| Abstract | Zola, while taking refuge in the London suburbs and in nearby Surrey in the aftermath of ‘J’Accuse!’, found much to complain about in English life. However, there were areas of late nineteenth-century London which can justifiably be described as also belonging to the French-speaking world. In addition to French political exiles who formed a fluctuating minority, London’s well-established ‘French colony’ numbered an estimated 30, 000. Varied occupations included luxury brands and services, book selling and the press, commercial clerks and merchants and, of course, restaurateurs, cooks and hoteliers, alongside teachers, governesses and domestic servants. Leicester Square, described then as a ‘partly-French, partly-theatrical’ area, housed French restaurants and hotels and its notorious theatres of variety welcomed many French singers, actors and productions. It was also home to French charitable and medical organisations as, while many prospered, there was a need to provide for more disadvantaged French-speaking residents of the city.
Dr Achille Vintras founded the Dispensaire Français near Leicester Square in 1861. Perfumer and cosmetics entrepreneur Eugène Rimmel opened the Hôpital Français in 1867 in Leicester Place. The two establishments merged and a larger site acquired in newly-developed Shaftesbury Avenue. The New French Hospital and Dispensary, ‘Open to all Foreigners speaking French’, opened in 1890. In 1896 the Maison Convalescence Française opened in Brighton for patients from the French Hospital to recuperate. Beyond medical assistance, the two men seem to have shared an interest in healthcare and ‘well-being’: Vintras, an authority on French mineral waters, and Rimmel interested in the benefits of hygiene and bathing, developing soaps, mouth rinses and his herbal ‘Toilet [toilette] Vinegars’. |
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