FOR the past twenty years or so, the mania for old furniture and collecting has wreaked havoc. Once, only the very wealthy wanted to assemble rare pieces in their homes. Today, there are legions of those who claim to possess artistic knowledge and present themselves as knowledgeable collectors. And, well! Since valuable furniture and old paintings are all known, valued, and cataloged, the following naturally happens: to satisfy this clientele, richer in imagination than in money, a new industry has been created: the manufacture of old items.

Old items are made every day, in workshops in Montmartre or obscure shops in Belleville. They are also made abroad, particularly in Germany and Italy. They are scattered in profusion in all the second-hand shops and pseudo-antique dealers. They're currently being displayed in broad daylight on the sidewalks of Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, where the annual scrap metal fair is held.

Scrap metal is still found at this fair, well-known to Parisians. But thanks to the new craze, it's mainly bric-a-brac that's the main attraction. For less fortunate collectors, one can discover Louis XVI armchairs made in the year 1925 and signed Rembrandts—yes, my dear—by the brush of a painter from the Place du Tertre. Should we complain? After all, it keeps the business going, and everyone is happy: the buyer who thought they got a great deal and the seller who did!

It seems, moreover, that the taste for collecting is inherent in the human soul. Aside from lovers of old paintings and furniture, there are many other categories. Postage stamp collectors, for example. But there are also some that are even stranger.

We know about pipe collections. That of the Duke of Deux-Ponts was valued at 100,000 florins. In 1830, the pipes assembled by General Vendamme fetched 60,000 francs at public auction. There are also collections of keys, locks, buttons, cigar bands, horseshoes, and dog collars. An English naval officer had assembled specimens of all shapes and qualities of red, white, and gray beans. A German had gathered in vast cupboards 3,889 aprons of all kinds: aprons for servants, waiters, workers, surgeons, and schoolchildren.

Frederick the Great had assembled 1,500 snuff boxes; The comedian Tlapisson, thousands of whistles, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, umbrellas. Doctor Chardon had collected 3,000 corks of all shapes and sizes. Mr. Larenaudes preferred the slippers of famous dancers. A certain Mr. Lhéritier had found a way to create a herbarium with the flora of the Place Vendôme, and the Viscount de Barancé, in his château in Anjou, displayed an apartment filled with the eggs of all known oviparous animals.

Sir Walter Rothschild, who collected... fleas, died in London some time before the war. He owned 3,000 specimens of the most varied breeds. Only one was missing for a long time: the polar fox flea. He decided to place an advertisement in the Canadian newspapers, and a few months later, a trapper there sent him, in a sealed bottle, three superb specimens of polar fleas. He paid 3,000 francs for these three fleas. It's true that he was both a Rothschild and a collector!

But in this sort of mania, one encounters, alongside gaiety and whimsy, the macabre.
Sir Thomas de Tyrwitt spent his life searching for hanged men's ropes. M. Goron, the former head of the Sûreté, kept mementos of all the assassins who had passed through his hands. A facetious journalist even reproached him one day for having had a wallet made from a piece of Pranzini's skin.

In this genre, however, the most curious collection was the one formed by M. Deibler, the father of the current executioner. In the room where the courtrooms were housed, M. Deibler had gathered about fifty overcoats or old jackets, most of them mediocre in appearance and faded. Each of these garments had been thrown over the shoulders of a condemned man as he was being led to the guillotine. On each of these funeral souvenirs, the meticulous collector had pinned a label bearing the name and date. And this inscription, of course, was written in red ink!

It's not within everyone's reach to build such original collections. And perhaps, apart from the current passion for antiques, this is what makes the scrap metal fair and other flea market realms so successful.

Roger RÉGIS.