Page 35 - Livre Beau Rivage Palace

Fig. 1 Fig. 2

INNS, HOTELS the Bible. It brought about a situation that committed host and Reichard in the introduction to his 1802 guidebook: ‘It is a long-
established rule that it is preferable to choose better inns rather than small,
guest to something far beyond the mere exchange of money. In the
AND TRAVEL GUIDES: words of the historian Daniel Roche: ‘It would be wrong to assume mean ones. At inns of repute, everything has a fixed price, whereas a poor

THE WORLD ON that under such private arrangements, the guest, the traveller, did not pay innkeeper will always seek to take advantage. The first thing to do when
his share. Where the relationship was one of passivity and reliance on others, settling into a room at an inn and preparing to sleep there is to open the
THE PRINTED PAGE the balance was only restored by respecting certain rules, and the guest paid windows and then perfume it with a fumigation of vinegar and sugar. If
his debt by engaging in conversation, supplying information and bringing
6
the tester of the bed is attached by ropes to the ceiling, these ropes may
news. It was a matter of courtesy and displaying good manners.’ 3 be old, worn or badly tied and the tester may fall – there are a thousand
We see here social interaction based on an exchange of instances of this occurrence – so it is better to pull the bed from under it.
services between equals which, like the Grand Tour itself, helped One of the great scourges of bad inns is bugs. Madame de Genlis’s advice
to establish a Europe-wide network of noble families. Staying is to take four pieces of camphor, each the size of a walnut, and place
in a private house did not always mean that no money changed two on the mattress under the sheet at the head of the bed and the other
Ariane DEVANTHÉRY
hands and some families seem to have decided to charge guests two likewise at the foot of the bed, taking care not to leave the bed up
A HISTORY OF SLEEPING AWAY FROM HOME young aristocrats underwent a sort of rite of passage marking their for their lodgings, thus opening the way to a third type of against the wall. This precautionary measure is somewhat narcotic and can
Since the beginning of time, people have travelled. Since entry into adulthood. Even though many and very different young accommodation, namely bed and breakfast or full board. In his affect the nerves over time, but used occasionally does no harm. I have on
the beginning of time, they have occasionally had to find board men took part in the Grand Tour, this whole learning experience study based on travel writings of the classical era and the Age of occasion guaranteed being bitten by bugs all night by placing my bed in
and lodging away from home. Whether soldiers, merchants or was strictly governed by certain conventions. There were rules Enlightenment, Daniel Roche shows how, from the seventeenth the middle of the room and surrounding it with lighted candles. Persons
pilgrims, they have always had special places to stay overnight or about which itineraries to follow, which sights to see and which to the late eighteenth century, in both relatively unexplored unused to travelling cannot accustom themselves to the noise of an inn and
longer. Fortunately, our task here is not to cover this whole vast people to meet. Travellers were required to keep journals, make areas and along well-trodden routes, private hospitality gradually frequently lose sleep because of it. The time at which inns are most quiet
range of possibilities. We shall simply look at cultural and holiday sketches and otherwise record their observations. They were gave way to paid-for accommodation. However, for a long time, is from ten o’clock at night until five o’clock in the morning and these are
travel which reached its zenith with the Grand Tour, in other even expected to feel specific emotions. Cultural historian Alain neither precluded the other since the two did not really overlap. the hours one should spend in bed […] One should never use a bedside
words in the period between the mid-seventeenth and the late Corbin sees the advantage of having to take a precise route, see Rather, they were two different systems that complemented table in an inn, nor any other furniture of this nature, however clean it
eighteenth century. particular sights, draw certain comparisons and even think certain rather than opposed each other. According to where he might may appear, for nothing is more dangerous to health. At bad inns, never
The first to embark on this educational journey were young thoughts during their travels. ‘On their return, the similarity of their be, a traveller might have recourse to one or the other, a situation eat stews or sauces, but make do with hot or cold roast meat, eggs, raw food
British noblemen wishing to see the world, but the fashion soon itinerary enabled tourists to find common ground with each other and to echoed in contemporary travelogues. Even so, the inn occupies or food prepared for oneself. Those wishing to stay at an inn should pay for
spread among the aristocracy in the rest of Europe. The Grand compare impressions.’ Since Lausanne stood on one of the routes a special place in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century travel one day at a time. This is a method most innkeepers do not like; all the
1
Tour was a tour around Europe lasting from a few months to leading to the Great Saint Bernard and Simplon passes, the town literature, sometimes as a commonplace, sometimes as a blind spot, more reason to use it.’ 7
several years. Its purpose was to develop the traveller’s aesthetic is often mentioned in travel writings of the period. 2 inasmuch as some travel writers almost never mention it. In other
sense and his knowledge and understanding of different people In the days of the Grand Tour, travellers seeking accom- accounts, it appears in various guises, and is used by authors as FROM GRAND TOUR TO TOURISM
4
and places. While the clear aim of the tour was to discover the modation had two choices – an inn or a private home. Each a temporal, spatial or thematic device, perhaps to mark the end In the few decades between the late eighteenth and the early
classical treasures of Italy, the routes taken by the young travellers involved different expectations and social and even religious of a day on the road or progress from one destination to another. nineteenth century, the Grand Tour underwent profound changes,
took them to many places imbued with symbolic meaning considerations. From the outset, the relationship between It may even be the setting for an often well-chosen and striking transforming it gradually from an aristocratic to a middle-class
and enabled them to meet other travellers and well-known innkeeper and guest was purely commercial and lasted only for anecdote concerning safety or hygiene. journey. The Grand Tour gave way to tourism. Many of these
5
intellectuals of the period. Clearly, they had much to gain socially the length of the stay. By contrast, staying with acquaintances To get a feel of what it was like for eighteenth-century changes affected the way people travelled. They involved both the
and aesthetically from their journeyings, in addition to acquiring (or acquaintances of acquaintances made through letters of Grand Tourists to stay at an inn, let us dip into a fairly long extract road network, with the building of new roads and improvements
knowledge and practical skills. Accompanied by their tutors, the introduction) involved traditional hospitality, a virtue praised in written by Count Léopold de Berchtold and quoted by Heinrich in road surfaces, and means of transport, and the introduction of

Ganter Valley on the road through the Simplon Pass. Riviera, the Valais and the Alps. Engraving drawn by J.-S.-H.-L. Carrard
Engraving, 1831. and lithographed by Jacob Sperli, 1830.

34 35