Today the sky is blue and the scent of plum blossoms is there.

There are brands of water called Evian and Vichy.

I don't know why bottled water is imported, but does water not spoil?

I did a little research.

Vichy water has carbon dioxide gas (bicarbonate) dissolved in it,

so it has a gentle, fizzy taste and is naturally slightly carbonated, which refreshes the body from the inside.

It is said that it contains natural carbon dioxide gas created in volcanic strata.

Vichy is a town located 4 or 5 hours southwest of Paris.

Because of its hot springs, it was redeveloped during the reign of Emperor Napoleon III (1861-1866) to include luxury hotels, casinos, opera houses, etc.

and has continued to develop as a glamorous town since then.

Speaking of hot springs and casinos, Baden-Baden comes to mind.

So that's what they were modeled after.

Emperor Napoleon III had them build something that would rival them.

Japan was in the late Edo period and on the eve of the Meiji Restoration.

In 1867, Shibusawa Eiichi, who accompanied Tokugawa Akitake, met Napoleon III at the Paris World's Fair.

Vichy, a magnificent hot spring town.

From the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regional Tourist Office

There are also magnificent hot spring facilities.

During the so-called golden age of the Belle Époque,

it is said that many people came to take a cure.

The source of the hot spring was discovered at the Abbey of Célestins in the old town of Vichy.

Japan is not inferior when it comes to hot springs, but the atmospheric Art Deco buildings and facilities are nice. It seems that Coco Chanel once worked at the hot spring hall.

Speaking of Vichy, it's the Vichy government. During World War II, the German Nazis invaded Paris, surrendered without bloodshed, and the government moved its capital to Vichy and established a provisional government.

There was a large hotel and an opera house that could be used as a conference center, and it seems that the infrastructure and facilities were in place to house a provisional government. On June 22, 1940, Pétain became prime minister, and on July 1, the pro-German Vichy government took power. On October 24, 1940, Pétain and Hitler

At this time, Charles de Gaulle, a subordinate of Pétain, defected to London, where the Allied forces were, and organized the Free French.

Churchill and de Gaulle

The flag of the Free French is designed with the Cross of Lorraine. There is a monument to de Gaulle and the Cross of Lorraine in Nancy. Nancy is a city of glass, a treasure trove of glass and domes. There is the village of Baccarat nearby.

General Charles de Gaulle is a great general, and the airport is named after him, but he is about 2 meters tall. Peter I, who founded St. Petersburg, was 2 meters tall. Xerxes was also 2.3 to 40 meters tall.

Xerxes was the Persian king.

He fought against Leonidas, the Spartan king of Greece. The war movie is "The Three Hundred 300". Xerxes, the Persian king, expanded his power to the Ionian region, located on the Aegean coast, which is now western Turkey. Yesterday, there was a terrible earthquake.

Yukio Mishima liked General Charles de Gaulle's uniform and used it as a reference for the uniform of his private Shield Society. Yukio Mishima, who is said to have committed suicide in the Self-Defense Forces in Ichigaya, wrote in his essay "Cultural Defense Theory" about the Vichy Petain government, "They protected cultural heritage such as the historical buildings of Paris, which surrendered without bloodshed. But at the same time, they paid the price with the sacrifice of the people. It was an invisible destruction of the national spirit, and an outrage that cannot be compared to the visible destruction." That's what I learned. After the war, Pétain was tried and sentenced to death, but in consideration of his advanced age, his former subordinate Charles de Gaulle helped him and commuted his sentence to life imprisonment and exile to an island. The island was Île d'Yeu.

Vichy

Charles de Gaulle's father was the head of a Jesuit college.