A Mansion of Salt

Regarding the Picasso Museum in Paris, the original owner of the Hotel Sale would no doubt be amused at your columnist Frank Riley’s imaginative explanation of the mansion’s name (May 17). With the accent properly restored over the letter E, the word means salted, the house having been built for a 17th-Century gentleman who enjoyed the privilege of collecting the tax on salt. The sales tax was a later invention.

ALICE NAER

North Hollywood