As a result of the extension of the Field Service of the American Ambulance, the headquarters of the field ambulance sections have been transferred from the Lycée Pasteur, Neuilly-sur-Seine, to 21 rue Raynouard, Paris (XVI), and are installed in the beautiful premises generously placed at their disposal for the duration of the war by the Hottinguer family.
HEADQUARTERS OF THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE FIELD SERVICE, 21 RUE RAYNOUARD, PARIS
This house at Passy has, since the beginning of the last century, been the property of the family of Benjamin Delessert, the great philosopher, who founded the Caisse d'Épargne in Paris. On the extensive neighboring land belonging to him he established a refinery where beetroot sugar was made for the first time. The Emperor Napoleon, as an appreciation of this discovery, created him a Baron of the Empire and Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur.
There exist in the park at Passy three ferruginous springs, the waters of which were famous even in the seventeenth century. Madame de Sévigné speaks of them in a letter to her daughter, dated 1676. Later a thermal establishment was organized. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who lived on the edge of the park, speaks in his "Confessions" of taking the waters. Voltaire was also an assiduous visitor. From 1777 to 1785 Benjamin Franklin often came to take the cure, and walked in the shade of these wooded acres. It is even said that he made here his first experiment with a lightning-rod. More recently, history recounts that in this same spot Zola wrote his book "Pages d'Amour." The house was occupied for a long time by the Bartholdi family and was frequently visited by the great sculptor of the Statue of Liberty, given to the United States by France. A description of the place is given in a book on "Old Paris" by Georges Cain, and also in a book called "Paris," by André Hallays. The property belongs at the present day to the Hottinguer family and their descendants, heirs of the Delesserts.
SOME OF THE MEN OF THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE FIELD SERVICE AT THEIR HEADQUARTERS AT 21 RUE RAYNOUARD, PARIS