Today's Bon bon: What's the fun of research? Finding what's real NOW from then!

Today I bring you two pictures of two things that make me smile.

Both come from a combo of my research and my travel.

Ready?

Here is a picture of a street in London and a series of shops. I took this picture on a lark in 2017. This picture is of Berry Brothers and Rudd, Wine Merchants. This is on the same street as a hatter, or milliner, Lock and Company, which I wanted to know more about. Why? Because Lock has made hats for men and women for hundreds of years and I just wanted to see the store for myself. On a whim, I took a pix of Berry Brothers.

Then, in 2023, I wanted to create a merchant company headed by a woman and I wanted 'the feel' of a real merchant. Lo and behold, as I searched my photos one day, I spied this one—and took them as my feeling for a merchant family.

Caulaincourt's wife, Adrienne, who was also a friend of Josephine.

Then for many years, my husband and I have vacationed in Paris. Renting the same apartment every year in Montmartre, we reside on Rue Caulaincourt.

One day it occurred to me that the name was so very familiar. Did I know someone named Caulaincourt? Where was it I had heard the name? Or read it?

On the way from the apartment to the Metro one day, I happened to look up at the street sign. "General and Diplomat" said the sign.

And I knew! 

This was General Caulaincourt who was Napoleon Bonaparte's aide de camp, and friend. This was the man whom Bonaparte sent to Karlsruhe in Baden, a German duchy, to secretly take into France the Duc d'Enghien. Ever after, Caulaincourt hated that Napoleon had tricked him into thinking he would do naught to the heir to the Bourbon throne.

But in fact, Napoleon had the young duc hurried to the fortress of Vincennes where he was quickly shot one bright morning in a trench. Caulaincourt never forgot nor forgave his master the terrible blight this was upon his conscience. 

Napoleon also sent Caulaincourt to Moscow to negotiate treaties. This was the man who warned Bonaparte not to invade Russia. This was the man who accompanied Napoleon alone on the emperor's flight from Moscow to Paris in his desperate attempt to get back to Paris before the news of the devastating defeat of the French army in that cold land.

Tombe Caulaincourt, Pere-Lachaise

Here is that noble fellow, Armand Augustin Louis de Caulaincourt. A noble aide who was very badly treated by Napoleon and who died a few years after his emperor, in 1827. He is buried in Pere-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.