MAY GOOD FORTUNE BE WITH NEW JONES' INVESTMENTS

Paqui Jones at Hotel Des Bains in Aix-Les-Bains

Today, The Jones have revised some aspects of English grammar and they have talked about new ones like May / May Not and Countable & Uncountable. 

More information: May

The family has created a little post taking information thanks to the question words and they have decided where they want to travel after leaving Paris, next May 2, and about which new houses they want to buy around the world to use them as their residences. 

More information: A Few / A Little 

After some deliberations, the family has decided to travel to Japan first, and to Galapagos Island later. They have decided to buy some new residences in France: a hotel to refurbish in Aix-Les-Bains in Savoie named Hotel Des Bains; a Templar Castle in Chinon in The Loire Valley; and a classic house in Paris. 

Joaquín Jones at Villa Las Tronas, Sardinia

They have also bought a new summer residence in Sardinia named Villa Las Tronas, which has been a hotel until The Grandma has decided to buy it.

Finally, The Jones have bought a Renaissance palace named Corte Sconta detta Arcana in Venice to live between canals in this dreamed city which has special memories for The Grandma and her great lost lover, Corto Maltese, who share their lives to Venice to search for an emerald known as the Clavicle of Solomon.

More information: Favola di Venecia by Hugo Pratt

Ana Bean Jones in Corte Sconta detta Arcana, Venice

Ana Bean-Jones loves Venice, its canals, its palaces, its people, its food, its art and especially its carnivale and its masks. She also has a great friend who lives in this wonderful city, Maria Callas, and both of them are always happy to share as moments as they can.

A few investments to move the funds, a little money to spend now thinking in the future. May The Grandma be able to enjoy these new homes with her family. May she remain forever young.

More information: How to create compositions (Catalan Version)

Château de Chinon is a castle located on the bank of the Vienne river in Chinon. It was founded by Theobald I, Count of Blois. In the 11th century the castle became the property of the counts of Anjou. In 1156 Henry II of England, a member of the House of Anjou, took the castle from his brother Geoffrey after Geoffrey had rebelled for a second time. Henry favoured the Château de Chinon as a residence. Most of the standing structure can be attributed to his reign and he died there in 1189.

Some Jones have decided to live in Paris

Early in the 13th century, King Philip II of France harassed the English lands in France and in 1205 he captured Chinon after a siege that lasted several months. When King Philip IV accused the Knights Templar of heresy during the first decade of the 14th century, several leading members of the order were imprisoned there.

The settlement of Chinon is on the bank of the Vienne river about 10 kilometres from where it joins the Loire. From prehistoric times, when the settlement of Chinon originated, rivers formed the major trade routes, and the Vienne joins the fertile southern plains of the Poitou and the city of Limoges to the thoroughfare of the Loire. The site was fortified early on, and by the 5th century a Gallo-Roman castrum had been established.

More information: Experience Loire

Claudia Jones in Chinon Castle, The Loire Valley

Theobald I, Count of Blois built the earliest known castle on the mount of Chinon in the 10th century. He fortified it for use as a stronghold. After Odo II, Count of Blois died in battle in 1037, Fulk III, Count of Anjou marched into Touraine to capture Château de Langeais and then Chinon, some 22 km  away. When Fulk arrived at Chinon the castle's garrison immediately sought terms and surrendered. 

In 1044, Geoffrey, the count of Anjou, captured Theobald of Blois-Chartres. In exchange for his release, Theobald agreed to recognise Geoffrey's ownership of Chinon, Langeais, and Tours. From then until the early 13th century, Château de Chinon descended through his heirs.

More information: Travel France Online

The Hundred Years' War in the 14th and 15th centuries was fought between the kings of England and France over the succession to the French throne. The war ended in 1453 when the English were finally ejected from France, but in the early 15th century the English under King Henry V made significant territorial gains. 

Víctor Jones in Chinon Castle, The Loire Valley

The Treaty of Troyes in 1420 made Henry V the heir apparent to the French throne but when the French king, Charles VI, and Henry V died in the space of two months in 1422 the issue of succession was again uncertain. 

The English supported Henry V's son, Henry VI who was still a child, while the French supported recognised Charles VII, the Dauphin of France. Between 1427 and 1450 Château de Chinon was the residence of Charles, when Touraine was virtually the only territory left to him in France, the rest being occupied by the Burgundians or the English.

