Dean Winchester's extraordinary adventures - Author's notes
As my characters visit places in Paris during their investigations, I thought some of you might be interested in knowing a bit about those places, as well as a few other details you might find useful (here's a map showing the monuments, streets and other places in Paris I mention in the fic, all of them running alongside the Seine in the center of the city or quite close) :
- I don't think I need to explain the Eiffel Tower ? Built for the 1889 exposition universelle (world's fair), it's been the tallest man-made structure in the world until 1930, and is still the highest tower in Paris.
- The Jardin des plantes (Garden of plants) in Paris was established in 1635. Apart from the plants, you can also find four famous museums about the evolution of life on the planet, mineralogy, paleontology, botany, the biggest herbarium in the world, and a small zoo.
- The 36 quai des Orfèvres (literally : quay of the goldsmiths) is the former address of the police headquarters in Paris on the île de la Cité (the island where you can also find the cathedral Notre Dame de Paris). It's such a famous, iconic place that it's usually called Quai des Orfèvres, or even just "the 36", and everyone knows what you're talking about. I discovered while researching this story that the police didn't settle there before 1913 which makes it impossible in fact for the events of the fic to happen there, but I went with it anyway.
- The Élysée palace is the place where the presidents of the French republic work, and sometimes even live, since 1874. Nowadays, you can visit it every year during a weekend in September, on the occasion of the event called "Journées du patrimoine". Here are some pictures somebody took and shared on her blog. Scroll down to see the library (bibliothèque Napoléon III). As an aside, while the movie makes use of the real president of that time (Armand Fallières), I made one up for this story so don't go looking for President Malvy's achievements.
- The movie uses a character called Saint Hubert but my own take veers off quite significantly from the original. Saint Hubert is the patron saint of hunters. Born in 656 in Toulouse (France), he died in 727 near Liège (Belgium). A wild young man living for the hunt, it is said he had a vision, a stag he was about to kill wearing a cross between its antlers, as a voice told him to turn to the Lord or go down to hell. He thus went on to become a bishop and a saint. In the fic, my character owns dogs who are of course St. Hubert hounds (generally called Bloodhound). Also, the articles at Wikipedia about the Saint Hubert's key are somewhat different, whether you look at the French or English ones. This story offers yet another version of it…
- The Louvre is of course one of the biggest art museums in the world. Set in a former royal palace, the collection include a great deal of Egyptian antiquities.
- The obelisk from Luxor was a gift of Egypt to France in 1828 and has been displayed on the place de la Concorde since 1836. It was made on Ramses II's order to praise his reign.
- Lastly, just a small FYI for the purist among us : technically, the French name for the archangel is Michel, and not Michaël or Mickaël (pronounced mi-cka-el), two more recent versions. But I wanted it to rhyme more closely to Gabriel and Raphaël, so… artistic freedom and all that jazz. This zany story was definitely the place to go with it !