Three wheels for a Friday lady: the De Dions of the Pagie brothers and their belle amie

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If readers would care to cast their minds back to 1900, or else to May just gone and the Vintage Revival Montlhéry, they will recall why we've been very excited about tricycles this year. To recap, this summer saw Paris host the Olympic Games, and it was at the first Paris Olympics in 1900 that the heroic sport of tricycle-racing was elevated, for the one and only time, to an Olympic competition. It was with that important, but generally forgotten, fact in mind that Team Jarrott brought tricycle-racing back to France for the first time since the period, with a special short-oval race at the Montlhéry circuit.

With this still fresh in our minds, we were delighted discover this picture. We don't even have to say too much about it because, with the garage and poster in the background, it really speaks for itself. We can see that we are outside the workshop of Paul Pagie, manufacturer of cycles and automobiles, and also a provider of repairs and rentals. For what it's worth, we don't really think M. Pagie ever was a car constructor, but he certainly built bicycles and probably made odd parts for automobiles.

Snapshot of a cycle racer

There is no reason, perhaps, why Paul Pagie's name should be familiar to anyone today, but serious students of cycling history, especially in France, might be acquainted with his younger brother, Émile (1883-1937). By the age of 16, Émile was already a competitive cyclist, racing in the Tourcoing-Armentières-Roubaix and Tourcoing-Quesnoy-Tourcoing in 1899. In 1900, he finished ninth in the Paris-Roubaix and improved to finish eighth in the same race in 1902, the same year in which he raced in the Bordeaux-Paris. After recovering from a minor fall early in 1903, he went on to participate in two of the year's most important and brand-new cycling events, the Tour de France and Paris-Valenciennes, although Émile retired from the Tour de France during the second stage. Next to its report from the Gordon Bennett Cup, the July 3rd, 1903, edition of Le Monde Sportif gave extensive coverage to Pagie's performance in the Tour de France. The last we know of his racing career is that he entered the Paris-Roubaix for a third time in 1904, again finishing ninth.

Émile's death in Neuilly-sur-Marne on August 1st, 1937, under quite alarming circumstances, was reported in La Dépêche du Berry: "Émile Pagie, garagiste of Neuilly-sur-Marne, 54 years old, who had broken off all relations with his friend, Mlle. Lucie Cloarec, 41 years old, a nurse at the Ville-Evrard asylum, shot her this morning several times with a revolver, seriously injuring her, then killed himself with a bullet to the heart. Mlle. Cloarec was transported to Montfermeil hospital in a very serious condition."

For the photograph we are concerned with, we need to go back in time just a little bit though. The poster gives us a good indication of exactly when the picture was taken. It reads: "Ville de Tourcoing — Dimanche 7 Octobre 1900 — Grande Course Vélocipedique — Tourcoing à Armentières — 1e. de Prix ça Espéces Fr. 125."

Olympic dreams

We are sure that at the time, the Pagie frères must have been based in Tourcoing, a large town about 45 miles from Dunkirk and right on the Belgian border. Its population then was around 79,000, but today it is nearer 100,000, and it has been pretty much swallowed up by conurbations extending from Lille in France to Kortrijk in Belgium. The picture was most likely taken within a few weeks either side of 7th October, so the Olympic Games were probably still taking place; they ran from May 18th to October 28th.

That brings us, at last, to the tricycles. In all likelihood, they are both De Dion-Boutons—we can clearly see the De Dion crest on the lady's one, so there is no doubt about that one. Who could the riders be? We'd like to think that the young man is either Paul or Émile, but we have no way of knowing, and there isn't a clue as to the identity of our smart Friday Lady. Since Émile had such a strong competitive streak on two wheels, are we to suppose that he might also have ventured to go racing on three, and with an engine attached? Could it even be that he'd set his sights on becoming an Olympic tricycle racer?

We'd certainly like to think so, and maybe there's an historian somewhere who can tell us.

We have heard Émile's sad story, incidentally, but what became of Paul? Ultimately, we don't know, but his business seemed to be flourishing still by 1912, when he was advertising in the Journal de Roubaix, though he no longer advertised automobile services. Instead, with a twist of tragic irony, he had taken to manufacturing small arms—revolvers and carbines. He also specialised in enamelling, nickelling and bronzing, and had spread out to occupy three separate premises: 18, Rue de Lanney, Roubaix; 30, Rue St.-Jacques, Tourcoing; and 202, Rue Léon-Gambetta, Lille.

Rue St.-Jacques seems to have a number of historic buildings on it. Perhaps the old Pagie works is still there among them?

Words: Zack Stiling
Photograph: source unknown

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