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It was too late in the year to bathe, and the Établissement had the bankrupt aspect which belongs to such places out of the season; so I turned my back upon it and gained, by a circuit in the course of which there were sundry water-side items to observe, the other side of the cheery little port, where there is a long breakwater and a still longer sea-wall, on which I walked a while, to inhale the strong, salt breath of the Bay of Biscay.
It is hardly a village; the collection of villas, small houses, shops, and two enormous hotels surrounding the établissement seems to have sprung up quite suddenly and casually in the midst of the green fields and woods, shut in on all sides almost by the Forest of Ardennes, which makes a beautiful curtain of verdure. But there isn't much passing even in these days of automobiles.
It consists, on the ground floor, as it were, of a white Etablissement des Bains surrounded by a little park, which is fringed on the further side by an open-air concert platform and a theatre, of a few rows of shops, and a couple of cafes. You could play catch with a cricket ball across it.
To these contemporary authorities may be added the account given by Le Clercq, Etablissement de la Foy, II. 393, and a letter from Governor Bradstreet of Massachusetts to Jacob Leisler in Doc. Hist. The French writers of course say nothing of any violation of faith on the part of the victors, but they admit that the Indians kept most of the prisoners.
The établissement is large and fairly good, but nothing like what one finds in all the Austrian and German baths. When I first go in, coming out of the fresh morning air, I am rather oppressed with the smell of hot air, damp clothing, and many people crowded into little hot bath-rooms. There are terrible little dark closets called cabinets de repos.
"Perrichet after all was quite wrong not to hold his tongue. For in that pot of cold cream, as I was sure, were hidden those valuable diamond earrings which Mlle. Celie habitually wore." The two men had reached the square in front of the Etablissement des Bains. Ricardo dropped on to a bench and wiped his forehead. "But I am in a maze," he cried. "My head turns round. I don't know where I am."
He had driven on ahead in a fiacre and was standing alone at the entrance to the police office, which is situated on the ground floor of the Hôtel de Ville, a pretty old-fashioned building of gray stone just facing the Etablissement Thermale, the home of the far-famed baths from which Aix-les-Bains takes its name.
Honoré, called Etablissement d'Amsterdam, where there are above 300 carriages constantly kept, either for hire, for sale, or for exchange; it is also a locality where persons may sell or deposit their carriages for any period of time they think proper, and can likewise have it repaired if required; they will besides find every description of harness and sadlery.
The large 'Etablissement des Bains, described in French and English guide-books, has long ceased to exist; bells, carpets, curtains, and other luxuries are unknown; but the unfastidious traveller, who prefers homeliness and honesty to elegance and extortion, may here drink waters rivalling those of Spa without being exposed to the exorbitant prices and insolence of the Spa hotel- keepers.
There are water velocipedes, canoes for ladies, and floats for the unskilful; fresh water for the head before bathing, and tubs of hot water afterwards for the feet, on the sands; an appreciating and admiring audience on the shore; a lounge across the sands and through the 'Établissement, in costumes more scanty than those of Neapolitan fish girls!
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