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“THE APARTMENT A classic Parisian elevator whisks you up to the 6th (top) floor of this magnificent building at the edge of Le Marais. From the hallway there is a small half-flight of stairs leading up to usher you in theatrical fashion to this lovely, airy 1-bedroom apartment. You enter into the salon, where sun drenches the hardwood floors and you see beautiful, brand-new furnishings – a great pullout couch and coffee table. There is a dining table and chairs off the kitchen. Being at the top of Paris’s residential height limit, you get full light and sun, and of course it’s beautifully quiet. Making your way through the space, you find your way to the bedroom, a clean and quirky modern design with plenty of luxury built in… mirrored closet doors, a glass block wall flanking the bed on one side, beautiful plush linens. Looking at it, you just want to sink in. The kitchen is perfectly appointed and sleek, at the ready for you to enjoy those scrumptious provisions you picked up in the city’s mouth-watering markets. The bath is spotless and gleaming white, with that wall of glass block on one side and a skylight angled into the Mansard roof on the other. It’s your very own eagles’ nest, high above the city’s riches.
DEAR, HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHERE WE ARE? THEY KEEP CHANGING THE STATUES!” Urban renewal, Paris style, c. 1685. How about this for casual banter at your next cocktail party? Better still, stay here and live it. Either way, your friends will think you a history genius, more buffed than Simon Schama, when you regale them with the intricate chronicles of one Place des Victoires, a magnificent circular Parisian plaza at the western edge of the oldest section of Paris, Le Marais. First, in 1685, an assemblage of private mansions gets demolished to make way for a new kind of urban development. This is done speculatively (reality check here: this is 1685) by a minor nobleman, François de la Feuillade. Soon the viscount’s vision is appropriated by the king’s household, and the architect Jules Hardouin Mansart is commissioned to design an even grander ring of houses to encircle a triumphant statue of Louis XIV. … Still with me? One thing leads to another and by 1692 the Place des Victoires becomes this upscale urban renewal project (think Atlantic Yards) with six streets radiating from it. Enter Statue Number One: Martin Desjardins, a sculptor at Versailles, creates a bronze statue of the king, crowned and trampling the Triple Alliance underfoot, with dejected figures sitting at each of the four corners. By 1697 a considerable amount of the wind is getting knocked out of Louis XIV’s glorious sails, what with lost wars and the Treaty of Vauban. By now, you’re getting flashbacks. Cold sweat. War of the Grand Alliance, 1688-1697. Age of Enlightenment! Puss in Boots! Puss in Boots? Er. Wrong city. The statue was considered an embarrassment with possible political consequences. It was not, however, destroyed until 1792, during the French Revolution. Statue Number Two is a while in coming, place-marked at first by a wooden pyramid. Finally in 1810, under Napoleon, a nude statue of General Louis Desaix (those Frenchies!) was, um, (parents, please leave the room) erected, only to be taken down following the abdication of Napoleon and melted down to make a statue of Henry IV on the Pont Neuf. Finally in 1828, King Charles X commissioned François Joseph Bosio to create the current statue, which depicts Louis XIV sitting astride a rearing horse, dressed in… are you ready?...Roman imperial garb. Who’s next, Ru Paul? No wonder our lady of the headline can’t keep her bearings. Fast forward another couple of hundred years to the present. Magnificence in Le Marais. You need to find a place for the four of you, all French history buffs and Francophiles, that’s perfectly situated to take it all in. They don’t mind sleeping on a foldout, if it’s a good one. This is a terrific penthouse apartment, so close to the Place des Victoires. To the north, you’re walking distance from Montmartre and Sacre Cœur, to the south, the Louvre, the Tuileries Gardens and the Seine. You’re a stone’s throw from the Pompidou Center and the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall). It’s about the most perfectly located place you could find in the great city. And such a place! Serene and gracious, in those Parisian whites and neutrals… the ideal place to regroup after your whirlwind days of sight-seeing, of discovery, of soaking it all up. It’s got it all, baby – space and light, beautiful furnishings, location, location, and location.
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