Country house of the poet Jean Cocteau Jean Cocteau .. loved Paris. He dreamed about it as a child, trying to break out of its "village" (Maisons-Lafitte, where the poet was born, separated from the capital, some twenty miles away, but between the life of the provincial capital of the bourgeoisie and bohemians distance was huge). When the nineteen-teens Cocteau got off the train at the Gare Saint-Lazare with a stack of written pages and the desire to conquer Paris, the city did not long resist. The first collection of poems, "Lamp of Aladdin" has made him a favorite of the literary circle, after the second it dubbed "frivolous prince." Cocteau and Paris itself was the era between the two wars - extravagant, brilliant, drunk and in love forever. He was always good here, even during the occupation, which the poet was amused by balancing feat and betrayal. First, in a huge apartment on the Place de la Madeleine, then in a narrow mezzanine gallery over the Palais Royal, he always created his own world, confused, fantastic, densely populated things and portraits of beloved friends: Jean Marais, Edith Piaf, Coco Chanel, Pablo Picasso, Diaghilev . But after the war, Paris began to weigh Cocteau. He and Mara were too many fans, too many people and events require their participation. Despite its remarkable performance (novel "difficult children" Cocteau wrote this week, and be able to break-up after a spree of opium), the poet could no longer work in Paris, he had no time for myself, not enough air, tishiny.V 1947 his secretary finds the house of the XVII century in Milli-la-Foret, an hour's drive south-east of Paris, near Fontainebleau. With two pot-bellied turrets on the sides tightly twined with ivy, on the banks of the moat surrounding the castle with a park - all of it reminded them just finished the movie "Beauty and the Beast." Cocteau and Marais fall in love with a house and buy it immediately.