On 6 March 1429 Joan of Arc arrived at Château de Chinon. She claimed to hear heavenly voices that said Charles would grant her an army to relieve the siege of Orléans. While staying at the castle she resided in the Tour du Coudray. Charles met with her two days after her arrival and then sent her to Poitiers so that she could be cross-examined to ensure she was telling the truth. Joan returned to Chinon in April where Charles granted her supplies and sent her to join the army at Orléans.

More information: Loire Valley France

In 1562 the château came briefly into the possession of the Huguenots and was turned into a state prison by Henry IV of France. Cardinal Richelieu was given the castle to prevent it from coming under the control of unfriendly forces, though he allowed it to fall into ruin. Château de Chinon was abandoned until 1793 when, during the Reign of Terror, the castle was temporarily occupied by royalist Vendeans. Soon after, the castle lapsed back into decay.

May the good Lord be with you down every road you roam.

May sunshine and happiness surround you when you're far from home.
May you grow to be proud, dignified and true.
May good fortune be with you.

May your guiding light be strong.
May you never love in vain.

 Rod Stewart

THE JONES ARE IMPRESSED: THE MUSÉE D'ORSAY

The Jones at The Musée d'Orsay next to Rhini

Today, The Jones are visiting the Musée d'Orsay. The family is totally impressed by the artistic works which are exposed in this amazing museum, which was a train station in its origins.

The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, and Van Gogh.

More information: Musée d'Orsay

Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986. It is one of the largest art museums in Europe.

Claudia, Eli and Silvia Jones in the Orsay's clock

The museum building was originally a railway station, Gare d'Orsay, constructed for the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans and finished in time for the 1900 Exposition Universelle to the design of three architects: Lucien Magne, Émile Bénard and Victor Laloux. 

It was the terminus for the railways of southwestern France until 1939. By 1939 the station's short platforms had become unsuitable for the longer trains that had come to be used for mainline services. After 1939 it was used for suburban services and part of it became a mailing centre during World War II. 

More information: American Friends Musée d'Orsay

It was then used as a set for several films, such as Kafka's The Trial adapted by Orson Welles, and as a haven for the Renaud–Barrault Theatre Company and for auctioneers, while the Hôtel Drouot was being rebuilt.

In 1970, permission was granted to demolish the station but Jacques Duhamel, Minister for Cultural Affairs, ruled against plans to build a new hotel in its stead. The station was put on the supplementary list of Historic Monuments and finally listed in 1978. 

The Grandma sees Van Gogh's La nuit étoilée

The suggestion to turn the station into a museum came from the Directorate of the Museums of France. The idea was to build a museum that would bridge the gap between the Louvre and the National Museum of Modern Art at the Georges Pompidou Centre. The plan was accepted by Georges Pompidou and a study was commissioned in 1974.

In 1978, a competition was organized to design the new museum. ACT Architecture, a team of three young architects (Pierre Colboc, Renaud Bardon and Jean-Paul Philippon), were awarded the contract which involved creating 20,000 square metres of new floorspace on four floors. The construction work was carried out by Bouygues. 

In 1981, the Italian architect Gae Aulenti was chosen to design the interior including the internal arrangement, decoration, furniture and fittings of the museum.

More information: The Culture Trip

Finally in July 1986, the museum was ready to receive its exhibits. It took 6 months to install the 2000 or so paintings, 600 sculptures and other works. The museum officially opened in December 1986 by then-president François Mitterrand.

A man loses contact with reality if he is not surrounded by his books. 

Francois Mitterrand

Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (1864-1901), also known as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist, and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the late 19th century allowed him to produce a collection of enticing, elegant, and provocative images of the modern, sometimes decadent, affairs of those times.

More information: Toulouse-Lautrec Foundation

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Toulouse-Lautrec is among the best-known painters of the Post-Impressionist period, with Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin.

Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa was born at the Hôtel du Bosc in Albi, Tarn, in the Midi-Pyrénées and he was a member of an aristocratic family.

Toulouse-Lautrec's parents, the Comte and Comtesse, were first cousins, and he suffered from congenital health conditions sometimes attributed to a family history of inbreeding.

Physically unable to participate in many activities enjoyed by males his age, Toulouse-Lautrec immersed himself in art. He became an important Post-Impressionist painter, art nouveau illustrator, and lithographer, and, through his works, recorded many details of the late-19th-century bohemian lifestyle in Paris.  

