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During the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, Paris took on a new look.  Gone were the statues of aristocrats and royals in the squares, gone even were the heads of many of the stone saints in Notre Dame and other churches.  Gone too was the Bastille, the place most associated with the oppression of the past. Streets and buildings were renamed, and even the calendar was rewritten to celebrate the triumph of the people over the tyranny of the Ancien Régime.

Anything with the word “roi” or “royale” in it had to go, including two of the places most familiar to the heroine of my new novel, FINDING EMILIE.  Lili, the daughter of the real-life mathematician and physicist Emilie du Châtelet, who died shortly after giving birth to her, grew up in one of the elegant townhouses lining what she knew as the Place Royale.  At its center was a grand statue of Louis XIII, which was, as one might expect pulled down and melted for its bronze after the revolution. The square was renamed the Place de Vosges, and eventually, after the furor died down, a replacement statue was erected (an error in my book has it as a statue of Louis XIV--I hate it when that happens!)


The Place Royale, with its matching red-brick facades and vaulted arcades, was the model for future residential squares in Paris and other European cities.  Meant to be a quiet and dignified place, then on the outskirts of Paris, for the well-to-do to live, it is still one of the most elegant spots in the city. Cafes look out on a tree-shaded square where in summer people lounge on park benches and picnickers play games on the grass. Turgot’s 1739 map of Paris shows what it looked like at the time my book is set, although the shade trees I include are a later addition.

Here’s the quick description I offer of this urban oasis in FINDING EMILIE:

        The Place Royale, home to Hôtel Bercy, was one of the few places in Paris fit for a stroll. Even the gardens of the Tuileries were thick with the stench of garbage, and haunted by beggars and thieves. On dry and pleasant afternoons, those who lived behind the harmonious, arcaded mansions ringing the four sides of the Place Royale could leave behind the sedan chairs they used for calling on their neighbors elsewhere in town, and cross the quiet garden on foot.

Several key scenes occur in this garden, including Lili’s awakening to the cruel social realities of Parisian life, and the awakening of love between Lili’s best friend Delphine, with whom she was raised like a sister, and the future Comte d’Étoges.

For Lili, love blossoms on the other side of the Seine, at what was then known as the Jardin de Roi, today known as the Jardin des Plantes. The site looks quite different today, housing several museums and the Paris zoo along its perimeter. It retains vestiges of one of its primary purposes in the era before the revolution when my novel is set. It was the center of research into botany and zoology, and its head, George Louis LeClerc, the Comte de Buffon, was one of the most important scientific figures of his time.


The Jardin de Roi first appears in FINDING EMILIE when Lili is invited by the Comte de Buffon to spend an afternoon with him.  In the greenhouse, Lili is astonished by a pale pink mantis, perfectly camouflaged on a stem of orchids, and the count explains, using evolutionary thinking he developed a century before Darwin.

        “You see,” he said, taking Lili’s arm to go to the house for dinner. [...] “I don’t believe for a moment that God said during the creation, ‘Let there be orchids as well as mantises that look just like them.’ I believe instead that different types of plants and animals came into the world and thrived where they were put.”

        The great man stopped for a moment once they had crossed the terrace in front of the greenhouse. They were standing in the middle of a grand walkway so long it disappeared from sight before reaching the end of the garden. Lost in thought, Buffon’s hands were clasped as he looked up at the plane trees lining the walk.         Close to the house, gardeners trimmed the hedges of the formal garden, but farther away, the formal grounds meant for pleasant strolls gave way to the densely packed landscape of trees and medicinal plants in the working laboratory of the Jardin de Roi.


        “Things alter over time,” he said, picking up the subject as if his thoughts hadn’t strayed at all. [...] “The climate might get hotter or colder, or wetter or drier, and the perfect fit isn’t so perfect any more.  So a plant might change colors or an animal grow spots, or more hair, or a tougher hide in order to adapt.  Perhaps         this poor little mantis was no good at capturing insects.  He adapted to look like something the insects are attracted to, and voilà!”

Although broad expanses of lawn (forbidden to human feet) have replaced much of the formal gardens, strolling in the Jardin des Plantes today it is easy to get the feel for its former existence.  A small garden of medicinal herbs honors its erstwhile scientific function, and promenades evoke a time when a walk here would have been the height of fashion. Just the place to put on a wig and panniers and pretend for a while--or maybe just get an ice cream and go to the zoo!

Thank you so much Laurel! Below are links to some of my favorite Laurel Corona books and the much anticipated and highly praised Finding Emilie.
         

Hello Lovelies! I have been aching for Paris this last week or so and the feeling just won't go away! Maybe because Spring is approaching and there is no place in the world more beautiful in the Springtime. Maybe because I have been brushing up on my French while teaching the little Little Prince to speak it...Maybe, it is because I left my heart there the last time I left. Whatever the reason, here is a tiny dose of Paris and some interesting little tidbits to tide us over.


~ In Paris you are never more that 400 meters from a subway station.


~ The Marseillaise, the French national anthem, was first sung in Strasbourg, not Marseille.


~ The novel La Disparition by Georges Perec, in its original French does not use the letter 'e'.



