Jean Monnet, abrandy merchant from Cognac, in southern France, and Robert Schuman, the French foreign minister, a lawyer from the disputed region near the French-West German border, worked together on the "Schuman Plan, " which Schuman proposed on May 9, 1950.
His personal study, which was designed to house a 17-by-28-foot Persian rug from the late 1800s, is filled from floor to ceiling with valuables, ranging from gilded fore-edge books to war memorabilia, abrandy bottle left in his guest house by Kennedy Onassis, and even what he says is Sitting Bull's pipe.