Hotel Scribe, Paris

The Hotel Scribe, located in the heart of Paris between the Opera Garnier and the Place Vendome, has recently been promoted to five stars and celebrated its 150th anniversary. The hotel, as well as offering an exceptional luxury experience, is rich with clues relating to its history. What can we recover about the hotel's illustrious past by staying here today?

Perhaps the most obvious indication of great happenings is the Cafe Lumiere bar and restaurant, its name echoing the hotel's link with cinema. The natural light streaming through the ceiling of the cafe's atrium is a reminder of the light show that was the first cinema spectacle by the Lumiere Brothers at the Salon Indien of the Grand Cafe. Here, on December 28 1895, the first public cinema screening was hosted, consisting of ten short clips under the title of "La Sortie des usines Lumière" or "l'Arroseur Arrosé".

Perhaps it is fitting that Josephine Baker, the first American-African to star in a motion picture, in the 1920s, used the Hotel Scribe as her Paris residence. Known as "La Baker", France was her adopted country and she went on to assist the French Resistance during the war, being awarded the highest French military honour, the Croix de Guerre.

What else can we learn about the hotel's past? A memorial plaque tells us that above the Grand Cafe was the meeting place of the Jockey Club. The headquarters occupied luxurious rooms on the first floor of the hotel from 1863 to 1913. From here the club could organise its affairs, in particular in relation to races at Longchamp in the Bois de Boulogne in western Paris.

We have to turn to other evidence to recover the imprint of certain events during World War II. A two-page spread by the illustrator Floyd Davis in Life magazine from late 1944 shows a bar filled with reporters. The bar at the Hotel Scribe was the focal point of journalists covering the liberation of Paris, no less on the evening of 25 August 1944, which this illustration depicts. Here we see the writer Ernest Hemingway and the unshaven and helmeted figure of Robert Capa. It's no surprise that Capa looks rough-hewn given that the legendary photographer had covered the D-Day landings two months earlier. The Hotel Scribe also became a haunt for journalists leaving for or returning from the front line.

Thus the longevity of the Hotel Scribe in Paris has enabled it to become a focal point for cultural and social activity. It has seen the birth of cinema, been the meeting place for clubs and the haunt of war journalists. The Hotel Scribe has been more than just a place to stay in Paris.

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