Dessein's Hotel as Sentimental Site (1823)

Uncle Oddy (pseudonym)
Image
Jacque & Fussell, ['An Englishman does not travel to see Englishmen'], A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. Illustrated with one hundred engravings on wood, by Bastin and G. Nichols. (London: Joseph Thomas, 1841)

Quote

"M. Dessein had been well satisfied that his name and his hotel were alike immortalized by the visit of our inimitable sentimentalist; and his successorsfor Dessein, who had for so many years called upon others to pay their reckoning, had himself, some few years since, been called upon to settle his ownwere content to retain a name over their hotel, which had acquired, through our author's visit to it, so much celebrity."

 

 

I wish we had gone to Sterne's hotel (said Maria), I should like to have seen the Remise door where he had such an interesting conference with the Lady." Dessein's. It is a fine morning; and as we have a few hours to spare, we will walk thither. "I suppose (continued she) they have his bust or his head for a sign;"  but we found neither. M. Dessein had been well satisfied that his name and his hotel were alike immortalized by the visit of our inimitable sentimentalist; and his successorsfor Dessein, who had for so many years called upon others to pay their reckoning, had himself, some few years since, been called upon to settle his ownwere content to retain a name over their hotel, which had acquired, through our author's visit to it, so much celebrity. They show you the Remise door, and the corner of the court-yard where stood the desobligeante;but at these, Maria was still dissatisfied"she would like to see a monk! and wondered who had now got the horn snuff-box!" "Perhaps it is in the British Museum," said Mrs. G.Perhaps not! thought I.———

Sources

Taken from Anonymous, Maria or, A Shandean journey of a young lady : through Flanders and France, during the summer of 1822 / By my Uncle Oddy. (London: John Hatchard and Son, 1823). Full text at Cambridge Digital Library.