More information: Biography

Toulouse-Lautrec contributed a number of illustrations to the magazine Le Rire during the mid-1890s. During a stay in Nice, his progress in painting and drawing impressed Princeteau, who persuaded Toulouse-Lautrec's parents to let him return to Paris and study under the acclaimed portrait painter Léon Bonnat.

Toulouse-Lautrec's mother had high ambitions and, with the aim of her son becoming a fashionable and respected painter, used their family's influence to get him into Bonnat's studio. He was drawn to Montmartre, the area of Paris famous for its bohemian lifestyle and the haunt of artists, writers, and philosophers. Studying with Bonnat placed Toulouse-Lautrec in the heart of Montmartre, an area he rarely left over the next 20 years.

Divan Japonais by Henry Toulouse-Lautrec

After Bonnat took a new job, Toulouse-Lautrec moved to the studio of Fernand Cormon in 1882 and studied for a further five years and established the group of friends he kept for the rest of his life. At this time he met Émile Bernard and Vincent van Gogh.

When the Moulin Rouge cabaret opened, Toulouse-Lautrec was commissioned to produce a series of posters. His mother had left Paris and, though he had a regular income from his family, making posters offered him a living of his own. Other artists looked down on the work, but he ignored them. The cabaret reserved a seat for him and displayed his paintings. 

Among the well-known works that he painted for the Moulin Rouge and other Parisian nightclubs are depictions of the singer Yvette Guilbert; the dancer Louise Weber, better known as the outrageous La Goulue, who created the French Can-Can; and the much more subtle dancer Jane Avril.

More information: Smithsonian

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's family were Anglophiles, and though he was not as fluent as he pretended to be, he spoke English well enough.

At the Moulin Rouge, The Dance by Toulouse-Lautrec

He was mocked for his short stature and physical appearance, which led him to drown his sorrows in alcohol. He initially only drank beer and wine, but his tastes expanded into hard liquor, namely absinthe.

In addition to his growing alcoholism, Toulouse-Lautrec also frequented prostitutes. He was fascinated by their lifestyle and the lifestyle of the urban underclass and incorporated those characters into his paintings.

By February 1899, Toulouse-Lautrec's alcoholism began to take its toll and he collapsed due to exhaustion and the effects of alcoholism. His family had him committed to Folie Saint-James, a sanatorium in Neuilly for three months. While he was committed, he drew 39 circus portraits. 

After his release, he returned to the Paris studio for a time and then traveled throughout France. His physical and mental health began to decline rapidly due to alcoholism and syphilis, which he reportedly contracted from Rosa La Rouge, a prostitute who was the subject of several of his paintings.

More information: MET Museum

On 9 September 1901, at the age of 36, he died from complications due to alcoholism and syphilis at his mother's estate, Château Malromé in Saint-André-du-Bois.

I have tried to do what is true and not ideal.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

THE JONES DANCE AND SING IN THE MOULIN ROUGE

The Jones are enjoying the Moulin Rouge

Today, The Jones are visiting the most famous cabaret in Paris. Moulin Rouge, the original house, which burned down in 1915, was co-founded in 1889 by Charles Zidler and Josep Oller, who also owned the Paris Olympia. 

Close to Montmartre in the Paris district of Pigalle on Boulevard de Clichy in the 18th arrondissement, it is marked by the red windmill on its roof. The closest métro station is Blanche.

Moulin Rouge is best known as the spiritual birthplace of the modern form of the can-can dance. Originally introduced as a seductive dance by the courtesans who operated from the site, the can-can dance revue evolved into a form of entertainment of its own and led to the introduction of cabarets across Europe.

More information: Moulin Rouge

Today, the Moulin Rouge is a tourist attraction, offering musical dance entertainment for visitors from around the world. The club's decor still contains much of the romance of fin de siècle France.

The Belle Époque was a period of peace and optimism marked by industrial progress, and a particularly rich cultural exuberance was about at the opening of the Moulin Rouge. The Expositions Universelles of 1889 and 1900 are symbols of this period. 

Grandma's memories at Moulin Rouge

The Eiffel Tower was also constructed in 1889, epitomising the spirit of progress along with the culturally transgressive cabaret. Japonism, an artistic movement inspired by the Orient, with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as its most brilliant disciple, was also at its height.

Montmartre, which, at the heart of an increasingly vast and impersonal Paris, retained a bucolic village atmosphere; festivities and artists mixed, with pleasure and beauty as their values. 

