In May 2002, Mary Jo and I spent three weeks in France. We have gone to France fairly regularly since our first trip there in the fall of 1993 when we visited our daughter, Martha, who was doing postdoctoral research at the University of Poitiers. After Martha picked us up at DeGaulle airport, we spent a week visiting an unending series of churches, monasteries, cathedrals and chateaux. By the time we ended up in Poitiers, I was exhausted and was convinced that type of tourist behavior was not for me. But I did like Poitiers. It is a very old city, about the size of Cedar Rapids and quite manageable, with many places to visit that are of interest to those who like history. For example, a baptistery used back in 300 AD still stands.
But of all the places we visited on that trip, I preferred the peace and quiet of a small mill outside the small town of St. Bonnet de Bellac. Pierre and Enid Moine own the mill, located about a forty-minute drive southeast of Poitiers and halfway on the road between Poitiers and Limoges. At the time of our 1993 visit, Pierre was a professor in the Department of Materials Science at the University of Poitiers, the same department in which Martha did her research. Pierre and Enid had been very nice to Martha and helped her adjust to France during the early months of her stay. While we were there, they invited all of us to spend a weekend with them at the Mill, which they used then as a weekend retreat and for occasional longer stays during the summer months. I fell in love with the place and the Moines have graciously allowed us to return to their mill to spend a few weeks every year since.
We love the peace and quiet of the surroundings. Until I retired two years ago, both Mary Jo and I led sometimes hectic and always busy lives and the mill was a wonderful change. While there, we would make occasional little side trips into Poitiers or to some of the towns and small cities in the area but usually we would simply sit around, read and hide from the world without the distractions of the telephone, TV and the normal demands of life. Sometimes I would putter around the mill and take on little fix-up projects I liked doing. I am reasonably handy and I knew the Moines could use an occasional bit of help. The Moines have been very gracious about letting us stay at the mill during times when they or members of their family were not using it themselves for vacations. They have also been incredibly helpful to us in many ways that make our visits pleasant and we want so much to find ways to repay them.
On this trip in 2002 Mary Jo and I spent the first three or four days at Pierre and Enid's home near La Rochelle on the West Coast of France. The Moines had moved to La Rochelle from Poitiers in 1995 when Pierre took up a new position as Dean of Science at the University there. He has since retired but they continue to make there home in that area. La Rochelle is a very interesting seaport city and is a haven for ocean going sailboats. We quite enjoyed our visit there with the gracious hospitality and the wonderful food Pierre cooked for us.
Let me tell you about the Mill. It even has a name, Moulin de Bruill. The name means a mill in a small wooded area. That is what it is. It sits on about five acres of land and consists of two large stone buildings, the mill itself and the house the miller and his family used to live in. In addition, there is also another small building that used to be a bake house and contains a sizeable stone oven once used to cook bread sold in the area. The oven is no longer used and needs repair. The bake house is used solely as storage shed. The building that was once the mill is also no longer used for much more than storage. The large stone wheels that once were used to grind the wheat and corn are still there, as are most of the metal shafts and other parts once used in the grinding process. But the waterwheel is gone as are many of the other parts needed to put the mill back into operation. It would be much too expensive and impractical to attempt to restore the mill to its original condition. It has not been operated since some time during the 1940's when France was under German occupation.
The mill had originally been built during the time of the French Revolution. The tiled roof now leaks a bit and it would be nice to have it repaired so the upper floor of the structure would not be stressed and could be put to broader use. The repair would be quite costly, however. Another improvement I have thought about would be to construct a waterwheel of sorts to power a small generator, like those used with windmills, to provide electricity to the buildings. I suspect such a unit might pay for itself over time by reducing utility charges, but such a project would require a significant capital investment. It is easier to think up such projects than to actually pursue them. Pierre has enough on his hands dealing with the normal maintenance the mill requires. As we age, we learn such projects are best left to the next generation.
The miller's house where we stay has been modernized and has everything one would want, including a wonderful very large fireplace in the main room. In the spring and fall it is useful to take the chill out of the house. In the early days, before the kitchen area was modernized, the fireplace was also used for cooking and to heat the house. Today, we can use the gas stove in the kitchen and heat is provided by central oil burning furnace and radiators. The bathroom is modern, with a nice tub with a shower. We don't have to go to the river to bathe as, I am certain, the miller and his family had to do. The building, however, still retains the character of those early days. The large dark wooden beams in the living room, for example, are hand-hewn and crooked. The water from the sink in the kitchen doesn't drain into a pipe leading to some elaborate sewer system but goes through a small tube under the window to the outside where it disappears into the soil and makes its way to the river. It works fine.
The most attractive property feature is not the buildings but the Gartempe River that flows gently by until it reaches the dam that stretches across the river by the mill. Then it foams and splashes and takes off on its journey downstream. Abutting the mill is a chute or passageway that once channeled river water to power the waterwheel. A wooden walkway stretches across the chute to a small grassy island shaded by a large weeping willow tree. The island is a good place to sit and watch the river and the water tumble over the dam. From there you can also look upstream and across the broad expanse of water to the area on the opposite bank where an occasional fisherman will try his luck. I am certain there are fish in the river but I have never seen anybody actually catch anything. I prefer to simply sit by the river, perhaps read and watch it flow by. It is the Gartempe and its environs that make the mill such an island of peace and tranquility.
We use the Mill not only as a place to lounge and hide from the world but also as our base camp for sightseeing. Two years earlier I had come up with a perhaps foolish idea that I would buy a car to use for sightseeing while we were in France. I had observed that I had to spend more money renting cars than it cost to fly to France and concluded it would be cheaper and more convenient to buy a used car and leave it there. So I did that. Pierre's sister had an older car she wanted to trade in and I bought it. What I had not figured in were the costs of registering, licensing and insuring the car. Nor had I really figured out how it would be stored. I had thought I could simply leave it parked someplace at the Mill but Pierre sensibly pointed out that if I did that, it certainly would be damaged or stolen by the vandals who occasionally dropped by to bother his property. Pierre ended up having the car licensed and insured in his name and he stores it on his property by La Rochelle. It is a real inconvenience to him that I feel bad about. I suppose I should get rid of it. But it is truly useful while we are there and we don't have to go through the hassle of renting so we will probably try to keep it for another year or so unless he objects. It was that car, a 1987 Peugeot, which we used on the trips we made that I write about in this essay.
In our prior visits we usually made a few local area trips but we tended to spend most of our time simply sitting around reading. We could be quite lazy although we sometimes wrote a bit. But we had never gained a real feel for the area and we wanted to learn more about its history. So this time we decided to alternate our days and spend some of them visiting towns in the area and others reading and writing. I decided to write about what we saw so I wouldn't forget it. I was particularly interested in exploring the towns that, like the Mill, made their home along the banks of the Gartempe River.
