A nation of shopkeepers.

With these words, Napoleon is said to have summed up the English.

I sometimes think of the French as a nation of innkeepers.

A recent poll, done by Opinionway for Le Figaro Magazine, reports that 79% of French people surveyed –nearly four out of five– want to change their lives. With a photo of a happy-looking couple and their four young children in front of an impressive Provençal dwelling, the magazine goes on to describe how French people want to: leave the big city for the country; trade in corporate jobs for small-business ownership.

The archetypal (most dreamt of?) pathway of change leads to a country inn, or bed and breakfast. The Figaro Magazine reports that one thousand people (more likely: a thousand families) start such establishments every year.

In the popular imagination, this adventure involves:

  • a well-financed renovation of a historic property; the installation of a well-appointed swimming pool seems de rigueur;
  • an expression of the owners' (especially Madame's) excellent taste: antiques spotted at country markets, luxury linens, paintings by artists local or exotic, a table fashioned from wood planks salvaged from a ruined church or old boat;
  • a fantasy of offering hospitality to guests, all of whom will express admiration, none of whom will make demands of any sort; innkeeping is described as easy on the nerves.

In France, there are television programs that showcase country inns. Like architectural magazines, most of the programs show the premises vacant of any guests.

It seems taboo in France to discuss how these places are managed or marketed. This is what gets to a national character trait: the requisite management skills are taken for a given, and passed over.