Page 359 - Livre Beau Rivage Palace

REMINISCENCES

PLANE TREES

1940

Charles-Albert CINGRIA

1. Jørgen Jürgensen of Copenhagen (1745-1811) was in Switzerland from 1765 until
1775 learning the watchmaker’s craft with the Houriet family in Le Locle. In 1796
he sent his son Urban (1776-1830) to do the same. Urban married Sophie Houriet in
1801 before returning to Denmark to establish his own watchmaking business. One of
their sons, Jules Frederik (1808-77) set himself up in Le Locle and then in Geneva
making and selling watches. Cultured, wealthy and a patron of the arts, he often
entertained Andersen during his trips to Switzerland.
2. Relations between Prussia and Denmark were extremely bad because of Bismarck’s
claims on the duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg which were Danish. The
Prussians declared war on the Danes and defeated them in 1864. Andersen’s homeland
lost the three duchies.
3. Francisca of Braganza (1824-98), daughter of the Emperor Pedro I of Brazil was
married in Rio de Janeiro in 1843 to François d’Orléans, Prince de Joinville, third
son of Louis-Philippe I (1773-1850), King of France (1830-48).
4. Gade Niels Wilhelm (1817-90), Danish composer of symphonies and chamber works ‘I should like to talk about Ouchy, the village where I am staying. It is strange how
and leading representative of Scandinavian music of the Romantic period.
attached I have become to the place, especially in winter […]. Well, Ouchy is odd. First of all, there
Bibliography on page 433.
is no one, or practically no one, here, apart from a few swans and a man I at first took for a lord,

but who later proved to be only the attendant of a lord – by which I mean a real lord – whose
adviser and servant he is, which is not to be sneezed at […]. Another good thing about Ouchy
is the plane trees. Especially at about six o’clock when the electricity is turned on and one sees the
shadows of their monstrous trunks limbering up like boxers, while the lamps sway imperceptibly
in the terrible north wind […]. There is a baker’s shop, a laundry, and then the grand hotel,

two minutes away. It is here [probably the Hôtel d’Angleterre] that the lord, who has the servant
who looks like a lord, comes to drink an aperitif and play cards with the owner, the daughters,
Monsieur Pierre and Monsieur Paul. I myself have a tiny, well-heated room, and my books.

Unfortunately, no dictionary. Each time I encounter a problem, I am obliged to take the funicular
and go and consult the Littré at the Acropole […] I should have taken an interest in the hotel
earlier. It was there – only two steps away – that Princess Caetani de Bassiano, former editor
of the journal Commerce (later replaced by Mesures) enquired several weeks ago as to whereabouts
in Switzerland I might be found.’

Charles-Albert CINGRIA, ‘Voyage de Saint-Gall à Ouchy’, in Oeuvres complètes, volume 7: Enveloppes; Le parcours du Haut-Rhône; Propos, pp. 216, 217-218.
Extract first published in: Cahiers du Sud (Marseille) 15th year, special issue entitled Images de la Suisse, April 1943.

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