Gérardine’s husband is the mayor of Chareauville sur Mer. This is sometimes downright useful, especially if you’re ambitious, and Gérardine certainly is. With four alterations already completed she’s now planning a large covered patio at the back of her hotel "Chez Gérardine". And there is not much doubt that she will be granted planning permission for this. Tourism hasn’t done Gérardine any harm either. Now, in the winter the hotel is quiet, but it is fully booked throughout the summer. Some guests even stay for two whole weeks.

But hotel "Chez Gérardine" is beautiful. The rooms are luxurious and are even equipped with a bath, to enable the sun worshippers to wash the sand and salt off their bodies. When she starts the next alterations she is toying with the idea of having a beautiful fresco painted in the dining room by Gérard Potoise of the artist’s shop "Peintre Artistique". She’ll wait until her husband has ordered a painting for the council chambers, if that works out, she will order one too.

Gérardine is a clever woman. She never misses an opportunity. She has had a display case made by Lucien Chantiers of "Chantiers Navals",   placed in the lobby of the hotel for Giscard and Julia Ballancourt’s souvenir shop "Boutique de Souvenirs" , where an assortment of articles are on display. In doing so she is both advertising and receiving a monthly rent.  The hotel is the ideal operating base for important official delegations from the district, which meet during the summer between nine and ten in the morning and then spend the rest of the day on the beach. And naturally "maire" Domont plays an intermediating role, in which he negotiates a “favourable” price for the district with his wife.