I should mention that I write this for my own amusement and not to change the world or make it a better place to live. Friends often ask what we do on our visits to France and this is a way to inform them. I make occasional little notes as I move around to help my memory. Later, when I look over my notes, I recreate the scene in my mind and try to describe what we did and what I saw. That's the extent of it.
Saturday, May 18, 2002
We quickly settle into a daily routine that does not vary much. Early in the morning I walk into town, St. Bonnet de Bellac, to buy my daily ration of "pain du chocolat" and a baguette of bread from the "boulangerie." It is about a ten-minute walk along a tree-shaded hedge-lined asphalt country road. This is sheep and cattle raising farm country and I pass by a field of sheep and then another field where brown cattle gather in the corner and stare determinedly at me as I walk by. They are very inquisitive small town cattle who like to know everything and inspect personally everybody who passes. I nod at them and say bonjour! as I walk by.
It should not be difficult for me to remember when the stores in town are open. There are only two of them in town, the boulangerie (small bakery) and the equally small store that sells other foodstuff. But I never seem to get their operating hours right. This morning the boulangerie is not open and I remember it is Saturday and perhaps the bread shop does not open on Saturday. But you are supposed to be able to buy bread on Saturday. I am certain those are the rules. Maybe it is too early.
Pharmacy hours are interesting. They are closed either on Monday or Saturday. If they close Monday, they are open Saturday or vice versa. In Bellac there are four pharmacies. I have personally discovered three. One, I am told, is always supposed to be open both on Monday and Saturday. They arrange this amongst themselves. You find out which one is open by checking all of them out. The rest of the week, except for Sunday, they are open from 9 am to 12 am and again from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. Between 12 and 2 p.m. people eat a nice lunch and chat. It is all quite civilized.
I find out about all this by experience. Few shops have signs on their doors or windows to instruct the passerby about their hours of operation. I left my insulin in La Rochelle, for example, and I had to buy some more and that led me on a trip to find a pharmacy open that would sell me some. A clerk at the first pharmacy I tried told me in no uncertain terms, in French of course, that I needed a prescription. She was quite mean about it. The next pharmacy told me after some whispered conversations between two clerks that I should come back in a half-hour. I did, fully expecting that I would be placed under arrest for attempting to buy drugs without a prescription. That didnt happen. I was simply told "non" and some other things I couldnt understand. That experience was both a relief and a disappointment. At the third pharmacy I hit pay dirt and was told to come back in three hours. Why the three-hour requirement I never did understand but when I returned the pharmacist did have a computer printout of equivalents for the particular brand and type of insulin I sought. We were able to identify the best product to buy "Umuline Profil 30, insuline humaine biogénétique," made by Lilly. The key is not to leave your insulin behind hundreds of miles away in La Rochelle in someone elses refrigerator.
Later in the day Mary Jo and I drove to Montmorillon, a town on the banks of the Gartempe that is one of the oldest towns of this part of France, the Haut Poitou, and was founded in the 11th century. I like the idea of going to towns along the Gartempe River. I think I can feel some connection those settlements have to the Mill. This town, about 20 kilometers from the Mill, is known today, a tourist pamphlet says, for its macaroons.
I think it is a much more interesting town than that pamphlet entry indicates and we didnt find any macaroons to sample. The Notre Dame Church was founded there in the 11th century, as was a hospital, the Maison Dieu. During the 17th and 18th centuries, prior to the time of the French Revolution, the town was a center of religious, court and commercial activity. Because such activity often requires overnight stays, back then there were some 18 inns located within the town. Travelers journeyed to the town on horseback or in horse drawn vehicles and the inns provided food and other accommodations for them and their horses. There was a bridge across the Gartempe in the center of the town and near the church. Much of the activity in the town clustered near that bridge built in the earliest days. The bridge was a better place to cross the river than the fords used elsewhere.
Today you can see not only the church by the bridge but the Old Palace and former Law Court whose round turret rises from the river. Court hearings were held there for three centuries. Formerly a subsidiary of the Court at Poitiers, Montmorillon was granted a royal court in its own right in 1545 by King Francois I and a representative of the King heard cases from a very wide area covering about 100 parishes in the Berry and Limousin. I got the information about the court from a sign by the church at a location that overlooks the Gartempe River and the Old Palace I could see on the opposite shore. From that vantagepoint I could also see the narrow winding streets still bustling with activity today. One old narrow winding street leads down the hill from the church area to the ancient narrow stone bridge. That bridge helped make Montmorillon a center of commerce ten centuries ago. It was one of the few places not a ford that men could cross the Gartempe. The street that leads from the bridge was a focus of activities by artisans as early as the 12th century. Today, many interesting bookstores now occupy the buildings and every other year there is a major book fair in the town. I like the ambiance of the bookstores and if I read more French than the occasional menu and street sign I would haunt those stores religiously.
We went to church at 7 PM Mass at the Notre Dame Church, an old church constructed in stages in the 11th, 12th, and 14th centuries. It was a very interesting Mass and the church and the service reminded me somewhat of the services in French I occasionally attended as a youth at St. Johns in Brunswick, Maine. Although this Romanesque church is much older, the church designs are similar.
The cantor, an older woman about my age, was in the front of the altar with the Priest. She wore a simple brown skirt and a yellow cardigan sweater that contrasted well with the white robes and bright red mandible the priest wore. The congregation followed her unassertive lead and her not overly aggressive pleasant voice was enhanced by the fine acoustics of the church. Had I let loose my voice, I could have sounded like Pavaroti, the timbre or acoustics of the church were that good. The sounds of the voices of the congregation lingered just briefly in the vaulted ceiling but did not echo. It was wonderful yet simple sound and the music swelled. The cantor set the rhythm of a cappella singing with her voice and the almost timid movements of her hand and arm. Her voice did not overpower nor did she attempt to perform. The alleluias the congregation sang rang out loud and clear. I prefer with such music not to try to make out the meaning or the words. Rather, I appreciate the voices as musical instruments voicing sounds and rhythms giving praise to a God who must be most pleased.
The priests sermon was enunciated clearly and precisely and I could appreciate his sincerity. I could not, however, understand a word he said. I thought he said something about a soufflé of love, a notion I had also picked up from one of the hymns the church lady had led us in singing. It was a lovely metaphor and I pictured how love in its early formative period can be like a soufflé that can be easily collapsed or destroyed by a slight chilling breeze or the slamming of a door. When I started practicing law I worked up some financial papers for a woman the firm was representing in a divorce. After reading my work, she turned to me, poked me in the chest with a forefinger and said firmly, "what you dont realize young man, is how much I want to hurt that man." That was one soufflé that had collapsed.
After mass had ended I retrieved a music sheet in the back of the church. I read the words of the soufflé song and discovered what the priest had alluded to:
Au coeur de ce monde,
Le soufflé de lEsprit fait retentir
Le cri de la bonne nouvelle
Au coeur de ce monde,
Le soufflé de lEsprit met a loeuvre
Aujourdhui des energies nouvelles.
