Compagnie Générale Transatlantique

1 · POSITION

The company was founded in 1855 as the Compagnie Générale Maritime by the brothers Émile and Isaac Pereire, and became the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique in 1861. Its transatlantic sailings were run under a French state subsidy, directed from a Paris head office with the Le Havre agency working the New York line. Abroad it was known as the French Line. The association that keeps its archives treats the dining room, not the cabin, as the most elaborate room on its ships. [1, 2]

2 · THE DINING ROOM AS A STAGE

The archive describes those rooms as a théâtre gastronomique, where the rituals of first class society met the choreographed work of the waiters, and where the captain was expected to hold a table. Cooking followed the lines laid down by Carême and Escoffier, and the table service was presented as an inheritance from eighteenth-century France. Menus ran from first class haute cuisine to plainer third class dishes, with children's menus, kosher meals, calorie-counted menus and food for dogs. [2]

3 · THE SHIPS KEPT CHANGING THEIR STYLE

France of 1912 carried dining rooms worked in the manner of the Grand Siècle and of Art Nouveau. Paris of 1921 stood between Art Nouveau and Art Deco. Île-de-France, of 1927, is described as the ship on which a single contemporary Art Deco scheme was carried through. Normandie was inaugurated on 23 May 1935, her chapel was consecrated on 27 May, her first voyage began on the evening of 29 May and she reached New York on 3 June 1935. [1, 2]

4 · WHO SUPPLIED THE ROOM

Silver came from Puiforcat, Christofle and Ercuis, much of it carrying the company's monogram; porcelain from Haviland, Gérard Dufraisseix & Abbot of Limoges and Digoin Sarreguemines; glass from Daum, Lalique and Saint-Louis. René Lalique was separately commissioned to design lamps and chandeliers for the interiors of Paris, Île-de-France and Normandie. Nearly nine thousand printed menus are held. Normandie's inventory lists painted plaster ceilings for the first class lounge, the first class smoking room and the ladies' saloon. [1, 3, 4]

5 · ⚑ CANDOUR

⚑ Every page used here belongs to the association that holds the company's archives, so this is the custodian's account and not an independent one. The Normandie inventory names no interior designer, and the ceiling painting it lists is a commission recorded in correspondence rather than proof of finished work. The comparison of Normandie's dining room with the Hall of Mirrors is the archive's framing, not a measurement. An apartment named Caen is recorded as reserved for Madame Lebrun on the first voyage. [1–4]