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Hôtel Ritz Paris
The Ritz Paris is a hotel in central Paris, overlooking the Place Vendôme in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arrondissement. A member of The Leading Hotels of the World marketing group, the Ritz Paris is ranked among the most luxurious hotels in the world. The hotel was founded in 1898 by the Swiss hotelier César Ritz in collaboration with the French chef Auguste Escoffier. The hotel was constructed behind the façade of an eighteenth-century townhouse. It was among the first hotels in Europe to provide an en suite bathroom, electricity, and a telephone for each room. It quickly established a reputation for luxury and attracted a clientele that included royalty, politicians, writers, film stars, and singers. Several of its suites are named in honour of famous guests of the hotel including Coco Chanel, and the cocktail lounge Bar Hemingway pays tribute to writer Ernest Hemingway. The hotel was renovated from 1980 to 1987 following its purchase by Mohamed Al-Fayed; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Place Vendôme
The Place Vendôme (), earlier known as the Place Louis-le-Grand, and also as the Place Internationale, is a square in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France, located to the north of the Tuileries Gardens and east of the Église de la Madeleine. It is the starting point of the Rue de la Paix. Its regular architecture by Jules Hardouin-Mansart and pedimented screens canted across the corners give the rectangular Place Vendôme the aspect of an octagon. The original Vendôme Column at the centre of the square was erected by Napoleon I to commemorate the Battle of Austerlitz; it was torn down on 16 May 1871, by decree of the Paris Commune, but subsequently re-erected and remains a prominent feature on the square today. History The Place Vendôme was begun in 1698 as a monument to the glory of the armies of Louis XIV, the Grand Monarque, and called the Place des Conquêtes, to be renamed the Place Louis le Grand, when the conquests proved temporary. An over life-size equestri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder (; ; born Samuel Wilder; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an American filmmaker and screenwriter. His career in Hollywood (film industry), Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Classic Hollywood cinema. He received seven Academy Awards (among 21 nominations), a BAFTA Award, the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or and two Golden Globe Awards. Wilder was born in Sucha Beskidzka, Austria-Hungary (the town is now in Poland). After moving to Berlin in his early adulthood, Wilder became a screenwriter. The rise of the Nazi Party and antisemitism in Germany saw him move to Paris. He then moved to Hollywood in 1934, and had a major hit when he, Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch wrote the screenplay for the Academy Award-nominated film ''Ninotchka'' (1939). Wilder established his directorial reputation and received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director with the film noir ''Double ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Savoy Hotel
The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London, England. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte's family for over a century. The Savoy was the first hotel in Britain to introduce electric lights throughout the building, electric lifts, bathrooms in most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired César Ritz as manager and Auguste Escoffier as '' chef de cuisine''; they established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other rich and powerful guests and diners. The hotel became Carte's most successful venture. Its bands, Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band, became famous, and other entertainers (who were also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte (; 3 May 1844 – 3 April 1901) was an English talent agent, theatrical impresario, composer, and hotelier during the latter half of the Victorian era. He built two of London's theatres and a hotel empire, while also establishing an opera company that ran continuously for over a hundred years and a management agency representing some of the most important artists of the day. Carte started his career working for his father, Richard Carte, in the music publishing and musical instrument manufacturing business. As a young man he conducted and composed music, but he soon turned to promoting the entertainment careers of others through his management agency. Carte believed that a school of wholesome, well-crafted, family-friendly, English comic opera could be as popular as the risqué French works dominating the London musical stage in the 1870s. To that end he brought together the dramatist W. S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan and nurtured their collaboration ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden () is a spa town in the states of Germany, state of Baden-Württemberg, south-western Germany, at the north-western border of the Black Forest mountain range on the small river Oos (river), Oos, ten kilometres (six miles) east of the Rhine, the border with France, and forty kilometres (twenty-five miles) north-east of Strasbourg, France. In 2021, the town became part of the transnational World Heritage Site, UNESCO World Heritage Site under the name "Great Spa Towns of Europe", because of its famous spas and architecture that exemplifies the popularity of spa towns in Europe in the 18th through 20th centuries. Name The springs at Baden-Baden were known to the Roman Empire, Romans as "" ("The Waters") and "" ("Aurelia (name), Aurelia-of-the-Waters") after M. Aurelius Severus Alexander Augustus. In modern German, "" is a noun meaning "bathing", but "Baden", the original name of the town, derives from an earlier plural, plural form of ' (Bathing, "bath"). (Modern Ger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Crédit Mobilier
The Crédit Mobilier (; officially the Société Générale du Crédit Mobilier , ) was a French banking company created in 1852 by the Pereire brothers, and one of the world’s most significant and influential financial institutions in the mid-19th century. The Crédit Mobilier had a major role in the financing of numerous railroads and other infrastructure projects by mobilizing the savings of middle class French investors as capital for vast lending schemes. Its operations resulted in vast debts for the countries which accepted its infrastructure loans, and the bank was thus indirectly involved in European encroachment on countries whose governments subsequently defaulted on these loans, not least during the worldwide economic depression of the 1870s. It became a powerful and dynamic funding agent for major projects in France, Europe, North Africa and the world at large. As Napoleon III redeveloped Paris, the Crédit Mobilier speculated on real estate with inside informati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Péreire Brothers