I looked up a few of the words in the pocket French-English dictionary I brought along, I found that soufflé means breath and loeuvre means opening. Loeuvre to me also suggests louvered windows and for me the soufflé metaphor now is transformed into a image of the breath of love entering through open windows. They are bedroom windows, curtained in delicate Irish linen, and the subject of the poem is lying there asleep in a white negligée. But perhaps that is not the image the church lady had in mind when she led us in song.
After concluding his sermon the priest withdrew from where he stood in front of the altar and sat behind it. Then the church was quiet as each member of the congregation privately communed with God. I thought about how I frequently preferred not to understand what was said at church all the time. Not knowing makes the whole experience more mysterious and spiritual. I always liked Mass in Latin for that reason. I probably know more Latin than French but I did not know enough to have that knowledge interfere with the experience. I understand the general drift of things and that is all I wanted or needed to know. The candles, the incense, the sound of the words and the rhythms of the Gregorian chants amplify the sense of mystery, which lie at the center of the religious experience.
Today the call is for the church to be "relevant" and young people play awful guitar music and you are suppose to shake hands with the person next to you or behind you like they were someone you wanted all your life to meet. That would be fine if the person were someone you would love to meet and chat with. But I do not want particularly to meet yet another stranger, perhaps an insurance salesman who attends Kiwanis or Knights of Columbus Club meetings because he likes the fellowship. I met enough strangers while I was in the Legislature and they will last me a very long time. I would dislike it back then when I went to church and someone would think it a splendidly good time to lobby me on some pet issue, seeing we had so much in common and went to the same church and all that. Occasionally, the thought did occur to me, when all the handshaking was going on during election season, that I should work my way up and down the aisles shaking every hand I could reach, like some politicians can do so well at conventions or rallies. "Im with you brother. Remember me come judgement day. Praise the Lord."
While the silence was going on in the church I noticed the Stations of the Cross. There were fourteen of them like lines in a sonnet lined up seven down one wall and seven down the other. Together they depicted Christs suffering and crucifixion. Such representational art has just about entirely gone away today, replaced by more abstract religious notions. A bodiless cross has replaced the crucifix itself and no longer does Christs body hang in agony. I remember years ago, perhaps as a child, being told that the early churches and cathedrals were filled with pictures and stained glass windows because so few people could read back then. Only through such depictions could they be instructed in the teachings of the Church and the life of Christ. I think the message was that we were smarter today and could read. Therefore, we did not need such depictions, although they were nice to look at and sometimes were, in fact, quite excellent in themselves as works of art.
Today I am inclined to think that by moving away from religious representational art, God is becoming more abstract and less present in mens lives. Perhaps that thought is a large dose of balderdash because I really dont know about such things. But I do think the religious experience has become less intense as religious art has become more abstract. I generally prefer representational art where the gap between man and God does not seem to loom so large. Those are real soldiers looking up at Christ in the paintings hanging on the walls of this church. And Christ is obviously suffering. When that which the painting depicts is reduced to an abstraction, the symbol no longer participates in the reality of that which it symbolizes and God is more removed from the concerns and lives of men.
In the paintings at the stations of the cross on the walls of the Notre Dame Church in Montmorillon all the good guys are shown wearing halos. Christ wears a halo and does Mary, the Mother of Christ. So also do Mary Magdalene and the sinner who was crucified with Christ and made a last minute confession. The other crucified sinner who cursed Christ does not wear a halo. Those pictures teach lessons better than any text could.
There were lots of wonderful clues given in the representative paintings. There are pictures of lambs being carried. This is lamb-raising country and depictions of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God are common.
While noticing the halos I thought how useful they would be today were they used, say in contemporary group photos. A portrait of the membership of the Johnson County Bar Association, for example, might show me along with other lawyers and if someone were on the lookout for an attorney, they might pick me out to represent them because of the halo. Then again someone might pick out that fellow with the little horns pushing out from his head because they would think he might be tougher in the courtroom.
But if halos were so used today, I am certain there would be much discussion about the subjectivity of such depiction. People might agree that Mother Theresa ought to be shown with a halo and also perhaps Dorothy Day or Martin Luther King although he, like Mary Magdalene, would be suspect in some camps. The problem of halo subjectivity would be solved were someone to invent a filter that could pick up holy emanations like some filters can pick up ultra violet light. But even were there to be such a filter, I am certain there would be much scientific controversy as there is about the Heideger effect where the very act of viewing is supposed to distort that which is viewed. It would be nice to have such a photo, however. I would use the halo picture on all my campaign posters were I ever to run for office again.
There are certain problems one encounters with people wearing halos. Mary Jo, because of the stroke she had many years ago, has very limited use of her left side and uses a cane or a wheeled walker to help her get around. We meet many people on the little side trips we take around this part of France who try to help her out in various ways. Almost always they cause more problems as they attempt to give assistance which typically she neither wants nor requires. When we parked by the Notre Dame Church, for example, a gentleman, who was taking some stuff out of the back of a small truck, insisted on helping her by holding onto her arm as she maneuvered over a section of the curb. The "help" he thought he was providing was actually a hindrance as he was holding onto her good arm which she needed to hold the cane. But neither of us could communicate, with our limited French, this obvious fact to him without aggravating the situation still further. I finally managed to get the walker to her so she could grasp onto it before any damage was done. I know all he was trying to do was help an old lady cross the street. All the books on sainthood say one should do such things. But we would have preferred that the devil in him had told him, at least this one time, to let the old lady make her own way.
Later, after the church service had ended, Mary Jo was holding onto her cart and waiting by the side of the road for me to return from a walk to see what was down a steep side street. A woman stranger approached her and was most concerned that a poor woman had perhaps been abandoned by her thoughtless husband and left to fend for herself in a strange land. She jabbered away at Mary Jo and her concern became more and more apparent until I reappeared and started coming back up the hill. Then, relieved to see help was returning, she scampered away to Marys relief. As she left, her halo tilted jauntily to one side.
It may seem that I have become misanthropic in my old age; but I think not, although sometimes such impulses temp me and I do acknowledge the limits of goodness. But Mary Jos mobility problems occasionally do lead us into frustrating situations that later, when reflected upon, prove interesting. Once, for example, when we tried to disembark from the train from Poitiers at the Charles de Gaul airport outside Paris, Mary Jo had trouble getting out of her seat and was slow getting to the door. I was busy getting our bags off the train and by the time I returned to help her, the train had started up again. We were trapped on the train and we were helpless as we watched our baggage, stacked on the platform, slowly move away. I had read Einsteins explanation of his theory of relativity where he talks about two trains moving in opposite directions and the difficulty of knowing which train is moving when one is inside one of the trains. As I looked out the train window and saw those bags of ours moving away I understood exactly what Einstein was talking about. We ended up riding a few hundred extra miles before we managed to double back to the station platform, retrieve our baggage and continue our journey home.
