Chapter III: Part 3

The cost of rooms is regulated primarily by the floor or _étage_ on which they are situated; and if the visitor desire to be economical, he ought to ask for rooms upon the higher floors, say the third, or even, where it exists, the fourth _étage_. First–floor rooms are always charged high, sometimes exorbitantly so. At Milan we were shown into bedrooms on the first floor, which, had we taken, would have cost us about 20 to 25 francs per night per room. In Nice as much as 75 francs, or £3 per day, have been asked for two rooms on the first floor of a leading hotel, being equal to a rent per annum of £1095. A friend who spent the winter at Cannes told me he paid 75 francs per day for the rooms he had in one of the principal hotels, but probably he had three or four rooms. In Mentone the highest I have known paid by friends has been, for a large saloon and a bedroom, both princely rooms, 50 francs, or about £2 per day, equal to a rent per annum, were they let all the year round, of £730. These, however, are season places, and such rooms would remain vacant a considerable portion of the year, and even, a consequence of the high charge, for great part of the season, as the hotelkeepers will not lower their price even for a short period.

In Italy it is always desirable, where there is an ability to mount long stairs, to take rooms as high up as possible, so as to get as far away as may be from the odours of the street; but the same rule as regards the charges for rooms prevails. Perhaps in nothing do foreign hotel charges differ more than in the charges for rooms. They differ according to the place—that is, whether it be a large or a small town; according to the hotel, whether it be first class or inferior; and according to the rooms themselves, their position, size, and furnishing, and also according as they are single or double bedded. Abroad, nearly every bedroom large enough is so constructed as to fit it for use also as a sitting–room or _salon_, in which friends may be received. Sometimes the beds are placed in a recess or back part of the room, which may be shut off at will by drawing a curtain. The rooms abound with mirrors; but unless in houses frequented by the English, there are for the most part no carpets on the floors, saving a rug at the bedside, thus and otherwise involving an odd mixture of splendour and discomfort. However, carpets are beginning to be more frequently introduced. To those accustomed to the warmth of carpets, getting out of bed in the morning is, when they are wanting, a chilly operation, more especially when the floors are constructed, as they sometimes are, I presume for protection against vermin, of composition.

On an average, I would say that a bedroom on a third floor, with one bed for a single person, costs from 3 to 5 francs per night; a double–bedded room, from 5 to 8 francs. On the second floor the price is advanced a little; but the first floor is always high, varying according to circumstances. In some fashionable places, such as Nice and Biarritz, during the season the charge for rooms is, in first–class hotels, as what I have already said shows, extravagantly high. The season at Nice is not, like many places, for two or three months only, but lasts the whole winter—half of the year. It ought not therefore, one would think, to be so expensive.

But lights have to be paid for separately, and are usually charged at hotels at the rate of 1 franc per _bougie_ or candle, although I have seen only 75 centimes charged, and in some out–of–the–way places as little as half a franc, or even, as at Chateau d’Œx, 30 centimes, upon which no doubt there was a profit. I was told of the case of a visitor at an expensive hotel in Nice who was, a good many years ago, charged 16 francs for _bougies_ for a single night. But this mode of plundering is now so far abandoned, and one has only to be careful that more candles than he desires be not lighted. The charge for _bougies_, if remaining only single nights at hotels, becomes heavy; but if several nights be spent in the house, the candles remain till burned down. It is said that foreigners carry off their unburnt _bougies_ with them, and use them at next stoppage, as they carry off also, it is alleged, the sugar which they have not used, but for which they consider they have paid. These, however, are petty habits, to which English people have not yet got accustomed.

The charge for service is almost invariably 1 franc per night per person. As lights are not charged in England, the united charge for _bougies_ and service comes, for short periods, to be very much the same as the charge in England for service alone.

Universally, abroad, the beds are constructed only to hold one person. This may be, though it is not always, because of the summer’s heat. In some rare cases the beds are found to be broad enough for two; but it does not necessarily follow that the charge is in this case as for one occupant. I have seen charge made for a broad bed as much as if the room had contained two beds. In parts where mosquitoes exist, the beds are draped with mosquito curtains.

Each room has its key and corresponding number, and the visitor is expected, upon leaving his chamber, to lock his door, and hang the key upon the key–board which is under charge of the _concierge_ at the entrance to the hotel. In very large hotels, there is a key–board for each floor, in charge of an attendant. So contrary is this system of locking doors to the habits of the English, that it is often neglected by them; so much so, that in hotels exclusively frequented by natives of our isle, such a thing as locking doors and bringing down keys would be looked upon as extraordinary. At one of these hotels, I asked a servant, upon leaving my room after arrival, where the key should be put, as I had seen no key–board. ‘Oh, just leave it in the door,’ was her reply. Foreigners always lock their doors, whatever may be the establishment in which they are; and in many places, especially in the large hotels of Paris, where nobody knows who may be his next neighbour, it is highly proper and safe to do so. In this connection I may just observe that somehow or other there are in most places hotels which are only patronized by the English, and a foreigner is a _rara avis_. Correspondingly, there are other hotels which they never visit. There must be some species of intuitive freemasonry which underlies and conduces to this result.

