At the bar
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A former employee of the Nice palace is tried this Friday for “abuse of weakness” on the owner Jeanne Augier, who died in 2019.
What happens on the top floor of a palace? Wealthy clients negotiate a contract out of sight and lovers find themselves in secret, stars protect themselves from flashes and travelers treat themselves to the experience of a lifetime. The little secrets of the big hotels are woven there. For a long time, on the fifth and top floor of the Negresco, the only French palace still on the Promenade des Anglais, in Nice, Jeanne Augier took up residence. Until her death in 2019, this wealthy nonagenarian owner spent her days there, in a medical bed surrounded by her two dogs and her carers. The privacy of an ivory tower does not protect from the outside world. She, the charismatic owner of the Negresco, she, the authoritarian lady with her employees, aroused all desires. Pierre Couette, a former employee fifty-seven years his junior, is on trial this Friday for “abuse of weakness” before the criminal court of Nice. He is suspected of having made the old lady sign juicy work contracts and of having pushed her to create a foundation in her interest.
The Negresco has been the splendor of the Promenade des Anglais since 1913. Henri Negrescu, Romanian butler, erected this luxury hotel with its glass roof listed as a Historic Monument and its pink dome in the shape of a nipple – legend has it that it is is inspired from the breast of his mistress. The hotel became a hospital during the first war. It was not until 1957, and the takeover by…