On 6 October 1889, the Moulin Rouge opened in the Jardin de Paris, at the foot of the Montmartre hill. Its creator Josep Oller and his Manager Charles Zidler were formidable businessmen who understood the public's tastes. 

More information: The Guardian

The aim was to allow the very rich to come and 'slum it' in a fashionable district, Montmartre. The extravagant setting -the garden was adorned with a gigantic elephant- allowed people from all walks of life to mix.

Workers, residents of the Place Blanche, artists, the middle classes, businessmen, elegant women, and foreigners passing through Paris rubbed shoulders. Nicknamed The First Palace of Women by Oller and Zidler, the cabaret quickly became a great success.

The Jones are ready to watch the show

Some reasons of its success were a revolutionary architecture for the auditorium that allowed rapid changes of décor and where everyone could mix; some festive champagne evenings where people danced and were entertained thanks to amusing acts that changed regularly, such as the Pétomane; a new dance inspired by the quadrille which becomes more and more popular: The Can-can, danced to a furious rhythm by dancers in titillating costumes; famous dancers whom history still remembers: la Goulue, Jane Avril, la Môme Fromage, Grille d'Egout, Nini Pattes en l'Air, Yvette Guilbert, Valentin le désossé, and the clown Cha-U-Kao, and a place loved by artists, including Toulouse-Lautrec whose posters and paintings secured rapid and international fame for the Moulin Rouge.

29 July 1907 is the first appearance of Mistinguett on stage at the Moulin Rouge in the Revue de la Femme. Her talent was immediately obvious. The following year she had a huge success with Max Dearly in la Valse chaloupée.

More information: Bonjour Paris

Les escaliers de la butte sont durs aux miséreux,
les ailes des moulins protègent les amoureux.

The stairs of the hillock are hard to the poor,
the wings of mills protect lovers.

Rufus Wainright

Mistinguett

Mistinguett (1875-1956) was a French actress and singer, whose birth name was Jeanne Florentine Bourgeois. She was at one time the highest-paid female entertainer in the world.

The daughter of Antoine Bourgeois and Jeannette Debrée, Jeanne Bourgeois was born at 5 Rue du Chemin-de-Fer, in Enghien-les-Bains, Val-d'Oise, Île-de-France. The family moved to Soisy-sous-Montmorency where she spent her childhood; her parents later worked as mattress-makers.

At an early age Bourgeois aspired to be an entertainer. She began as a flower seller in a restaurant in her hometown, singing popular ballads as she sold blossoms. After taking classes in theatre and singing, she began her career as an entertainer in 1885. One day on the train to Paris for a violin lesson, she met Saint-Marcel, who directed the revue at the Casino de Paris. 

More information: The Vintage News

Bourgeois made her debut as Mistinguett at the Casino de Paris in 1895 and went on to appear in venues such as the Folies Bergère, Moulin Rouge and Eldorado. 

Mistinguett Art Nouveau posters

Her risqué routines captivated Paris, and she went on to become the most popular French entertainer of her time and the highest-paid female entertainer in the world, known for her flamboyance and a zest for the theatrical. In 1919 her legs were insured for 500,000 francs.

Though Mistinguett never married, she had a son, Léopoldo João de Lima e Silva. She also had a long relationship with Maurice Chevalier, 13 years her junior. It is claimed that she and Chevalier informed the police in 1940 that singer/songwriter Charles Trenet was gay and consorting with youths.

She first recorded her signature song, Mon Homme, in 1916. It was popularised under its English title My Man by Fanny Brice and has become a standard in the repertoire of numerous pop and jazz singers.

More information: Paris City Vision

During a tour of the United States, Mistinguett was asked by Time magazine to explain her popularity. Her answer was, It is a kind of magnetism. I say 'Come closer' and draw them to me.

If I could live in a cabaret, I would. 

If I could live in 'Moulin Rouge,' I would. 

Rita Ora

VERSAILLES: THE 'ANCIENT RÉGIME' HAS COME BACK

Merche Jones climbs Vermell del Xincarró, Montserrat

Today, The Jones have revised Countable & Uncountable before visiting the Palace of Versailles. The family has visited this amazing palace and has rested in its gardens sharing personal experiences and talking about their preferences in literature, music and places.

