Les écrivains et le thermalisme

The nineteenth century is the golden age of thermalism in France. Everyone then takes the waters. Men of letters, such as Chateaubriand, Lamartine, the Goncourt brothers or Maupassant do not escape this phenomenon of fashion and frequent the spa towns. Balzac courted Marquise de Castries, Zola accompanies his curiste, Alain-Fournier finds his mistress ... But most writers go to cure for health reasons. Thus Daudet and Maupassant treat their syphilis, Chateaubriand his rheumatism, Verlaine his ulcers in the leg and Proust his asthma. All these curist writers have testified of their experience, whether in their correspondence or in their novels, poems, travel stories. Here is a walk in the world of waters, seen by writers, between 1800 and 1914.