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Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
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Gassin
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Gassin is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte dAzur region in southeastern France. It is located very near to the destination of Saint-Tropez. Perched high up on a rock, it is less than 4 km from the sea, many Tropezian tourists attracted by a more affordable life prefer to stay in Gassin and enjoy the same kind of Cote dAzur life. It lies 2 kilometres from route D559 which links Hyères and Sainte-Maxime, the ramparts The rectory The chapel Notre Dame de la Compassion LAndrouno, one of the worlds narrowest streets Emmanuelle Béart, French actress
3.
Maria Montez
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Her screen image was that of a hot-blooded Latin seductress, dressed in fanciful costumes and sparkling jewels. She became so identified with these adventure epics that she became known as The Queen of Technicolor, over her career, Montez appeared in 26 films,21 of which were made in North America and five in Europe. Montez was born María Antonia García Vidal de Santo Silas in Barahona and she was one of ten children born to Ysidoro García, who worked as the Spanish consul in Dominican Republic, and his wife Teresa. Montez was educated at the Sacred Heart Convent in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in the mid-1930s, her father was appointed to the Spanish consulship in Belfast, Northern Ireland where the family moved. It was there that Montez met her first husband, William G. McFeeters and her fathers name was Isidoro Gracia and her mothers name was Teresa Vidal. On page 54, there is a copy of a fake made by Universal Pictures, where it says that Maria Montez was educated in Tenerife and that she lived in Ireland. Maria Montez lived the first 27 years of her life in the Dominican Republic, Montez was spotted by a talent scout while visiting New York. Her first film was The Invisible Woman and it was made for Universal Pictures, who signed her to a long term contract starting at $150 a week. She also appeared in Moonlight in Hawaii and Bombay Clipper and she had a small part in That Night in Rio, made at 20th Century Fox. Universal did not have a girl like other studios - an equivalent to Hedy Lamarr, Dorothy Lamour, Betty Grable. They decided to groom Maria Montez to take this role and she received a lot of publicity, Montez was also a keen self promoter. In the words of The Los Angeles Times she borrowed an old and she acted like a movie star. She leaned on the tradition set up by Nazimova and Theda Bara. She went in heavily for astrology and her name became synonymous with exotic enchantresses in sheer harem pantaloons. She took on a pose in her private life. One newspaper called her the best commissary actress in town, in the studio cafe, Maria puts on a real show. In June 1941 her contract with Universal was renewed, Montez graduated to leading parts with South of Tahiti, co-starring Brian Donlevy. She also replaced Peggy Moran in the role of The Mystery of Marie Roget
4.
Marisa Pavan
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Marisa Pavan is an Italian-born actress who first became famous as the twin sister of film star Pier Angeli before achieving film stardom on her own. Her breakthrough came in the film The Rose Tattoo as Anna Magnanis daughter, her role was first assigned to her twin, when Magnani won the Academy Award for Best Actress, Pavan accepted on her behalf as Magnani was not present at the awards ceremony. Pavan was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, losing to Jo Van Fleet, both Magnani and Pavan won Golden Globe Awards that year. Afterwards, Pavan co-starred in films such as Diane, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, The Midnight Story and she also played Abishag in King Vidors biblical epic Solomon and Sheba. Her later films included A Slightly Pregnant Man, Antoine and Sebastian, Pavan married French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont in 1956 and the couple remained together until his death in 2001. I Chose Love Naked City S03EP10 -19611206 - REQUIEM FOR A SUNDAY AFTERNOON as Josephine Marisa Pavan at the Internet Movie Database
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Tina Aumont
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Maria Christina Tina Aumont was an American actress, born in Hollywood, California, to French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont, and Dominican actress Maria Montez. She married actor and film director Christian Marquand in 1963, at the age of 17 and she was billed as Tina Marquand in four films, including Joseph Loseys Modesty Blaise. She was pictured by Angelo Frontoni in 1968, when she had ankle/floor length hair and she worked in Italian cinema with, among others, Alberto Sordi, Tinto Brass, Sergio Martino, Mauro Bolognini, Francesco Rosi, and Federico Fellini. She also played Lonetta, the Indian maiden, in Texas Across the River, Luciana in Malicious, in 2000, she retired from film work. She suffered an embolism in 2006 and died in Port-Vendres, Pyrénées-Orientales, France. Tina Aumont at the Internet Movie Database Tina Aumont at Find a Grave Biography of Tina Aumont, including further readings
6.