Monday, May 20, 2002
Artie called sometime Saturday and Martha called sometime Sunday. It was great to hear from both of them. Those are the only calls we have received at the Mill except for two calls from Pierre and Enid. Neither mentioned, nor did we ask, what had happened in the world since we came to France. We have had no news since we left Iowa. We like that. This is not the part of France where people sit around under umbrellas in sidewalk cafes discussing the issues of the day while sipping coffee and reading the International Harold Tribune and Proust in the original. I suppose if the world had come to an end they might have told us and we could have conducted ourselves accordingly.
Art did tell us he was finished correcting papers for his classes. I mentioned that when I had taught, I found the hardest part of grading was simply getting started. Once I begun, it was not that difficult to give the average papers a C, the above and below average ones Bs and Ds, the awful ones Fs and As to the occasional really good papers. He said grade inflation had changed all that. Today the average grade is B. The problem is distinguishing between fairly good work and very good work. If you used up the Bs on the average work, you were left with only As to reward fairly good, good and superb work. He observed, like an economist, that grade inflation was a "rational response to the incentives confronting faculty." It is more rewarding and less stressful to give inflated grades. He noted that faculty members had the equivalent of a printing press to print out rewards in the same way money is printed out in times of runaway inflation. I suggested he should write up a little piece expressing those ideas but he said he had better things to do and the point was obvious.
I thought his was a worthwhile insight and an article discussing the problem would be interesting. I recalled that I applied to Iowa law school after being out of college for many years, the admissions people checked back at Bowdoin to see about my grades. I had done quite well on the admission tests but the grades looked low because typical applicants today have greatly inflated grade point averages. Today, most applicants have grade point averages above 3.5 on a 4-point scale. Such averages were atypical in my day, when the average grade was C. But my class rank was good and they admitted me. If todays grades were money, we would have hyperinflation similar to what Germany faced in the early 1930s when Hitler came to power.
I also briefly discussed with Art the article about Iowas budget woes I sent to the Cedar Rapids Gazette. He had a much better understanding than I do of the assumptions economists employ in revenue projections. If I write a follow up piece I will have to get back to him for supporting arguments or thoughts. I dont know why I bothered to write the piece in the first place. I doubt if it will change behavior. Iowa is in an awful budget pickle and foolish over exuberant tax cutting in flush times put the state in that position.
Art mentioned that writing such a piece and then leaving for France was somewhat like Solon writing up some laws for Athens and then leaving town. When it became obvious to him that I had not read Thucydides on Solons activities, he told me I should ask his mother about the reference because she was usually better to have around than a set of encyclopaedias and would know about such things. I did that later and now I catch his reference. Mary Jo is so helpful to have around.
The conversation with Martha and her kids was casual. Clara recited a German poem she had learned in school. Except for "ein, swei, und drei" I caught little of it. Victor told me about playing with Michael. He has three friends named Michael. There is little Michael, big Michael and the other Michael. This particular Michael was the Chinese Michael who got lost at the German school and who didnt speak German. Martha found him and it all worked out fine. These various Michaels all seem to speak different languages and they dont understand each other but that appears to make little difference and they play together just fine. Iowa passed a law this year making English Iowas "official language." Singapore has four "official" languages and Victors friends appear to speak all four. I do not know what impact the new Iowa law would have on their behavior were they to move to Iowa from Singapore.
Martha speaks fluent French and helped with language problems we have been having. I have lots of dried bread at the Mill and I want to make French toast, but I have not been able to buy maple syrup to use on the French toast. I didnt know the word for maple syrup and I cant ask for it. She knew the word, "sirop darable," but she thought I might have problems locating a store that sold it. Keep looking, she suggested.
I also didnt know what the French called peanut butter. She told me it was "beurre dcacawit" and it is only found in health food stores because French peanut butter wasnt much good. The French dont eat the stuff like they do in the States. I didnt tell her I wanted the peanut butter to use in a mousetrap. Mice really like the stuff and it is more effective as bait than is cheese.
Later however, as I reading in the living room, the mousetrap I set and bated with cheese went off and whomped the mouse that had been bothering me. I felt rather sad about the little fellows condition. He had not bothered me but he was hard not to notice running around the rug on the living room floor in the middle of the night. He had been a bold little creature - too bold. I picked up the trap, with the mouse attached, to toss out the door and the mouse squirmed. The next day when I looked outside, I noted the trap with the uneaten cheese was still there but the mouse had fled to tell his tale to his brothers in the fields.
Martha also gave me the words for French toast. In France they do not understand you when you refer to French toast. They call it "pain perdue" or lost bread. There is much bread lost in France because the baguettes of bread you buy go stale so quickly you almost have to run home to eat them before they go stale.
I like the fact that the children speak more than one language. Peter is fluent in French and Spanish. Martha speaks fluent French and good German. Art speaks Russian and enough French and Spanish to get by. I can function in German but I cant really speak it. I must get focused on learning some French so I am not perceived to be such an idiot by the people in the village of St. Bonnet. I used to enjoy not understanding French because it made everything more of a challenge and I didnt waste time chatting with people. Now I am beginning to find it a hindrance and an obstacle. A year or so ago, before I took sick, I signed up for a correspondence course in French through the University of Iowa. I never completed the first lesson. When I get back home I will dig out the materials and get started. I know it is late and I am old but I should still be able to learn something that might help me in the daily business of getting around this country.
In the meantime, not knowing the language does make life here interesting. The most common or mundane activity can turn into a great adventure. I bought some meat once from a butcher and because I didnt know the word for lamb I went "baaaah." He caught my meaning and wrapped it up for me. The other day I wanted to buy a mousetrap at the hardware store. I curled my right hand to look like a trap, said "mouse" loud and closed my fingers with a snap. He understood and brought me to the section where they sold traps of various kinds. You would be amazed how little you need to know in order to survive in a foreign country. Of course, people do think you are an idiot.
Yesterday we stayed at the Mill and read and wrote. Mary Jo is writing a memoir and is almost up to her high school years. She took forever getting through grade school. I suspect she must have repeated a year.
Today I again walked up the road into town to buy bread for breakfast. Again, the shop was closed. I was certain the other day I saw a sign on the door that showed little clocks that indicated the shop would be open at 7:30. I was fooled. Through the window I could see loaves of bread sitting on racks. I could also smell the bread and I knew it would be fresh and delicious. But I couldnt buy it.
But I did enjoy the walk and I listened to the chirping of the birds and watched the fog steaming from the fields as the sun tried to break through the clouds in the east. The grazing lambs were quiet as they moved soundlessly about the green field each in its own pool of white space.
Tuesday, May 21, 2002
Yesterday the Moines came to the Mill because Pierre wanted to mow the grass before it got too high. He comes about every two weeks during the summer months and sits on the yard machine and runs around the acreage. He apparently enjoys doing it and the place does look nice when he is finished.
