(Boo) A scarily late 60secondparis Newsletter! Ghoulish, Ghastly Parisian Tales, real & imagined. Miss that Halloween rush? Read on ...if you dare!
60secondparis Newsletter Lite - (We've been swamped of late! More stuff next issue)
This Issue:
Adieu Paris- The year Paris lost winter!? Plus: Endless sweater sales, very high temps, snow tires, the big rise in micro-cars, lights out & lots more….
The Scary Stuff :
The Ghastly, Murderously Insane French WWII doctor who took advantage of the most vulnerable.
The Lonely Russian Baroness & and her Fabled Fortune
Paris Gaffes: Red Tape Horrors, a lost art collection!
FIND A PARIS BATHROOM - Map - Good to know if you have to….
News/Trends - Adieu Paris- The year Paris lost winter!?
Is Winter History in Paris? Like many locales, it's been unseasonably warm here and across much of France. Unseasonable as in... A) the warmest October ever and B) Paris weather mavens say November temps will be in the 50's and stay there till… Christmas before the cold hits. Till last week there were armies of t-shirt-clad and sandals-shod folks sauntering along still leafy tree-lined avenues, riverbanks and parks. On the anecdotal front, a major chain's cashmere sweaters sale seems in its 5th week. Our mosquitoes wore wear sweatbands till Nov. A friends' daughter & her beau, Londoners, visited Bordeaux 2 weeks back and collided with 80F weather. (Both are in counseling and expected to recover)! Will the French Alps have snow? (Should they?) Hard to get in the X-mas mood with folks sauntering about still in summer gear. The good news? It's looking like our building’s annual wait-as-long-as-possible before turning on the heat challenge will be a snap. Lastly, local news reports a huge rise in ‘P-cars’ —golf-cart-sized micro cars, (smaller than a Smart) detailed and customized and being bought by young teens (age 14 + with no license required) to scoot around and who don’t want a car.
So, what’s another word for winter? Maybe its time to coin a new term for our new seasonal phenomena if it continues. Any ideas?
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Odds 'n Ends - Continuing with the eerie, if optimistic, theme...
Snow Tires are now (Nov 1) required in France. Yes, snow tires...
City Store Lights: Gotta shut'em off at night as of ...now! Sad news for the new shoe-box-sized cell phone store next door with 10 Klieg lights of perpetually flashing bulbs viewable from the Dover coast.
STRIKE 3! - Things That Do Not Go Thump, or anywhere… in the Night/Day/Morning! It just wouldn’t be Paris kids without a transit strike! The next one is slated for Nov 10th! One of a seeming series. This one's aimed at the Paris transport system. Be Aware! (Tho' as a neighbor quips, “given regular service how can we tell the diff”).
NEW VINTAGE NEWS! Nov 17th is the start of the Fête du Beaujolais Nouveau (English site). If you know your wine, you know. If not, look it up. OR....for a funny, fast and not too straining peek into the origins and behind the curtain marketing scheme that begat the popularity of Beaujolais, read the Beaujolais section in Karnow's Paris in the Fifties*- Excerpt: “Before WWII, when Beaujolais had a limited audience, …most was sold in barrels to negociants, who shipped vast quantities to Lyon, the magnificent gastronomic center to the south, where, as the maxim went, “three rivers bathe the city: the Rhone, The Soane, and the Beaujolais” “…So abundant was Beaujolais in Lyon…a quart pot fetched 50 centimes — the price of a pack of cigarettes.” Then the entrepreneurs got involved, a massive PR effort was launched “they hired press agents, pretty models, film stars and…extravagantly touted the wine..” The rest is wine history.
Other Paris in the Fifties gems: History of the term Le Cordon Bleu - Karnow relates the tale of one Madame de Maintenon, (governess to Louis XIV’s children & later, spouse). Maintenon started a school for girl's that, among other skills, taught cooking, ..students in their last year wore a blue sash..as in le Cordon Bleu. Other explanations exist, but I'm with Stanley K on this one.
*(See S. Karnow’s Paris in the Fifties, Chap 7, The Deepest Beaujolais).
Paris Bathroom Locater: We have come a long way from the days of the Vaspasian (or, ‘PISSOTIERE’ …those army-green odd looking semi-exposed urban urinals which decades back numbered in the thousands)*. There are 750 efficient ‘sanitaires publics’ — public, self-cleaning bathrooms. And 435 are being updated! Need to find one? See this list
Today, but one or two pissotiere remain in Paris. Tho’ some parks (Luxembourg Gardens, etc) still have one.
