The American
Friends of Blérancourt
hosted its Annual
Gala Dinner at
the
Harold Pratt
House at
58 East 68th Street
(Park Avenue) on Monday,
November 11th;
The dinner honored
Ambassador Craig R.
Stapleton, former U.S. Ambassador to
France who received the Franco-American Award of
Blérancourt for his contribution to maintaining
excellent French-American relations. “Blérancourt”
refers to the
Franco-American Museum
housed in the Blérancourt chateau in Picardy, France.
The annual gala dinner raises funds for the expansion of
this museum as well as the
multimedia project and the chateau’s gardens. The museum
was founded by
Anne Morgan, daughter of the prominent financier,
following World War I.
Craig R.
Stapleton served as Ambassador to France from 2005 to
2009. His publications include “Where
Liberty Dwells, There is My Country, The Story of
Twentieth-Century
American Ambassadors to France”, written with Louise
French McCready. This collection
of biographies of twentieth-century U.S. Ambassadors to
France explores these
Ambassadors’ personal and professional lives as
Franco-American relations were tested
at pivotal moments in world history. Currently,
Ambassador Stapleton is the Chairman
of the American Friends of the Château de Compiègne, a
sister organization for the
museum located near Blérancourt. He is a member of the
Boards of Directors of the
American Hospital in Paris, the American Library in
Paris Foundation, the American
Cathedral in Paris, Friends of the Hermione-Lafayette,
the de Tocqueville Foundation, the International
Advisory Board of Moët Hennessey among others.
The elegant
French gala dinner menu was personally created and
prepared for the
occasion by award-winning French chef Daniel
Boulud, who
was present.
The founder of several outstanding restaurants in
various cities, he is most famous for
Daniel, his flagship New York City namesake, which was
awarded three Michelin stars. Champagnes Paul
Goerg is
a major sponsor.
The
Franco-American Museum curator from Picardy, Anne
Dopffer, gave an
update on the exciting expansion project, which has been
the major thrust of the
fundraising activities of the American Friends of
Blérancourt. She shared the design and development of
the project during the dinner. Weekend activities for
benefactors and
sponsors include a reception at the studio of artist Hunt
Slonem, a private showing of
Paule Ka fashion
designs and newly-opening boutique on Madison Avenue,
and a
reception at Dumonteil
Gallery on
Park Avenue to view Camille Roche’s
“Splendor on the Riviera”.
In 1917 Anne
Morgan, youngest daughter of Pierpont Morgan, returned
to France,
determined to bring aid to the war-torn civilian
population. She managed to be sent as
close as possible to the battlefront in Picardy, to
Blérancourt, a little village dominated by
the ruins of a chateau built by one of France’s most
prestigious 17th century
architects,
the Huguenot Salomon de Brosse. Only two gate houses and
the fraction of a wing
plus two monumental arches remained of the original
structure, but Miss Morgan set to
work and made it her base for an extraordinary campaign
of humanitarian aid.
She was joined
by a committee of volunteer women from both France and
the U.S.
and she worked closely with the American Field Service,
of which Blérancourt was one
of its key centers. After the war she and her volunteer
workers rebuilt entire villages
and brought doctors, nurses, teachers and agricultural
experts from the U.S. to bring life
to the devastated region. At the same time she bought
the chateau and decided to turn
Blérancourt into a museum of French-American history.
The collections represent five
centuries of Franco-American relations. The success of
Anne Morgan’s efforts hasmade her a legend in Picardy.
In 1931 she gave the chateau and its collections to
theFrench government.
In 1985 the
American Friends of Blérancourt Inc. was founded by
Baroness Bernard
d’Anglejan, who has been working tirelessly with
President Mrs. Jean-Paul Anglès to raise
funds for the museum’s expansion. In 1989 the AFB
completed a first addition,
the creation of the Florence Gould Pavilion. The museum
is currently closed for
construction work on a large new extension, designed to
double the exhibition space.
The American Friends are also responsible for the
creation of several gardens and
an arboretum of American trees on the museum grounds.
These remain open to
the public as are the two newly-restored gatehouses, the
Anne Morgan Pavilion
in which Anne Morgan lived and the Bibliothèque Pavilion
which houses the library.
The
newly-expanded Franco-American Museum of the Château de
Blérancourt
is scheduled to reopen in 2016 with new collections and
a dynamic bilingual multimedia
program to welcome visitors.
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