Still in Lorraine, welcome news was announced in December that the French State has pledged 7 million euros towards a rescue package to save the spa of Plombières-les-Bains, its patrimony and architecture. The baths at Plombières, which still represent the lifeblood of the little town, have been entirely closed down since the end of 2024 when the owners of the facilities, the AVEC Group, went into liquidation.
The real heyday of Plombières as a fashionable resort was was in Napoleonic times and, later, during the Second Empire, but its growth is already evident in Lorraine's years of economic revival and urban renewal under Duke Leopold and King Stanislas.
The thermal springs
In the early 18th century the thermal station at Plombières, high in the Vosges Mountains, already excited considerable scientific and antiquarian interest. Legend has it that one of the troops of Julius Caesar had discovered the first hot spring. The waters arise from a fault between the layers of granite rock, at temperatures of between at 50°C and 85°C. We learn that they are charged with rare gases (radon) and minerals (lime fluoride), also silica, bicarbonate, sodium and calcium, and have a pH of 8.5. They have long been valued for their anti-spasmodic, anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties. For centuries the springs were used to treat digestive and rheumatic complains, in the 17th century also commonly for urinary and kidney stones. The water supplied the Public Baths or could be drunk direction from various fountains.
During the first half of 17th century the spa had prospered. The canonesses of the nearby Abbey of Remiremont, feudal landholders with the ducs of Lorraine, had for many years maintained a presence in the town, where they owned a bathhouse and small adjoining hôtel. Montaigne famously stayed there in 1580. Their presence attracted families from the high nobility of Lorraine. In the later 17th century, however, the wars of Charles IV had reduced the area to state of virtual abandonment. The town was flooded in 1661 and further devastated by an earthquake in 1682.
Nonetheless it was in 1683 that a local doctor, Nicolas-Claude de Rouveroy (1660-1719), discovered Plombières's cold mineral springs, the so-called "sources savonneuses". He promoted his discovery vigorously and, in 1698, became the first to write a treatise on the baths. He was appointed physician to Duke Leopold, who ennobled by him in 1715.
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Anonymous portrait of Jean-Baptiste Alliot
Musée de la Faculté de Médecine de Nancy [Wikimedia]
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The reputation of Plombières was also enhanced by the patronage of Jean-Baptiste Alliot (1640-1729), doctor to Louis XIV, who accompanied the Duchess Élisabeth-Charlotte to Lorraine in 1698. In November 1703 Leopold named him Chief Physician, Councillor of State and Superintendent of Mineral Waters in his territories.
Dom Calmet later observed that it was Alliott who had first made the waters fashionable in France - by the mid-century large amounts of
eau savonneuse was bottled and transported to Paris. In 1715 the royal doctors even prescribed the waters to Louis XIV - though sadly he died before the bottles reached Versailles.
With the renewed interest from the Court of Lorraine and beyond, the fortunes of the town began to revive. Leopold improved the roads into the valley and, by an edict of 1704, reorganised the municipal council. In 1701, then in 1725, he ordered the restoration of the thermal establishments. The initial work on the Grand Basin took place under the direction of Rouveroy, that of 1725 under Nicolas Étienne, one of Leopold's architects. Leopold also sponsored scientific investigation and ordered the chemical analysis of the waters. The chemist Blanchi was sent to Plombières in 1721, followed by the Duke's médicin ordinaire Richardot, whose "Nouveau système" concerning the waters was published in Nancy in 1722. In 1725 Leopold purchased the "Fontaine savonneuse", source of the new mineral waters, from its private owners.
In 1748 the spa came to more general attention when the Benedictine scholar Dom Calmet, having completed several cures for sciatica, published his Traité historique des eaux et des bains de Plombières. Calmet freely admitted that his was a popular work: he had merely gathered historical information and expert observations "to amuse rather than instruct the reader." Another Benedictine, Dom Léopold Durand, who had previously visited the spa, was invited to return in 1736 to draw and describe the baths and springs for the publication
The town of Plombières
Perched high in the mountains, Plombières was (and is) tiny. Even in 1790 the population was 926 inhabitants (p.82). This figure rose to 1,400 to 1,500 in 1827; very similar estimates apply today. There was a single main thoroughfare with a stream running along it which was reckoned excellent for its trout fishing. On the left bank, on the road to Remiremont, was a paper manufactory and on the right, towards Besançon, a spinning mill powered by the water of the stream. When the mill halted the waters formed a beautiful cascade. The Grand Bath dominated the centre of town. Otherwise the principal establishments were the house belonging to the dames of Remiremont, a Capuchin convent and a charitable hospital, endowed by Stanislas in 1740.