Watch a short video on one of Paris’s last urinals I did years back…)
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Now the Eerie & the Ghastly: The Utterly Bizarre tale of Marcel Petiot - French serial killer doctor shining false hope when Paris ‘went dark’
Rights: From: Photographie d'identité judiciaire du docteur Marcel Petiot. AnonymousUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
His name was Marcel Petiot: He was probably born ….dreadful. Among other weird behavior, at 11 he sexually harassed a girl in his class and was twice judged mentally ill (once after a robbery and again in 1914). In 1916 while in the French army Petiot was caught stealing blankets, morphine, wallets and...jailed. Back at the front in 1918 he was discharged after an 'accident' with a grenade and his foot.
Post war, Petiot became a doctor. In 1926 he had an affair with Louise Delaveau, who then disappeared (neighbors spotted him loading a trunk into his car, but police ruled Delaveau 'a runaway'). As mayor of Villeneuve-sur-Yonnem, he was suspended in 1931 following complaints over thefts and financial dealings.
WAR II: So far, so damn ominous: With the German occupation of Paris, Petiot gave out 'disability certificates' allowing men to evade Germany's brutal forced labor program, the Service du Travail Obligatoite - STO. He was convicted of over-prescribing drugs...despite two witnesses, both addicts, mysteriously vanishing before the trial.
NO WAY OUT?: Petiot quickly twigged to the potential and sad reality that the desperate (partisans, Jews, etc) would pay any price to flee an ever threatening landscape. Working under the alias Dr. Eugene he began his grisly and horrifically efficient fraud which he perpetuated on the vulnerable and terrorized. For 25,000 Francs each, Petiot/Eugene would smuggle you out of France, maybe via Portugal, but eventually to some South American locale. The panic-stricken & desperate (criminals included) were shepherded to Petiot via helpers late at night. After coughing up cold hard cash etc., the forlorn were told the last detail was a required health inoculation. His injections were cyanide. They all died. He took their lives, money and...even suitcases brought for their non-existent escapes. (Photos of his later trial show a virtual wall of suitcases, 47 in all).
Read the whole Petiot story on Wikipedia
At first Petiot dumped bodies in the Seine (ugh) then a quick-lime pit and/or burned bodies. In 1941 he bought a house at 21 rue le Sueur.
Gestapo Hunt a Non-Existent Escape Route. The snag to any bogus escape scheme during the occupation was the Gestapo thinking it was real. They assumed Petiot's scam was an actual, legit resistance plan. Seeking info they forced a prisoner to infiltrate his network. He disappeared, but a 2nd succeeded in infiltrating the 'network', and four Petiot accomplices were arrested. Tortured, they confessed 'Dr. Eugène' was Petiot. One accomplice was released and the others, tho' tortured for months, never revealed ANY details of the Resistance network---because they couldn't, it didn't exist! (Miraculously, the three were released in January 1944).
Neighbors & Body Parts - In March '44 came the long awaited spring air, balmy temps...and a horrific, putrid stench that forced Petiot's neighbors to call police, then, les pompiers. The latter discovered a grisly Dante-esque scene: body parts ablaze in a basement coal fire, others decomposing in a backyard chemical pit with others stuffed in a canvas bag. There were suitcases, clothing, the victims personal property, and other grim items. Petiot though, was gone.
The Grisly Details - Photo: Le Matin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
End Game: Petoit hid out with a patient, claiming it was the GESTAPO, mad over his killing their 'agents', who were hunting him, not police. Bizarrely, under the alias "Henri Valeri" Petiot not only joined the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) but was appointed captain, and then --seriously??! – tasked with counterespionage & prisoner interrogations...which also required him, and others, to hunt down one Marcel Petoit when it surfaced Petiot was probably still in Paris. (Netflix… you awake?)
PHOTO LINK : There is a ghastly photo showing a wall of (47) murder victim suitcases from the trial. As I’m unsure how to legally use/post them, have a look here
As well, here (Scroll thru)
Eventually spotted and arrested at a Metro stop, he had 50 ID sets, 31,000 Francs, and a gun on him. He was charged with some 27 murders and his estimated profit ran to 200 million francs (can anyone do the current equivalent?). On trial in March 1946, facing 135 criminal charges, his lawyers claimed Petiot only murdered German agents or double agents, that all his clients were happily living in South America – and naturally would never return nor admit involvement. At trail Petiot claimed to have killed more than 60 people (all German, of course). He was convicted of 26 murders. The actual number of victims could be 60.
He met the blade (guillotine) in 1946.
60secondparis Halloween Scary Story
The Legend of the Lonely Russian Baroness, Her Wealthy Will & Mausoleum from Hell - Elisabeth Alexandrovna Strogonoff
We've saved the supernatural for last. A chilling tale. One of loneliness, heartache, fable, curses and the most terrifying of all…(and like legions of other facockta Parisian tales) based on little more than the cotton-candy gauze-like, whimsical, never ending drug of click-bait-ism.