* * * * *

All hotels have a public _salle à manger_, to which both ladies and gentlemen are expected to go, and nearly all have drawing–rooms or reading–rooms, or both (_salons_ and _salons–de–lecture_). A lady travelling by herself can freely go to all these rooms, and one constantly meets such _dames seules_. No necessity is imposed upon them to engage a _salon_ or sitting–room. But if desirous of taking them out of the public rooms, the meals will be sent to the bedrooms, for which luxury and extra trouble, however, there is a charge made, sometimes as high, at least for dinner, as 2 francs or 3 francs per person per meal, though usually only ½ franc.

In addition to placing in the reading–rooms newspapers, which generally comprise one or more of the leading London journals (received in many places within twenty–four hours of their publication), there usually and most properly is in hotels, where visitors come for lengthened periods, a small collection of books sufficient to beguile an hour or a wet day.

* * * * *

The three chief meals of the day are breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

In what I shall call the English hotels, almost everybody maintains the good old English custom of coming down to the _salle–à–manger_ to breakfast; but foreigners, consistently with their home practice, take their meagre breakfast or cup of coffee, scarcely to be designated breakfast, in their bedroom. English people cannot get reconciled to the idea of taking meals in a room in which they sleep. It is an uncomfortable and unsocial custom, essentially bad—keeps the bedrooms long from being attended to, and imposes much additional labour on the servants, who are kept flying up and down stairs at all hours of the morning with breakfast equipage.

The usual charge at all hotels, at least as against Englishmen, for breakfast proper (tea, coffee, or chocolate, with bread and butter) is 1½ francs. Occasionally, though very rarely, I have found it only charged 1 franc, and once, viz. at Toulouse, 2 francs. Eggs are universally charged 25 centimes (2½d.) each; meats and fish, according to _carte_, and generally expensive.

* * * * *

But foreigners make a more substantial meal a little later on, which they call _déjeuner à la fourchette_, corresponding somewhat to our lunch. This is intended to be the real breakfast, and, according to true Continental fashion, it proceeds at many places at so early an hour as half–past ten, at others at eleven or twelve o’clock. In such cases it is found to be a most substantial repast, consisting of several courses, generally three—meat courses, pudding or tart course and cheese, and fruit courses; and it is in reality an early dinner, the whole company in the hotel assembling to enjoy it, unless individually they otherwise arrange. In the English hotels they have ‘lunch’ usually at one o’clock; but this is of a much less substantial nature, the visitor having been credited with making _more Anglici_ a good breakfast in the morning. The charge for _déjeuner_ or lunch differs according to the hotel, but is usually about 3 francs.

* * * * *

The _table–d’hôte_ dinner is a regular Continental institution, which it would be well were it made the rule at home. Meaning literally dinner at the table of the host, I presume that at one time, and before the establishment of great hotels, the host regularly presided. This, however, is now rarely seen, although I have sat down to dine at a table where he took his place. Rising as each course arrived, and putting on an apron, he would with dexterous rapidity carve what was brought in, then, putting off his apron, would sit down again and take part with the guests.

Each hotel has its fixed hour for this dinner, varying in time from six to seven o’clock. I have also seen a special _table–d’hôte_ dinner at eight o’clock, to suit those arriving by late trains. In places frequented by Germans, such as Interlachen, they have two dinner hours—one at two o’clock, for the Germans chiefly; and the other in the evening, to suit those who prefer dining at a later hour. The hotel people are frequently disturbed and put about by visitors, usually English people, inexcusably coming tardily to table. The charge for _table–d’hôte_ dinner varies a good deal at different places, 4 to 5 francs being about the average rate, though occasionally it is less. In Paris some of the large hotels charge 6 francs—wine, however, included, as is customary in Paris.

The dinner, which is served _à la Russe_, consists of many courses, and is not, generally speaking, of the substantial character of an English home dinner. The routine is everywhere the same, and consists of the following courses, which the waiters present at the division assigned to each quietly at sound of finger bell:—(1) Potage or soup; (2) Fish, when it can be had, otherwise a substitute; (3) Entrées; (4) Vegetables by themselves, such as cauliflower, French beans or peas; (5) Poultry or game, or otherwise roast beef or roast mutton, accompanied invariably by salad or lettuce, and water–cresses; (6) Pudding or tart; (7) Fruits; (8) Sweet biscuits. In some of the grander places there is a course of ice–cream, and in other hotels ice–creams take the place of pudding on Sundays, or sometimes on both Sundays and Thursdays.[8] Such is the invariable routine, the only variety being in the specific description of the articles in each course. The great want in these dinners is of a good supply of vegetables; bread, not so wholesome, being supplied at discretion. It would be better if some of the viands were dispensed with, and more vegetables given. Such a thing as a good dry potato, what they call _au naturel_, is hardly known. Potatoes are served up greased in every conceivable way, or, if presented dry or in their skins, they are accompanied by a separate plate of butter. One course often excites remark by English visitors. It is where the game course consists of small birds, especially thrushes. These afford a miserable bite apiece, and, for a party of 40 or 50, as many birds fall to be sacrificed, the rule of the table being that every guest is, or has the opportunity of being, served alike. At Cannes, at one of the hotels (season 1876–77), a round robin was subscribed by the English of the party, protesting against such use of thrushes—I do not know with what effect. They were to be sometimes seen hanging in bunches at the poulterers’ doors. It seems a cruel use of such song–birds, which are fed upon grapes to fatten them for the table; yet all the grapes they could swallow, even though in quantity enough to satisfy the grape cure, would never make them more than a miserable picking.

