Page 356 - Livre Beau Rivage Palace

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN, cries of joy and they drank a toast in my honour…’ Later in his diary holidays at ‘Mme de Pallins’ boarding house, at Crin, below Montreux’,
In 1862, Andersen, along with some friends, spent his
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he added, ‘I have a room overlooking the lake. The four o’clock
AN ITINERANT WRITER IN LAUSANNE meal costs 3 francs and is nothing special.’ He continues with a where on 18 August, he received a visit from his friend Jules
touch of pride: ‘My room is that once occupied by the wife of the Prince Jürgensen, who was staying with his family ‘at the new Grand
of Joinville, and my bed is also the one on which she is said to have slept Hôtel Beau-Rivage’ at Ouchy.
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in on that occasion. A few rooms away from mine, on the same floor (the Having spent two and a half months travelling through
first) in the corner facing Chillon, Byron lived and wrote his Prisoner of Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, Andersen spent
Chillon. It is no larger than mine but it has a small entrance hall leading the night of 19 May 1868 in Dijon. At two o’clock the following
into the room so that it is smaller than mine […]. The hotel is small but afternoon he boarded the train for Pontarlier and arrived at
pleasant, the staircase is covered with carpet, the tall external staircase is Neuchâtel at about eleven that evening. ‘A harrowing journey in
shaded by greenery and flowers, in particular myrtle and pomegranate. In the darkness through the mountains,’ he noted in his diary. On 23
the evening there is gas in the lantern giving it a festive look, but it only May, he left for Geneva, where Jules Jürgensen awaited him. At
Aase and Pierre-Antoine GOY-HOVGAARD
lights the greenery and does not reach the lake which stretches into the two in the afternoon of 1 June, he boarded the steamer L’Aigle:
During his lifetime, the Danish writer Hans Christian By 1860, Andersen was a celebrated author, renowned in twilight with the mountains.’ ‘The air was quite cool, there were big waves on the lake. It was shortly
Andersen (1805-75) made some thirty journeys outside Denmark. particular for his Fairy Tales, which became an instant success when On 15 August, in fine, warm weather, Andersen took the after five o’clock when I reached Ouchy, where I alighted at the new
For the period, he was a great traveller, spending ten of his seventy the first was published in 1835. After this, he continued to produce omnibus to Lausanne, went to a barber’s shop for a shave and to a Grand Hôtel Beau-Rivage. Had a room on the first floor on the Geneva
years on earth in foreign parts. He always claimed that he had been them on a regular basis. He entered Switzerland at Romanshorn bookseller’s to buy a copy of his Fairy Stories in French. Andersen side. Ate at the table d’hôte. The orchestra played some good music. I
‘born in Denmark which was his home’ but also said that ‘to travel is to on 13 July and visited friends at Brunnen and Le Locle. On always travelled with his own books which he lent or gave to people asked the conductor if he knew anything by Gade. The hotel manager
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live. Only when one is travelling is life rich and vigorous’. As a man of 13 August he left Le Locle for Yverdon, which he was eager to he liked. He enjoyed reading his folk stories and fairy tales in public. did not know who Gade was, but the conductor said he was a most
nervous disposition, it is much to his credit that he travelled at the discover, and Môtiers, once home to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He That afternoon: ‘I went for a walk along the lake under some beautiful remarkable classical composer. I went for a little stroll along the edge of the
time, but his journeys were meticulously prepared in advance with travelled by stagecoach, so avoiding the tunnels on the railway trees (a weeping willow). They are building a new hotel here in front of the lake where the water washed onto the bank, while the moonlight turned
the aid of guidebooks such as Baedeker. line between Neuchâtel and La Chaux-de-Fonds, one of which landing stage, which will be opened in March 1861 [Beau-Rivage]. In the the water gold. It was a delightful evening for dreaming. I decided to stay
Andersen discovered Switzerland between 17 August and 19 continued for ‘more than six minutes’ making him ‘very nervous’ on evening, the mountains appear so close, their contours so clear, that one might there all the following day.’
September 1833, during a fifteen-month trip which took him first the outward journey. Even though Andersen appreciated all things imagine oneself in Italy. It was a peaceful evening. The lights in the little town ‘Slept better than in Geneva,’ he wrote in his diary on 2 June
to Paris, then to Geneva, Lausanne (where he stayed at the Hôtel modern, including the railways, he loathed tunnels. After spending on the other side of the lake shone as far as here. The stars appeared.’ 1868, then ‘strolled for a while in Ouchy and here in the garden under the
Faucon on Rue St Pierre), Neuchâtel, Le Locle (where he was put a night at the Hôtel de Londres, he took the train to Lausanne. On 16 August, he began the day by writing to acquaintances shady trees. There are very few steamers here, several hours pass without one
up by his friends, the Jürgensen family who were clockmakers), From there, he travelled by omnibus to Ouchy, where he stopped in Le Locle, Copenhagen, Leipzig and London. Andersen adored seeing the slightest movement on the lake. Strangely, people from different
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Neuchâtel, Lausanne, Brigue, the Simplon Pass, and Gondo where at the Hôtel de l’Ancre, now the Hôtel d’Angleterre et Résidence. these correspondences and he wrote and received vast quantities countries pass each other by, neither knowing who the other is. One hears
he left Switzerland for a long stay in Italy. Like all romantics, he This establishment was listed as ‘billig’ – ‘cheap’ in the 1856 edition of mail almost daily. Each day he dined at the hotel and bemoaned English spoken everywhere.’ After a breakfast of fried eggs, asparagus
was deeply moved by the Alps, finding them both majestic and of the Baedeker guide to Switzerland. Having been raised in the fact that so few others did. A sensitive, sociable person, he loved and ale to drink, he rested. At lunch, he chatted with an English
menacing. He returned to Switzerland twelve times, in 1846, 1852, poverty, Andersen was still very careful with his money, despite company, which was why he preferred boarding houses, which he lady and a gentleman who had relatives among the Danish nobility
1855, 1858, 1860, 1861 (twice), 1862, 1867, 1868, 1869 and 1873, the fact he was now comfortably off. He sometimes quibbled over found friendlier than hotels. and was delighted to speak to a compatriot. On 3 June, Andersen
staying in the country for a total of around ten months, two of them hotel bills. This is how he described his arrival at the hotel: ‘In On 17 August – a Friday – he took the 9 a.m. boat to Vevey, took the omnibus to the station and boarded the train to Berne.
in the Montreux area of which he was particularly fond. His longest the omnibus to Ouchy there was a family from Berlin; at the table at the stopping at the Hôtel Trois-Couronnes. The following day, he His impressions of Lausanne end on a rather mean note. On leaving
story, The Ice Maiden, is set entirely in Switzerland, where most of it Anchor hotel where I am staying, they heard that I was Danish. “So, an moved to a boarding house at Vernex where he stayed for a week in the hotel he was entitled to a ‘very small glass of sherry’ for which he
was written in 1861, and ends on the shores of Lake Geneva. enemy!” said the man with a smile. I mentioned my name and there were order to visit his beloved Chillon Castle, one of his favourite places. paid one franc. ‘I’m sure they swindled me,’ he wrote.

T. Müller, Ouchy (Lausanne) on Lake Geneva.
Lithograph printed by Lemercier, Paris, c.1862.

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