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| Plombières in 1709. Map engraved by Quirin Fonbonne, from the Traité of Dom Calmet |
Inevitably, the spa dominated the local economy. Gaston Maugras noted that there were almost as many auberges as houses, the main street peppered with their enamel signs: le Grenadier de France, le Grand-Cerf, l'Aigre d'Or, les Trois Rois, l'Ours etc etc. [Dernières années de la cour de Lunéville (1906), p.327].
Visitors often found the society uncongenial and the climate oppressive:
The majority of the houses are built of stone roofed with little tiles made from oak planks (mairin). They are so many guesthouses for the convenience of the sick people who come to take the waters and baths. It is a sad place to stay, above all in the months between November and May: the mountains at that time are always covered in snow. The vapour from the hot waters makes the air very thick. If one wants to breathe fresher air, one must climb up into the mountains, where one finds springs everywhere.
[Delespine, Relation du voyage de Mesdames Adélaïde et Victoire à Plombières (1762) p.23]
During the course of the century there were some attempts at architectural improvement. In 1733 the canonesses rebuilt their hôtel in elegant modern style. The original facade is still visible today, the pediment surmounted by the Chapter's coat-of-arms, with the hopeful Biblical quotation quaerunt sanitatem, sed ut Deo inserviant ("they seek health, only to serve God") In 1761-62 Stanislas was prompted by his granddaughters' visit to make several embellishments - the construction of the so-called maison des Arcades, with its sheltered walkway, the enlargement of the Crucifix Fountain and the promenade des Dames.
The municipal administration set up by Leopold in 1704 gave the little town a mayor or governor and four elected officials, who were responsible for.policing, administration of public funds, roads and public spaces - though in practice higher authorities, like the Prevost in Arches, intervened frequently. In 1763 Stanislas endowed the commune with a municipal body. The baths themselves were administered as a Farm (the "Règlement des bains" was worth 7,600 francs in 1768). The municipal authorities could constrain the Farm to contribute financially to works as they saw fit. Overall medical supervision fell to a centrally nominated ducal official: the médecin-inspecteur Deguerre / De Guerre (named by brevet of Stanislas, 4th December 1747) was particularly remembered as an innovator and man of energy.
The Baths and Thermal Establishment
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The Roman baths after the renovations of Leopold. From a 19th c. watercolour by A.F. Jacquot. Université Paris Cité - [Medica database]
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The Main Bath
The Grand Basin, the remnants of the old Roman bath, was a huge rectangular open-air pool, which dominated the centre of the town. Once designed to accommodate the soldiers of a substantial Roman garrison, in the mid-18th century it still boasted space for four to five hundred bathers (411 is the number specified Dom Calmet with somewhat unlikely precision).
Actual measurements are given as 18 metres by 7.4 metres and 1,35 metres in depth. At least one end was semicircular. On either side four tiers of large sandstone blocks, dating from Roman times, allowed the bathers to enter the water. These can still be seen in the vestibule of the current building. The paved floor rested on a hypocaust naturally heated by the hot thermal springs.
At the northern entrance, two stone columns supported an ornamental wrought iron gate surmounted by the arms of Lorraine and Orléans. A staircase of a dozen steps led down to the pool, with two obelisks on either side to dispense water: to the right from the source du Crucifix, and to the left from a very hot spring situated in the street outside. At the southern end as a small square clock tower with a clock with another entry door in the base.
Along each side of the bath ran a corridor, which was protected from the weather by a wooden roof. The corrosive action of the steam meant that the roof had to be replaced every two years. A wooden partition separated the bathers from the pool, so that the corridor could be used as a changing area. Clothes were stowed in holes in the wall.
Under Doctor Le Guerre in 1752, these facilities were expanded by the addition of four cubicles, one for a steam room and the other three for showers (contrived by means of a vat of water suspended over the bather's head). Then in 1768 the wooden partitions were replaced with permanent walls, the bath retiled and four more shower cubicles added. The 19th-century historian of Plombières, Jean-Dominique Haumonté remarks that these innovations were looked upon locally as a wonderful improvement, but memoirs suggest that the interior of the Bath still remained low, dark and full of suffocating steam.
