Last modified: 2011-07-16 by ivan sache
Keywords: haute-savoie | evian-les-bains | fish (white) | cross (white) | letters: cae (red) |
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![[Flag of Évian]](../images/f/fr-74-ev.gif)
Flag of Évian - Image by Arnaud Leroy
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Évian-les-Bains (7,000 inhabitants) is a town located on the southern shore of Lake Leman, 10 km east of Thonon-les-Bains, the main French town on the Lake Leman, and 17 km west of the village of Saint-Gingolph which constitutes the Franco-Swiss border. The wide delta of river Dranse was in the past a kind of natural border that isolated Évian from the rest of Savoy and made traffic extremely difficult, especially in summer. The building of a new bridge and new roads solved the problem.
There were early Celtic and Roman settlements in Évian, but the
town was developed much later by the Dukes of
Savoy, who fortified it. Until 1865, Évian
was a small fortified town with its walls bathed in the lake. The
church of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption, built in the 13th century
(early Savoyard Gothic style) was also fortified and projected into
the lake.
Most French thermal spas were built on ancient Gallo-Roman
thermae. Évian is one of the exceptions, since the thermal baths were opened only in the 18th century. Since the 17th century, the
Dukes of Savoy took the iron-bearing waters in Amphion, a village
located between Évian and Thonon, now part of the municipality of
Publier, but Évian remained ignored.
However, the name of Évian is related with water. It comes most probably from a Celtic or
pre-Celtic root meaning water, and was written Aviano in 1150,
Yvians in 1268. Local pencil pushers invented the Latin form Aquianum in the Middle Ages.
In 1789, Marquis of Lessert, a country squire from
Auvergne, suffering from his kidneys and
liver, took the waters in Amphion, to no avail. During a trip in
Évian, he drank water from the St. Catherine's source, which gushed
forth in Mr. Cachat's garden. The marquis felt better and promoted
the "miraculous" source, which was rapidly recommended by doctors.
Mr. Cachat wisely enclosed his garden and started selling the water.
The first private bathing resort in Évian was opened in 1826 by the Swiss banker
François Fauconnet. Since he was a foreigner, he needed a permit, which
was granted to him by King Charles Félix (lettres patentes from 20
January 1826, Turin). The first resort was built in 1827 in the
rue Nationale, now the main street in Évian, on the site of the
former St. Catherine's church. The resort was made of two buildings
linked by a pump room and a large terrace. In 1835, Fauconnet got
bankrupted and the resort was sold.
The Société des Eaux Minérales de Cachat bought the resort and built the Hôtel des Bains in 1839, and transformed it into the Grand Hôtel des Bains in
1859-60.
In 1860, Savoy was incorporated to France and took benefit of the
industrial development of the Second
Empire. The railway was extended from
Annemasse to Évian via Thonon, and Évian was
officially renamed Évian-les-Bains in 1864.
The Society of the Évian Waters (Société des Eaux
d'Évian), incorporated in 1869, drilled several holes and
bought sources. The Society funded the building of big hotels, a
theater and a pump room. In 1878, the French Academy of Medicine
approved the use of the mineral water of Évian. The appearance of the
town was dramatically altered. Baron Louis-Eynnemond de Blonay
bequeathed to the town his castle and all the neighbouring land. The
castle was transformed into a gambling house. The lake front was
moved forward on the lake, so that the church and the center of the
city are now located 100 m away form the shore. In 1897-1898, the architect Brunnarius completely transformed the Grand Hôtel des Bains into the
Scientific evidence of the effect of the water on kidneys was
given in 1902. The baths were revamped in 1902 by Brunnarius, who died before the
completion of the project. It costed 1.5 billion francs (c. 5 billions
euros). The main hall was 68-m long, 25-m wide and 31-m high.
The modern casino of Évian was built in 1912 by the architect Hébrard,
on the model of the Hagia Sophia basilica in Istanbul.
Évian started to decline in 1929. Water-cure activity resumed
after the Second World War. A new pump room was built in 1956 by the
architect Maurice Novarina. The new water-cure establishment was also
designed by Novarina in 1983. The building was partially buried to
preserve the homogeneity of the park. The casino is probably the most
important source of money for Évian. Gambling is forbidden in
Switzerland, and the CGN has a special service between
Lausanne and Évian at least a day per
week - the boat lands in Évian and waits for the closure of the
casino.
Évian housed a summitt of the G8, in spring 2003.
In 1960, the production of the water was industrialized. The
famous bottle with the pink label was sold in supermarkets. Évian is
now the first exporter of mineral water in the world, with 4,000,000
of bottles produced per day in the bottling factory located in
Amphion. Évian belongs to the group Danone but is still known locally
as la Cachat, from the name of the source.
Whatever advertisment claims, the natural mineral water of Évian
does not come from the Mont-Blanc massif. Rain and snow-melting
waters are collected on the plateau de Gavot, just above Évian, on a
layer of glacial sands sandwiched into two layers of clayey moraines.
The three-layer system acts as a natural filter responsible of the
specific mineralization of the water. The travel of the water from
the collecting area to the source has a speed of 100-300 m per year
and can last up to 15 years. The source water has a constant
temperature of 11.6 °C.
The accords d'Évian (Évian agreement) were signed on 18
March 1962. The agreement acknowledged the independence of
Algeria and appointed the
FLN as single speaker for further
negociations.
Discussions had started on 5 March between the French government
and the Provisory Government of the
Algerian Republic, founded on 19 September 1958. The
cease-of-fire was signed on 19 March. The agreement was approved in
France by a referendum on 8 April and in Algeria by a plebiscite on 1
July.
