Michel Thomas Penette

I am pleased to open the seventh Café of Europe in such an historic setting as this hall which adjoins a genuine Café whose Art Nouveau styling evokes times of prosperity, when the figures from the courts of Europe, whom I imagine dressed in smart linen suits and dresses of the latest fashion, take a long lunch or dinner with diplomatic discussion in the air,tag heuer replica uk at which the gravest political issues could not disturb the casual congeniality of happy moments.

An atmosphere in which the on-going conflicts did not completely stop the mysterious travellers, nervous diplomats, cavorting dandies, or historians exhausted from their research, all crossing over the borders coming to the Grand Hôtel des Thermes, in search of a rest and a cure, and writing together the chapters of a history searching for a return to peace: for the body and for mankind.

So we have come together at a Café, and we all know how much we appreciate Italian coffee: short, aromatic, a lingering flavour. But in this hall, which brings together the organisers of the seven Cafés of Europe, we might also mention the coffee of Spa, accompanied by speculoos biscuits, that of Baden-Baden, pleasure of which could only be fully taken with the addition of thick cream, or better still the liqueur coffee of Ourense, conducive to eventide revelry, and most certainly the afternoon tea awaiting us in Bath, accompanied by a good number of muffins. By no means, however, am I forgetting the Turkish coffee which we will be served in Bursa at the end of next year.

So many ‘table manners’. So many forms of enjoyment, each one individual to each of the countries which make up the EHTTA kaleidoscope.

Today, however, we meet with the intention of examining together how the history of Europe has built our towns, how it has helped shaped humanity and its intellect, sometimes in spite of them and sometimes against them when Europe was caught amongst the turmoil of conflict.

This gathering is in itself rich in diversity of histories and characters, architectures and abodes which wove Europe’s shared history, which has made us, as Europeans, in charge of an inheritance, heritage and culture.

Undertaking to re-interpret together this history, and to tell its stories as though a friendship group of personalities, only slightly forgotten, were coming back to visit us today, constitutes a challenge and above all a commitment of all those who trace a route from one century to another, from one awe-filled gaze to another.

In Villes d’eaux, Erik Orsena describes in a few words this surprising consistency of the atmosphere in the thermal towns and it is our task and duty to continue this in modern times: ‘The spa towns are fertile, and feed all myths and all the interpretations. At the cocktail hour, when one dresses for the evening and applies the last coats of colour to their face, when twilight descends, that is the time of whispered stories, tales of mystery told in obscurity. Valery Larbaud told the ennui of immobile young girls, as though paralytic of their own agitation. In these towns, Milan Kundera had the last, farewell waltzes danced; Katherine Mansfield saw the length of days, and gauged the rules of a society, the order of Germany. We talk about the adventures of Rousseau in Enghien, when a society of women held salons on the lake’s edge, or Lamartine’s adventure in Aix.’ 

We are a collective, and thus a forum for sharing. And this history must continue; it is up to us!

Thank you all for your contributions!

Michel Thomas-Penette

We have just listened to two magnificent pieces of writing ¬– I almost said voices – of two European writers, Cesare Pavese and Jean Giono, who are linked by their origins and their lives in the Piedmont region, for whom immobile travel constituted an astonishing means of transformation from being rooted in a region to a feeling of universality.

Traveling is thus not necessarily about motion, about moving physically; it is also about dreaming and discovering universal myths which enabled Homer to recount, and make up, Odysseus’s journey, and Jules Verne to walk the Carpathians, to sink to the bottom of the ocean, to discover far-away lands from above in his hot-air balloon, to travel in space, all this without leaving his study.

In the 1960s, Jean Giono said on French national radio that his conception of the novel was that of a continuation of the role and place of the travelling storyteller. Homer himself, through his writing, continued the work of all the rhapsodists who went from city to city, forever adding to the structure of a journey which is made all the richer for the reactions the rhapsodists receive from the audiences along the way. However, Jean Giono added quite perfidiously that if André Gide had had to make his living by reading out his own work in village squares, he would have starved to death! Storytelling is not just writing, it is to blend in harmoniously with the audience and to open the door to their direct participation.

Storytelling is lying the truth. It is said that ‘the writer is not on the side of knowledge, but that does not stop him helping others to learn’. We might add that imagination, like sociology or history – along the lines of Pierre Bourdieu and Fernand Braudel – is a ‘combat sport’. Today, we have been able to listen to historians who, by speaking of ancient religious practices to the hedonist, postmodern practices of leisure, have given us the opportunity to learn to narrate, interpret and converse across borders.

Researchers on one side, writers on the other, they have all taken us by the hand to show us how to reread, with all our senses, these ideal cities, sometimes even film sets, which Bernard Toulier depicted magnificently in 1994: ‘These holiday destinations are now towns with a strong heritage identity. They have been designed to repair the evils of the industrial town, to heal sick bodies and provide them with comfort and well-being.’

And he adds: ‘such a heritage is a sign of their modernity and transmitting it their only chance of survival.’

Thank you all for being here, and see you in Bath, in another of these ideal towns.

Michel-Thomas Penette