Oh, but where are my manners? First… introductions!
Russian aristocrat Baroness Elizaveta Demidoff. Elizaveta hailed from a ridiculously wealthy 17th C Russian clan. Married at 16 to diplomat Count Nikolai Nikitich Demidoff, (heir to yet another mind-numbing immense fortune) they called Paris maison for many years. Though they moved to Moscow she returned to Paris years later when kids and (loveless) marriage were receding in the gilded stage-coach rear-view...
Our Baroness adored and thrived in Paris. So, naturally when she died, age 39'ish she chose burial in Paris's Pere Lachachse cemetery in a rather Czaresque-sized sumptuously humongous marble mausoleum which, located imperiously atop a hill, dominates the area (Division 19) and ultimately helped the set the stage for the stuff of countless (sorry, no pun) urban legends. The 'bub' in la hubbub if you will.
The Thicken Plots: (Roll the scary SFX)
"Elisabeth Demidoff Mausoleum @ Père Lachaise Cemetery @ Paris" by *_* is licensed under CC BY 2.0. - Guilhem Vellut "Elisabeth Demidoff Mausoleum @ Père Lachaise Cemetery @ Paris" by *_* is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Details: The legend says our supposedly lonely Baroness had her lawyer draw up a will that would hand over her entire fortune (untold gazillions in gold or rubies, etc..) to the brave soul who could spend a year and a day with her, in her luxuriant white tomb. Sound tempting? The Catch: Her body supposedly lay in a crystal coffin, and the tomb walls and ceiling are covered in mirrors. Anyone taking up the dare would only see the baroness for 366 days! As for other will requirements – no guests save for the person bringing food daily. A bucket. A low light only near the coffin. A once daily walk on cemetery grounds, at night, ...anyway, you get the idea. The ideas seems to have been to see who could survive the year (plus a day) without going insane
According to any number of on-line ‘stories’ candidates who’ve tried for the will have either gone stark raving mad and/or left in quivering lumps of babbling incoherence. Some versions say people experience odd sensations and a loss of energy when passing the site — I also sensed fatigue and a fuzziness, but blame the double veggie shawarma I ate beforehand. One imaginative post even lays out a vampire scenario to the mausoleum (thus proving everyone has a stake in the tale), yet others say the fortune (mega-millions of some precious commodity) sits unclaimed as the city/cemetery now forbids further attempts. Which of course might be news to the city, et al. There are tours available for the curious….
PARIS GAFFES - Hair Raising Tales (of Stupidity) - The curse of the Palais Galliera*.
It was so simple! In 1878, the Duchesse de Galliera* decided to bequeath her amazing art collection to France. All that needed doing was creation of a purpose-built museum, on land she owned in the tony 16th, and, that she would pay for it! The deal called for naming two streets to parallel the museum: Rue Brignole & Rue Galliera...as in Brignole-Galliera. Her other condition was her owning and living near the museum till her death when ownership and the collection would pass to the French government.
*Maria Brignole Sale De Ferrari, the Duchesse de Galliera
The Duchesse's largess was accepted by presidential decree.
Red Tape Horrors: Just as the project got underway a problem with the building's alignment was discovered. This was quickly solved but in the process another glitch arose: the lawyer who filed the paperwork registered it as a gift to the City of Paris. Not France! (Accident?) Should have been a easy fix. Non?
Non! Years passed and, bizarrely, the issue lay unresolved. By 1884 the duchess lost patience and handed her entire collection over to the Palazzo Rosso in Genoa.
Definitely NOT Paris. Sadly, not France.
Photo courtesy: Stefano Soresina, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palazzo_Rosso.jpg
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Slights aside, the Duchesse still paid for the museums completion which, after a delay caused by her death (1888), was eventually completed 16 years after her original gesture, in 1894.
Today the regal structure that could have housed a priceless art collection is the Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris (City of Paris Fashion Museum).
Photo courtesy of Wikicommons/Wikipedia
*Its not really cursed...but, hey, let's start one?
IN THE NEXT 60SPN: We hope to be back in full reportorial fighting form! Look out for posts on:
Parisian Myths: Did Paris really have a lottery for Babies? When media goes bonkers (and doesn't do it's homework!)
Amazing Paris Firsts, Learning French Gaffes and more, plus:
Killer Looks - The French Femme Fatale who drank gold to keep her ethereally youthful beauty...and probably died from it.
The Harvardian who leapt into the Seine to save a drowning woman….and died.
Becoming a Paris Tour guide: How exactly is that done? A friend is currently going thru a grueling one year long, guide training program. More details to come! Meanwhile…if needed:
Free Guided Tours & Walks
Thanks for reading or scanning…don’t hesitate to LIKE!, and or share with others!