Dear chess friends,

The year is 1858, the "annus mirabilis" of Paul Morphy. After the
Birmingham tournament, Morphy continued his correspondence with Staunton,
writing letters from Paris with a view to arranging the match, which, in the
event, was frustrated. In the two letters dated 6th and 8th October, Morphy
was writing from the Cafe de la Regence. Can anyone, please, tell me with
whom Morphy was staying in Paris?

Hope someone can oblige with this.

Best wishes,

John Townsend
(Wokingham, England)

In Edge's "The Exploits & Triumphs in Europe of Paul Morphy", Dover 1973, p.
143 reads:

"Having again submitted our baggage to the inspections of numerous
officials, we (NB Edge & Morphy) thanked our stars for seeing the last of
the Chemin de Fer du Nord, - drove off to Meurice's, where they gave us
rooms about the fifteenth story, - started for the Restaurant des Trois
Freres Provencaux, ..."

Therefore I imagine that "Meurice's" was their residence in Paris.

"John Townsend" wrote in message
...
Dear chess friends,

The year is 1858, the "annus mirabilis" of Paul Morphy. After the
Birmingham tournament, Morphy continued his correspondence with Staunton,
writing letters from Paris with a view to arranging the match, which, in
the
event, was frustrated. In the two letters dated 6th and 8th October,
Morphy
was writing from the Cafe de la Regence. Can anyone, please, tell me with
whom Morphy was staying in Paris?

Hope someone can oblige with this.

Best wishes,

John Townsend
(Wokingham, England)

John Townsend wrote :

The year is 1858, the "annus mirabilis" of Paul
Morphy. After the Birmingham tournament, Morphy
continued his correspondence with Staunton,
writing letters from Paris with a view to arranging
the match, which, in the event, was frustrated.
In the two letters dated 6th and 8th October,
Morphy was writing from the Cafe de la Regence.
Can anyone, please, tell me with whom Morphy was
staying in Paris?

Hope someone can oblige with this.

_
According to Lawson, upon his arrival in Paris
(on September 1, 1858), Morphy "[put] up at
Meurice's Hotel".

A New York Times report on the start of the
December 1858 Morphy-Anderssen match referred
to "Mr. Morphy's hotel" at "No. 1 Rue du Dauphin".

Louis Blair wrote:

to "Mr. Morphy's hotel" at "No. 1 Rue du Dauphin".

Somewhere on www.paris.fr, they have a search function for
historical roads -- a quick search of "Rue du Dauphin"
hits a page for Rue Saint-Roch, which might have been named
Rue du Dauphin between 1830-1879 -- someone who knows
French will have to check that out
(http://www.paris.fr/Carto/Nomenclature/8740.nom.html)

Anyway, it seems to have started in Rue Rivoli ... and on
228, Rue Rivoli there's a 'Hôtel Meurice' today.

It seems to have fitted the taste ... or at least the prestige
of Queen Victoria in 1855, as well as much other European
royalty. (Taken from the notes of a German TV series on
hotels around the world: http://www.ndrtv.de/doku/menschen_und_hotels_paris.html)

So what's there today might be just what Morphy stayed at.
Anyone planning to follow his example will have to pay royally
for the privilege...

--
Anders Thulin ath*algonet.se http://www.algonet.se/~ath

My thanks to Neil Sullivan, Louis Blair and Anders Thulin for their helpful
replies.

Is the consensus that Meurice's and No. 1 Rue du Dauphin were the same
place? I ask this because from 1 Sept. to December is a long interval, and
I wonder if Morphy could have changed his hotel?

Best wishes,

John Townsend

John Townsend wrote:

Is the consensus that Meurice's and No. 1 Rue
du Dauphin were the same place?

_
My guess is that nobody has, up to now, even
thought about this, much less come to a
consensus about it.

"John Townsend" wrote in message ...

Is the consensus that Meurice's and No. 1 Rue du Dauphin were the same
place?

I would not go that far. I'm fairly certain that Hotel Meurice
of 1859 was not far from 1, Rue du Dauphin, but I would not say that
they were the same without stronger proof.

A hotel guide or directory to Paris from ... well, at least before
1906-07 should probably do it.

Anders Thulin wrote:

A hotel guide or directory to Paris from ... well, at least before
1906-07 should probably do it.

... and I forgot to mention that that is because the current
Hotel Meurice was built in 1906-07. I have no idea what happened
to the previous one.

--
Anders Thulin ath*algonet.se http://www.algonet.se/~ath

John Townsend wrote:
Is the consensus that Meurice's and No. 1
Rue du Dauphin were the same place?


Anders Thulin wrote:

I would not go that far. I'm fairly certain
that Hotel Meurice of 1859 was not far from 1,
Rue du Dauphin, but I would not say that they
were the same without stronger proof.

A hotel guide or directory to Paris from ...
well, at least before 1906-07 should probably
do it.

... the current Hotel Meurice was buitlt
in 1906-07. I have no idea what happened to
the previous one.

_
I have to admit that I had no idea of the
importance that was to be attached to this
matter. I should probably have mentioned
that when Lawson reproduced the New York
Times report, it looked like this:

"... at Mr. Morphy's hotel [Breteuil],
No. 1 Rue du ..."

I did not pay much attention to the part in
square brackets, because, whatever it was,
I assumed that it was something inserted by
Lawson and not part of the original New
York Times report. It now occurs to me
that Lawson may have been helpfully adding
the name of the hotel to the report. Perhaps
someone who knows French can tell us whether
or not "Breteuil" is a plausible hotel name.
If it is, would that necessarily be distinct
from "Meurice's Hotel"? Could it be that
Breteuil was the name of a hotel that was
owned by Meurice and sometimes referred to
as Meurice's Hotel?

Louis Blair wrote:

the name of the hotel to the report. Perhaps
someone who knows French can tell us whether
or not "Breteuil" is a plausible hotel name.

That probably clinches it, I think.

Hotel Breteuil was where Anderssen played Morphy
in 1858, if Gottschall's book on Anderssen can be
trusted (p. 151, l. 24).

I have found a mention of Hotel Breteuil and
Rue de Rivoli from 1816 in Captain Gronow's memoirs,
so at least it wasn't somewhere else entirely. But
it would be nice to have a separate verification that
Hotel Breteuil was actually in No. 1, Rue du Dauphin,
as Gronow is a bit of a raconteur ...

--
Anders Thulin ath*algonet.se http://www.algonet.se/~ath