{"id":215,"date":"2007-10-07T10:38:04","date_gmt":"2007-10-07T18:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/2007\/10\/sad-days-again-as-dianas-death-investigated\/"},"modified":"2007-10-08T22:31:53","modified_gmt":"2007-10-09T06:31:53","slug":"sad-days-again-as-dianas-death-investigated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/2007\/10\/sad-days-again-as-dianas-death-investigated\/","title":{"rendered":"Sad days again as Diana’s death investigated this week in Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a sunny morning as I crunched through leaves walking along the Seine from my home bridge, Pont Neuf, to the Pont d’Alma, a bridge close to the Eiffel Tower.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Below the d’Alma on the downriver side is the statue of “Le Zouave” (pictured below, far left), an image of an Algerian infantryman in the French army. These infantrymen’s uniforms were unique: a fez, a tight fitting short jacket, a ten-foot-long sash, baggy trousers, and\u00c2\u00a0white tights. The statue is famous for\u00c2\u00a0measuring the level of the Seine.\u00c2\u00a0Our tour guide last week mentioned that the Seine rose up to his neck one scary year.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \"Princess<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n

The d’Alma bridge is\u00c2\u00a0also famous because it is next to the underpass (sometimes called the “tunnel”) where Princess Diana’s car crashed into a piling on August 31, 1997 (photo above, far right). After dining at the nearby Ritz Hotel,\u00c2\u00a0Dodi Fayed and Diana rode in a speeding car back to Dodi’s apartment, racing ahead of paparazzi. Dodi\u00c2\u00a0and the driver Henri Paul died immediately in the crash. Diana died later at Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital.\u00c2\u00a0I chose not to walk along the underpass, though there is a narrow sidewalk on either side of the car lanes.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

An unofficial memorial site to Diana is under\u00c2\u00a0the “Flame of Liberty” monument (shown above, second from left) on a small paved area roughly at street level above the 13th pillar where the Mercedes crashed. The monument itself\u00c2\u00a0is actually\u00c2\u00a0the golden flame of the Statue of Liberty’s torch, dedicated to the friendship between the United States and France. There is also a\u00c2\u00a0memorial site (shown above, second from right) for Dodi and Diana at Harrods, the London department store Dodi’s father Mohamed Al-Fayed owns.<\/p>\n

I bring all this up because Mohamed Al-Fayed has pushed for another inquest into his son and Diana’s deaths. The inquest jury will be visiting Paris this week. Conspiracy theories will again be presented as\u00c2\u00a0Mr. Al-Fayed looks for more\u00c2\u00a0reasons for the crash, more reasons than the\u00c2\u00a0sad combination of alcohol, speed,\u00c2\u00a0distraction from paparrazi,\u00c2\u00a0and passengers\u00c2\u00a0not using seat belts.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a sunny morning as I crunched through leaves walking along the Seine from my home bridge, Pont Neuf, to the Pont d’Alma, a bridge close to the Eiffel Tower.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Below the d’Alma on the downriver side is the statue of “Le Zouave” (pictured below, far left), an image of an Algerian infantryman in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}