Page 288 - Livre Beau Rivage Palace

Fig. 13

for the first swimming pool and the ‘temporary footbridge connecting nothing else to lose. Pine forest, swimming pool, tennis court, grill In 1994, a right of way negotiated between the Beau-Rivage for this purpose from the Baron de Bosmolet (Eugène Petit
20
the east and west buildings’, when the felling, to the south, of two and all manner of different fittings had long since sounded the Palace and the brand new Olympic Museum, which led to a path architect). It now contains more than forty thousand burial plots,
sequoias that were jeopardising the construction was the subject of death knell for a park of which nothing was left to speak of by being cut along the edge of the small burial ground located in the including those of Barry, a dog belonging to the canons of Grand
an argument between the hotel’s technical office and the parks and the time the wellness centre was recently built. This is the latest north-east part of the grounds, exposed the dog cemetery. Seizing Saint-Bernard and reputedly the saviour of more than forty souls,
promenades department. However, the first tree died of a disease notion in a series that, from the otium of Roman custom to the the opportunity, Serge Martinelli recorded the words of the hotel’s Rintintin, hero of the eponymous television serial, and dogs of
and the second followed shortly after, and in this way chance left paid holidays of today, via la dolce vita, conveys the complex and most senior member of staff, Alberto Grigolin, who had carried Camille Saint-Saëns, Courteline and Sacha Guitry. Will the Jardin
the promoters of the new complex with a clear conscience and continually changing relationships that the different social classes out the function of gravedigger, among his other duties: ‘Wrapped du Souvenir, a pet cemetery recently inaugurated in Lausanne (2001),
plenty of elbow room! Once the trunks had been cut up, they have maintained with work and leisure through the centuries. in paper, the bodies were interred at a depth of eighty centimetres.’ The be able to fill the gaps in the region in the way of canine high-
26
provided panelling for the interior walls of the new construction. last tomb is the only one on which the inscription, not engraved, society memorials? It perhaps already contains the tail of Alcibiades’
Integrated into the slope of the land, the new sports complex took THE DOG CEMETERY but composed of bronze letters applied to the tombstone, is no dog. As for Beau-Rivage, there is probably some confusion: Coco,
the place of the terrace, exchanging symmetry and curves for a Who has seen Coco? longer legible; Grigolin gives us the terminus ante quem: 1983. The not the dog of the song, but Coco Chanel herself, really is buried
curtain wall with a rugged outline, mostly in glass, crowned by a Félix baumaine and Charles blondelet introduction of a new law making it compulsory to incinerate in Lausanne, in the cemetery of Bois-de-Vaux.
parapet of plant containers projecting out in a quarter-round. The any remains, and the fact that lengthy stays at the Palace were
27
roofing was fitted out in a geometric style that combined paved Moulins, Café de la Rotonde, 1905: a young woman of 22, becoming less and less frequent, relegated the canine cemetery to EPILOGUE
surfaces and four-sided pillars. employed as a ‘poseuse’ (a support act) begins to sing ‘Qui qu’a vu Coco the status of local curiosity from that time on (fig. 13).
The covered area and the layout of the entrances leading dans l’Trocadéro?’ [Who saw Coco in the Trocadero?] – a song by the The practice is not a new one – recent excavations have To write: to try meticulously to retain something,
to the pool, its infrastructures and surroundings, as well as those ‘two blonds’ about a woman looking for her dog. Not knowing her brought to light a dog cemetery containing more than seven to cause something to survive;
23
of the tennis court built two years later in the south-east corner name, the audience asks for her by chanting ‘Coco!’ The nickname hundred tombs dating back to the fifth century bc in Ascalon to wrest a few precise scraps from the void as it grows,
of the property, simply added the finishing touches to the was to stick, although it was not as a singer that Gabrielle Bonheur in Palestine – and it never completely disappeared, as evidenced to leave somewhere a furrow, a trace, a mark or a few signs.
21
