Lodging · 1927–1928
Hôtel Foyot and Hôtel Royal Condé
Address · 33, rue de Tournon et 10, rue de Condé, 75006 Paris
Metro · Odéon (4, 10)
Today · Gone. Demolished; a small square facing the Senate.
The story
The Foyot restaurant, at 33 rue de Tournon, facing the Palais du Luxembourg, took its name from Nicolas Foyot, a former cook to Louis-Philippe, who took it over after 1848. His successor Léopold Mourier, from 1891, created dishes there that became famous, as well as the so-called Foyot sauce. The hotel above it lodged Rilke, Santayana, T. S. Eliot and Dorothy Parker. On 4 April 1894 a bomb there seriously injured the poet Laurent Tailhade; the perpetrator was never identified. The restaurant closed in 1937 and the building was demolished shortly afterwards.
Crowley lodged at the Foyot, room 21, from 26 December 1927. Gerald Yorke, a young disciple and future financial backer, introduced himself at Le Bourget airport on 27 December, then came to see him at the hotel on the 31st; Crowley, for his part, placed their first meeting at the Foyot. On 5 March 1928 Kasimira Bass arrived, his new companion, whose presence soon provoked scenes with Ninette Shumway and Dorothea Walker. On 22 March the publisher Collins returned to him all rights to The Diary of a Drug Fiend. He stayed at the Foyot until May, before leaving for Cassis and Marseille.
Back in Paris, he settled two streets away, at the Hôtel Royal Condé, 10 rue de Condé, from 15 to 27 July 1928; Yorke, who was then providing him with a weekly allowance and setting up a publishing syndicate, joined him there. After a stay in the Alps, he returned there from 29 August to mid-September, then moved to 55 avenue de Suffren.
Nothing remains of the Foyot: at the corner of rue de Tournon and rue de Vaugirard there is now a small tree-planted space facing the Senate. On rue de Condé, the sources do not say what became of the Hôtel Royal Condé.