Radical supporters of French Algeria (OAS) tried to stop the
discussions by committing a bomb attempt, in which Mayor of Évian
Camille Blanc, who was not at all involved in the discussions, was
killed.
During the town's Golden Age, several writers came to Évian in
summertime. Two names are specifically associated with this period,
Anna de Noailles and Marcel Proust.
Anna, Countess Mathieu de Noailles (1876-1933) was born Princess
Brancovan, from the Princely House of Wallachia (Romania). She spent
most of her summers in a house bought by her father in Amphion. Her
work was deeply inspired by Lake Léman. She wrote three
novels, an autobiography and several lyric, neo-romantical poems.
These poems seem now fairly conformist and old-fashioned, and it is
difficult to imagine how popular Anna de Noailles was. She was one of
the first aristocrats to join the Dreyfusard party and was the first
woman to be appointed Commander of the Order of Légion
d'Honneur. She was buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetary in
Paris, but her heart remained in the cemetary of Publier, with the
following epitaph "Here sleeps my heart, vast witness of the world".
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) was an ardent admirer of Anna de
Noailles. He wrote her she was even better than the Blessed Virgin
(we must recall that Proust was much more careful with vocabulary in
his novels than in his letters!). Proust spent a few summers in Évian
with her mother in the beginning of the 20th century. Although À
la recherche du temps perdu is not an autobiography, Proust used
several events of his own life to compose the novel, the same way he
incorporated several elements of his own personality in the characters
of the novel. An important place in the novel is the sea resort of
Balbec, where the narrator met important characters such as
Albertine, Robert de Saint-Loup and the painter Elstir. The narrator
lived in the Grand Hôtel, whose main model is the
Grand Hôtel in Cabourg (Normandy). However, some
elements of the landscape might not be of Normand origin, especially
the green mountain the narrator saw from his room. It is therefore
possible that the Hôtel Splendid in Évian was among the
models of the Grand Hotel in Balbec.
An important event of the novel was directly transposed from
Proust's real life. In September 1905, Proust went to Évian with his
mother. Two hours after arriving in Évian, Mrs. Proust was struck
down by an uremia crisis. She was brought back to Paris and died from
nephritis on 26 September, aged 57. Proust never recovered from his
sorrow, and transposed that sad event as the death of the narrator's
grand-mother, which is the most horrible event of the novel, with a
long, clinical description of the agony.
Ivan Sache, 5 September 2004
The flag of Évian, as seen on the town hall in December 2002, is vertically divided blue-red with the municipal coat of arms placed in the middle and surmonted with a mural crown.
The coat of arms is D'azur au poisson d'argent posé en fasce, avalant un
petit poisson du même, au chef de gueules à la croix
d'argent ("Azure in fess a fish silver, swallowing a small fish of the
same, chief gules a cross silver").
The fishes on the arms most probably refer to fishing, which is
now nearly extincted in Évian but still active in neighbouring
smaller ports such as Petite-Rive, Grande-Rive and Meillerie. The
chief is made of the arms of Savoy, the chief of Savoy being often
used in municipal heraldry.
The municipal coat of arms of Évian dates back (at least) from 15th
century. The motto of the city was Deo et ducis fidelis perpetuo (To
God and the Duke, a perpetual loyalty), which was slightly changed to
A watercolor by Victor Ferrero, from the end of the 19th century,
shows the coat of arms of Évian with a white cross on a blue field in
chief instead of the traditional chief of Savoy (white cross on red)
and the fish proper on a white field, instead of white fishes
on a blue field. Moreover, there is a thin yellow fimbriation between
the field and the chief of the shield.
Source: Évian à travers les siècles, exhibition catalogue, Éditions du Nant d'Enfer, 2001.
The flag of Évian has some similarity with the banner of arms of the Swiss town of Nyon, located in the canton of Vaud.
Ivan Sache, 5 September 2004
![[CA Évian]](../images/f/fr-74~ev.gif)
Burgee of CAE - Image by Ivan Sache, 18 December 2004
Some members of the rowing club Club de l'Aviron d'Évian (CAE, website) have won international fame:
- Émile Clerc, aka Milou, born in 1934, was a professional fisher in
Yvoire; he started
rowing in the Club de l'Aviron de Thonon and won the Henley regatta
with the eight from the Bataillon de Joinville (sports unit of the
French army). Milou competed in the Olympic Games in Melbourne (1956),
Rome (4th in eight) and Tokyo (10th in coxless four ); he is today
responsible of the rowing club Excenevex Skiff with Jacques Vignon,
former coach of the rowing club of Geneva.
- Patrick Raymond won five national titles and took part to the Olympic
Games in Montreal (1976); he is today a coach of the national French
team in rowing.
- Serge Fornara started rowing in 1969 and won ten national titles,
including five of them with Patrick Raymond and another two with Barathay
Sr. and Jr, the second title ten years later; he took part to three
Olympic Games.
- Samuel (Samy) Barathay was born in 1968 and is one of the best French
rowers ever. He was champion of the world in double scull with Y.
Lamarque in Rudnice (1993), bronze medalist in Indianapolis (1994)
and in the Olympic Games in Atlanta (1992) with F. Kowal. He also won
several national titles. Samy is today a regional coach for the
national team in Chambéry.
The burgee of the CAE is blue with a red border and a black triangle bordered red and charged with the red letters CAE placed near the hoist. Blue and red are the municipal colours of Évian.
Ivan Sache, 18 December 2004