I prefer the Hotel de France and believe it is the best in the central valley. Its proprietor, Monsieur Pierre Heguy, is the super-bantam cock. This handsome little man with his coal-black beard trimmed to a goatee meets you at the door with a smile and a bow. "Voilà, monsieur," he says, and with a stately sweeping gesture he stands aside to allow you to inspect the best hotel bedroom in Chile. His single-story hotel is of frame and adobe. "But what does that matter?" he inquires and then concludes: "In case of fire or earthquake it is much safer than the stupendous Hotel Central. Moreover, do water colors and oil paintings of landscapes adorn the walls of the bedrooms at the Central the same as in the Hotel de France? Have the Jews at the Central any knowledge of liqueurs and champagne? Sapristi, no!" and then he spat.
My bedroom on the street corner was grand and large enough to house the august presence of an emperor and for it I paid the equivalent of $3.40 a day, which included meals. The carpet was of the old-fashioned kind with pink roses whose replicas are only found to-day in the farmhouses and in the old residences of the country towns whose furnishing dates back two generations. The massive wooden washstand with mirror, chest of drawers, and the bedstand were all crowned with marble slabs. The bed was a four-poster and the "crazy quilt" was that of bygone days. The same bed that I occupied probably once creaked under the weight of Lady Brassey's expatriated figure when she visited Chillán, having left the yacht Sunbeam at Talcahuano.
The cuisine is perfect and the liquid refreshments are of the finest quality. Monsieur Heguy is a connoisseur of those substances which tickle the palate. He does not indulge in liquid refreshment. He did so when I first made his acquaintance in 1913 but had to quit as it was injuring his health. At the time of my previous acquaintance with him he would drink everything on the bill of fare as long as somebody else was paying for it, but he never treated when it came his turn.
One night while I was at the Hotel de France there was a temblor or slight earthquake. I was awakened from a sound sleep a quarter of an hour before midnight by a noise at my door as if somebody was trying to break into my room. Lighting a candle I saw that the key tag was rattling. I yelled out, "Who's there?" and opened the door but saw nobody. I jumped back into the bed again but no sooner had I done so than I saw a streak of light underneath the door to my right, and I heard through the open transom of the door that opened onto the patio the patter of feet as they crossed the tiled walk and the voice of the young Englishwoman who occupied the adjoining room talking to her brother and brother-in-law whose room adjoined mine on the left.
"I think the man next door" (meaning me) "is trying to enter my room," she said.
"Really, Mary, you don't say so," I heard a male voice reply.
"What do you think he would do to me if he entered my room?" asked Mary.
"I am sure I do not know," the male voice replied.
"Do you think he would murder me?"
"Hardly that," was the reply. There was a continuance of the conversation which I could not distinctly understand, then the same voice continued: "Take this revolver, and if you hear any further disturbance, shoot through his door."