We found out why the bakery and the stores were not open yesterday. It was a religious holiday or, more properly, the day after a religious holiday because the religious day fell on a Sunday and the French celebrate such occasions on what would otherwise be working days in order to have more time off. Sunday was Pentecost Sunday and it was therefore celebrated on Monday. The French do seem to have more days off than any industrial nation I am aware of. They kept all the religious holidays from the days the nation was dominated by the church. Then they added to those days the normal holidays on which heroes are celebrated. They further added the days that celebrate the beginnings or the endings of wars. France has had more than its fair share of wars. Add all those days up and you have many days off. Also, the normal work week is only 35 hours so if you figure you can take off Friday afternoon and then tack on a holiday on a Monday, the day on which most holidays tend to fall, you have a nice long weekend. Finally, everyone takes off on vacation in August so if you properly schedule your extended weekend holidays throughout the other summer months a clever Frenchman can pretty much get through the summer without having to do too much work at all. American union folks and politicians spend their time arguing about a somewhat higher minimum wage. The French are way ahead of them. It is not so much the wage but the work that gives them concern.
Pierre spent some time with me trying to set up my laptop in an unsuccessful attempt to access the Internet. At first, he could not remember the user-name and password for his Wanadoo Internet service provider account. Later he called me with that information and I could understand why he had trouble remembering it. The user name was fti/UhhAZrx. The password was even an even worse combination of meaningless letters and numbers only an idiot savant could possibly recall. I wont tell you the secret password because I dont want you to blab this information about. I should mention, however, that if you are thinking of trying out the user-name the letters are also case sensitive so if you were thinking you could do the whole user name in upper or lower case, you would be wrong. Why Pierre would want to use such a combination of user-name and password is beyond me. Mine is very simple. Try small for the username. Actually, I have so few secrets these days. I will also give you my password if you ask for it. If you want to access my stuff, go ahead. Just tell anyone who asks I said it was ok.
Ill even let you read my diary notes. These are my diary notes.
I cooked dinner for Enid and Pierre. We were going to eat out at a local restaurant I discovered on the back road to Bellac. But it was not open because it was the holiday following Pentecost Sunday. I will share the recipe with you of the food I prepared because, as I said, I have no secrets and unlike most gifted French chefs I am quite willing to let others in on my recipes. The real secret, of course, lies with the creative artistry and not with the ingredients.
On Saturday I picked up some zucchini at the farmers market in the big downtown parking lot in Bellac. If you garden, you know the problem of getting rid of zucchini that can flourish with abundance. When your zucchini comes in, so does everyone elses and it is difficult to even give the stuff away. In the morning when you awake you frequently find bags of zucchini have been left on your doorstep during the late hours of the night. Some gardener has not learned to control his zucchini output. His problem becomes your problem and solutions in the form of zucchini recipes are welcome. Here is such a recipe:
First, boil about a quart of water (use a liter measure if you want to capture the full measure of the French experience) and toss in about four of the zucchini pealed and sliced with their ends chopped off. In the water toss in about 4 Knorr beef bouillon cubes (Bouillon de Boeuf). In another pot, as the zucchini is cooking, cook up some pasta. Spaghetti will do fine although for the dinner I prepared for Enid and Pierre I used noodles, "Nouilles Fines" by Panzani. The noodles take about 8 minutes to cook after the water boils. When they are done, drain them and set them aside while you clop up or blend the cooked zucchini. Add the noodles to the pot of cooked zucchini and serve in individual bowls to your most appreciative dinner guests. I added some cooked ham to the mixture but if you dislike ham or dont have any, the recipe works fine without it. The ham adds that little something extra that famous French chefs such as I sometimes put into dishes of distinction.
Back to the Internet: I tried out Pierres secret words and was able to connect to Wanadoo. But I could get no further. When I tried to access my email I would always be disconnected after waiting a long period of time for the site to come up. I think the problem might be that the modem on this laptop is only a 28.8 modem and that is much too slow. Whatever the reason, I wasnt able to get anything on the Internet so I had to abandon my efforts. That will not be a great loss. I can easily wait until we get home without such outside interference in my life. It has been quite good to be away from all news and distractions for the past weeks. I am certain there will be plenty of awful news to catch up on when we return home to Iowa.
There is a radio at the Mill but all the programs are in French and I dont know what the announcers are saying. There is one classical music station we receive that I like to listen to. The radio also plays CDs but there are only a few of them here and of those I only like the collection of 17th and 18th century baroque adagios. Later today we go off to a shopping center in a nearby town and I buy a few CDs.
I finished cleaning up the dishes after making dinner, which was -- French Toast! (pain perdue). The large supermarket, Carrefour, that the Moines suggested we visit, was just on the edge of St. Julian and about a 30-kilometer drive. It had everything -- like a Sears with food. I showed a young tall thin beautiful clerk with fashionable white hair my slip of paper onto which I had written the magic words Martha had provided me, "sirop darable." She said "oui" and took off across the store to an aisle where a few small bottles of "Pur Sirop DErable (pure maple syrup from Canada) were displayed. I hope that clerk makes it to Paris to launch a career as a fashion model because that sirop was wonderful on the pain perdue I made in the kitchen at the Mill.
While we ate the French toast we listened to the new CD of Mozarts Requiem. I saw it at the supermarket and bought it because as an undergraduate I had sung the tenor solos for a full production of that magnificent work and I had always loved it. It had been an almost humbling experience then to participate in such a production. While not a showpiece for soloists, the Requiem displayed the whole ensemble of chorus, orchestra, and soloists working together to express the full solemnity of the musical statement.
I had not heard the piece in years and it brought back rich memories. As I listened to the recording, I thought how wonderful it would have been to listen to such a performance at the church of Notre Dame with its excellent acoustics.
I picked up the two additional CD at Carrefour, one with Gregorian Chants and the other with some Wagner orchestrations. These new CDs will fill in for the next week in lieu of the news and weather reports we lack.
Mary Jo bought a straw hat to protect her face from the sun. The weather has been lovely the past few days and as I sit in the backyard I think how grand the spring has been and how we have the whole summer and fall to look forward to before the weather grows as old as we have.
In addition to the CDs, we shopped for some foodstuffs before going to the adjacent Cafeteria Toguenelle to eat lunch. The cafeteria was a good choice with its wide food selection, good prices and excellent food. Mary Jo wasnt much interested in eating and settled for a drink of Coke. I went through the line and pointed to what I liked and said "oui" and it went on my tray. There was a large fellow behind the counter at the steam table who carried on a continuous banter about the selections with the customers he presided over. He was obviously having a jolly time at his work and the customers enjoyed him. Occasionally I eat at the cafeteria at the Universitys Hospitals and Clinics and it is generally a dour and uninteresting experience.
