Copies de concours: Thème Agreg Interne 2006 - Copie 1

Note obtenue: 12/20

 

             A light smell of coffee and toast flowed down the hallway and became gradually more pervading as I was nearing the restaurant. A panting bellboy caught up with me there, in the great gallery.
            “M’sieur Edouard ! M’sieur Edouard ! At last ! Been looking for you for a while. Room 523. Something serious, so they say.”
            “Is someone dead ?”
            “No, but you’re expected now, right now !”
        
             Room 523 was Count and Countess Clary’s room. Good customers, well, maybe not exactly the right term, let’s just say Hotel regulars. They thought of the place as their favorite haunt in Paris, somewhere they felt at home because they were always welcomed by the same staff. Lutetia Palace maintained high standards of comfort with classy unpretentiousness. The Clarys thought that luxury hotels were just like anything else, i.e. that most of them were worth mentioning only to be singled out as places one would never visit. Wasn’t that fad for the only Rive Gauche Palace snobbery in its most distinguished form ?

            There was a milling crowd on the Clarys’ floor.

            “You are going to be sent for, monsieur Edouard”, a butler told me.
    
            I took that opportunity to smoke a cigarette in the corridor. To my left, in a corner, a headmaid was tactfully striving to tell a chambermaid who was about to be dismissed that she smelled foully. A few yards away, a small group of grooms was enjoying a break.