FrenchKate

August 16: Evening in Southern Wisconsin

Since I last wrote, I have been preoccupied with family matters that took me to the rich, green countryside of southern Wisconsin. 

So beautiful!

Back to reflections on France tomorrow.

June 11: A digression...Transhumance

In the 1860s, Alphonse Daudet, an aspiring French writer in his mid-20s, moved from Paris to a mill in Provence with the ambition to write full-time. He was at a crossroads. His employer, the noble Duke de Morny--the half-brother of Emperor Napoleon III--had died unexpectedly in 1865, and Daudet, having recently left his mistress (with whom he had lived for a number of years) was at loose ends, and he was not well. Some years earlier, he had contracted syphilis from a lady in the entourage of the Empress Eugenie, and the disease affected his ability to walk. Thus, a move for his health and his career seemed in order. He would live in his mill for just one year, but it made his career.

With a friend, Paul Arene, Daudet composed letters--short stories, really--that were published as a serial--"Chronicles from Provence" --by the journal, L'Événement, in the summer of 1866. Later these lyrical glimpses of rural Provence would be published as "Letters from my Mill;" some of the stories have remained among the most popular in French literature. 

The mill pictured here is not actually the one Daudet lived in, but it is visited by his fans anyway. 

In one of his first letters, he describes the transhumanance--the ancient practice of moving herds of cattle, goats and sheep to and from pastures in the mountains. We encountered transhumance on the Aubrac plateau as we made our way on the GR65, and I thought it worth sharing observations from 150 years earlier.

"I need to tell you that in Provence, it is the custom, when the hot weather comes, to send animals to pasture in the Alps. Animals and people pass five or six months up there, lodged under the stars, in grass up to their stomachs. Then, at the first chill of autumn, they all come back down to the farms to graze comfortably on little hills, silvery and fragrant with rosemary. So yesterday evening the herds returned. From morning, the farm gate was open, waiting, the sheepfolds were full of fresh straw. From hour to hour, we said to one another, "Now they are at Eyguières, now at Paradou." Then, suddenly, towards evening, a loud cry, "There they are!!" and far off, we could see the herd advancing in a glory of dust. The whole road was full with them...The old rams come first, horns forward, with a fierce air, behind them, the main flock of sheep, the weary ewes with lambs at their side; --the mules with red pompons carrying day-old lambs in baskets that rocked as they walk, then all the dogs sweating, their their tongues hanging out, and two big, rascally shepherds draped in capes of coarse red wool that fell right to their heels." 

"They all passed before us joyously and were swallowed up by the gate, their many feet pattering like heavy rain. You have to see what a commotion was stirred up in the farm. From their high perches, the fat peacocks, green and gold, crested with tulle, recognized the arrivals, and greeted them with cries  like raucous trumpet blasts. The poultry house, which was falling asleep, woke up with a start. Everyone was on their feet: pigeons, ducks, turkeys, guinea fowl. The henhouse went mad; the hens talk of making a night of it. Each sheep has brought back in its wool the fragrance of the wild alps, a little of the lively mountain air that intoxicates us and makes us dance."

"In the midst of all this commotion, the herd reaches its shelter. Nothing is as charming as this settling in. The old rams are moved to see their cribs again, the lambs, the little ones who were born in the mountains, who have never seen a farm, looked around them in wonder."   

"But the most touching of all were the brave sheepdogs, so intent on their charges, distracted by nothing in the farmyard. The guard dog may call to them from his kennel, the bucket of the well, full of fresh water, may beckons, but they seek nothing, hear nothing, until all the animals have returned to their shed, and the big latch pushed shut on the small slatted gate, and the shepherds are seated at the table in the farm kitchen. Only then do the dogs agree to go to the kennel, and there, lapping up their food, they tell their farm comrades of what they did up in the mountains, a dark country where there are wolves and large purple foxgloves filled to the brim with dew."

March 26: Friday French cats

Cats in France lead very good lives.

