Vicky, resident:
The woman with the bucket was a guide-baigneuse: a female bathing guide. Those who wanted to use her services had to pay 50 centimes extra, on top of the price of a bathing cart. Her bucket served to give her customers a healthy cold shower. She also carried a coil of rope to attach to the bravest among them: those who wanted to learn to swim - something only one in ten people could do at the time.
The number around her waist was not a billiard ball, but her identification number. It meant that those who found themselves manhandled excessively underwater or were dissatisfied could report the right person to the bathing organisation. And look a little closer. of bathing guide number 6. That little man is wriggling like a worm, but will soon be mercilessly launched into the cold water...
Did the little ones have fun in the water? Forget it! An excerpt from an eyewitness captures the mood well: “We saw the poor children, some younger than two years old, thrown into the waves, despite their heart-wrenching cries. Who could have prescribed such a barbaric form of therapy? We want to warn parents who think this will benefit their children’s health. On the contrary: by immersing them in the water they are exposing them to pneumonia. We have already lost several children, for instance, a few months after the end of the baths.”