CULTURE ❘ HOTELS WITH HISTORY


HOTELS WITH HISTORY


From Marie Antoinette’s execution to Coco Chanel’s eviction, they have been the offices of writers and the dens of thieves. Chloe Govan shares the stories behind some of France’s most legendary hotels


T


he guillotine has fallen, slicing off the queen’s head. The crowd chants, “Vive la République!”. Startled, you sit bolt upright in bed, then sink gently back down into your comfortable Hôtel de Crillon branded pillows, safe in the knowledge that it was all a dream. Or was it? In 1793, the occupants of this building witnessed this very scene: from these windows, members of the government of the French Revolution had a direct view of the executions of both Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. This palatial hotel was originally commissioned as a royal residence in 1758. Twenty years later, Benjamin Franklin signed a treaty with France here that recognised the United States of America’s Declaration of Independence. Then François Félix de Crillon took it as his home, to which Marie Antoinette was a frequent visitor, little knowing that one day she would be publicly slain outside the house in which she had enjoyed sumptuous banquets and even piano lessons. Since 1795, the place de la Révolution has been called place de la Concorde, and today the Hôtel de Crillon is one of the few hotels in France to have Palace status. Yet it is far from being the only one associated with iconic figures from history.


After the Queen of France came the Queen of Fashion, Coco Chanel, and the equally iconic Ritz Paris, which she called home for 30 years. It mattered not a jot to Coco that she already had a glamorous apartment nearby, above her rue Cambon store; it was at the Ritz that she usually chose to entertain. For a while, she used the hotel for nothing more serious than feasting with friends while draped in pearls and furs, but when the Second World War started, her life took a turn for the worse.


When the Germans marched into Paris in 1940, they took the hotel, expelled its occupants and transformed it into a headquarters. Coco Chanel was turfed out of her favoured suite (which is today available to guests at the price of $15,000 per night) and it was taken over by a high-ranking military commander who openly despised the French. She was later allowed back, courtesy of her controversial relationship with a German spy, but this – along with allegations that she had become a spy herself – indelibly blotted her reputation. In the French public’s eyes, she was now, quite literally, sleeping with the enemy. Amid fury that a national icon had betrayed her country, and as her wealthiest customers fled the country to escape the destruction of the war, Chanel was compelled to close her fashion house altogether. ❯❯


Above and right: The Hôtel de Crillon overlooks the place de la Concorde; the Ritz, where Coco Chanel lived and died 92 ❘ FRANCE TODAY Apr/May 2020


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