More info: Uncountable List

The Grandma has remembered that today, April 27, is the festivity of our Mary of Montserrat, patron of Catalonia, a black virgin very adored and respected by its populations, believers or not, that represents more than a religious symbol. Montserrat is also a symbol of cultural resistance during the darkest years of prosecutions and disctatorships.

More information: Abbey of Montserrat

If you didn't visit Montserrat, The Jones would recommended to do it. You will enjoy of one of the most incredible natural landscapes, full of activities to do; one of the most libraries around the world; and a spiritual place to rest for believers. Montserrat is much more than a mountain, it's the spiritual symbol of a whole culture which has resisted and survived along the history and which is alive and showing its black virgin to the world.

More information: Alpinist

Joaquín Jones and Ildefons Cerdà's Plan

Versailles is a place of contrasts. For one hand you can visit the Palace but for other hand, in the same city stands up one of the biggest banlieues of Paris.

The family has been talking about last French colonies in North Africa and its results nowadays in architecture, urbanism, immigration, social policies and human rights.

Joaquín Jones has offered his knowledge about Ildefons Cerdà's Urbanistic Plan in l'Eixample in Barcelona, an incredible plan which searched the convivence between all the social classes offering the possibility of living together, offering facilities to everyone and avoiding social exclusion.

More information: Failed Architecture & The Guardian

The Jones have decided to rest in Versailles gardens and talked about their preferences and wishes. They have recommended some books. Ana Bean-Jones has chosen, Banana Yoshimoto's books and Claudia Jones has proposed Màxim Huertas with No me dejes-Ne me quitte pas. 

Some members of The Jones and their preferences

Moreover, Merche Jones has talked about Fernando Aramburu's Patria and Michelle Jones about Masterchef's books. 

Finally, Joaquín Jones has recommended Eduardo Mendoza's No word from Gurb and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World while The Grandma has chosen Herman Melville's Moby Dick and Faïza Guène's Kiffe kiffe demain.

The family has also talked about places to visit. Next week, they're going to leave Paris and their destination is unknown. Paqui Jones has recommended Aix-Les-Bains, a commune in the Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France. It's as a beautiful place to visit although the family has talked about other interesting places like China.

Download Brave New World by Aldous Leonard Huxley

Joaquín Jones is very interested in laboural conditions in this Asian country, especially now when May, 1st is arriving, and The Grandma, who is a great fan of human towers, has expressed her surprised about Chinese culture and its capacity to adapt to new goals without any kind of problems explaining the case of the Xiquets of Hanzghou as a example.

Download Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Ne me quitte pas. Il faut oublier tout 

peut s'oublier qui s'enfuit déjà.

If you go away on this summer day, 

then you might as well take the sun away.

Jacques Brel / Barbra Streisand 

The Palace of Versailles, in French Château de Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France. It is now open as a museum and is a very popular tourist attraction.

King Louis XIV in the Palace of Versailles

When the château was built, the community of Versailles was a small village dating from the 11th century. Today, however, it is a wealthy suburb of Paris.

Versailles was the seat of political power in the Kingdom of France from 1682, when King Louis XIV moved the royal court from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789, within three months after the beginning of the French Revolution. 

Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime.

More information: Château Versailles

Especially under Louis XIV, the senior nobility were pressured to spend large amounts of time at Versailles, as a form of political control. Louis XIV evolved a rigid routine of court life as a performance, much of which took place in front of large groups of people, at some points in the day including tourists. 

Château de Versailles and its gardens

Building the château and maintaining the court there was phenomenally expensive, but did a good deal to establish the dominance of French style and taste in the whole of Europe, giving French luxury manufacturing advantages that long outlasted the fall of the Ancien Régime.

Louis XIV's expansion of the building was begun around 1661, with Louis Le Vau as architect. 

It was not completed until about 1715, having been worked on by architects including François d'Orbay, Charles Le Brun, interiors especially, Jules Hardouin-Mansart and Robert de Cotte. 

André Le Nôtre began the gardens and structures in them. There were a range of satellite buildings around the grounds. While the main château building remains essentially intact, though without much of its contents, some of these other buildings have been destroyed.

Download Château de Versailles by The Grandma

It is legal because I wish it. I am the state. 

Louis XIV

SUSANA JONES: 'VOLE PETITE AILE, CHANGE D'UNIVERS'

George Cayley's Monoplane Glider

I'm Susana Jones. Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called The History of Aviation. It was a picture of George Cayle's Monoplane Glider. Here is a copy of the picture...

