Of the cursed placesin Paris, there are a few. We could cite the terrible rue Erlanger in the 16th, which in a few decades housed a cannibal, and fire and the suicide of a star. Or the haunted house on rue Frochot, in the 18th. But today, we are taking you to discover the square La Bruyère, in the 9th. A charming dead end at first glance, which in fact hides a number of secrets.
Well, to start, we could tell you about the fact that the square has seen some Parisian personalitieslike the actress Regina Badet and the playwright Felix Gallipaux. Or that she welcomed the Chilean embassy. But quite frankly, we don't care a little, and then we're not here for that. We, what we want, it's strange, mysterious, even bloody.
A bewitched apartment
And for that, we first go at number 3which was the scene in the 1920s of the Bassarabo affair. In August 1920, the corpse of a commission agent of Romanian origin was found in a trunk Nancy station. The investigation progressed quite quickly, and we eventually learned that the culprit is none other than his wifeLouise Grouès. A poet and feminist activist better known as d'Héra Mirtel, who shot her husband with a pistol, before cut the body to the saw and ship it has the other end of France.
Since then, this apartment has not known that a rather disastrous destinysince the next tenant commits suicide in circumstances which still remain quite mysterious today. The next occupant, an antique dealer, quickly had to move after noticing that all his furniture and decorative objects suddenly rottedand without any explanation. A few years later, finally, a tenant is there defenestrated. Here, the latest news, the apartment is still vacantif you feel like it…
A jump in time
For even more mystery, we go right next door, to number 2. In this seemingly ordinary building, hides an apartment with an extraordinary history. In 2010, while As long as Beaugiron, old lady without family residing in the south of France, deceased, the notaries discover with astonishment that she is owner of a home in the 9thin which she did not set foot for 70 years. A visit is organized, and there it is a real treasure that is revealed.
We then discover that Solange, who a fled the capital at the time of the occupation to never set foot there again, is in fact the granddaughter of Marthe de Florianactress and socialite of the Belle-Époque. In the rooms where no one had set foot since 1940we discover letters from Georges Clemenceau (her lover), but also by Aristide Briand or d’Ernest Cognacq. Finally, the icing on the cake, a sublime portrait of the young woman produced by the famous Italian painter Boldiniwhich would sell a few years later for almost 2 million euros. Quite a story if you want our opinion…
