But Who Will Be Concierge to the Concierges?

The concierges of Paris, like French shopgirls, come from a single mold. But where shopgirls are uniformly stocky, black-haired, pertly dark-eyed and, no matter how unpretty, filled with a lively charm, concierges have pulled-back hair, grey skin and grey souls. The typical concierge wears round-frame glasses, black stockings, a shapeless dress and old felt slippers, and, in the profane opinion of most Parisians, is rude, inquisitive, grasping, lazy, and brimming with malign gossip.

But last week, a startling change had come over the city's concierges. They ostentatiously polished brass and industriously sewed rips in the hall carpeting. A tenant's "Bon jour" met with a joyous response instead of surly silence. The concierges suddenly delighted in performing small favors, and mail was distributed in a matter of minutes, not hours. This gracious rebirth of courtesy is an annual event caused by etrennes, the New Year's tips from tenants which ordinarily make up the better part of a concierge's income.

The Ideal Informer. The concierge system dates back to Napoleon Bonaparte, who cannily required the installation of a person on the ground floor of every residence in Paris whose job was to watch over the inhabitants. With tiny salaries and vast stocks of information about every tenant, the concierge --in Napoleon's time and since--has been the ideal informer for police, income tax agents and suspicious husbands. As a result, the word concierge is synonymous with bad taste, ignorance and lack of scruples.

By law, concierges are divided into four categories, and those in the most common category, the second, have 14 specific duties to perform, from disposing of garbage and locking the outside doors to preventing pipes from freezing and watching out for leaks and fires. Concierges are stationed in loges, usually combined ground-floor offices and small apartments which are rent-free. Salaries run from $10 to $20 a month, and concierges are expected to be on duty from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., six days a week. If a concierge goes on vacation, she must find a substitute at her own expense. Traditionally, concierges have also been on call all night in order to open the street door for everyone going in and out by pulling a cordon, a rope which releases the door catch.

Subhuman Treatment. Concierges have had a few defenders. Frederic-Dupont, a former independent Deputy for Paris, argued so eloquently for a bill freeing concierges from the cordon that when he rose to speak other Deputies would shout the traditional cry: "Cordon, s'il vous plait!" His bill was passed in 1957, and most doors are now opened by an electrical release in the tenant's own apartment, as in the U.S.

In the full-employment France of today, it is surprising that anyone will work the long hours at low pay required of the concierge. Rene Laffon, head of the biggest of four concierge unions, says, "People do it just to get housing. It used to be a sort of profession. Now you have young couples who can't find an apartment, or elderly widows with no income and nowhere to go." Frederic-Dupont claims that concierges are not so much surly as suffering, from loneliness, illness, malnutrition and exhaustion. He adds: "They are continually interrupted at whatever they're doing by people who burst into their loges without knocking, who are demanding and impolite and who sometimes treat them like subhumans. They are badly housed in tiny, airless corners and hardly ever go to the doctor because they can't afford it and can't leave."

Since World War II, the number of Paris concierges--who are about 95% women--has dropped from 80,000 to 64,000, and the decline is continuing, largely because most new apartment buildings dispense with concierges entirely. Yet those who still have jobs cling to them as long as possible because, on retirement, they are entitled to only a minimal social security payment. Touched by the dismal prospect facing aged concierges, Union President Laffon raised money from the government, property owners and insurance companies for a retirement home to open this spring at Lardy, 27 miles from Paris. When completed, it will house 83 persons who can happily spend their declining years refusing to answer knocks on their doors, or peering down long corridors at other ex-concierges who peer suspiciously back at them. Still unfound: someone willing to be concierge for Lardy's ex-concierges.

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