~ In French two weeks is in fact 15 days, quinze jours.


~ French politicians can simultaneously hold more than one elected office.


~ Lefevre is the most popular last name in France.


~ There are 27 wine regions in France.



~ Alsacien type homes are not considered immobilier, the French term for real estate that also means non-moveable, but in fact mobilier because they are demountable and thus can be moved. Alsacien type homes were built this way so that homes could be part of dowries.

~Facts via Americans In France~
 

Dior Haute Couture’s handpainted and embroidered silk taffeta dress. John Rocha socks, Louis Vuitton shoes with Mokuba ribbons.

Can you just imagine turning the key in the keyhole of a beautiful old building in Paris to enter an apartment that for over 70 years lay untouched. With the rent faithfully paid, the doors locked, and an incredible treasure trove hiding inside, this apartment remained a secret. That is, until the apartments last occupant recently passed away at the age of 91. She shut the apartment up just before the outbreak of World War II to go live in the south of France and she never returned. The dust filled romantic rooms of treasure were discovered by  an auctioneer sent to inventory her belongings.


That is only part of the romantic story of the apartment of the granddaughter of Marthe de Florian, a beautiful actress of the early screen. When this lucky auctioneer entered the dust-covered Parisian apartment to take inventory of the possessions, he was quoted saying that he "had the impression of creeping into Sleeping Beauty’s castle where time had stood still". In the beautiful decaying apartment he came across a painting, which had hung in the living room, of an actress of exceptional beauty who went by the name of Marthe de Florian, enshrouded in a pale pink mousseline evening dress. The real story here is that this portrait was painted by one of 19-century Paris’ most prized portrait artists, Italian Giovanni Boldini.


The auctioneer had a hunch that this painting was made by the famous Boldini but could not find any record of the painting, it was not in any reference books and it had never been exhibited. After extensive research he found  one of Boldini’s calling cards in the apartment with a love message by the painter written to de Florian. Knowing this was the link, he continued his search and found proof that this painting was indeed a Boldini after finding mention of it in a book belonging to the painters widow.



Marthe de Florian had hosted her many admirers in the apartment where “she kept letters from her lovers in little packages wrapped up with ribbons of different colors,” according to one of the people who worked on the inventory. The calling cards of senior statesmen from the period were found tucked away in drawers.

"As our lives become even more virtual and fleeting, it's imperative that we have art as an anchor, and after the daily electronic recounting of the real-time horrors of people doing terrible things to one another, we can renew our faith in mankind while viewing man's highest achievements on display at a museum like LACMA." ~Lynda Resnick

The much anticipated and much talked about Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion opens to the public on Oct. 2. It is the second gallery building on the LACMA campus and designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, one of the world's most sought-after museum architects. Funded by billionaire philanthropists Lynda and Stewart  Resnick (they own POM juice drink and Fiji Water), this $54 million exhibiion hall will serve as a stunning place to showcase rotating and traveling art exhibits.




The grand opening will feature three exhibits: Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico, Eye for the Sensual: Selections from the Resnick Collection, and Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700-1915.

I am, of course, most excited to see Eye for the Sensual which includes eighty-five European paintings and sculptures from the personal collection of Stewart and Lynda Resnick (I could dedicate an entire post to this amazing woman, she is fabulous and so remarkable). I am so anxious to see its important eighteenth-century French paintings—including works by François Boucher, Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun (she has the portrait of Marie~Antoinette with the Rose, Versailles houses a later version of this portrait), Jean-Honoré Fragonard (my fave), Nicolas Lancret, and Hubert Robert. I am also looking forward to seeing the fashion exhibit.


"The exhibition will tell the story of fashion's aesthetic and technical development from the Age of Enlightenment to World War I. It will examine the sweeping changes that occurred in fashionable dress spanning a period of over two hundred years, with a fascinating look at the details of luxurious textiles, exacting tailoring techniques, and lush trimmings. Highlights will include an eighteenth-century man's vest intricately embroidered with powerful symbolic messages relevant to the French Revolution; an evening mantle with silk embroidery, glass beads, and ostrich feathers designed by French couturier Émile Pingat (active 1860-96); and spectacular three-piece suits and gowns worn at the royal courts of Europe." LACMA

I feel so honored and lucky to have aquired tickets to the opening weekend andI am so looking forward to going and being part of a historic moment for art in Los Angeles. My husband and I are taking the little Prince and the countdown begins!

If you are interested in going LACMA is hosting community days where you can get free tickets online.

Last week in Paris a thief is believed to have carried out one of the largest and most brazen art heists in history. The thief broke into The Musuem of Modern Art through a window that had a faulty alarm system and was awaiting repair.

He made off with works by Picasso, Matisse, and Modigliani. The stolen masterpieces (including 'Le Pigeon aux petit pois' by Picasso, Henri Matisse’s "Pastoral," Georges Braque’s "Olive Tree Near Estaque," Fernand Léger’s "Still Life With Chandeliers,'' and Amedeo Modigliani’s ''Woman With Fan').

Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe confirmed that the raid was the most costly in the history of French art and called it ‘an intolerable attack on Paris’s universal cultural heritage’.  According to The Art Loss Register, only 12-15% of stolen art is ever recovered. They also state that Picasso is the most stolen artist in the world with 660 (including the most recent one stolen in Paris) missing works of art by the artist.


Art thieves have struck again in France this weekend by stealing five pictures from the home of an art collector in Marseille only a day after the major heist in Paris, the stolen pictures include a Picasso lithograph.
French police said Saturday the owner was beaten up at his home in southern France on Friday and the art stolen.




~Biggest Art Heists in History~
May 2010: A lone thief stole five paintings possibly worth hundreds of millions of euros, including works by Picasso and Matisse, in a brazen overnight heist at a Paris modern art museum.

February 2008: Armed robbers stole four paintings by Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet worth $163.2 million from the E.G. Buehrle Collection, a private museum in Zurich, Switzerland. The van Gogh and Monet paintings were recovered.

December 2007: A painting by Pablo Picasso valued at about $50 million, along with one by Brazilian artist Candido Portinari valued at $5 million to $6 million, were stolen from the Sao Paulo Museum of Art in Brazil, by three burglars using a crowbar and a car jack. The paintings were later found.

February 2007: Two Picasso paintings, worth nearly $66 million, and a drawing were stolen from the Paris, France home of the artist's granddaughter in an overnight robbery. Police later recovered the art when the thieves tried to sell it.

February 2006: Around 300 museum-grade artifacts worth an estimated $142 million, including paintings, clocks and silver, were stolen from a 17th-century manor house at Ramsbury in southern England, the largest property theft in British history, according to reports.

February 2006: Four works of art and other objects, including paintings by Matisse, Picasso, Monet and Salvador Dali, were stolen from the Museu Chacara do Ceu, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by four armed men during a Carnival parade. Local media estimated the paintings' worth at around $50 million.

August 2004: Two paintings by Edvard Munch, The Scream and Madonna, insured for $141 million, were stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway by three men in a daylight raid. The paintings were recovered nearly two years later.

August 2003: A $65 million Leonardo da Vinci painting was stolen from Drumlanrig Castle in southern Scotland after two men joined a public tour and overpowered a guide. It was recovered four years later.

May 2003: A 16th-century gold-plated Saliera, or salt cellar, by Florentine master Benvenuto Cellini, valued at $69.3 million, was stolen from Vienna's Art History Museum by a single thief when guards discounted a burglar alarm. The figurine was later recovered.

December 2002: Two thieves broke in through the roof of the Vincent Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and stole two paintings by Van Gogh valued at $30 million. Dutch police convicted two men in December 2003, but did not recover the paintings.

December 2000: Hooded thieves stole a self-portrait by Rembrandt and two Renoir paintings worth an estimated $36 million from Stockholm's waterfront National Museum, using a motorboat in their escape. All paintings were recovered.

October 1994: Seven Picasso paintings worth an estimated $44 million were stolen from a gallery in Zurich, Switzerland. They were recovered in 2000.

April 1991: Two masked armed men took 20 paintings - worth at least $10 million each at the time - from Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum. The paintings were found in the getaway car less than an hour later.

March 1990: In the biggest art theft in U.S. history, $300 million in art, including works by Vermeer, Rembrandt and Manet, was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts, by two men in police uniforms.

December 1988: Thieves stole three paintings by van Gogh, with an estimated value of $72 million to $90 million, from the Kroeller-Mueller Museum in a remote section of the Netherlands. Police later recovered all three paintings.

May 1986: A Vermeer painting, Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid, is among 18 paintings worth $40 million stolen from Russborough House in Blessington, Ireland. Some of the paintings are later recovered.

August 1911: Perhaps the most famous case of art theft occurred when the Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre by employee Vinczo Peruggia, who was caught two years later.

~Art Heist History, The Daily Mail-UK

I am going to celebrate her life and the fact that my Mom was also my best friend, that our relationship was so close and that I was chosen to be her daughter. An honor that I will never let go ofor take for granted.

Bonjour Friends~
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Of course a quick trip through your blogs has lifted my spirits to no end. I of course started daydreaming of Paris, which led me to daydream of a macaron, which led me to Laduree, which led me here to these amazing libations! Ooh La La!!

Bonjour Mes Amis! If you have read my last post you know that I have been bitten by the entrepeneurial bug. I have always dreamed of owning a brick~and~mortar store and now is the time. A lot has changed since that last post that seems like it was ages ago but really it's only been a couple of weeks. We have found a new space and a new name that better fits our passion for this dream we are making a reality!


After some new developments, some gorgeous, ornate doors have opened for me. I am partnering up with the amazing Ebony from Mahogany Maddison to open a different kind of boutique experience. I am very excited to say that our opening date has been pushed back just a bit in order to prepare our new space. We are so excited with this adventure. I so appreciate all of the amazing and encouraging comments and if you were planning to attend, please sit tight and I promise, it will be worth the wait.

We are planning so many exciting things and I can't wait to share it all with you! I will keep you posted and I am so grateful for you and excited to take this giant leap with all of you by my side. After all it is because of you that I've been inspired and motivated.