Word: vres
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Locals lounging about the Grand-Place of the Belgian town of Chièvres-hardly grand and barely a place-stared sullenly as the cavalcade of black limousines and a police escort swirled up. "Things like that don't happen much around here," allowed one, "so we figured that it must be that Chape [Walloon dialect for SHAPE] thing again." It was. NATO's General Lyman Lemnitzer, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, was hunting new quarters...
...outside Paris by April 1. When NATO decided to move its command to Belgium, the generals expected Belgians to propose a site at Wavre, just outside Brussels. But the Belgian government, a reluctant host in any case, had other ideas. It suggested a less attractive spot at Chièvres, 35 miles southwest of the capital, a far safer site for Bruxellois in case anyone ever drops an atom bomb on NATO's military headquarters. Understandably, SHAPE recoiled in horror, since for almost two decades its 2,600 officers and men have been happily ensconced just 25 minutes from...
Nonetheless, Lemnitzer gamely paid an inspection visit to Chièvres. Though Belgian officials wanted to helicopter him to the place, he insisted on riding the winding, potholed highway, a 1½-hour trip that the Belgians insist can be speeded up by a superhighway they have in mind. The little town itself boasts 3,171 inhabitants. Only a two-minute walk from grazing cows and wheat fields, it has four cafés, none of which will ever make the pages of Michelin. Chièvres' chief offerings are a 16th century Gothic chapel and a brewery...
Sure enough. A few years later, stories spread of a secret meeting in Sèvres, near Paris, a week before the invasion. Selwyn Lloyd was said to have met French Foreign Minister M. Christian Pineau and Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, and worked out the full invasion plan in advance. Ben-Gurion himself admitted the meeting, and claimed that the three nations discussed the need for British collaboration because Israel wanted to guarantee the destruction of Egypt's air force. Did the British actually agree...
...magnificent desk with inlay of metal and tortoise shell in ebony had belonged to Queen Victoria. Fribourg's bed was one that Napoleon had had made for himself and Marie Louise; it bears the date of their wedding. Fribourg owned 18th century Gobelin tapestries and Sèvres china designed by Boucher; he had 70 rare gold boxes that were once used for snuff or jewelry, of which the best examples could today fetch $20,000 apiece. When Fribourg entertained, he and his guests enjoyed not only the meal but also the museum-quality sets of china...