A European walk through Bordeaux 24
The Englishman’s Ballroom.
23, Cours de Verdun.
Located at number 23 of what is now Cours de Verdun, the Hôtel
d’Angleterre – then called
Hôtel Franklin, and the “English Ballroom” – was founded on 12 April 1777 in a
building owned by a Mr Rocaute
de Bussac, a merchant who lived at Fossés du
Chapeau-Rouge. Run by two Englishmen named Stevens and
Jacob, it attracted many foreigners, including a large number of
British people, right up to the beginning of the Revolution. Anna Francesca, the famous
Mrs Cradock, stayed in this hotel during
her visit to Bordeaux from June to August 1785. It was “newly built.”
“From our windows we had
a sweeping view over the
avenue bordered by a row of white houses with balconies and at the end of which stands the theatre” (the eastern part of Allées de
Tourny, leading to the Place des Quinconces, had not yet been built). Travelling through and describing the urban and rural
areas of France, the great economist
Arthur Young stayed there in 1787. Prince Frederick, son of the King of England, George III, who was travelling incognito under
the name of Count of Delphios,
lodged there in 1791 and received the visit of the municipality on 30
May.
In 1793, just after Britain
had joined the armed European coalition against France, the hotel was sold and changed
its name. Now owned by a Frenchmen, called Alexandre
Marquant, it became Hôtel
Franklin and the avenue was renamed
Cours Fructidor.
It was at this
time, in 1794, that the famous Thérésa Cabarrus settled in the Hôtel Franklin. She
was born Juana María Ignazia Teresa de Cabarrús y Galabert at the Palace of San Pedro in Carabanchel
Alto, near Madrid in Spain, on 31 July 1773. Her mother was
Spanish and her father, François Cabarrus, from
Bayonne, was a financier in Madrid. He became minister of finance for
Spain in 1797.
Arriving in Bordeaux
in 1793 at the home of her
Cabarrus cousins, after getting
married at the age of fourteen to the Marquis Jean-Jacques Devin de Fontenay, she was first arrested
at the age of 20, as a suspect, before
being released. Largely thanks to the fact that she
had seduced Robespierre’s envoy, Tallien,
sent on a mission with Ysabeau
on 23 September 1793. Once released,
she moved to the former
Hôtel d’Angleterre, which had
since become Hôtel
Franklin, and turned it into a popular address for people passing through
during the Reign of Terror in Bordeaux.
By influencing Tallien, who became her
second husband, she managed to improve the conditions
in the prisons, which until
then were known to be “of the most barbaric humanity.”
She also helped to release many “suspects,”
and to save some of those sentenced to the gallows. To the point that
Tallien was accused of “moderantism” and denounced for his liaison with Cabarrus, “protector of her caste, nobles,
financiers and monopolisers,” and he
had to return to Paris to explain
himself. In May 1794, left alone in Bordeaux, she was arrested for being a “former aristocrat.” Before being presented to the military commission, with no
illusions about the fate that awaited
her, she sent a final
message to Tallien: “I’m dying
because I belong to a coward.” A few weeks later, Tallien joined the conspirators against Robespierre
and won fame on 9 Thermidor at the Convention by preventing Saint-Just from speaking during the events that would
lead to the fall of Robespierre. Saved,
Thérésa Cabarrus returned
to Paris and married Tallien. Their
daughter was named Thermidor. Thérésa Cabarrus
earned the moniker “Our Lady of Thermidor” and, in
Bordeaux, Hôtel Franklin became the Bureau des Grâces
[office of pardons]. She who
made the Reign of Terror less torturous never returned to Bordeaux, but kept fond memories of the Hôtel
Franklin and of what she would later call “the sweet moments spent on the large balcony with such
a beautiful view.”
Thérésa Cabarrus
spent the second half of her life in Belgium. She got married
for a third time, in 1805,
to the Prince of Chimay. Having become
Princess of Chimay, she ended her life in Belgium, where she died at the age of 61, in 1835.
Le balcon de l'Hôtel
Franklin
Under the Directoire, Hôtel Franklin, which
had taken back its original name, became a very popular
place for holding balls for Bordeaux’s
high society. It was then also known as the “English ballroom” in memory of its
original name. In her memoirs, Johanna Schopenhauer writes:
“The English balls [...] held
at Hôtel Franklin [...] are much more dazzling [than those of the Intendance residence].”
The Société des Chartrons would
also meet there.
It was a merchant
of Scottish origin, John Lewis Brown, who finally put an end to the
Hôtel d’Angleterre’s history
on 19 August 1809, by buying the property
from Rocaute’s heirs to make it
his home.
Continue
to Cours Xavier Arnozan on the odd-numbered side.
© Bertrand Favreau
and Tyché Editions 2014
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