Today, The Watsons and TheGrandma have flown to Paris to spend some hours in the French capital. It has been a present for Rennette,especially, but all the family has enjoyed this travel.
During the trip from Barcelona to Paris, The Watsons have continued studying their English for Sales course.They have revised PastSimple and its regular forms.
Rennette has been very excited with the idea of visiting the capital of her country, a wonderful city that she loves. She has sung some French songs during the trip and the rest of The Watsons and The Grandma have enjoyed all of them, especially La Vie en Rose.
La Vie en Roseis the signature song of popular French singer Édith Piaf, written in 1945, popularized in 1946, and released as a single in 1947.
The song became very popular in the US in 1950 with no fewer than seven different versions reaching the Billboard charts. These were by Tony Martin, Paul Weston, Bing Crosby, Ralph Flanagan, Victor Young, Dean Martin, and Louis Armstrong.
A version in 1977 by Grace Jones was also a successful international hit. La Vie en Rose has been covered by many other artists over the years, including a 1993 version by Donna Summer. Harry James also recorded a version in 1950. Bing Crosby recorded the song again for his 1953 album Le Bing: Song Hits of Paris.
The song's title can be translated as Life in happy hues, Life seen through happy lenses, or Life in rosy hues; its literal meaning is Life in Pink.
La Vie en Rose (May 1945) is a song by Édith Piaf, with music by Louiguy, Édith Piaf being the lyricist, but not the composer, registered with SACEM. It was probably Robert Chauvigny who finalised the music, and when Édith suggested to Marguerite Monnot that she sing the piece, the latter rejected that foolishness.
Edith Piaf
It was eventually Louiguy who accepted the authorship of the music. It was broadcast before being recorded. Piaf offered the song to Marianne Michel, who modified the lyrics slightly, changing les choses (things) for la vielife". In 1943, Piaf had performed at a nightclub/bordello called La Vie en Rose.
Initially, Piaf's peers and songwriting team didn't think the song would be successful, finding it weaker than the rest of her repertoire. Heeding their advice, the singer put the song aside, only to change her mind the next year. It was performed live in concert for the first time in 1946. It became a favorite with audiences.
La Vie en Rose was the song that made Piaf internationally famous, with its lyrics expressing the joy of finding true love and appealing to those who had survived the difficult period of World War II.
La Vie en Rose was released on a 10" single in 1947 by Columbia Records, a division of EMI, with Un refrain courait dans la rue making the B-side. It met with a warm reception and sold a million copies in the US. It was the biggest-selling single of 1948 in Italy, and the ninth biggest-selling single in Brazil in 1949.
Piaf performed the song in the 1948 French movie Neuf garçons, un cœur. The first of her albums to include La Vie en Rose was the 10" Chansons parisiennes, released in 1950. It appeared on most of Piaf's subsequent albums, and on numerous greatest hits compilations. It went on to become her signature song and her trademark hit, sitting with Milord and Non, je ne regrette rien among her best-known and most recognizable tunes. Encouraged by its success, Piaf wrote 80 more songs in her career.
English lyrics were written by Mack David and numerous versions were recorded in the US in 1950.
Louis Armstrong recorded C'est si bon and La Vie en Rose in New York City with Sy Oliver and his Orchestra on June 26, 1950 and this reached the No. 28 position in the Billboard charts.
Bing Crosby also recorded the song in French in 1953 for his album Le Bing:Song Hits of Paris.
The song received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1998.
The Jones are in Paris. They have just arrived to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in the French capital and they are resting now and waiting the last news about Eli's searching in Scotland.
The Grandma is very happy to return to Paris, one of the most wonderful cities around the world, a city that she loves deeply and an incredible centre of history and culture. She trusts in Scottish friends and she knows Eli Jones is going to appear because as difficult as life seems, as passion and effort you must offer, in fact, La Vie en Rose.
Paris is the capital and most populous city in France, with an administrative-limits area of 105 square kilometres and an official population of 2,206,488. The city is a commune and department, and the heart of the 12,012-square-kilometre Île-de-France region. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of Europe's major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts.
Cubism in Hogwarts, 2018 / Musée de l'Orangerie
The City of Paris's administrative limits form an East-West oval centred on the island at its historical heart, the Île de la Cité; this island is near the top of an arc of the river Seine that divides the city into southern Rive Gauche and northern Rive Droite regions.
Paris is especially known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, the Musée de l'Orangerie and the Pompidou Centre Musée Nationald'Art Moderne. The historical district along the Seine in the city centre is classified as a UNESCO Heritage Site. Popular landmarks in the centre of the city include the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris and The Gothic royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, both on the Île de la Cité; the Eiffel Tower, constructed for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889; the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, built for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900; the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Élysées, and the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur on the hill of Montmartre.
The name Paris is derived from its early inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. The city's name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology.
Paris is often referred to as The City of Light (La Ville Lumière), both because of its leading role during the Age of Enlightenment, and more literally because Paris was one of the first European cities to adopt gas street lighting. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps.
French Revolution, 1789-1799
The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC.
One of the area's major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité; this meeting place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town and an important trading centre.
The Parisii traded with many river towns, some as far away as the Iberian Peninsula, and minted their own coins for that purpose.
