Here we pick up the ladies staying in Paris at the Victoria Palace hotel. They will do various tours throughout Paris and nearby cities and battlefields.
Sunday, June 25
“Had planned to go to mass with R at Notre Dame, but were so late getting started that we missed the service. The church, of course, was wonderful, and I am sure that we all felt that just to go in and look about was a very fitting way to start the day.” [The Notre Dame website has great information and detailed history!]
"The village of Fontainebleau is 55 miles from Paris. We went in a large autobus. It was windy as the dickens and rather cold. Reached Fontainebleau a little after Noon. Had lunch there and then went through the palace. It is a wonderfully historic place. Practically all of the rulers of France have been connected with it in some way. Napoleon did much to the palace. It was here that he signed the abdication papers. We saw the room and the table where that took place. Also the bedroom where he attempted suicide a week later. The beautiful tapestries, furniture and wood carving can never be forgotten.” [Again, more fascinating history can be found about Fontainebleau online. The Treaty of Fontainebleau was signed 11 April 1814 and ended Napoleon’s rule as emperor of France - he was then exiled on Elba.]
“The driver took us through numerous little villages that were typical of the French people. In the village of Barbizon, we saw the houses where many noted artists lived. It is the home of the Barbizan School of Art. Millet is one of the best known. In this village, just at the entrance of the forest of Fontainebleau, is the house where Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his Forest Notes.”
Monday, June 26
“We slept late again this morning. We were all so darn tired from the trip of yesterday that we couldn’t help it. Rose and I got up and ... went down to the American Express company and got tickets for Versailles and the battlefields. It started to rain before we left the Express company. We had no umbrellas, so we found out that French rain is as wet as the other kind.”
“Then we started out again and went to the Eiffel Tower. Went up in it as far as we could go. It is the highest structure in the world. We surely got the breezes up there. Had some of the punkest ice cream up there.” [The Eiffel Tower was the tallest building in the world from 1889 to 1930, standing at 986 feet high.]
“In the evening, we went to the Gaumont Palace where we saw a moving picture show. It was rare. Started about 8:30 and lasted until nearly 12:00. First there was a comedy, I have really forgotten the point of it. Next were take-offs on some famous pictures, then the educational. The picture proper followed. It was a French movie. The part that amused us was the representation of the monied American. After that came a Vaudeville act, which was followed by an American film showing Alice Brady. Between each of these sections of the programme, there was an intermission of some 10-15 minutes. A good many of the people got up and prowled around then. During the show, the men sat with their hats on and smoked as much as they liked. There was much loving going on also. If one such couple would be in a show at home, the audience couldn’t even look at the picture.”
[The Gaumont Palace was the biggest movie theater in Europe. Originally the Hippodrome Theatre, it was taken over by Leon Gaumont and opened as the Hippodrome Grand Cinema du Monde on December 14, 1907. It could seat over 5,000 people. Sadly, it was torn down in 1972.]
[Alice Brady was an American actress who worked in silent and talkie films. She died in 1939, at the age of 46, from cancer.
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