History
The town's history is outlined in Casino Royale. Formerly just a small fishing village named "Royale", it rapidly became fashionable as a tourist destination during the Second Empire. However the subsequent rise in popularity of Le Touquet meant a loss in custom for Royale. A parallel is drawn between the history of Royale and that of Trouville, a once-popular destination which was eclipsed by Deauville. The fortunes of Royale seemed to be recovering at the turn of the 20th century, when a spring in the hills behind the town was found to contain enough sulphur to make it marketable as mineral water. Royale reinvented itself as a spa town, renamed itself "Royale-les-Eaux" and began exporting "Eau Royale", in a torpedo-shaped bottle. This success was short-lived, and following lawsuits from Vichy, Perrier and Vittel sale of Eau Royale became merely local once more. The town thereafter survived on seaside holidaymakers in the summer and its small fishing fleet in the winter, as well as "the crumbs which fell to its elegantly dilapidated Casino from the table at Le Touquet".
Royale's renaissance came after the Second World War. Encouraged by the post-war revival of Brighton and Nice, in 1950 Royale-les-Eaux was identified as a potential source of revenue by a Paris syndicate which invested funds on behalf of exiled Vichyites. The Casino, the public gardens and the two main hotels were refurbished and Paris jewellers and couturiers were given rent-free sites on which to establish branches. For the year in which the events of Casino Royale take place, the Société des Bains de Mer de Royale has succeeded in securing bookings from "a considerable number of the biggest operators in America and Europe", and leased some of the baccarat tables to a group of Egyptians, the Mahomet Ali Syndicate. This is the context in which Casino Royale opens.
Read more about this topic: Royale-les-Eaux
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