SEVENTEEN, Rue Romain Rolland in the heart of the French district of Pondicherry is now home to the Hotel de l'Orient. Once, the home of a French family (a hand-written inscription, "H. Rudier 1809" was found in the suite now named "Masulipatnam"), then the Bureau de l'Instruction Publique ("Education Department") since 1952, rented from the Sinnas family settled in France, who had bought it that year. Until then for two centuries the Maison had been occupied by French families and then after its bureaucratic interlude, it had simply been abandoned. Today it is part of Neemrana Hotels, a chain of "seven non-hotel hotels", in heritage properties like the better-known Neemrana Fort Palace, the Piramal Haveli and the Ramgarh Bungalows.

The careful restoration directed by architects Ajit and Ratna Koujalgi, who are involved in the conservation of Pondicherry with the INTACH Cell, is a rich paen to the past in Chettinad plaster, a remarkable collection of 18th and 19th Century French engravings, etchings, aquarelles, lithographs and Indian oleographs. Names like "Mahe", "Yanoan", "Chandernagore" and "Karaikal" for the suites and "Masulipatam", "Surate", "Calicut", "Gingy", "Balasore" and "Cassimbazar" for the rooms trigger memories of loges and comptoirs (trading posts) as do the beautiful courtyard and carefully-chosen "Pondicherriennes" ("planters" chairs). Ten suites and rooms with 90 per cent occupancy even in the off-season period, the pony-tailed manager informs us proudly as we check into "Mahe".

Savonnerie dhurries revived on the pit looms of Jaipur, fine cotton blinds, chintzes and indiennes reprinted in original 18th Century designs, garishly polychromed clay dolls, old mirrors, carved bedlegs morphed into table lamps, Ravi Varma oleographs and dowry chests turned into luggage racks swiftly transport you to an age of grace and leisure even as the distressed wood frames of the pictures, the tastefully-chosen ceramic soap dishes and tile tabletops and the picture of a maiden that hangs on the bathroom wall evoking ancient romantic lore stand mute testimony to the Aman Nath - Francis Wacziarg sleight of hand so good at melding other lives, other loves. My favourite however is a stone frog on the rim of the bathtub that got thoroughly wet each time someone turned on the shower ...

Black and white photographs, sent long ago out of Pondicherry to France, are now back on the walls of this mansion with a colourful past, reviving a by-gone era. Colonial furniture and a huge four poster greet you as you enter your suite and you are amused by the foot stools on either side of the bed to help you climb on to it. Quaint chairs and an old fashioned dressing table set your imagination galloping to a time when perhaps the young girl in the distressed wood frame tried on her Parisian gown and millinerie before setting off to meet her lover just arrived in the bustling port of Pondicherry.

In 1664, Louis XIV gave the Compagnie des Indes Orientales the rights to trade with India. The first settlement was Surat followed by the loges of Tellicherry and Calicut on the coast of Malabar. But it was the comptoir of Pondicherry which became the centre of the French presence in les Indes with a thriving port and population of 20,000 people by 1691. Dupleix brought in an era of prosperity but also a series of wars which eventually destroyed the city in 1761. For short periods the town changed hands between the Dutch and the British and once regained by the French, it stayed with them till 1954. The mansion that houses the Hotel de l'Orient dates back to the late 1760s and the rebuilding of Pondicherry.

What the present hotel has done is to carefully recreate the gracious lifestyle of a noble mansion of the 18th Century. The gates open into an airy courtyard around which run wide verandahs leading into various suites. Red oxide floors and an interesting finish on the walls which give it a shiny patina emphasising the restored look, high windows with heavy teak shutters and louvres that can turn day into night once shut, French colonial beds, tables, consoles, planter's chairs, lamps and old engravings add to the old mystique, and for a night you travel back in time when alien powers ruled these familiar shores.

The airconditioned dining room carries the tongue-in-cheek name of "Carte Blanche" from the old maps (cartes) of South India that decorate the walls. Creole cuisine - a blend of French and South Indian food featuring recipes collected from old Pondicherrian families - is relished by guests who often prefer the fresh openness of the tables in the courtyard to the formal dining room. For the opening of the hotel in March 2000, we are told, 2,000 guests sat in the shade of the neem and citrus trees, watching Malavikka Sarukkai dance. At night, when a single tree is lit up and strange shadows dapple the courtyard it is all magic and moonlight.

Elegance and refinement define the Hotel de l'Orient. The sisters of Cluny continue their fine embroidery across the street even as they did 200 years ago when traders and soldiers mingled with the natives on the streets of Pondicherry. Anne Marie Lehay, grand daughter of the first owners of the place, had been informed of it in France by Andre Benoist of the University of Poitiers. She had visited the hotel and stayed at "Gingy", an attic-like room with a balcony overlooking the street, perfect setting for weaving the most romantic histories. Soaked in the grace and leisure of vanished ages, we came out rudely disappointed to find a car waiting and not a carriage! To the Shelleyan strains of music that vibrates in the memory and odours that live within the senses they quicken, should be added also these images of the past that resonate in the present.