We haven't visited Vanessa at Messy Nessy Chic in a while and while we won't get her idiosyncratic view of Paris on this trip, she does have two writers stepping up to the challenge that is Messy Nessy Chic. First up with the headliner, Hannah Steinkopf-Frank, a grad student at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po):
You may or may not be aware that Gustave Eiffel used his iconic Eiffel Tower as a personal start-up lab for scientific innovation (hint: you probably heard it from us). But did you know that there’s also a “secret” military bunker still buried beneath, with an entrance near the south pillar?
The bunker — which was not originally created to withstand army bombardments — was constructed in 1909 for the military telecommunications that took place from the Eiffel Tower. The tower was designed as the grand entrance to the 1889 Exposition Universelle, but soon after, Eiffel was trying to find ways to save his eponymous project; after all, it was only meant to stay up for 20 years and received much criticism about its architectural aesthetic. So the engineer gave personal financial backing to army general and radio pioneer Gustave-Auguste Ferrié’s plan to build a wireless telegraphy station at the top of the tower....
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And giving us a chance to reprise a pretty picture, "Bal du moulin de la Galette", as well as read some history, someone we saw last April in "French History Messy Nessy Style: 'Little Tuscany in the Heart of Paris'"
The ladies are very good at this stuff, this time it's Louise McNutt rather than Vanessa.
Postcards from the Last Windmill in Paris
Renoir’s Bal du moulin de la Galette [Musée d'Orsay]
In the dappled light coming through the trees, a jovial bohemian crowd have gathered to dance and dally at the Moulin de la Galette, one of the many windmills that originally stood at the northern tip of Paris. By the time Renoir’s famous painting had captured the scene in 1876, the unlikely venue was already a centre piece for the artistic crowd who had found themselves in Montmartre at the end of the 19th century. That very year, Renoir had setup in a small workshop within the heart of the hilltop village that was still not yet considered a part of Paris. He painted his own friends into the picture, including his lover, Margot, but on any given day, you might have run into Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Edgar Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec and later, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. A humble flour mill turned epic village fête, it was a non-stop party during the Belle Epoque at the Moulin de la Galette, and thankfully, there are the postcards (and a few paintings you make know) to prove it....
Postcard showing one of the infamous dance events at the Moulin de la Galette
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