* * * * *

The quantities of eggs, fowl, and game which are needed to supply so many tables must be enormous; and as one sees very few live poultry anywhere, it has occasioned me surprise to think how they can be procured. The only feasible explanation is that the country is ransacked far and near for food to supply the luxurious tables of the hotels, and the wants of town populations. In a book published in 1857 by Dr. Frederick Johnson,[9] it is stated with regard to Paris alone—

‘That the great Metropolitan maw occupies 712 bakers, and daily consumes 479,015 loaves and rolls (we abandon verbal computation in despair), and annually 6,849,449 poultry, 1,329,964 larks, 26,000 kids, 9,937,430 kilos of fish (the kilo being 2–1/5 lbs. English), 5,006,770 kilos of confectionery, 150,223,006 kilos of pears; that yearly each Parisian swallows 69 oysters, 165 eggs, 137 quarts of wine, and 14 quarts of beer among his other luxuries; and that among them, in their little enjoyments, they gossip over 3,000,000 kilos of coffee, 350,000 kilos of chicory, 2,000,000 lbs. of chocolate, and 40,000 kilos of tea, assisted by 109,221,086 quarts of milk. Teetotallers may be alarmed for the public sobriety when they learn that, besides the wines and brandies, our Parisian pleasure–seekers dispose of 1,267,230 quarts of liqueurs, to say nothing of 350,000 kilos of brandied bonbons, and that they cool the consequences with 500,000 quarts of ice.’

If such be the consumption of Paris, and this is more than twenty years ago, what must that be of all France, to say nothing of other Continental countries? Our box of figure–counters would soon be exhausted in vain attempts at the calculation. We should have to borrow largely from the astronomers.

* * * * *

The guests are, of course, expected to help themselves to only a small portion of each course. We once (in 1862) saw an Englishman in Paris, unacquainted with the customs either of France or of good society, appropriate to himself at one round nearly all that was in the dish, and we never could pass that untutored savage without thinking of the plateful of coarse beef which he had doomed himself to eat. But most Germans, Dutch and Spanish people feed very largely, and make no scruple as a practice to take double supplies, and the largest and best pieces of everything which comes round, leaving those who come after them wofully scant.[10] The waiters are well acquainted with this habit, and pander to it, possibly in hope of fees. At Biarritz, where we experienced a singular practice of the waiter doling out portions to the visitors (on the footing, perhaps, that some of them could not be trusted to leave even a wreck behind), they, as matter of course, placed upon the plates of the Spaniards of the company large quantities of each course, while when they came to ourselves we received often such small portions that we would occasionally complain and get more.

* * * * *

At many places in France and elsewhere, wine is included in the charge for dinner. In this case it is the _vin ordinaire_ of the place, and is generally good if fresh; but as the practice is to put down a carafe to each two persons, much of it is often left. I have sometimes found the wine sour, evidently arising from having been kept from day to day, adding only what was necessary to replenish the carafes. The _vin ordinaire_ costs the hotelkeeper very little, although he would charge from 1 franc to 2 francs per bottle for it if ordered. Everybody is expected to take wine, even children; and where wine is not included and set down, the waiter goes round, not asking whether you wish wine, but, ‘What wine will you take?’ and you have to select from the _carte_. I have been much surprised at the great differences in the price of wine at different places. The same kind of wine is charged at one place, it may be three, even four times as much as at another; and in general the price rises, and rises far out of reason, according to the distance from which the wine is supposed to come. Many lay it down as a rule to take the wine of the district in which they for the time being are; and it can, at all events, be had good of its kind and cheap, costing, some kinds, from 1 franc to 2 francs per bottle. This, which in the locality is called _vin ordinaire_, elsewhere becomes a high–priced wine. A fair quality of wine can in general be had at about 3 francs or 2s. 6d. per bottle, although it is observable that the bottles are so made as evidently to be incapable of containing a quart. If they be not small in size, they are sure deceptively to have a large hollow lump of glass in the bottom. Wine, with the exception of the better descriptions, is never drunk pure, but is poured into a tumbler and mixed with water, about half of each.

* * * * *

When dinner, lasting about an hour, is over, everybody is expected to rise and leave the room. At one hotel the waiters compelled retreat by opening all the windows. They have to clear the table and wash up, and are naturally anxious to have the room to themselves. Besides, in many places, the servants’ supper takes place at ring of bell immediately after dinner, and no doubt the waiters are anxious to join. Their dinner bell in like manner rings after lunch. Visitors are seldom aware of these internal arrangements, or alive to them if they be.

