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.