One of the things I like so much about my stays in France is that even the simplest and most mundane experience can be interesting and vital. Going out to Hi-Vee in Coralville to get bread and milk is not an experience you care to write about. But a visit to this French supermarket and cafeteria is an experience you want to share. At home bread is bread and milk is milk and, as a general rule, who cares. Here the bread comes freshly baked in long loaves you can wave at people as you pass them on the street. The milk comes in irradiated containers that stay fresh for months without refrigeration. You stand by the check out register thinking about the Frenchman Louis Pasteur and why milk isnt sold the same way in the States. You also think about how the French obviously love their food and yet how few obese people there are in France compared to the States where some 60% of the people are such. Is it diet or genetics? I think people in the States simply eat too much of the wrong kinds of food. Everyone will pay for those bad habits when the high Medicare bills come due in the not too distant future. In France I think about such matters while shopping. When Im at the Coralville Hy-Vee I dont think about much of anything. I just buy my bread and milk.
After I paid, I went to the table where Mary was waiting and found out what to call what I had purchased by reading the cash register receipt. The main dish was the "coguillettes au beur" and "filet de julienne le" (fish and noodles). The desert, the "Tartelette Kiwi Frai," tasted as great as the dish looked and the name sounds. Marys Coke at Euro 2.15 was a bit expensive but everything else was very reasonably priced.
One of the little side adventures at the Cafeteria is the toilettes. In foreign countries they are always an adventure and you never know what you will find. Marys handicap makes her extra sensitive to such matters. Toilets are usually too low for her and grab bars are seldom provided. We carry with us a light portable seat in a canvas carrier so the toilets can be elevated. It sounds like a big deal but it isnt and works fine. You do learn to appreciate the impact of the Americans for Disabilitys Act, which requires businesses in the United States be attentive to the needs of the handicapped.
If any politician should be shown with a halo around his head it is Iowa Senator Tom Harkin who years ago almost single handily pushed that legislation through Congress. Besides Social Security it has done more for the elderly and the disabled in the States than any piece of legislation I can think of. People have forgotten today, but at the time it was being considered there was very significant opposition to the bill. The business community lobbied aggressively against it claiming it would cost them an unconscionable amount of money and screw up the whole economy. The claim, of course, was false. The act did not require that changes be made unless an old structure is being retrofitted. In most cases the changes needed (curb cuts, grab bars, higher toilet seats) are not particularly expensive and if the architect thinks ahead the adaptations add only a very small cost. I recall Senator Bob Doyle and Veteran organizations got behind the bill in the later stages and helped swing the tide to victory.
Most legislators go through their entire careers and never have anything of worth to point to at the end. I didnt accomplish much. Harkin is a rare exception to that general rule and has earned his halo. Iowa voters will probably toss him out this next election because the farm bill went too far -- or not far enough. I have heard both arguments advanced. What a great business politics is. Write your own damn farm bill!
I did buy some small lampshades to put on the wall lighting fixtures in the living room. I hadnt cared for the six bare bulbs glaring at me. The effect is now much improved. I have also baited another mousetrap with cheese and it is poised ready to strike at the next nibbler. I did not buy peanut butter because I thought I had disposed of the mouse. I see now that was foolish optimism. I spotted another mouse. Obviously the gaps by the door are large enough for mice to slip through. I read once where mice can collapse their skeletons and thus can slip through spaces we would think impossible.
It is now 7:30 p.m. and I sit outside writing up my notes in the peace and quiet of the back yard. There is only the sound of birds chirping and water flowing over the dam by the mill. I can smell the rich aroma of the grass Pierre mowed yesterday. This site is a little bit of earthly heaven.
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
I had planned on going swimming in the Gartempe River this morning but it is raining and I dont fancy swimming in the chilly rain even though Gene Kelly had such a pleasant time dancing in the rain in Paris.
This afternoon we drove back to the church of Notre Dame we had visited a couple of days ago. I had been thinking about the Stations of the Cross I had seen there and I wanted to check them out more closely. I also wanted to visit an abandoned priory at Villesalem, not too many kilometers from the church.
I wanted to revisit the Stations of the Cross because when I wrote about them it occurred to me that I hadnt seen them particularly well or clearly and had only paid attention to the fact that some of the figures wore halos. If I couldnt see them particularly well, and I was not too far distant from the wall on which they were hung, would others have been able to see them and if not, how could they possibly have been used to instruct and worship? I was able to answer my question on closer inspection.
The fourteen Stations of the Cross turned out to be either 20th or late 19th century paintings or reproductions of paintings and they were quite poorly done. They were also simply too small and dark to be seen by anyone unless they were standing right up close to them and even then, with the exception of the bright yellow halos, the details were obscure. I doubt very much if the stations had ever been used for instruction or worship. I assume now the Stations of the Cross had just been stuck up on the walls many
decades after the church was built, simply because proper churches had such stations. They were a real disappointment to look at. There also were a few other larger paintings hanging on the churchs walls and they too were not particularly inspiring. A very large depiction of the crucifixion scene was fairly well done but another very large painting of something or other was so bad I could have painted it myself. There might have been better artwork around but we could not view them. A crypt area that is decorated with fresco said to be particularly fine was closed.
The church had been quite dark when I originally viewed the paintings. Old churches are dark because the stained glass windows do not let in that much light although the windows are beautiful to look through when the sunlight is shining through the colored glass. You can understand why so much use is made of candles and why there are stands on which you can buy and light a candle. You want lighting, buy a candle. It will burn through the hours and reflect your goodness. I did light one small candle in the church. I had a choice of four sizes ranging from the big 2 Euro to the 25 cent size. There were a couple of good sized candles on the altar during the services last Saturday night. I think I thought at the time they were being used for effect but now I realize that they were used for light. The priest would not have been able to see without the light from the candles. Today, candles are almost always used for effect and we tend to forget that for countless ages they were used so people could see what they were doing.
Once you realize that obvious fact, your perception of the past changes radically. The millers house in which I am sitting now and writing this piece did not have electricity when it was built around the time of the French Revolution. The mill itself, least we forget, was powered not by electricity as a modern mill would be but by a large wheel that was moved by water diverted through a shoot beside the dam. That waterwheel in turn powered a shaft that turned the stone wheels that ground the grain.
Nor did this house have a furnace and radiators back then as it does today to provide heat. That large fireplace in the living room we now use a bit for heating but mainly for atmosphere was used throughout most of its life both for cooking and for all the heating. This charming old place I love and enjoy so much was, until plumbing and electricity were installed sometime after the Second World War, a truly miserable place in which to live. Until fairly recent days, almost all homes were pretty awful places in which to live and men lived rather brutish lives. I have mentioned what a Spartan time we were having here without TV, VCRs or magazines and newspapers. But we are sitting in the lap of luxury and if I need something, say a mousetrap, to fight off the forces of nature, I hop into my Peugeot and drive off and fetch it.