If one does not dine at _table d’hôte_, to dine _à la carte_, by selecting out of a list, is costly, and should if possible be avoided. When arriving too late for _table d’hôte_, we have found in some places that we could order a dinner for which the same regular charge was made as at _table d’hôte_, although perhaps this might not be done for a single visitor. At other places the better course, particularly in Italy, is to order a dinner at a given figure, leaving the hotel to supply what they choose. One is certain by doing so to be better off.

* * * * *

At table, various Continental practices may be noticed, and among others a very singular custom which the German gentlemen have of tucking their napkins under their chins, and spreading them over the breast like a row of babies with their bibs on. I never could look at a German so arrayed without thinking of the minister who,

‘Being wi’ the palsy tribbled, In liftin’ spoonfu’s aften dribbled; Sae, to prevent the draps o’ broth, Prinn’d to his breast the tablecloth.’

Some explanation of this ludicrous practice is perhaps to be found in the painful habit which the generality of Germans have—occasionally ladies as well as men—of eating with their knives. English people cannot witness this fearful and wonderful operation without a nervous dread of the result. But there is this to be said for the Germans, that although some of their customs be peculiar, and not to be copied, they are great linguists, and enter agreeably in English into conversation; and I only mention such little foibles, that they may ‘see themselves as others see them.’ In many places—Switzerland particularly—there is put down upon the table here and there a case of what turns out to be toothpicks. One would think that those who choose to injure their teeth by means of such instruments and perform an odious cleansing, would prefer to keep their private pick, as much as their private tooth–brush, and use it in their private room.

We found the Dutch people ceremoniously polite. They never sat down and never rose from the table, never entered a room and never left it, without bowing to all round. It always kept us in a fidget lest they should not receive like courtesy; but it is a very pleasant trait of character in a people whom we found to be not merely externally polite, but kind and cordial at heart.

* * * * *

At the hotels, unless they be what I have called English hotels, one usually meets with people of all countries. In one hotel in France, I was informed we had representatives of eight different nations, counting English, Scotch, and Irish as one. It has struck me, however, that although the French language is so generally spoken, the French themselves, while found travelling in every part of their own land, are very seldom seen in other countries. I was on one occasion sitting next a bright Parisian young lady, and rather wickedly, I fear, was exalting Edinburgh so as to suggest its taking the palm from Paris. She was astonished, and having asked her when she was coming to see Edinburgh, she replied very decidedly, though in the very bewitching way in which the French girls speak, ‘Jamais, ne–verre,’ which honestly meant there was no probability she would, although the emphasis no doubt was intended as a delicate rebuke to the heretical presumption of my thought. _La belle France_ is _tout le monde_ to Frenchmen; nor do they get much encouragement to cross the English Channel, for I have noticed that they are, as a rule, most unhappy sailors.

One meets with all peoples and tongues and sorts at the dinner table. Now, much of comfort at that interesting time depends upon who sit next you. Dining at a long table with a large company is never so genial as dining round a smaller table in a party of six or eight. Intercourse is almost limited to those on the right and left, unless you and those opposite have strong voices and be both remarkably socially inclined. This, bad enough at home, is intensified abroad, not merely among strangers, but strangers who are foreigners, with whose language you may not be particularly acquainted. Everything, then, turns on the question, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ and in this respect one is all but entirely at the mercy of the waiters, who have not the grimmest idea of social assortment; and it may be that you are for weeks together placed next to those with whom you have no _rapport_ or fellow–feeling or congeniality of tastes—nay, with whom you may be unable to exchange a word. When it is otherwise, and people are social, intelligent, well read, and without necessarily being clever are cheerful, the dinner hour becomes a pleasant episode of the day.

But it is often otherwise. It is bad enough to get placed beside a foreigner whose language, perhaps, you can read, but whose oral pronunciation is perfectly unintelligible; or beside a very stout and important lady whose ideas, if she have any, run on subjects with which you have no possible sympathy—who is too ponderous, or whose composite capital, perhaps stuck tenderly on with pins, is—it may, from the steadiness of her carriage, be supposed—considered by her too fragile to bear the shaking and jolting of a joke—or really, to confess the truth, one whom, it may possibly be, you cannot be bothered to entertain; or beside a young lady who speaks so low and so timidly, that in the din of dinner it is literally impossible to hear what she says. Nor is it less distressing to be placed beside a very deaf person who not only does not catch what you say, but, as usual with deaf people, speaks indistinctly. Few have not had such an experience as this. You are seated beside what appears to you to be a very amiable, comfortable, benign old lady. The beverage before you is in a condition which it would not be safe to swallow for a little. You are both resting on your oars, or rather on your spoons. The moment is favourable for an opening speech. The subject you select is one of personal and common interest. The observation you hazard is such as would in no event occasion a division bell to ring. Quietly you say, ‘The soup is hot.’ She inclines her face as if she had just heard you were talking in her direction. ‘The soup is hot.’ An inquiring glance is directed to you. Again you repeat rather louder, ‘The soup is hot.’ ‘Sir,’ she replies. In an alto and rather excited pitch you proclaim, ‘The soup is hot.’ By this time everybody has been turning a listening ear. ‘Beg your pardon, sir; but I am rather deaf.’ ‘Madam’ (in an altissimo and crescendo style), ‘The soup _is_ HOT.’ ‘Yes,’ she blandly replies, ‘the room is very hot.’ You are for ever and for ever shut up, and retire from the struggle hot enough yourself.