Some months ago, I joined to The Jones family in the search of the lost dream. I have been living with them until today. I've just decided to follow my own path and do something that I really love: flying.

Yes, I'm a professional pilot who found her inspiration in the figures of Hélène Boucher and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I want to fly over these wonderful French lands, over the Loira's Castles, over Paris, over Britain, Alsace, the French Basque Country and cross Occitania and French Catalan Lands to arrive to Gulf of Lion, where I want to join my soul in that point where sky becomes heaven. 

Yes, I want to stay with my little prince and share as moments as I can with him because he's my rose and I want to see the heaven in his eyes.

Download Cháteaux of the Loire by The Grandma

Susana Jones and her Little Prince

The Jones are going to continue their searching, knowing that the most important isn't what are you going to find when you arrive but all the experiences that you have lived while you were arriving.

This is, to me, the loveliest and saddest landscape in the world. It is the same as that on the preceding page, but I have drawn it again to impress it on your memory. It is here that the little prince appeared on Earth, and disappeared.

Look at it carefully so that you will be sure to recognise it in case you travel some day to the Gulf of Lion. And, if you should come upon this spot, please do not hurry on. Wait for a time, exactly under the star. Then, if a little man appears who laughs, who has golden hair and who refuses to answer questions, you will know who he is. If this should happen, please comfort me. Send me word that he has come back.

Watch Vole English Version: Fly by Céline Dion

 Vole vole petite aile, ma douce, mon hirondelle.
Va t'en loin, va t'en sereine qu'ici rien ne te retienne.
Rejoins le ciel et l'éther, laisse-nous laisse la terre
quitte manteau de misère: Change d'univers. 

Céline Dion

Hélène Boucher

Hélène Boucher was the daughter of a Parisian architect; after an ordinary schooling she experienced flight at Orly and then became the first pupil at the flying school run by Henri Fabos at Mont-de-Marsan. She rapidly obtained her brevet (no. 182) aged 23, bought a de Havilland Gypsy Moth and learned to navigate and perform aerobatics. 

Her great ability was recognised by Michel Detroyat who advised her to focus on aerobatics, his own speciality. Their performances drew in crowds to flight shows, for example at Villacoublay, and her skills gained her public transport brevet in June 1932. After attending a few aviation meetings, she sold the Moth and bought an Avro Avian, planning a flight to the Far East; in the event she got as far as Damascus and returned via North Africa, limited by financial difficulties.

In 1933 she flew with Miss Jacob in the Angers 12-hour race in one of the lowest-powered machines there, a 45 kW Salmson-engined Mauboussin-Zodiac 17; completing 1,645 km at an average speed of 137 km/h and came 14th. They were the only female team competing and received the prize of 3,000 francs set aside for an all-women team as well as 3,000 francs for position. The following year, on a contract with the Caudron company and in a faster Caudron Rafale she competed again, coming second.

Download The Story of Flying by The Grandma

 

Hélène Boucher, Cirrus (left) and Caudron (right)

During 1933 and 1934 she set several world records for women, set out below; exceptionally, she held the international, male or female, record for speed over 1,000 km in 1934. 

Most of these records were flown in Renault-powered Caudron aircraft, and in June 1934 the Renault company also took her temporarily under contract in order to promote their new Viva Grand Sport.

On 30 November 1934 she died aged 26 flying a Caudron C.430 Rafale near Versailles when the machine crashed into the woods of Guyancourt. Posthumously, she was immediately made a Knight of the Légion d'Honneur and was the first woman to lie in state at Les Invalides, where her funeral obsequies were held. She is buried in Yermenonville cemetery. Parts of the press and others held Detroyat to be responsible for her death, spurring a young, innocent girl to such a dangerous sport.

More information: Air Charter Service USA

After her death several memorials of different kinds were set up. A brand new, art-deco styled, Girls High School-Lycée Hélène Boucher built in 1935 in Paris was named after her as she was considered a model for future generations of modernistic, forward thinking girls.

There is a stone in the Guyancourt woods where the crash happened, a tomb monument at Yermenonville and various squares and street names remember her. 1935 saw the first running of a competition for female pilots, the Boucher Cup.

 Past the planets and the stars, leave this lonely world of ours,
escape the sorrow and the pain and fly again.

Your endless journey has begun, take your gentle happiness
far too beautiful for this. Cross over to the other shore.

Céline Dion