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The Hôtel de la Païva ("Mansion of La Païva")〔The French word ''hôtel'' is in this case short for ''hôtel particulier'', or private mansion, rather than indicating a business offering public rooming accommodations.〕 was built between 1856 and 1866〔 at 25 Avenue des Champs-Élysées by the courtesan Esther Lachmann, better known as ''La Païva''. She was born in modest circumstances in the Moscow ghetto, to Polish parents. By successive marriages, she became a Portuguese marchioness and a Prussian countess, this last marriage supplying the funds for the ''hôtel'', at which she gave fabulous feasts. ==History== La Païva had already acquired a luxurious mansion at 28 Place Saint-Georges in Paris, but dreamt of building another on the Champs-Élysées, which she thought the most beautiful avenue in the world. According to legend, in her youth she had been pushed out of a cab by a hurried customer and slightly injured. She promised to herself to build herself a house on the avenue where she fell. After her marriage to Albino Francisco de Araújo de Paiva, the self-styled 〔Celsa Pinto, Trade and Finance in Portuguese India (Concept Publishing Company, 1994), page 78 Amar Farooqui, Smuggling as Subversion: Colonialism, Indian Merchants, and the Politics of Opium, 1790-1843 (Lexington Books, 1998), page 238 Agnès Pellerin, Les Portugais à Paris: au fil des siècles & des arrondissements (Editions Chandeigne, 2009), pages 111-113 Virginia Rounding, Grandes Horizontales (Bloomsbury, 2003)〕Portuguese marquis de la Païva, she had the funds to do so. Once the ''hôtel'' was built, she received many notable people there, including the Goncourt brothers, Théophile Gautier, Léon Gambetta, Ernest Renan, and Hippolyte Taine. In 1877, suspected of espionage, La Païva and her husband, Prussian multimillionaire Count Guido Henckel von Donnersmarck, whom she had married in 1871, left France and withdrew to Silesia, where she died in 1884. Since 1903, the ''Hôtel de la Païva'', with its large yellow onyx staircase, Moorish-style bathroom, sculptures, paintings, and a ceiling by Paul Baudry, has been home to the Travelers Club. The double entrance to the courtyard of the ''hôtel'' has been preserved: one door was for entry of cabs and the second for their exit, avoiding the need to turn around. The courtyard has been replaced by commercial establishments: first a financial exchange office, and later a restaurant. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hôtel de la Païva」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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