But sometimes the wet blanket comes in another form. I was at one place agreeably set on several occasions beside a lively young German lady, who spoke English fluently. At our first interview I asked, ‘What was their national dish? was it _Sauer–kraut_?’ ‘No, it was larks.’ ‘Oh, you barbarians,’ I replied; ‘do you eat canaries and parrots?’ at which the fair damsel was much shocked. ‘What’s that?’ obviously whispers the heavy German next her on her other side, and this and every other like passage of nonsense had to be translated word for word into this intensely philomathic alien, but withal kindly guide, philosopher, and friend of my young neighbour.

I was for a considerable time at another place seated next a most intelligent member of the French bar, whose bad health unfortunately added to a natural taciturnity. He could speak English, and liked to do so. We formed ourselves into a mutual instruction society—I to correct his good English, and he to correct my bad French. But as he preferred English conversation, and I was too lazy to bore him with my French, the educational advantages on my side were reduced to the _minimum visible_. However, we enjoyed to some extent rational conversation on subjects of interest, imparting information to each other, and discussing where we differed. Here was ‘the feast of reason.’ But, though my friend could enjoy all that creates a laugh, ‘the flow of soul’ would not have produced a deluge, or even turned a mill–wheel of moderate dimensions. There is nothing so difficult as to get merry with those who speak another language, into which everything has mentally and slowly to be translated, and the flashes of merriment often will neither brook translation nor abide deliberative meditation. The ball must be kept up. Any efforts in that direction were therefore of a ponderous kind. Sometimes I would, with all due and becoming gravity, put a case to him in French law. ‘If,’ for example, I would say to him; ‘if a Frenchman were to die, leaving an estate as large as this room (a tolerably big one), and twelve children?’ ‘Oh, but,’ he would interpose, smiling, ‘we have no estates so small,’ and perhaps he might have added, ‘No families so large.’

From him I was shifted for a time to the agreeable society of a blooming Swedish lady, who could speak no language but her own, and who was uncommonly ready to imagine others were laughing at her, and accordingly to take offence. In this fix, to make the best of it, I returned to school to remedy the neglects of early life, and being a docile and apparently a reverent pupil, I advanced with such rapid strides to proficiency in the Swedish tongue, that in not many days I learnt that in that hitherto supposed outlandish language _chrystal_ is ‘chrystal’ and _knife_ is ‘knife;’ and had my studies been prolonged, I doubt not that I should in time have come to know that the honest Swedish people do call a spade a spade.

This interesting pursuit of knowledge under difficulties was, however, brought to an abrupt close by my being torn away and transferred to the company of an Irish young lady, from whom I speedily elicited that she came from the neighbourhood of Kilkenny. This _was_ irresistible. ‘Have you seen the tails of the two cats?’ ‘Oh, yes’ (with a merry twinkle); ‘they are in the Kilkenny Museum.’ This museum may, like Aladdin’s palace, have been built up in a night; but ere twenty–four hours had elapsed, it was stocked from floor to ceiling with such marvellous rarities as by no possibility had been ever either dreamt of in philosophy, or, what is more, conceived in the fertile brain of the great Barnum.

In season places, such shiftings about are few and far between; but in touring localities, during the travelling season, when you are more or less frequently changing your own quarters, and all around are changing almost daily too, one is shuffled about like a card, and more vicissitudes of association are experienced than befell the noted Gil Blas of Santillane in the course of his eventful life.

* * * * *

The rule of the hotels seems to be that the latest comers take the bottom of the table, and move up according as those before them leave. At the same time this rule was frequently infringed, and in some places we had always to ask where to sit. Of course all meet on a footing of equality, and it is customary for those of title—especially for foreign titled persons, unless of the highest rank—to dine with the other visitors. On one occasion, at a small party of ten or twelve, an old gentleman appeared, to whom the ladies in the _salon_ had, on his entrance, bowed profoundly. We afterwards learned from one of them he was a distinguished foreign prince. An English marchioness or an English duke will occasionally appear at table, but I fancy English noblemen rarely condescend to do so. We were, however, often finding that at the table with us were foreign persons of rank of all grades, and the foreigners of title with whom we became at all acquainted were always very friendly and unassuming. But generally in travelling we could not tell who were our neighbours. It was for the most part from the lists of visitors that the names of those in the hotel could be discovered, and occasionally these have been of royal rank. In this case they were necessarily notable, and although they did not come to the public table, yet they were seen in the gardens; and sometimes they travelled with large retinues, and could not escape observation. At Interlachen, General Grant and his wife came to the Jungfrau Hotel, at which we were. He was on the night of his arrival serenaded by a brass band, which played till near midnight, the musicians no doubt regarding the sweet and melodious sounds of trombones and ophicleides atoned for any disturbance of the slumber of the visitors, or even of the probably wearied General himself.

