La Muette (Paris Métro)

Infobox Paris metro
pic=
Name=La Muette
Day=8 November
Year=1922
Access=
Municipality=the 16th arrondissement of Paris
Zone=1
Next=
X=57
Y=79

La Muette is a station of the Paris Métro, named after the Château de la Muette.

History

Château de la Muette

The street was named after the Château de la Muette,which was converted from a hunting lodge to a small castle for Marguerite de Valois, the first wife of Henri IV. The meaning of the name of the hunting lodge is not known. It may have derived from "muete", a spelling which appears frequently up to the end of the eighteenth century and which signifies a pack of deer-hounds (meute); it may have come from the "mues" or horns which stags shed in the autumn; or again from the "mue" or moulting-period of hunting hawks. Louis XVI spent the happiest days of his life at the château with his young bride, Marie-Antoinette. The old château was demolished in the 1920s to make room for a wealthy housing estate.

A new château was built nearby for Baron Henri James de Rothschild (1872–1947) in 1922. This is now the headquarters for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. [cite web | url=https://www.oecd.org/document/63/0,2340,en_2649_201185_1956607_1_1_1_1,00.html Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development| title=History of the Château de la Muette, by Michael Oborne | publisher=OECD [http://www.oecd.org] | accessdate=2006-07-01] .

Montgolfiers

The first manned flight commenced in a Montgolfier brothers hot air balloon on 21 November 1783, carrying Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes. They flew for 25 minutes about 100 meters above Paris for a distance of nine kilometers and landed between the windmills on the Butte-aux-Cailles. Enough fuel remained on board at the end of the flight to have allowed the balloon to fly four to five times as far. However, burning embers from the fire were scorching the balloon fabric and had to be daubed out with sponges. Thus the pilots decided to land as soon as they were over open countryside.

Places of interest

Nearby are:
*Musée Marmottan-Monet, a museum specialising in impressionist works, including a significant collection of paintings by Claude Monet and works by Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
*Bois de Boulogne
*Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

References