Lodging · 1928–1929
Last Paris flat
Address · 55, avenue de Suffren, 75007 Paris
Metro · La Motte-Picquet–Grenelle (6, 8, 10)
Today · Private, seen from the street
The story
Avenue de Suffren, named after Admiral Pierre André de Suffren, was laid out around 1770, when the Champ-de-Mars was developed, between today's quai Branly and avenue de Lowendal. Transferred to the City of Paris in 1838, it was extended in 1867 to boulevard de Grenelle, now boulevard Garibaldi, at the cost of demolishing the Grenelle slaughterhouses. About 1,850 metres long, it separates the 7th and 15th arrondissements and runs along the south façade of the École Militaire. In Crowley's day, the Grande Roue built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle still stood at No. 74; it was not dismantled until 1937.
Crowley moved into No. 55 on Wednesday 19 September 1928; his letters to Gerald Yorke thereafter bear the letterhead “55 Avenue de Suffren, Paris VII”. The move was financed in part by the American Kasimira Bass, who had undertaken in writing to invest in his projects. On 11 October, while Crowley was playing at the chess club, she left the apartment taking 5,000 francs from his small safe; he filed a complaint the next day and found the money that same evening, hidden under a statue of Ho Tai. On that same 12 October, at 1:11 p.m., Israel Regardie arrived from America to become his secretary. Kasimira Bass returned on 23 October, then left for good on 3 November.
The following months were those of his meeting with Maria Teresa Ferrari de Miramar, born in Nicaragua in 1894, who would become his second wife; as early as 9 February 1929, Kasimira Bass allegedly threatened her on a bus, a sign that she was watching the building. Gerald Yorke came several times for the weekend, notably on 7 December 1928 and from 26 to 28 January 1929. The apartment was also the editorial workshop for Magick in Theory and Practice, printed by the Lecram Press: proofs of the prospectus on 17 January, choice of cover paper on 4 February, first page proofs around 14 or 15 February, and an advance copy of the first section on 12 April at 5:55 p.m.
It was here too that the inspectors of the foreigners' department arrived, from 17 January 1929, and that Crowley, bedridden, received his refusal of a residence permit on 8 March. Thanks to medical certificates, he stayed on until his departure for Brussels on 17 April 1929.
No. 55 avenue de Suffren is today a private residential building, not open to visitors; none of the sources reports a plaque. One can, however, walk along the avenue to the Champ-de-Mars and the site of the former Grande Roue, which Crowley could still see a few hundred metres from his home.