In the 19th century the Bath was reconstructed on several occasions and, at one point, roofed over. Today the site is completely grassed over. The adjacent building, with its decorative mosaics, dates from the late 1930s. Inside can be seen the remnants of four Gallo-Roman steps.
See: Base Mérimée - "Bain Romain"
The Bain des Dames/ Bain Stanislas
This was the town's second antique bath, owned by the canonesses of Remiremont since the 13th century. Their hôtel communicated directly with the bathhouse via a covered gallery, then, after 1735, via a door on the ground floor.
This illustration from Don Calmet's Traité, which dates from 1709, shows the bath enclosed on two sides by a wall surmounted by columns which supported a roof. The pool itself was circular. Graduated stone blocks around the perimeter created space for up to eighty bathers to sit, with standing room for a further twenty-four (Calmet, p.68-72)
The bath was subsequently reconstructed at the expense of the commune between 1752 and 1758, again following recommendations by Dr Deguerre. The bathhouse and hôtel were both sold off in 1791 and bought by the state in 1836. They were acquired by the Compagnie des Thermes in 1882.
The bath, now known as the "Bain Stanislas", survives today: showers were added in the early 20th century and the interior space subsequently completely reconfigured. The present preservation order of 2001 covers the exterior features, plus five 19th-century lead-lined reservoirs.
The Bain des pauvres/ Bain des Capucins
Dom Calmet observed that in the last thirty years the third bath in existence at this time, the so-called Bath of the Poor, had become the "Bath of the Rich", preferred by people of distinction. It had been frequented, for example, by the princesses de Vaudémont and d'Islesbonne who first came to Plombières in 1709. Since it was opposite the Capuchin convent, it was also known as the Bain des Capucins. In Dom Calmet's illustration the basin is completely enclosed by a covering roof, illuminated only through a skylight. He reports that the medical profession had been much upset by a new conduit which allowed the bathers themselves to control the temperature of the water.
In 1767 the Bath was completely rebuilt at the expense of the town and took on present form.
The site has been protected as a "Monument Historique" since 2001.
Base Mérimée - "Bain des Capucins"
The "Étuves"/ Steam rooms
See Calmet, Chapter XIV (p.79ff).
Steam rooms were also a Roman legacy. (The historical "étuve romain", which is situated beneath the Bain Stanislas was not discovered until 1856 and was in use until 2020. It can still occasionally be visited and is quite a remarkable sight: see the photos posted on Vosgesmatin.fr, 10.10.2024)
In the18th century the steam rooms took the form of an enclosed masonry cubicle with barrelled vault and a single door, sunken into the ground directly over a hot spring. The oldest was the "Étuve Bassompierre" reconstructed by François de Bassompierre, marquis d'Haroué, in the early 17th century: his name could be still be read on the lintel over the door. It was situated near the house where Josephine was later famously to fall from the balcony, visible at street level as a "construction tumulaire". A second steam room, the Étuve Neuve had been built by Doctor Rouveroy in 1699 on the site of a small bath known as the Cuvotte just to the west of the Grand Bain. It is recorded that he met with resistance from the townsfolk who used the bath "to pluck fowl and wash the feet of animals" (Haumonté p.56-7). Access was via a staircase of ten steps and it was completely dark inside A third étuve had been built near the Bain des Capucins in 1709 but was already abandoned by Dom Calmet's time. A new steam room was finally added to the Grand Bain in 1752. Dom Calmet notes that each room had seating for at least ten people.
Personnel
The Farm itself directly employed staff only to maintain the pools and bring water to the showers. Until the mid-century the servicing of the baths was carried out entirely manually. Pumps were first introduced only in 1750: François Géhin, fermier for 45 years reports that his father had heard of a man in Epinal who made pumps; when it arrived everyone rushed to see it perform. The innovation was championed by Deguerre and pumps established in all the baths by 1758.
Haumonté (p.57-8) reproduces a breakdown of general charges to the bathers made by the Farm in 1764:
Tariffs charged by the Fermier des Bains in 1764:
In the client's room: 12 sous
In the enclosed pool: 6 sous
In the client's room: 1 sol 6d.