transformation, undoubtedly already well under way, of land where Chanel would be remembered. by a dog’s tomb from the eighteenth century erected in the Georges perec
everyone seems to have come in with their own ideas. It appears The ‘Grande Mademoiselle’ often stayed at the Beau-Rivage grounds of the Maison du Tilleul, in Saint-Blaise, in the Canton Species of Spaces 29
that no intervention was given any thorough consideration as Palace. According to one persistent legend, her dog was buried in of Neuchâtel. 28
24
to its effect on the overall design. The grounds contain, in no the park. Would that be Boulette, Folette, Loulette, Dash, Beauty, It would seem that the Beau-Rivage cemetery, where the Like us, gardens are made of organic material prone to decay.
apparent order, a forest of umbrella pines planted at the end of Snow, Blanchette, Titi, Siki, Billy or Kiki mon chéri? The obituary oldest tomb carries the inscription ‘Joe, died 9 September 1880’, was Like us, they are born, undergo continuous transformations and
the 1960s by the director of the establishment Walter Schnyder, list, pieced together from the 48 inscriptions in the dog cemetery at part of a revival of the practice, although it predates the best-known disappear. Buried with the cultures that have created them, they are
22
inspired by a trip along the Mediterranean coast, some sculptures Beau-Rivage is more reminiscent, we have to admit, of Danilo’s aria examples. In 1893, with the help of Henri Duchêne – whose efforts the reflection of the changes in our societies; they adapt to them,
by Edouard-Marcel Sandoz, a concrete table-tennis area and and his demi-monde where no one ever says ‘no’ than the rigorous here were by no means legendary – Marie-Charlotte Princess de espousing their contours in the same way that Swann ends by
children’s playground equipment. These elements, already disparate – if not to say ‘uncompromising’ – aesthetic of the woman described by Broglie created in the park of the chateau of Chaumont-sur-Loire marrying Odette. Today, a direct bus line linking the Beau-Rivage
in themselves, are connected by paths with the most incongruent Paul Morand as the ‘exterminating angel of nineteenth-century style’. a dog cemetery containing about twenty burial plots (eighteen Palace with the working-class district of Bourdonnette eloquently
surfaces, ranging from granite paving stones to cement pavements, The success of this place of remembrance seems to have been listed nowadays) on the site of the former village cemetery. This symbolises a social mobility that condemns outright the tastes of
not forgetting the flagstone paths and the inevitable recycled such that we may well ask if, were it not for a restriction issued by private initiative only preceded by a few years the most ambitious yesteryear, replacing them with brand-new ‘trends’. Drawings, texts,
railway sleepers, employed as risers for the coltsfoot that borders the management, it might not have threatened to extend to the enterprises ever recorded in this area: the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery photos: the gardens of old exist only on paper.
the eastern edge of the grounds. whole of the garden, itself already, in some respects, a cemetery. of New York, founded on the initiative of the famous veterinarian
Having been ripped open on several occasions for the The board of directors were concerned: ‘We are constantly receiving Samuel Johnson in 1896 and the Cimetière pour chiens et autres
installation of the air-conditioning system – alongside which some requests for burial plots in our dog cemetery. It is an invasion. In future, only animaux domestiques created by Marguerite Durand and Georges
memories have no doubt been buried – the park probably had dogs of guests will have the honour of a place in this canine necropolis.’ 25 Harmois in 1899 at Asnières-sur-Seine, on an island area bought

<<<< Fig. 8 << Fig. 10 The Beau-Rivage dog cemetery. Undated photograph.
F. Bonnet, View of the Hôtel Beau-Rivage, Ouchy, lithograph produced by Terry Hôtel Beau-Rivage and surrounding neighbourhood.
and printed by Pilet & Cougnard, Geneva, c.1865. Published at Ouchy by F. Desponds, surveyor. Print, c.1870.
<<< Fig. 9 < Fig. 12
F. Poggi, Hôtel Beau-Rivage near Lausanne, souvenir lithograph combining several Beau-Rivage Palace Hôtel. Plan of part of the park showing
views in floral-patterned frames published by Pilet & Cougnard, Geneva, c.1880. the most interesting trees. Lithograph, Trüb SA, Aarau, pre-1927.
288 289