Exploring the links between class identity and vacationing, the text looks at the popularity of France's health resorts in the 19th century. It shows how spas were promoted as an ordered equivalent to the busy lives of the bourgeoisie, and this premier vacation made and was made by the bourgeoisie.

List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction 1: Baths and Curing in the Old Regime 2: Producing Leisure: Economics, Class Formation, and the Sejour for Sale 3: Respectability Emplaced 4: Medicine and the Rhythming of Bourgeois Rest 5: Social Benefits of Spa Consumption Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index