Legion of Honour
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The Legion of Honour, full name National Order of the Legion of Honour, is the highest French order of merit for military and civil merits, established 1802 by Napoléon Bonaparte. The order is divided into five degrees of increasing distinction, Chevalier, Officier, Commandeur, Grand Officier and Grand-Croix. The orders motto is Honneur et Patrie and its seat is the Palais de la Légion dHonneur next to the Musée dOrsay, in the French Revolution, all French orders of chivalry were abolished, and replaced with Weapons of Honour. The Légion however did use the organization of old French orders of chivalry, the badges of the legion also bear a resemblance to the Ordre de Saint-Louis, which also used a red ribbon. Napoleon originally created this to ensure political loyalty, the organization would be used as a facade to give political favours, gifts, and concessions. The Légion was loosely patterned after a Roman legion, with legionaries, officers, commanders, regional cohorts, the highest rank was not a grand cross but a Grand Aigle, a rank that wore all the insignia common to grand crosses. The members were paid, the highest of them extremely generously,5,000 francs to an officier,2,000 francs to a commandeur,1,000 francs to an officier,250 francs to a légionnaire. Napoleon famously declared, You call these baubles, well, it is with baubles that men are led, do you think that you would be able to make men fight by reasoning. That is good only for the scholar in his study, the soldier needs glory, distinctions, rewards. This has been quoted as It is with such baubles that men are led. The order was the first modern order of merit, under the monarchy, such orders were often limited to Roman Catholics, and all knights had to be noblemen. The military decorations were the perks of the officers, the Légion, however, was open to men of all ranks and professions—only merit or bravery counted. The new legionnaire had to be sworn in the Légion and it is noteworthy that all previous orders were crosses or shared a clear Christian background, whereas the Légion is a secular institution. The jewel of the Légion has five arms, in a decree issued on the 10 Pluviôse XIII, a grand decoration was instituted. This decoration, a cross on a sash and a silver star with an eagle, symbol of the Napoleonic Empire, became known as the Grand Aigle. After Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French in 1804 and established the Napoleonic nobility in 1808, the title was made hereditary after three generations of grantees. Napoleon had dispensed 15 golden collars of the legion among his family and this collar was abolished in 1815. The Légion dhonneur was prominent and visible in the French Empire, the Emperor always wore it and the fashion of the time allowed for decorations to be worn most of the time
7.
Conservatoire de Paris
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The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France. The Conservatoire offers instruction in music, dance, and drama, today the conservatories operate under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Communication. On 3 December 1783 Papillon de la Ferté, intendant of the Menus-Plaisirs du Roi, the school was instituted by a decree of 3 January 1784 and opened on 1 April with the composer François-Joseph Gossec as the provisional director. Piccinni refused the directorship, but did join the faculty as a professor of singing, the new school was located in buildings adjacent to the Hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs at the junction of the rue Bergère and the rue du Faubourg Poissonnière. In June, a class in dramatic declamation was added, in 1792, Bernard Sarrette created the École gratuite de la garde nationale, which in the following year became the Institut national de musique. On 3 August 1795, the government combined the École royale with the Institut national de musique, the combined organization remained in the facilities on the rue Bergère. The first 351 pupils commenced their studies in October 1796, a concert hall, designed by the architect François-Jacques Delannoy, was inaugurated on 7 July 1811. The hall, which exists today, was in the shape of a U. It held an audience of 1055, the acoustics were generally regarded as superb. The French composer and conductor Antoine Elwart described it as the Stradivarius of concert halls, in 1828 François Habeneck, a professor of violin and head of the Conservatorys orchestra, founded the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. The Society held concerts in the hall almost continuously until 1945, the French composer Hector Berlioz premiered his Symphonie fantastique in the conservatorys hall