[1] On 5 December 1905, the iron-and-glass overall arched roof of London Charing Cross railway station collapsed during a long-term maintenance project, killing six people.
[2] Palais de la Jetée – The project was born during a trip to London by the Marquis d’Espouy de Saint-Paul, who then discovered the Crystal Palace (Hyde Park) and wanted to reproduce this building in Nice . The Marquis imagines a floating glass palace on the model of the “piers” who were in vogue at that time in Great Britain.
[3] Siberia is an opera in three acts by Umberto Giordano from a libretto by Luigi Illica. It premiered on 19 December 1903 at La Scala in Milan. There is no direct source for the plot of Siberia and it is quite possible that this is an original work by Illica. It was suggested at the New York premiere that it was based on Leo Tolstoy’s novel Resurrection or one of the novels within it.
[3] The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character is an 1886 novel by the English author Thomas Hardy. One of Hardy’s Wessex novels, it is set in a fictional rural England with Casterbridge standing in for Dorchester in Dorset where the author spent his youth.
[4] The Place Masséna is a historic square in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France. It was named for André Masséna. Its layout was designed by Joseph Vernier in 1843-1844. It is the main square of the city.
The Diaries of my Great-Great-Aunt Kate 