Georg, this is beautiful. France was a drop dead gorgeous Liner. The nickname Versailles of the Atlantic suits her. I love the song. Song de Automne is a beautiful. I believe that it was the second to last song played before Titanic went under.

what a exquisite ship. first class is stunning. i love how expensive it looks without cluttering the ship with tacky shops, casinos, neon lights. gorgeous.

A true ship of state.

I know I keep saying this but it's true every time: I've known of this ship for so decades but this is the first time to get a good look at the interior. Thank you, George, for making pictures available that I, and many others, would probably never have seen otherwise. I wonder why the two-story entrance hall or foyer that had the statue against the bulkhead had a floor installed in what had been open space in the middle. I wonder added decking strengthened the frame of the ship or if more floor space was needed--or both.

@DSGNflorian

7 жыл бұрын

I believe the SS France had two entrance halls in the same architectural style, yet different layout (like the Olympic Class ships). With so little information about her available, I was equally perplexed by this when I first saw photographs of what seemed to be the same room.

Ah le France de 1912 😃, une merveille maritime !

Some of these photos were totally new to me. Thank you for uploading. Beautiful choice of music, as always. Photos of the first S.S. France's interiors are indeed not very widely published, except her impressive looking 1st Cl. dining saloon and the entrance foyers. The matter of those foyers does get confusing, but after some research I found out a very curious fact. There were two versions of the same Grand Foyer. The first and original 1912 iteration was a single-deck affair. In the early 1920s the foyer was converted to a two-story layout resulting in a much more impressive space. Previously, I had assumed there were two of those halls on board (in the same architectural style). In that regard the France would have been similar in design to the Olympic and Titanic, which had two similarly scaled 1st Class entrance halls, one of which (the one aft) was the less "impressive" version. What's rather striking to me is that at 3:37 the entrance foyer looks very spacious and grand indeed. However, at 5:20 a photo shows actual crew members on what appears to be the lower level of the "Grand Foyer", judging by the visible details of the surroundings. The ceiling seems remarkably low, no more than 8 feet at best. The glimpse at the upper level of the 1st Class dining saloon at 6:03 seems to convey a ceiling height of even less than that, so do the various shots of the promenade and other areas. I suspect a great deal of camera "artistry" went into the publicity shots to make the 1st Class public rooms seem much bigger than they were in reality. The France was a very low-slung, long and slender vessel on the outside. It's no surprise then, that her decks were somewhat on the low side. It seems to me that the French Line still built their vessels around the more confined standards of late 19th Century marine architecture, whereas British vessels of the age had started to apply deck heights resembling houses on shore. Certainly Mauretania and Lusitania and most definitely Olympic and Titanic had passenger deck heights well above 8 feet, making their interiors feel much like a hotel on shore rather than a ship.

So...this is "Autumn," the piece some Titanic passengers claim was the last played when they sank. Not exactly upbeat.

Two weeks younger than the Titanic - wonder how many well known people of the day traveled in first class on the maiden voyage. Given a choice between Titanic and this ship, I would have chosen this. By the way one of most interesting design elements is the cool patterned flooring, especially the one in the smoking room. Wonder if it was linoleum or possibly rubber. Wonder also if there was dancing in first class - there was none on the Titanic I believe.

Hi Georg Well done music and video in perfect harmony Happy New Year

Im in love with this staircase

Outstanding video. Happy New Year!

Now that’s what I call luxury

Versailles of Atlantic

Les paquebots Français ont toujours été les plus luxueux, des ambassadeurs de l’Art de vivre à la Française…

Beautiful ship grand elegant regal interior and a palace makes the ships of today look cheap and rubbish and completely tasteless! Come back the 20th century!

@radamik

4 жыл бұрын

These ships represented the art and design (and quality) of the countries that created them. Today cruise ships represent what - generic mass market culture.

@michaelwalker4022

4 жыл бұрын

Terribly sad though! all are gone thank goodness the Americans preserved the Queen Mary or that would have gone to the scrap merchants!

Um ... a small correction: This was not the first France. The first France of the CGT was built in 1864 (see link below). Unfortunately, there are very few pictures of this ship and hardly any data. www.norwayheritage.com/p_ship.asp?sh=fran7 So, this is the second one, and the one which started its service in 1962, was the third one.

Le France🇫🇷🗼 1912 le joyau des paquebots français. Parti une semaine après le Titanic, son photographe devant le filmer à son arrivée à New York est mort dans le célèbre naufrage. La ligne d'exploitation française avait fait toute la publicité avant le Titanic sur le luxe et confort mais surtout surtout sur la sécurité face au nombre suffisant de canots de sauvetage

the versalles ship

The maiden voyage took place just a month after the titanic disaster, however because of the disaster the fanfare for the voyage was dumbed down dramatically out of respect for WSL.

Shame we don’t have any taste in design today.

it is not France I, it's France II