Émile Pereire (3 December 1800, Bordeaux - 5 January 1875, Paris) and his brother Isaac Pereire (25 November 1806, Bordeaux – 12 July 1880, Gretz-Armainvilliers) were major figures in the development of France's finance and infrastructure during the Second French Empire. The Pereire brothers challenged the dominance of the Rothschilds in continental European finance, known at the time as ''haute finance''. Their attempt was temporarily successful, and even though it collapsed in the late 1860s, it contributed to a more developed and vibrant economic landscape. Like the Rothschilds, the Pereires were Jews, but unlike them, they were Sephardi of Portuguese origin. Family The brothers' grandfather was Jacob Rodrigues Pereira, one of the inventors of sign language for the deaf, who was born in Spain and established himself in France in 1741, where he became an interpreter for King Louis XV. Jacob Rodrigues Pereire (as he went by in French) married Miriam Lopès Dias, a Sephardic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Hôtel Particulier
() is the French term for a grand urban mansion, comparable to a Townhouse (Great Britain), British townhouse. Whereas an ordinary (house) was built as part of a row, sharing party walls with the houses on either side and directly fronting on a street, an was often free-standing and, by the 18th century, would always be located – between the (an entrance court) and the garden behind. There are in many large cities in France. Etymology and meaning The word represents the Old French "" from the Latin "pertaining to guests", from , a stranger, thus a guest.Cassell's Latin Dictionary The adjective means "personal" or "private". The English word ''hotel'' developed a more specific meaning as a commercial building accommodating travellers; modern French also uses in this sense. For example, the Hôtel de Crillon on the Place de la Concorde was built as an and is today a public hotel. In French language, French, an or is a town hall and not a hotel, same for the police ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
John Law (economist)
John Law (pronounced in French in the traditional approximation of ''Laws'', the colloquial Scottish form of the name; 21 April 1671 – 21 March 1729) was a Scottish-French economist and financier. He rose to power in France where he created a novel financial scheme for French public finances known as Law's System () with two institutions at its core, John Law's Bank and John Law's Company (also known as the Mississippi company), ending in the devastating boom and bust "Mississippi Bubble" of 1720. Born in Scotland, Law was an accomplished gambler with an interest in the rules of probability. After killing a man in a duel and being sentenced to death, he fled to mainland Europe. He read economics and made the acquaintance of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who became regent for the juvenile Louis XV of France in 1715. In 1716 Philippe approved Law's plan to create a private bank which would take gold deposits in return for bank notes, loaning out the gold. It was structured as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Louis XIV Of France
LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the List of longest-reigning monarchs, longest of any monarch in history. An emblem of the Absolutism (European history), age of absolutism in Europe, Louis XIV's legacy includes French colonial empire, French colonial expansion, the conclusion of the Thirty Years' War involving the Habsburgs, and a controlling influence on the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, style of fine arts and architecture in France, including the transformation of the Palace of Versailles into a center of royal power and politics. Louis XIV's pageantry and opulence helped define the French Baroque architecture, French Baroque style of art and architecture and promoted his image as absolute ruler of France in the early modern period. Louis XIV began his personal rule of France ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
François-Michel Le Tellier, Marquis De Louvois
François Michel Le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois (; 18 January 1641 – 16 July 1691) was the French Secretary of State for War during a significant part of the reign of Louis XIV. He is commonly referred to as "Louvois". Together with his father, Michel le Tellier, he oversaw an increase in the numbers of the French Army, eventually reaching 340,000 soldiersLynn, J. (1994). Recalculating French Army Growth during the Grand Siecle, 1610-1715. ''French Historical Studies,'' ''18''(4), 881-906. doi:10.2307/286722 – an army that would fight four wars between 1667 and 1713. Louvois was a key military and strategic advisor to Louis XIV, who transformed the French Army into an instrument of royal authority and foreign policy. According to Cathal Nolan, he created the Régiment du Roi in 1663 and founded the Royal-Artillerie regiment in 1673. These innovations influenced military planners beyond France. Louvois sought out new wars as a means of concentrating more power and wealth in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
César Ritz (1897)
César Ritz (), born Cäsar Ritz (23 February 1850 – 26 October 1918), was a Swiss hotelier and founder of several hotels, most famously the Hôtel Ritz in Paris and the Ritz and Carlton Hotels in London (the forerunners of the modern Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company). He was an early hotel chain founder known as "King of Hoteliers, and Hotelier to Kings," and it is from his name and that of his hotels that the term '' ritzy'' derives. Early life Ritz was born in the Swiss village of Niederwald, the youngest of 13 children in a poor peasant family. At the age of twelve he was sent as a boarder to the Jesuit college at Sion, and at fifteen, having shown only vaguely artistic leanings, was apprenticed as a sommelier at a hotel in Brig. While working there as an apprentice wine waiter he was dismissed by the patron of the hotel from his position, saying, "You'll never make anything of yourself in the hotel business. It takes a special knack, a special flair, and it's only right that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
