Annette Poulard and Édouard Corroyer

Édouard Corroyer was an important French architect, a student of Viollet-le-Duc. Annette, the daughter of market gardeners from Nevers, in the region of Bourgogne, entered his service as a maid, later becoming his cook. Édouard Corroyer had gourmet tastes. He often welcomed guests to his home and loved to please them. He quickly spotted Annette’s culinary talent and told her about the dishes he liked. He also shared his knowledge of architecture and art with her. In 1872, Édouard Corroyer was commissioned by the government of France with the task of restoring the abbey of Mont- Saint-Michel. Indeed pressure had been exerted by leading French intellectuals, including Victor Hugo, to intervene and restore this national symbol.

A few years later, Victor and Annette left the Hotel Saint-Michel Teste d’Or and purchased the Hotel Lion d’Or, owned by André Leplat, the mayor of Mont-Saint-Michel. They demolished it and replaced it with the building we know today, rst under the name “À l’Omelette renommée de La Mère Poulard” (the home of Mère Poulard’s famous omelet), and later “Auberge La Mère Poulard” (Inn of Mère Poulard). This building, located at the entrance to Mont-Saint-Michel, between the

walls and the rock, comprised a restaurant, bar, and hotel. The inn became a victim of its own success and was soon outgrown. Guests were also housed in three annexes located along the alleys leading up to the abbey: a red brick house, a whitewashed house, and a green house with ivy- covered walls.

Mère Poulard would accommodate all her guests with the same kindness, the same hospitality, and the same spirit of sharing, famous or not. Father Couillard, the parish priest of Mont-Saint-Michel, described Annette as a mother who welcomes her children with willingness and genuine simplicity. She also welcomed the leading gures of the time, which visited Mont-Saint-Michel after its restoration by Édouard Corroyer. The Normandy coast in the late nineteenth century was the equivalent of the French Riviera today. It was where the British royal family and other nobility had second homes, soon joined by the elite among Europe’s monarchs, princes, and aristocrats. One would also rub elbows with great business leaders who had made their fortune, artists, painters, and writers.
Annette ran her establishment expertly, and while she did not hesitate to offer credit to the poor, she was unyielding with certain rules. Meals, for example, were taken upstairs, and coffee was ser- ved at small tables outside. It is said that one day, while on a visit to Mont-Saint-Michel, King Leopold II of Belgium wanted to take his breakfast outside. Annette graciously but firmly made it clear to him that this was impossible. So he took his meal inside.

Annette was always to be found in her kitchen, and only left Mont-Saint-Michel on rare occasions; she chose to leave her own travels to her dreams by listening to her guests who came from all over the world. She had the habit of asking them, as a memento of their visit, for a photograph, an autograph, or a drawing that would enable to continue to travel with them, her head filled with the memories of all those encounters that she so loved. This tradition has been kept up until the present day, and a large number of photographs, drawings, portraits, autographs, and dedications enliven the walls of the inn as an invitation to travel back in time and history.

Through them, one can discover that King Edward VII and the British royal family, regular guests at La Mère Poulard at the turn of the twentieth century, greatly contributed to her renown. Both President Theodore Roosevelt of the United States and Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau of France — hero of World War I, a close friend of Annette Poulard, and a big fan of her cuisine —also contributed to her growing fame. Within a few years, they might have encountered the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky during his exile, who in turn could have run into the great banking and industrialist families — the Mellons, the Rothschilds, and the Rockefellers — who were loyal to La Mère Poulard throughout the twentieth century.