In the autumn of 1943, Paris shivered under the Occupation. Heating was rationed, coal was scarce. That's when Simone de Beauvoir obtained a room at Hôtel La Louisiane, on the recommendation of Café de Flore regulars. Jean-Paul Sartre joined her on the same floor. Existentialism would be born within these walls.
Moving In: Autumn 1943
La Louisiane offered a decisive advantage: central heating still worked, when other hotels had cut theirs. Beauvoir settled into a room at the corner of rue de Seine and rue de Buci - the future room 10, oval and luminous.