* * * * *

All the Continental hotels are, with few exceptions, prepared to take visitors upon pension—that is, on board. But there are establishments which, _par excellence_, are termed pensions. The line of demarcation is very slender, and some hotels are truly pensions, while some pensions are truly hotels. The pension strict, however, is a less grand house than the hotel. It is for the most part a large private house, without, though not always without, the parade of _concierge_ and other distinctive marks of an hotel. As a rule, to which there are exceptions, it is more homely, there is less style in the method of conducting, less appearance about the rooms, and smaller attention paid to service and sanitary arrangements. On the other hand, the company is smaller, and as the people come to remain for periods of time, they fraternize better, and there is a good deal more of the home feeling in a pension than ever finds its way into any hotel. The better class of pensions profess to require an introduction, but it does not necessarily follow that the company is more select; on the contrary, as they are usually rather less expensive than hotels, the company is not unfrequently of a mixed description, and consequently the name pension is, to some extent, in disfavour with those English people who can afford to pay hotel charges, and prefer more style.

At hotels, the rule, sometimes relaxed for a party, is that people are not taken on pension under a week. A similar rule prevails in pensions proper, and indeed during pension season it is usually necessary to secure quarters in pensions proper, and even in hotels, by writing for rooms some considerable time previously.

* * * * *

The charge for pension varies very greatly, according to the place, to the situation of the rooms, and to the season.

In former days the pension charge was extremely moderate. One old gentleman told me that in his younger days the charge in Switzerland, at least, was 3 francs per day for everything; but this was a charge as against foreigners only, and he, then a young Englishman, succeeded in getting off upon this low rate by being taken for a German, he being with a party of Germans. Even till more recent years, one would hear of 5 francs per day being a normal charge. These good old times have not wholly disappeared, for to this day, in some outlying places in Switzerland, pension at a very low rate can be procured. We spent eight days at the Hotel Berthod, Chateau d’Œx, which lies up among the mountains, a long day’s journey from Interlachen, _en route_ for Aigle; and the charge was only 5 francs per day, with 20 centimes for service, besides _bougies_, which were charged only 30 centimes each. This was upon the second floor, which we preferred, as less noisy, to that below at 6 francs. The charge on the third floor was, I believe, even a shade less. The hotel was a wooden house of large size, and could accommodate at least eighty guests, and in the season was generally full, while the company was so far select, being out of the beaten track of tourists. The accommodation was necessarily somewhat rough, but every attention was paid, as far as practicable, to the comfort of the visitors. Considering that its season lasts for scarcely three months in the year, one would be surprised to think it possible it could pay; but it seems that the landlord’s brother had formerly kept the establishment, and had retired with a competence. Everything, however, with one exception, was cheap at Chateau d’Œx, which boasts of several establishments of the same kind, one of them (though two miles off), ‘Rosinière,’ the largest chalet in Switzerland, and picturesquely situated in a secluded spot, dating back to 1754.

Pension includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, bedroom, and service, sometimes also lights. Occasionally service is made a separate charge, and is stated at from ½ franc to 1 franc per day, according to place.

In many good hotels in Switzerland and elsewhere, pension can be had at 8 francs per day. At Lugano the charge, I noticed, during summer (1st April to 31st October), is 8 to 11 francs; during winter, 6 francs to 7 francs 50 centimes. Both at Interlachen and Montreux, we paid at the rate of 8 francs, and had excellent quarters in first–class hotels. With other rooms supposed to be better, the charge would have been 10 francs per day. But in the height of the Interlachen season, the hotels will not readily begin to take people _en pension_. At Chamounix we were told, on a former tour in the month of August, that the hotels there would not take _en pension_ after 15th July. By that time English tourists begin to arrive in great shoals, and often find much difficulty in getting quarters. When this takes place, the applications are either refused, or the visitors are accommodated in dependencies, which are either houses or chalets attached to the hotel, or in some cases simply houses in the villages in which the natives can spare a room, and therefore not always desirable. Pension in Italy and France is charged at a little higher rate than in Switzerland. We found that, upon an average, 10 or 12 francs a day was the charge in these countries; but according to the accommodation, it would either rise above or fall below this rate, varying from 8 to 15 or 16 francs per day. As the charge of 8 francs, which seldom secures any but a north room, covers everything pension includes, there must be a profit out of it, and all above that amount ought to be clear extra gain. Eight francs per day amounts to £116 per annum, 15 francs per day to £219—a good rate of board.

In season places great contrast often exists between the charges for pension during the season and after it is over. Thus at Biarritz, during the winter months, pension might have been had at 7 francs per diem, but during the two months of summer season (August and September, on to 15th October) the charges at the principal hotels are high. For rooms alone the charge may be from 20 to 25 francs on the second floor, and from 12 to 14 francs per day on the third floor, the first floor being much more costly. However, we found at the Hotel de Paris, on 18th September, towards the close of the season, which may have made a difference, fairly comfortable rooms on the first floor, in a good situation, at a moderate rate. Sometimes with first–floor rooms the usual charges for living are made separately or in addition to the charge for rooms.