on 5 December 1830 with an orchestra of more than a hundred players. The original library was created by Sarrette in 1801, after the construction of the concert hall, the library moved to a large room above the entrance vestibule. In the 1830s, Berlioz became a curator in the Conservatory library and was the librarian from 1852 until his death in 1869. He was succeeded as librarian by Félicien David, Sarrette was dismissed on 28 December 1814, after the Bourbon Restoration, but was reinstated on 26 May 1815, after Napoleons return to power during the Hundred Days. However, after Napoleons fall, Sarrette was finally compelled to retire on 17 November, in 1819, François Benoist was appointed professor of organ. Probably the best known director in the 19th century was Luigi Cherubini, Cherubini maintained high standards and his staff included teachers such as François-Joseph Fétis, Habeneck, Fromental Halévy, Le Sueur, Ferdinando Paer, and Anton Reicha. Cherubini was succeeded by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber in 1842, in 1852, Camille Urso, who studied with Lambert Massart, became the first female student to win a prize on violin. The Conservatory Instrument Museum, founded in 1861, was formed from the instrument collection of Louis Clapisson, the French music historian Gustave Chouquet became the curator of the museum in 1871 and did much to expand and upgrade the collection
8.
Jean Cocteau
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Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French writer, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. Cocteau is best known for his novel Les Enfants Terribles, and the films Blood of a Poet, Les Parents Terribles, Beauty and the Beast and Orpheus. Cocteau was born in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines, a town near Paris, to Georges Cocteau and his wife, Eugénie Lecomte and his father was a lawyer and amateur painter who committed suicide when Cocteau was nine. From 1900–1904, Cocteau attended the Lycée Condorcet where he met and he published his first volume of poems, Aladdins Lamp, at nineteen. Cocteau soon became known in Bohemian artistic circles as The Frivolous Prince, edith Wharton described him as a man to whom every great line of poetry was a sunrise, every sunset the foundation of the Heavenly City. In his early twenties, Cocteau became associated with the writers Marcel Proust, André Gide, in 1912, he collaborated with Léon Bakst on Le Dieu bleu for the Ballets Russes, the principal dancers being Tamara Karsavina and Vaslav Nijinsky. During World War I Cocteau served in the Red Cross as an ambulance driver and this was the period in which he met the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, artists Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani, and numerous other writers and artists with whom he later collaborated. Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev persuaded Cocteau to write a scenario for a ballet and it was produced by Diaghilev, with sets by Picasso, the libretto by Apollinaire and the music by Erik Satie. The piece was expanded into a full opera, with music by Satie, Francis Poulenc. If it had not been for Apollinaire in uniform, wrote Cocteau, with his skull shaved, the scar on his temple and he denied being a Surrealist or being in any way attached to the movement. Cocteau wrote the libretto for Igor Stravinskys opera-oratorio Oedipus rex, which had its performance in the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt in Paris on 30 May 1927. An important exponent of avant-garde art, Cocteau had great influence on the work of others, in the early twenties, he and other members of Les six frequented a wildly popular bar named Le Boeuf sur le Toit, a name that Cocteau himself had a hand in picking. The popularity was due in no small measure to the presence of Cocteau, in 1918 he met the French poet Raymond Radiguet. They collaborated extensively, socialized, and undertook many journeys and vacations together, Cocteau also got Radiguet exempted from military service. Some contemporaries and later commentators thought there might have been a component to their friendship. Cocteau himself was aware of this perception, and worked earnestly to dispel the notion that their relationship was sexual in nature, there is disagreement over Cocteaus reaction to Radiguets sudden death in 1923, with some claiming that it left him stunned, despondent and prey to opium addiction. Opponents of that point out that he did not attend the funeral. Cocteau himself much later characterised his reaction as one of stupor and his opium addiction at the time, Cocteau said, was only coincidental, due to a chance meeting with Louis Laloy, the administrator of the Monte Carlo Opera
