If I ask you to adumbrate the image of 19th century Paris, you would most likely start thinking about its art. After the French Revolution, Paris became the epicentre of the art world. Museum, exhibitions and art schools rightfully occupied the French capital causing people with relatively unorthodox minds from all over the world to flock there.
The picture that we've painted of Paris begs a question. What if you wake up one day, you decide to tread along the river which the Vikings sailed through to siege the city home to Eiffel Tower and during this trip of yours, you see a dead girl in the murky Seine. How would you react to find something so bleak in a city known for art?
In the 19th century, a girl's lifeless body was regurgitated by the Seine river. That was an era before DNA profiling (hey, maybe we could go back in time and tell them about DNA fingerprinting through electrophoresis, huh?) so everyone remained in the dark about the identity of that foreign girl who came to be known as L'Inconnue de la Seine. The body of this girl who was about 16 years old showed no signs of physical violence so her death was attributed to suicide yet her mouth was curved into a smile. Soon after her discovery, artists charmed by her face specifically her smile started painting her.
A mortician at the morgue was enthralled by the beauty of her enigmatic half-smile. "Her beauty was breathtaking and showed few signs of distress at the time of passing. So bewitching that I knew beauty as such must be preserved", he said & ordered a plaster cast of her face.
Albert Camus, a famous philosopher, compared her enlivening smile to that of Mona Lisa. She was mentioned in several literary books throughout German, North American, and French literature.
People still remained entranced by her even though half a century had passed since L'Inconnue had been found and she was transformed into something else by a man and another incident of drowning.
In 1955, a toy maker from Norway, Asmund Laerdal saved his son's life after he had drowned by clearing his airways. At that time, Asmund used to make children's dolls from soft plastic. A few years later, a group of doctors who had developed CPR technique wanted life-like a special training doll and so Asmund was approached for such an item to be made.
Asmund jumped on the idea of this keeping in mind his son's brush with death. He wanted to design a mannequin with a calm face and remembered a beautiful mask he had seen at his Grandparents' home that mask was the face of Inconnue de la Seine which became the face of his life saving mannequin.
She was given the name Anne – Resusci Anne or Resuscitation Anne. This mannequin was also marketed as Annie and the CPR providers in the US were trained to see whether if the patient was responsive by asking 'Annie are you okay?'
A bleak event in Paris turned out to be life-saving.