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Fire in the private rooms is always an extra. Nowhere is coal burnt, at least that we have seen, unless in the northern parts of France. The visitor, when he wishes fire, is supplied with a basket of wood, the size and the quality of which vary very much, as do the prices. It consists of logs sawn into pieces about 12 to 18 inches long, and split up, and the kind of wood necessarily varies with the locality. In the olive–growing countries it is olive wood, which burns slowly. At Pau it is the short oak grown in the woods in the vicinity. In other places it is pine wood, which burns rapidly. At Lyons we paid 2 francs for a small pannier of soft wood, which lasted two nights. At Mentone a large pannier of olive wood, probably mixed with pine, cost 2 francs 20 centimes, and lasted much longer. If we had no fire during the day, and we found day fires very rarely necessary in Mentone, a pannier would last us nearly a week for one fire per evening, lit after dinner. At Spezzia, where the wood burnt very fast, the pannier was charged 3·50 francs. At Pisa the charge was 3 francs; and at Rome, had we found it needful, we should have been charged at the hotel, for each room, 5 francs for a pannier which would not have lasted more than two nights. Indeed, at Rome the expense of wood is so serious an extra charge, that I have heard of a gentleman with a large and perhaps extravagant family feeling obliged to curtail his visit on that account.

The wood is laid across two iron dogs, and emits, especially in the case of olive wood, good heat. The ashes of former fires are always left lying between the dogs, and greatly help to keep the fire in. The ashes smoulder away for a long time, and bellows, always hung by the fireside, will bring them to a glow long after they are apparently dead.

The dogs are hardly suitable for coals, but might not a good trade in coals with the Continent be brought about? I suppose the abundance of wood renders it unnecessary. But a great deal may result from the force of habit, or, not improbably, there may be a prohibitory duty preventing the people from using coal.

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One very annoying item of extra expense consists in the fees with which servants expect to be tipped at leaving. Many persons refuse to give anything, on the strictly theoretically–correct ground that they have already paid for service in the bills. Such persons, at least if English people, seem to be looked upon as shabby. On the other hand, there are those, principally English, who are very lavish with their largess, and really do their successors much harm, leading the servants to be on the outlook for handsome fees. In Italy the evil is, I think, most felt. In France, however, it is bad enough. If one be but a single night at a hotel, chamber–maid, waiters, _concierge_, porters, conductors, and even drivers of omnibuses—all expect donations, and stand hovering about (perhaps perform useless little services), that they may not be lost sight of. Nor is the evil less at pensions, where I have had more than once to fee no less than seven attendants, being the whole menial establishment. It becomes a very heavy tax, amounting to no small sum at the end of a long tour, as one does not like to be shabby, or thought so. At pensions and hotels at Christmas time, every servant with whom the visitor has had to do expects his or her five–franc piece at the least; and this really one does not at that festive season so much grudge, if dwelling in the house for the winter, although the feeing process has to be repeated at leaving, and intermediately for any supposed extra services. I must say, however, that the only suggestion of a donation at Christmas came from the _portier_ of our hotel at Mentone, who addressed a lithographed card to each visitor on the 1st of January: ‘Le portier de l’Hotel vous souhait une bonne et heureuse année.’ And no doubt a similar lithographed card was used with effect by all the porters of the place, and made the ignorant or unthinking aware of what they were expected to do.

The only person outside the establishment who suggested a benefaction by the enclosure of a card was the postman, who, no doubt, was cheerfully boxed by every visitor.

I suppose that complaints of this practice of tipping or expecting fees reached the ears of the landlords, who, honest men, no doubt had found their advantage in it; for, in the summer of 1877, nine of the principal hotels in Switzerland announced to the public that, with a view to putting a stop to it, they should thenceforth make a charge which would cover everything, so that visitors should not be annoyed longer in this way. But the system which they did adopt was an erroneous one, and was only calculated to place an additional burden on their guests—in other words, they made an extra charge for their rooms; so that the occupants had to pay nightly, in some cases, perhaps as much as they would have paid once for all as gratuity, while in many cases gratuities would continue to be given. We came upon one of these hotels, the Schweizerhoff in Lucerne. Here, in conformity with the new rule, one charge was made for rooms per night, inclusive of attendance and lights, and a bill was stuck up in the rooms containing a notice in the following terms:—

‘_Avis. Messieurs les étrangers sont priés de ne plus donner de pour boires aux employés de l’Hotel. Toute le service dans l’intérieur de l’Hotel ainsi que l’éclairage est compris dans le prix de l’appartement._’

Such a notice was only valuable if it had borne that the servants were _expressly prohibited_, upon pain of dismissal, from taking any gratuity; but while it contained nothing but what was always previously implied in the charge for service, and left the charge for porterage of luggage as performed _extérieur_ (a service which has always been recompensed by a gratuity, and which the porter here duly accepted), the very form of the notice, ‘Pray, don’t,’ rather suggests the idea that you ought to give. The evil is really so great that a more efficient and beneficial method ought to be taken by the hotels.

