Page 304 - Livre Beau Rivage Palace

Fig. 4 Fig. 5

made a strong impression on me. I never came to know whether this confusion, finished by literally throwing the two birds out of the Who can say if the Beau-Rivage Palace, which between the
man, originating from another neutral country, perhaps acted at the window. From there the swans, one imagines, clumsily took flight. two world wars had hosted so many peace conferences, was not also
time as a valued go-between in collaboration with my father. For a while, the corridor resembled a film set covered with the a setting for this ’shadow war’ of those dark years, where men of
And the accents! My mother particularly remembered the vestiges of countless feather pillows sacrificed to one of those fight goodwill from both sides spoke together to prepare a better future
accents, at a time when the well-to-do almost all still spoke French; scenes where pillows battle it out against custard pies. The incident for humanity?
they were often new to her, and so many: from the ‘trills’ of the narrowly missed having unpleasant consequences. My father had
princes of Central Europe to those of the Latin Americans, from to apologise profusely and to use the diplomatic skills that he had
Greek and Italian intonations to those of Germany, Egypt and Ireland, expected to save for other causes.
not to mention the Vaudois accent of the locals or the curious speech One evening at dusk, when he was finally free for a moment,
of the restaurant director from St Gallen. he took his little family out for a stroll along the Ouchy quays. In
My brothers, Pascal and Simon, were particularly fond of the keeping with the wartime economy measures (the so-called Wahlen
staff house – the Chalet – set back in the park, where they would Plan), the lawns and flower beds had been methodically replaced with
go during the employees’ rest time to play cards with them. They vegetable and potato crops, just like everywhere else in Switzerland
were quite surprised at the sight of the dog cemetery, a flower- (fig. 5). A gentle and continuous rain drowned the landscape in a
filled enclosure containing the remains of pets of guests who spent uniform, slate-grey wash. At the landing stage of the Compagnie
long periods at the hotel. They would stare, fascinated, at the huge Générale de Navigation, an early twentieth-century steamer belched
limousines manoeuvring in the courtyard, and at their cargo of out clouds of yellowish steam that gave away the poor quality of its
beautiful women for whom the chauffeur would hold open the peat-based fuel. On the gangway, a police officer on guard duty
door (fig. 4). studied the faces of the few passengers. A sign announced the ship’s
They drew attention to themselves with a few pranks. One of destination of Vevey and Montreux: it would follow the Lavaux
these consisted of testing the thick carpets by striding up and down shoreline. There was no question of crossing the lake in those times:
the long corridors wearing ice skates imprudently given to them by Evian and the rest of the world remained out of bounds.
a friendly chambermaid. Another was very memorable: just as today, Suddenly, the rain stopped, the grey veil lifted like a theatre
there was an enormous lift that went directly from the upper floors backdrop and the Savoyard coast appeared in the background,
down into the hotel basement, which on the lake side was on a plunged in darkness. ‘Here we have peace,’ said my father with feeling.
level with the quay. During one of their first walks, they had noticed ‘Over there, on the other side, only a few kilometres away, there is a planet
how greedy the water birds were for the stale bread that strollers at war, the enemy presence almost everywhere, fear and humiliation. We are
now only gave them very parsimoniously, given the general shortage. going to have to go back to the other side for a few days,’ he added. ‘If God
They set their sights on a couple of imposing swans. With crumb is with us, we shall return very quickly, I promise you.’
after crumb of the bread they had been carefully saving for several They returned safe and sound five weeks later, even though
days, they lured the two birds into the lift, adroitly caught them in they had been the targets of an assassination attempt. My father was
the trap and sent them to the upper floors, where the poor creatures appointed senior advisor to the French embassy in Bern – an embassy
demonstrated an energy that soon threw the whole establishment whose destiny he quickly had to take in hand, endeavouring to serve
into an uproar. The place was filled with spitting, beating wings, his country’s interests as closely as possible and courageously riding
feathers flying in all directions, attacks and bites – aimed just as the maelstrom of conflicting currents, carrying with them espionage,
often at the culprits as at the valets and chambermaids, who, in the intrigue and plots.

Pascal and Simon Jardin. Photograph, c.1943. Denantou Park, Ouchy, ploughed up and ready to be planted with potatoes Based on estimates of the country’s agricultural capacity, Friedrich Traugott Wahlen,
during the Wahlen Plan. Photograph, 1939-45. head of the agricultural production and domestic economy division of the Swiss
Federal War Office for food, drew up the plan in 1935 and implemented it in 1940.
The purpose was to grow more crops and increase agricultural output to ensure that
Switzerland would have adequate supplies and, if possible, be self-sufficient in terms
of food during the Second World War.
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