I don't remember where I saw the first cat--the siamese sunning itself on a car--but the second one, the calico, was spotted in Sedan, near the northern border.

Sedan is the town where Napoleon III and the French army were thoroughly and decisively beaten by the Prussian army in 1870, leading to the German occupation of northern France, the end of monarchy in France, and the launch of the third Republic. Today, tourists visiting Sedan won't find that humiliating episode highlighted in the usual tourist materials.

We went for a hike in the hills near the city, and this little cat came to check us out.

The last cat--white with gray spots--was spotted in Vézelay near the celebrated Abbey of Sainte-Madeline.

March 5: Peering through windows in Pérouges

We watched this baker do his thing--it was practically performance art--near the Hostellerie of Pérouges.

I believe (though memory could fail) that these ball of dough were destined to be flattened, sprinkled with sugar and baked for the Galettes de Pérouges served in the dining room of the Hostellerie.

March 3: Art shot

Another old & new scene from Vienne. In a nation of old cities, Vienne has particularly ancient traces. Here, a doorway bricked up with modern concrete blocks, and ghost lettering advertising long gone businesses.

March 2: More cars

Sometimes cars catch your eye for other reasons. This yellow sports car in Lyon--it may be an Alpha-Romeo (!)--was abandoned and trashed. The tires are flat, and though you can't see it in this photo, the hood was crushed as if someone had dropped a cement block on it.

March 1: Cars and old buildings

Sometimes cars are striking because of where they are parked. This orange car is parked next to the doors of an ancient chapel in Vienne, France, just south of Lyon.

In the Gallo-Roman period, this was the site of a funerary church. In the medieval period, a new church was built for a convent for women associated with the nearby church of St-Andre-le-Haut.

At the start of the archeological excavations in 1998, the space, having been chopped into three levels after the revolution, was being used as a garage and studio apartments. I took a screenshot from a video describing the excavations showing the interior of the building after the floors were removed in 1998.

I don't know what the space is being used for today. The original excavation was done in advance of a project to transform the space into a mediatheque, but that doesn't seem to have happened. Such a French dilemma...what to do with all that old space? They can't destroy it, they have to repurpose it, but how? Which old buildings are rare enough to be preserved in some form, and which can be reused for modern use?

 

Feb 28, 2021: Cars

Everywhere one goes in France, one encounters wonderful cars. Not most cars, of course, but a special few. Some are special because of the car:the Deux Chevaux (2CV) is a particular favorite. Its classic mid-century curves were introduced in 1948, and produced by Citroën until 1990. The Deux Chevaux has been described as a car of "remorseless rationality" and "the most intelligent application of minimalism ever to succeed as a car." Great design, great colors.

Other cars are special because of their color. I don't know what kind of car this one is, but what a brilliant yellow.

February 14, 2021: Valentine's Day

Another street scene from Troyes, August, 2018. A canal bisects Troyes, and the "Coeur de Troyes" is a sculpture recently installed on a bridge (the Quai de Dampierre) over the canal du Trévois.

By day, the heart is rather forlorn, but at night, as you can see, all lighted up, it charms. The houses are 19th century, and several things in this scene seem very French: the fountain and public art, the people enjoying the warm summer night, and (harder to see) the blocked up windows of the house on the corner. I wonder what purpose that space now serves.

The second photo, the one by day, is from Google streetview.

October 19: Random photo by Cartier-Bresson

This evocative photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson was taken in Hyéres in the south of France in 1932. I came across it while sorting out details of the Gondi de Retz family. Albert Gondi de Retz, the first Marquis de Belle-Île, was also count of Hyéres.

Hyéres is a town on the Mediteranean in southeastern France, basically kitty-corner across France from storm-washed Belle-Île. One of the warmest cities in France--so warm that palm trees grow--Hyéres is a favorite destination of modern French "snowbirds."

Personally, I suspect the Gondi de Retz family spent more time in Hyéres than in Belle-Île, if they spent any time at all in Belle-Île.

I post this photo simply because I think it is very appealing.