On & Off Productions / The Bedlam Files. Retrieved March 19, 2023.
    • Richmond, Barry Alan (November 1, 1998). "Le Grand-Guignol aux Amériques". Europe: Revue Littéraire Mensuelle (in French). Vol. 76, no. 835. pp. 220–237 – via ProQuest.
  13. Powers, Charles T. (July 1, 1977). "Furore over Fictitious Listing: N.Y. Telephone Goes to Court Over Montmartre". Los Angeles Times. pp. 1, 19. Retrieved July 2, 2020 – via Newspapers.com. p. 19: In the papers he filed before Judge Knapp, Richmond, who speaks of all his enterprises with an earnest high seriousness, wrote — 'I set up a political fiction that 300 and some years ago, Frenchmen came here, settled on Manhattan, got cut off from France and became an independent republic right in the heart of Manhattan. No deceit was intended, nor have I ever been accused of such. The purpose was for total theater, the construction of our own buildings and a new financing system for the arts, humanitarian efforts, political satire and laughter.' [This reports the July 29 federal court hearing. Free viewing:] p. 1 scan, p. 19 scan.
  14. "New Englander Claims the Scottish Throne". The Cincinnati Enquirer. July 27, 1978. p. E–18. Retrieved July 2, 2020 – via Newspapers.com. [Prince James Edward] Stuart [who claims the Scottish throne and a Jacobite government-in-exile] maintains ties with another exiled government: the Serene Federal Republic of Montmartre, run by a tongue-in-cheek president Barry Alan Richmond, who claims most of Manhattan, the Hudson Valley and Kennedy Airport for his country's territory. [Note the "Royal Scottish Jacobite Govt" mention in the Montmartre phone listing. Prince James shows up as a witness in the NY Magazine article above, Cohen 1977.]
    Note: at that time the legitimate heir of the Stuart claim to the throne was Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria. Since 1996 it has been his son, Franz, Duke of Bavaria. His heir-presumptive is his brother Prince Max, Duke in Bavaria. There is no-one named "James Edward Stuart" downward from there.
    "Prince James"'s wife Christene Quigley later shows up as having married "Bernard-Alexis, VI Marquis de Menars, Prince de Bourbon-Vendôme", per chivalricorders.org; a "Marquis Bernard-Alexis Poisson de Menars" had a rent-controlled Manhattan apartment (which he sublet out for about ten times as much), per the (NYC) Daily News, Jan. 9 1987, p. 4. (It was just up E. 70th St. from Richmond's residence.) The Marquis got a skeptical review by William Langley's "Hot Air to the Throne" in London's Evening Standard, Aug. 3 1990, p. 13, which noted that the "Marquis"'s claimed title "perished" with Madame Pompadour. (The funeral notice Langley mentions, from Le Figaro, July 20, 1990, was reprinted in Lys rouge #43, 2nd trimester 1991, p.2. Langley notes that the "Order of the Grand Occident" in there was created by the "Marquis" himself in 1970. The other orders mentioned, of "St. John" and "Malta d'Orient", are different from the official names of the Order of Saint John (chartered 1888) and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. The late website chivalricorders.com discussed such 'self-styled' orders.) Someone from New York using that name and title was accused of trying to scam Congo's former finance minister for a multimillion-dollar letter of credit, per Johannesburg's Mail & Guardian, Feb. 13, 1998. On Apr. 5, 2007, his name and title showed up in a Belgian alert regarding a U.S. investigation into "alleged investment fraud and money laundering", per offshorealert.com. On Oct 18, 2018, "Christene Evelyn Quigley Stuart De Menars and Cedric Gabriel de Bourbon-Poisson" were named as parties in a legal notice on p. 7B (PDF p. 27) of Oklahoma City's The Journal Record. In May 2018 a portrait of "Louis XV as a child" was sold at auction with provenance "Estate of Bernard-Alexis Poisson de Menars, NY". As of 2021-2022 (but not renewed for the next year), "Bernard Poisson" was still listed as registered agent in NY of the "Order of the Grand Occident" (founded 1976), mentioned in articles above. In Spring 2023, several Renaissance-style artworks went up for auction as from the "Estate of Bernard-Alexis Poisson de Menars, NY".
  15. "(To the Point—Comment and Columns) The Montmartre Caper". Stevens Point Journal. Stevens Point, Wisconsin. July 7, 1977. p. 4. Retrieved March 20, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. "(MacGougan At Large) Or you could start your own country". The News Tribune. Tacoma, Washington. August 7, 1977. p. 2. Retrieved March 21, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. "NY's 'foreign country' left out of phone book". Lawrence Journal-World. Associated Press. August 23, 1977. p. 7. Retrieved March 18, 2023 – via Google News.
  18. Burgard, Steve (August 24, 1977). "'Ma Bell' wins war against 'foreign nation'". The Reporter Dispatch. White Plains, New York. p. 5. Retrieved March 20, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. "Listing nixed". Times and Democrat. Orangeburg, South Carolina. Associated Press. April 6, 1978. p. 23. Retrieved March 20, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. "People (column)". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. December 3, 1979. p. 6. Retrieved March 19, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. "(Etcetera) Shanghaied". Miami News. December 5, 1979. p. 20. Retrieved March 20, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. Duvoisin, Marc (December 2, 1979). "A republic within a republic?". The Record. Hackensack, New Jersey. p. 5. Retrieved March 21, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. "Class 41—Education and Entertainment [trademarks]". Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce; Patent and Trademark Office. 1136 (4): TM 330. March 24, 1992. Retrieved March 19, 2023. 1,680,640. GRAND–GUIGNOL. RICHMOND, BARRY ALAN, DBA THEATRE DU GRAND–GUIGNOL DE PARIS, DBA NATIONAL THEATRE OF MONTMARTRE AND DBA EMBASSY OF MONTMARTRE (U.S. CL. 107). SN 74–068–872. PUB 12–31–1991. FILED 6–14–1990.
  24. "GRAND-GUIGNOL — Trademark Details". Justia Trademarks. June 14, 1990. Retrieved March 18, 2023.

40°46′1.272″N 73°57′31.896″W

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