Did You Know…The French Edition

The French Writer Collette, mostly known for her novel Gigi (1944), made into a film (1958) with Leslie Caron, ate cloves of garlic all day long, yet still had many friends, even though her breath could stop a train.

Go figure.

One tidbit, or clove in this case, leads to another, arriving at Paris’s famous Pere Lachaise Cemetery where Collette  (1873-1954), among other notables, are honored guests, including… writers Marcel Proust (1871-1922), Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) and Moliere, (1622-1673), actors Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923), Yves Montand (1921-1991) and Simone Signoret (1921- 1985), a couple even in the hereafter, still together…

singers Edith Piaf (1915-1963), Maria Callas (1923-1977) and The Doors, Jim Morrison (1943-1971), and one of my favorite men of all time, Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) who still holding court at Paris’s Hotel de Alsace on his deathbed said...

The wallpaper is killing me, one of us has to go. 

Actress Romy Schneider (1938-1982), taking her life at 43 though it was falsely reported as heart failure, but on second thought, suppose it was since it was the heartbreak of losing her 14 year-old son, David, who alas, accidentally impaled himself while climbing a spiked fence.

At the urging of her former lover, actor Alain Delon, taking the lead in organizing the funeral ashes of her son David, who was then reburied next to his mother’s grave, as he knew, she would have wanted.

Napoleon Bonaparte, called Boney behind his back, ate so fast, those invited to his table often ate beforehand, their plates whisked away, forced to be finished when he was.

Boney also ate whatever was most handy, often inhaling dessert as his first and only course.

Life’s short, eat dessert first, might have been the Emperor’s  chosen motto.

And for the record, that Napoleon pastry we’re so fond of was not named after him, but created by an Italian chef from Naples, who named it after his fair city originally called…a napoltano, before we shortened and claimed its name.

General Charles de Gualle, even as a student, was so tall, 6’5 in his stocking feet, his fellow classmates nicknamed him…

‘The Asparagus.”   

He also had a mentally handicapped daughter named Anne, he and his wife, Yvonne were devoted to, caring for her tenderly in a much less tolerant time, bringing out her father’s human qualities, to quote the author Lisa Hilton.

Addressing his military chaplain as he prepared to lead his tank division into battle in 1940, de Gualle said:

‘For a father, believe me, it is a very great trial. But for me this child is also a blessing, she is my joy, she has helped me to rise above all setbacks and all honours and always to aim higher.’

How’s that for a great dad?   

SB