In Italy I have sometimes been asked for a gratuity by a messenger from a shop on delivering a purchase made.

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Hotel bills are usually rendered and paid once a week. At Bellagio an admirable system was in use. Bills were rendered every day, although payment was not expected oftener than once a week. In this way any mistake could at once be rectified; and we did find occasionally—as every one must, especially in the touring season, when the sojourners are daily shifting—rectification to be necessary. It would be much in the interest of the landlords to make the practice universal, because where any entry has been charged to the wrong person, the person to whom it ought to have been charged may have left before discovery has been made. The waiters write, sign, and deliver to the clerk a slip containing every order, as the means of making up the books, and sometimes, perhaps, from not wishing to give offence by asking, put by mistake the wrong name to the order. In London a better system is, where the guest is requested to write the order himself, heading the memorandum with his name and number. In some—I am bound to say, only a few—cases in France, the landlord regularly charges his guests with the penny Government receipt stamp on discharging the bill. Honestly, this ought to be borne by himself.

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Messrs. Cook and Gaze both issue hotel coupons. These are made up as books of three per day. One portion covers bedroom, lights, and service for one person; but it bears that porterage is not included, and a charge for conveying luggage to and from the bedroom to the door is then (I think erroneously) occasionally made in the bill, though the doing so does not exempt from the customary fee expected by the porters. Another portion covers plain tea or breakfast; and a third, dinner at _table d’hôte_, with or without wine, according to the usual practice of the hotel. Cook’s tickets cost 8s., Gaze’s cost 8s. 6d., but the latter entitle the holder to eggs or meat at breakfast. The hotels of both firms are for the most part unobjectionable, but the question is whether the coupons are or are not of any real advantage. As to this, people who have not used them are generally much puzzled. I had never, in travelling abroad, tried them before, but thought, upon entering Italy, where it is reputed (contrary to my subsequent experience) that one requires to be upon his guard against hotel imposition, I might make experiment to a limited extent, and accordingly purchased enough at Nice to last us about fourteen days.

On an average, I believe it will be found that, taking bedroom accommodation at the lower rates, or as for the upper _étages_, the price of the coupons is very much the same as the hotel charges would come to. In some hotels, in the smaller places, the charges may occasionally come to a trifle less, especially if there be a party; in others, in the larger towns, the hotel charges will certainly exceed it. In a pecuniary point of view, therefore, and supposing people are constantly on the wing, they will find that upon the whole the saving is not large, but that, in any view, there is a clear advantage in using them in large and expensive towns such as Marseilles and Nice.

However, if it be intended to stay long enough in a hotel to warrant going upon pension, it can frequently be arranged to obtain pension at the same rate as is payable for the coupons, the effect of which is that lunch is thrown into the bargain, saving 3 francs per day.

In Italy also the advantage of exchange is lost, the coupons being only purchasable with English money.

The coupons save a little trouble and shorten the bills. To those unable to speak a foreign tongue, they are additionally valuable. On the other hand, I fear the traveller is a good deal at the mercy of the landlord in regard to rooms. It is quite in his power to say he has no better. But if the house be not full, there is a possibility of being assigned the best rooms, and so obtaining accommodation for which, without coupons, a high charge would be made.

My limited experience gave me rather a dislike for them, and led me to feel I was more independent, and had a chance of being better served, by paying my way in the usual manner. At a town in Italy, I mentioned on arrival, as is required, that I had Cook’s coupons and intended to use them. When the bill at leaving was rendered, I pointed out that it had not been stated as on this footing. It turned out that for the two nights we stayed at the house, the hotel charges (we were most comfortable in every respect) came to 6 francs 75 centimes less for our party than the cost of the coupons. Yet the landlady looked black when I pointed out the mistake, and seemed, while I was actually paying more, as if she thought me imposing on her. I felt so annoyed that I would never use them again in Italy. Months afterwards, when in a town in Switzerland, I resolved to employ what remained, and in driving up to the hotel on Cook’s list, told the landlord so. I noticed he did not seem to relish the intimation, and when we visited the rooms allotted to us, we found them dismal chambers looking into the courtyard. I rebelled, and we got cheerful and better rooms on the floor above. This showed that we could not always quite rely upon getting the best accommodation possible, notwithstanding the coupons in this instance came to more than we could have pensioned for at the hotel, according to its own printed tariff. I afterwards learnt that the reason of dislike is, that the London house has a small commission (which is quite reasonable, and perhaps is not much objected to), and that settlements with the hotelkeepers do not take place for, it may be, some months after the bills are incurred, which may produce considerable inconvenience to some hotelkeepers. Were it possible to arrange for more frequent, say monthly settlements, perhaps all cause of dissatisfaction would be obviated, for otherwise the system must be most advantageous to the hotels which are on the London lists.

I must, however, put against these two instances, which may be very exceptional, the fact that I had used the coupons previously at two other hotels in Italy, and subsequently at another in Switzerland, and another in France, and met with every civility and attention, while they at once gave us excellent accommodation. Friends also who have frequently taken advantage of them, have told me that they preferred them, and would always in travelling avail themselves of the system.

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