Lodging · 1925
Hôtel du Dauphin
Address · 12, rue Saint-Roch, 75001 Paris
Metro · Tuileries (1)
Today · Fate unknown
The story
Rue Saint-Roch, in the 1st arrondissement, links rue de Rivoli to avenue de l'Opéra, crossing rue Saint-Honoré, and runs alongside the Église Saint-Roch, whose foundation stone Louis XIV laid in 1653 and from whose steps Bonaparte had his troops fire on the royalists in October 1795. According to the Archives nationales reference database, part of the street, opened in the 16th century, was called rue du Dauphin for most of the 18th and 19th centuries, before taking in 1879 the name of the adjacent rue Saint-Roch. The name of the Hôtel du Dauphin very likely perpetuated this former name.
Crowley left Tunis on 2 May 1925 with Dorothy Olsen, his companion since the previous summer and his new “Scarlet Woman”, and William Barron, leaving Leah Hirsig behind. After a stop in Marseille, he was settled by mid-May at the Hôtel du Dauphin, 12 rue Saint-Roch, an address that appears on his correspondence until the end of June.
Many letters were sent from there: to William Bradley on several occasions, to Karl Germer on 25 May, to Heinrich Tränker, to Charles Stansfeld Jones on 14 June. Dorothy Olsen also wrote, notably to Norman Mudd. In June Crowley composed several poems intended for his Book of Oaths, including The Insensitive, Dreaming True and The Turn of the Year.
These Parisian weeks prepared a turning point. After the death of Theodor Reuss, Crowley considered himself his successor at the head of the O.T.O., and Tränker wanted to settle the question. On 21 June Crowley met Karl Germer for the first time at his home in Weida, Thuringia, then on 27 June the so-called Weida Conference was held at Tränker's home in Hohenleuben, with Germer, Hirsig, Mudd, Olsen and several German members, including Albin Grau and Eugen Grosche. Some of them recognised him, but the timeline specifies that this claim was not unanimously accepted. Crowley then remained in Thuringia all summer.
The Hôtel du Dauphin is not documented in heritage sources, and it is not known what the building at No. 12 houses today. About 390 metres long, the street still runs alongside the Église Saint-Roch, which can be seen from the pavement as Crowley saw it in 1925.