Hotel Name : Hotel De L’orient
Address : 17, Rue Romain Rolland Street, White Town, Puducherry, 605001, India
Contact Person :
Tel No : 0413 234 3067
Email : [email protected]
Website : http://hotel-de-lorient.neemranahotels.com
Hotel Profile
In the course of many recce visits to Pondicherry in search of old structures, Francis Wacziarg and Aman Nath came across the house on 17 Rue Romain Rolland. It had been occupied since 1952 by the Department of Education. During the days of the French, the building was called the ‘Instruction Publique’ – the board still sits above the entrance door. The Department was about to vacate the building as it had been declared unsafe.
The house was formally acquired in October 1998 and when the restoration started, a few ceilings and arches had to be rebuilt to their original style as they indeed were about to collapse.
Rue Romain Rolland is in the heart of Pondicherry and was earlier called Rue des Capucins after a monastery that once existed off the street. (A church by the same name was commissioned in 1707).
The history of Pondicherry is closely associated with the trade that developed in the 17th century. Founded in 1664, the Compagnie des Indes Oientales – the French answer to the East India Company – was given the rights to trade with India by Louis XIV, King of France. The first settlement, a ‘factory’, was Surat, followed by the ‘loges’ of Tellichery and Calicut on the Malabar coast. The ‘comptoir’ of Pondicherry was to become the ‘flagship’ of French presence in India from 1675. A port was constructed, and by 1691, the population touched 20,000. Dupleix, the Governor from 1742 to 1756, ushered in an era of prosperity for Pondicherry but also of wars that led to the eventual destruction of the city in 1761. Thereafter, the town was to change hands several times, between the Dutch and the British, but always for short periods and the French remained at the main influence till 1954.