At the baths or steam room: At discretion
Bottle filled by the client: 1 sol 6d
With 20 sous to the livre, these are not in themselves huge amounts. However, there were other more substantial expenses to meet: the services of doctors; board and lodging; linen; the hire of personal attendants.
The personnel who attended the bathers, helping them undress, guiding them into the pools and steambaths etc., were supplied by the "logis" in which visitors boarded. By tradition they were exclusively women - in Dom Calmet's view this was an "ancient and immoral practice"
Conditions
The crowded facilities, where men, women, lay people and religious mingled indiscriminately, were much criticised. Calmet includes in his Traité, a memoir by a local engineer called Querlonde (see References). The latter condemns particularly the "promiscuity" of piling so many people into the étuves, which were too small and "completely dark". Bathers were in the habit of staying for a long period, during which, on medical advice, they plugged up their ears and noses and closed their eyes. Similar problems attended the showers. The bathers would also crowd in unseemly fashion around the narrow entrances to the étuves, where the attendants loudly disputed the places of their clients.
The descent into the baths themselves was awkward and difficult - Querlonde wanted to install a hoist or a chair lift - and the Grand Bain's openness to the air exposed bathers both to the elements and to the curiosity of all those who wished to spectate from the road or neighbouring windows. Dom Calmet himself , however, was more reassuring: since everyone was in full view of the other bathers, "if there was the slightest unseemliness or the slightest liberty, there would be an outcry; everyone would shout, and the guilty party would be driven out" (ref).
[to be continued]
References
Jean-Dominique Haumonté, Plombières, ancien & moderne (1905 ed.)
Appendix IV .p.361-87: "Relation de François Géhin, Ancien Fermier des Bains".
Dom Calmet, Traité historique des eaux et bains de Plombières, de Bourbonne, de Luxeuil et de Bains . Par le R. P. dom Calmet... Mémoire contenant les moyens de prendre les eaux de Plombières avec plus de commodité. Par M. Querlonde, ingénieur en chef (1748). [The memoir by Querlonde, is p.327-333]
Reading
From the Relation of Géhin: the Grand Bain
M. De Guerre, doctor to the spa, saw the bad state the baths were in and began to have improvements made. The Grand Bain left much to be desired. The walls which surrounded it were no higher than they are today. There were two corridors, one on each side of the pool. Roofs covered these corridors and the waters came down from above into the pool. There was one side for men and one side for women. There were bars for the bathers to hold on to; the holes for the bars can still be seen. The bathers stored their clothes in little recesses, which again can also still be seen. At that time you could see from the balcony right down into the water of the Bath. Young boys from the common people used the bath in the afternoons. They would climb onto the roofs and jump down into the pool. After dinner the bathers on the balconies would amuse themselves by watching them jump in the water; money would be thrown; they would hold their hands behind their backs and catch the coins in their mouths...One might suppose that the water was too hot; but no, it was fine for bathing.
At that time the Great Bath was not convenient. There was nowhere to get dressed or shower. As the basin was very big and wide, the doctor proposed to build cubicles above the spring where it entered the pool. The officials agreed to the work. This was in 1750...
I remember seeing the cabinets of the Grand Bain constructed. Whilst the basin under the cabinets was being completed the main bath was emptied. One day, when the workmen were not there, unruly children stopped the hole that let the water out and ran round the half- filled bath. One of them fell into the boiling water. Fortunately one of my brothers, who was older than me, was able to quickly retrieve him. When the boy's stockings were removed the skin of his legs came with them. He did not walk for more than a year. This was the first accident that I ever saw happen in the baths.
The four cabinets were soon in use. At this time the showers no longer functioned; persons of distinction would bathe in their rooms. I remember in my first year as farmer, I would give showers in people's lodgings since there were no cabinets.
Despite its inconveniences, the Grand Bain had its attractions. There was a beautiful entrance door with the arms of duke Leopold and Madame Royale...
Haumonté, Appendix IV .p.363-4.
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This illustration from Don Calmet's Traité, which dates from 1709, shows the bath enclosed on two sides by a wall surmounted by columns which supported a roof. The pool itself was circular. Graduated stone blocks around the perimeter created space for up to eighty bathers to sit, with standing room for a further twenty-four (Calmet, p.68-72)
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