To think that only two weeks ago I had sent off an article to a newspaper arguing that the Iowa Legislature was wrong in cutting taxes so severely. I wonder now if I was right. Do we not, in fact, sometimes ask too much of government? I am going to have to give this question more thought. Certainly I have no problem with taxing the rich. Compared to people living but one hundred years ago, so many upper income people have it so well off they can well afford to part with a good chunk of their money to educate the next generation and provide assistance to those in need -- of which there are yet plenty. I saw where Kenneth Lay of Enron fame has, or had, four houses in the Aspen area alone, one of them worth over $20 million. Why shouldnt he be taxed?
An area where I dont think we can ask too much of government is in the public accommodation area. I mentioned earlier Senator Harkins activities in conjunction with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The need for such legislation was driven home to me again today when we were leaving the area of the Church of Notre Dame and Mary Jo decided she had to go to the bathroom. I had a devil of a time finding a place. Many of the places such as gas stations you would normally try in the states dont have such facilities. I finally spotted a fairly new Renault dealership and I figured they certainly would have to have accommodations for customers and for their own help. So I drove up and inquired. The manager, who some clerk got to help me, was very nice about our problem and took me to the toilette which was located where they fixed cars in a back area up some steps. It wouldnt do at all for a handicapped person. In fact it was a crummy toilette for anybody to use. He explained that another building up the street did have a handicapped toilet and that he was certain I would be able to use that. So I drove over and Mary Jo pushed her little handcart through the front door and I spotted the toilette and we headed for it. There was a receptionist fellow behind a counter who sort of grunted but didnt say anything as we went into the toilet. I didnt say anything either but waited outside for Mary Jo and then said "Merci" as we left the building. He grunted again something in French. The place appeared to be something like an office area for an import or customs facilitator but I couldnt be too sure as everything written was in French. While waiting for Mary Jo I did pick up a brochure of sorts from a table that had lots of literature spread out and if I can get someone who reads French to glance through it for me, I will learn the business the establishment was in.
In the early 1960s before the Kennedy administration got some legislation passed and the courts handed down some public accommodation rulings based on the commerce clause, Blacks frequently would complain how difficult it was for them to find lodging and food available to them in certain parts of the country. They could never know what they would run into when they took a trip into a part of the country they were unfamiliar with. So too is it today for the handicapped. It is much better in the States than it is in most countries but there is still a long ways to go. France is not too good although it has gotten better in recent years.
This is an area that requires government intervention. If you have a business or activity that is open to the public you should be required to meet certain standards of accommodation to insure that large sections of the public are not excluded. Most of the time the effort required is minimal and costs little. That new Renault dealership, for example, had they thought ahead just a little bit when they were designing the structure, they could have made the accommodations at little or no extra cost. I doubt if it would cost them $100 to grade the entrance to the toilette and buy a taller stool. They simply didnt think of doing that.
But back to our travels of the day. After revisiting the church to check on the Stations of the Cross and after the toilette incident, we headed off to visit the historical priory at Villesalem. The priory has a long history. Construction was begun in the early 12th century and continued through that century. During the 100 years war religious life declined and during religious wars of the 16th century all the community buildings except for the church were destroyed. The priory was reformed and new buildings built in the 17th century and during the 18th century, religious life resumed and the place housed a boarding school for aristocratic girls. In 1790 religious orders were dissolved and religious assets sold and until the 20th century some buildings became ruins and the church was used as an agricultural building. In 1962 the state took over the buildings and took charge of restoration activity that still continues.
Having said all that (information taken from a government brochure on that area of France) I now must tell you that when we went there to visit, we found the priory closed. The brochure had not informed us such would be the case although it did mention the priory was under renovation and has been since the early 60s when the state took it over. A sign said the church was opened from 2:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. but that must mean during certain days or months of the year, perhaps June through August, because the doors were locked and there was not a soul in sight.
From the outside, the large church and a few out buildings looked interesting but we couldnt look inside. The church was quite long and built in the form of a cross with five large windows on the sides and at the top three turreted towers. The whole priory was located in a very rural out of the way place. We drove down a very narrow country road to get there and the area was nothing but farms with few scattered farmhouses. A farming operation effectively surrounded the church and at least one other building. A large barn stuffed with hay and equipment was right next door. Nuns of the 13th, 14th, 15th and 18th century who went off to that priory to live and worship certainly were removed from the temptations of city life. It would have been very interesting to learn more about how the nuns lived during those times. Other than God, what did they think about during the day? How did they occupy their time? What did parents think when their daughters went off to such places?
One of the problems with visiting such historical places is that it is so difficult to envision how the people lived and functioned in the facilities. The information in the literature you can pick up at French tourist offices is weak in that area and usually provides little more than an outline description of the site and a brief comment that can span the course of centuries in a few sentences. At least we went to an actual mass at the church in Montmorillon that was fairly well attended so we could see how the building functioned and what the lighting and acoustics were like. We sat in chairs and knelt on kneelers that are still used today.
When I get home I will have to haunt the library to read up on French history of this area to find out what caused the ebb and flow of activity at the priory and other religious establishments in the area. I am always dumbfounded to read how much strife and violence can come about as a result of peoples differing views are as to what should be mans proper relationship to God. In France there seem to have always been wars over religion. Some of the early battles in the Poitiers area were against Muslim invaders. When we left for France the newspapers had accounts of French citizens in Pakistan being killed by Muslim extremists as they went to work on a construction project. Today of course, both in the Mid East and in so many other parts of the world, men continue to fight over the same sorts of issues. My Allah is better than your God.
It is now late. A mousetrap has sprung and killed another mouse. I remember last November when I wrote an article for the Iowa City Press Citizen about hunting and killing a deer, a couple of people asked me how I could shoot a deer. I had no particular problem doing it. Deer do act rather like very large mice and eat everything in sight like mice do if you let them. Except you can eat the deer afterwards and we have enjoyed many a good meal from that deer I killed and had processed. That mouse, however, will just have to be tossed.
Thursday, May 23, 2002
This morning I did go off to swim in the Gartempe. I put on my bathrobe, swimming trunks and the new slippers I had purchased at a store in Bellac the other day and headed off across the freshly mowed backyard and to the mill. There I wiggled like Spiderman around and across the back end of the mill building to the area where the waterwheel would operate were it to run. There the water flows through a chute or millrun that lies between the back wall of the mill and a small piece of land that joins one end of the dam. A wooden walkway connects the back of the mill, near the shaft of the wheel, to the island that is shaded by a magnificent weeping willow that drapes over the edge of the dam and hides the mill from view. From the corner of the mill I can just stretch my leg out across the water running below through the chute and reach the edge of the walkway. With a small jump I am on the board and then on the island.