The Romans conquered the Paris Basin in 52 BC and, after making the island a garrison camp, began extending their settlement in a more permanent way to Paris's Left Bank. The Gallo-Roman town was originally called Lutetia. It became a prosperous city with a forum, baths, temples, theatres, and an amphitheatre.
By the end of the Western Roman Empire, the town was known as Parisius, a Latin name that would later become Paris in French. Christianity was introduced in the middle of the 3rd century AD by Saint Denis, the first Bishop of Paris: according to legend, when he refused to renounce his faith before the Roman occupiers, he was beheaded on the hill which became known as Mons Martyrum, in Latin Hill of Martyrs, later Montmartre, from where he walked headless to the north of the city; the place where he fell and was buried became an important religious shrine, the Basilica of Saint-Denis, and many French kings are buried there.
Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris
Clovis the Frank, the first king of the Merovingian dynasty, made the city his capital from 508. As the Frankish domination of Gaul began, there was a gradual immigration by the Franks to Paris and the Parisian Francien dialects were born.
By the end of the 12th century, Paris had become the political, economic, religious, and cultural capital of France. The Palais de la Cité, the royal residence, was located at the western end of the Île de la Cité.
In 1163, during the reign of Louis VII, Maurice de Sully, bishop of Paris, undertook the construction of the Notre Dame Cathedral at its eastern extremity.
In the summer of 1789, Paris became the centre stage of the French Revolution. On 14 July, a mob seized the arsenal at the Invalides, acquiring thousands of guns, and stormed the Bastille, a symbol of royal authority. The first independent Paris Commune, or city council, met in the Hôtel de Ville and, on 15 July, elected a Mayor, the astronomer Jean Sylvain Bailly.
During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), Paris was besieged by the Prussian army. After months of blockade, hunger, and then bombardment by the Prussians, the city was forced to surrender on 28 January 1871. On 28 March, a revolutionary government called the Paris Commune seized power in Paris. The Commune held power for two months, until it was harshly suppressed by the French army during the Bloody Week at the end of May 1871.
Oscar-Claude Monet
Late in the 19th century, Paris hosted two major international expositions: the 1889 Universal Exposition, was held to mark the centennial of the French Revolution and featured the new Eiffel Tower; and the 1900 Universal Exposition, which gave Paris the Pont Alexandre III, the Grand Palais, the Petit Palais and the first Paris Métro line.
Paris became the laboratory of Naturalism with Émile Zola and Symbolism with Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine, and of Impressionism in art with Courbet, Manet, Monet, and Renoir.
A the beginning of the 20th century, artists from around the world including: Pablo Picasso, Modigliani, and Henri Matisse made Paris their home. It was the birthplace of Fauvism, Cubism and abstract art, and authors such as Marcel Proust were exploring new approaches to literature.
During the First World War, Paris sometimes found itself on the front line. The city was also bombed by Zeppelins and shelled by German long-range guns. In the years after the war, known as Les Années Folles, Paris continued to be a mecca for writers, musicians and artists from around the world, including Ernest Hemingway, Igor Stravinsky, James Joyce, Josephine Baker, Sidney Bechet and the surrealist Salvador Dalí.
Grandma's memories in Paris in August, 1944
Paris started mobilizing for war in September 1939, when Nazi Germanyinvaded Poland, but the war seemed far away until May 10, 1940, when the Germans attacked France and quickly defeated the French army.
The French government departed Paris on June 10, and the Germans occupied the city on June 14. During the Occupation, the French Government moved to Vichy, and Paris was governed by the German military and by French officials approved by the Germans.
For the Parisians, the Occupation was a series of frustrations, shortages and humiliations. A curfew was in effect from nine in the evening until five in the morning; at night, the city went dark. Rationing of food, tobacco, coal and clothing was imposed from September 1940. Every year the supplies grew more scarce and the prices higher. A million Parisians left the city for the provinces, where there was more food and fewer Germans. The French press and radio contained only German propaganda.
Jews in Paris were forced to wear the yellow Star of David badge, and were barred from certain professions and public places. On 16–17 July 1942, 13,152 Jews, including 4,115 children and 5,919 women, were rounded up by the French police, on orders of the Germans, and were sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Grandma's memories in Paris in August, 1944
The first demonstration against the Occupation, by Paris students, took place on 11 November 1940.
As the war continued, anti-German clandestine groups and networks were created, some loyal to the French Communist Party, others to General Charles de Gaulle in London.
They wrote slogans on walls, organized an underground press, and sometimes attacked German officers. Reprisals by the Germans were swift and harsh.
Following the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, the French Resistance in Paris launched an uprising on August 19, 1944, seizing the police headquarters and other government buildings.
The city was liberated by French and American troops on August 25, and General Charles de Gaulle led a triumphant parade down the Champs-Élysées on August 26, and organized a new government.
In the following months, ten thousand Parisians who had collaborated with the Germans were arrested and tried, eight thousand convicted, and 116 executed. On 29 April and 13 May 1945, the first post-war municipal elections were held, in which French women voted for the first time.
In May 1968, protesting students occupied the Sorbonne and put up barricades in the Latin Quarter. Thousands of Parisian blue-collar workersjoined the students, and the movement grew into a two-week general strike. Supporters of the government won the June elections by a large majority.
In the early 21st century, the population of Paris began to increase slowly again, as more young people moved into the city. It reached 2.25 million in 2011.
