France's thermal capital — Napoleon III's court waters shadowed forever by the wartime Vichy Regime
Vichy is the thermal spa capital of France, a gracious Belle Époque resort town on the Allier River in the Auvergne whose mineral springs drew Napoléon III's imperial court and created the most opulent spa architecture in France. The grands établissements thermaux, the opera house, the vast Parc des Sources, and the glass-and-iron Palais des Congrès all testify to the town's 19th-century grandeur. The mineral water brand Vichy Célestins is bottled here and exported worldwide. The town's name is permanently shadowed by the wartime Vichy government (1940–1944), which collaborated with Nazi Germ…
Vichy's waters were known to the Romans, who called the settlement Aquis Calidis. The town's modern golden age began under Napoléon III, who came to take the cure in 1861 and 1862 and ordered the modernisation of the thermal facilities and the construction of the ornate parks and casino. During the Second World War, after France's military collapse in June 1940, the National Assembly convened in the Vichy casino and voted full powers to Marshal Pétain, creating the Vichy Government — a nominally independent French state that collaborated with Nazi Germany, oversaw the deportation of over 76,0…