Soho

Abstract

Soho was a special part of London throughout the emigration. From the earliest point of their appearance in London, émigrés stayed in the hotels of Soho where French was either fluently spoken or readily understood. This area provided a meeting-point where émigrés exchanged information. It was home to the most important French bookshops and publishers in London and it had the added advantage of an established international merchant community.² The fact that Marat lived there in the years leading up to the Revolution is indicative of the wide variety of socioeconomic groups and political beliefs covering the spectrum from the wealthy to the wretched, from the staunch Whig to the radical dissident. Its geographic area for the purposes of this study are less exact than the present-day definition. Soho for the émigrés comes to have a metaphorical as well as a physical demarcation. The physical area includes the streets around Golden Square, Soho Square and the whole northern end of Oxford Street where it meets Tottenham Court Road.³

Le quartier dans lequel M. de St Blancard avait pris un logement pour nous était assez triste et situé près de Golden Square, et je compris ce que les Français éprouvent en arrivant un dimanche à Londres. Le silence, le peu de mouvement surprend et l’on risque en y arrivant d’être saisi par une attaque de spleen qui se dissipe le lundi par un beau soleil à Hyde Park.¹

The area in which M. de St Blancard had taken a lodging for us was quite sad and situated near Golden Square, and I understood what the French felt arriving in London on a Sunday. The silence, the stillness was surprising and one risked at first to be overtaken by an attack of spleen which evaporates on a Monday in the beautiful sunshine of Hyde Park.