At the downstream end of the island towards the stone bridge there is a small sandy beach that on a hot summer day is perfect for lounging. Only this morning it was very chilly and after I walked out a bit into the icy cold water of the Gartempe I realized that I didnt really care that much for swimming just then. The view in the early morning was, however, wonderful and although cold I did stand there for a few minutes admiring the dark water swirling over the dam and boiling up white foam. Behind the dam and upstream I could see the fog lifting like steam from the surface of the water. The fog spread across the river and concealed the walls of green vegetation growing on the land beyond the riverbanks. The plants and trees were hidden behind a faint white veil of cloud. Had the lady of the lake then appeared as if from the mists of Avalon in the land of Arthur, I would not have been a bit surprised. But she didnt and I retreated, unbathed, back to the house where I hung my slippers to dry over a radiator and took a leisurely hot bubble bath in the tub.
After lunch Mary Jo and I visited the Abby of Saint Savin located on the banks of the Gartempe in the town of St. Savin and a little less than an hours drive from the Mill. I had seen the place once many years before and I had found it interesting. Since then much more reconstruction work has been done and parts of the upper portion of the main building are now the location of displays of some the restoration activity relating to the mural and fresco art which abounds in the church and other buildings that make up the Abby.
Outside the Abby is a good-sized tree shaded square where on our visit years before a farmers market had been underway. It had been a very crowded scene. I recall that you could have purchased at the market many items not normally found at such events. I took a picture then of an interesting display of flowered dresses on two or three headless manikins sitting out in the square. I still have the unusual photo somewhere in a box at home. In another area of the square a group of older men played a precision game with balls they rolled a considerable distance on the bare ground. I have forgotten the name of the game, perhaps bocce.
Today the square is empty. It must be too early in the season; certainly there are tourists who come to the Abby for it is famous and on all the tourist lists. One of the better reasons to travel in May is that while it is warm enough, places that might attract tourists are not yet inundated. A downside is that some places are not opened or are opened for much shorter hours or fewer days.
The earliest mention of the monastery is found in a 10th century book about martyrs. According to legend, two brothers, St. Savin and St. Cyprien, were martyred in the middle of the fifth century at that site by the banks of the Gartempe. Their remains were discovered around the year 800 and placed in the care of monks.
By the 11th century there was a full monastery at St. Savin, as in indicated by references to the installation of a "reform" abbot at that time. The Abby church we see today was constructed in stages during that time. At some point in history, certainly in the 17th century, the square we see today had been part of the grounds of the monastery and had been enclosed behind a high gated stone wall. Had I been there then and remained as time rolled by, I would have seen the monastery and the Abby church continually embellished, destroyed, repaired, plundered, blown up, ransacked and rebuilt. I have no idea how the poor monks endured. I think of monasteries as places of refuge and shelter where people of deep religious conviction can pray and work. History instructs me that no harbor is safe forever. No fence and no prayer can keep the world at bay forever.
I will not attempt here to write a history of France or the abbey. Consult your encyclopedias. But to appreciate this place and the life lived by the monks, it is useful to mention a few dates and facts. Between 1337 when Edward II of England began the Hundred Years War and until 1429 when Jeanne dArc, an illiterate peasant girl, wrought a miracle and led a force that drove the English off and put Charles VII on the throne, this part of France was embroiled in constant turmoil. During that Hundred Years War first the English and then the French garrisoned troops at the monastery. And while the French army was in the process of being wiped out by the Black Prince at Poitiers in 1356, France was also suffering from the agony of the Black Death.
But matters did not later improve for the monks or the Abby after the French prevailed. During the Wars of Religion in the 16th and 17th century, much of the monastery was demolished and sometimes it was in the hands of the Church and monks and at other times it was controlled by some regional ruler. In the 1630s Cardinal de Richelieu jailed a "wicked baron" who controlled the Abby. He died by poison in the Bastille. In 1640 Louis XIII had the income of the Abby seized. Somewhat later, a small community from the order of St. Benedict took over and began once again to restore the monastery. For about a century the restoration and building continued.
But religious life at the Abby ebbed and by 1792 only three professed monks remained. In the 1790s the church was frequently vandalized, part of the roof collapsed, and a schoolmaster and other lay persons were sheltered there. As the French Revolution unfolded in the 1780s and 90s it is no wonder that the monks had long gone. Who would care to pray at such a place? An inspection report in 1801 described the monastery as "almost totally ruined." There was a thirty foot long crack in the bell-tower, the roof leaked, the pulpit had been stolen and some stained-glass windows broken. The government, in one form or another, took over. It is a miracle that anything was saved.
But things did not go well even after the church became a "Listed Monument" in 1840. One inspector around that time flew into a violent rage when he discovered that a local artist, seeking to improve on the old frescoes, had painted an "Eternal Father with His rooster" on the vault of the choir. It was ordered wiped off.
The restoration continues today. Long cracks were observed in the vault of the nave in 1967 and were filled in. Damaged arches and timbers continue to be repaired and work on the paintings and frescoes still goes on. The improvements made since my visit a few years ago are dramatic. Then, the nave of the church was dingy and dark. Today, the columns are bright and one has a sense of a church brimming with colorful vigor. In many senses, however, that perception is false. While it does appear that the church is still a place of worship (there are songbooks in the pews and speakers and an electric organ connected to a sound system) I had the sense that it is mainly tourists who come there. I also suspect that they attend not so much to worship God but to admire the art the church contains and the artistic vision that produced it. No longer do monks sit and chant in the carved and recessed walnut choir stalls that you find when you enter through the bookstore entrance. In fact, you might wonder why those wonderful seats are even placed by the doorway. When the monks filled them they would have been up closer to the altar and not placed, as they are now, by a side entrance. Seated there, a person is not even able to see a mass said or hear a priest. But tourists, like myself, can rest in them and wonder.
When I returned to the Abby, I wished most of all to revisit some paintings I had previously seen upstairs in the old monastery. They had appeared to be modern or contemporary works on old themes and they were done in striking bold colors and firm lines and they really resonated with me. I remembered them well because I found them so striking. At the time that artwork appeared to be in temporary storage as they were not "displayed" either on the walls or elsewhere but were just propped up against walls or stood on easels. They appeared to have been frescos made from a sand and lime mix painted over in rich bold colors. They
were in simple wooden frames. Perhaps they had been practice attempts at producing reconstructions of some of the old frescoes that had been found in the church. I took photos of them at the time and I know exactly what they looked like and how excellent they were.
But now on this visit I found that art I so admired is gone. When I went upstairs I discovered that the space in the monastery wing had been all redone and there are now many illuminated displays of the reconstruction work that has or is still being done on the old frescoes. It is as if technocrats have taken over the space, moved out the art I thought mattered and replaced it with lots of high tech equipment and visual aids tourists can play with to see how the reconstruction work on the frescos is accomplished. The displays on the history and technique of mural painting are located in the small rooms with fireplaces that appear to have been rooms occupied by the monks of past centuries when they themselves were so personally involved in preserving the fresco art and mural painting.
Instead of the wooden framed frescoes that once occupied the spaces and were scattered around seemingly recently unpacked or being readied for packing, there are now benches with computer screens attached. Tourists can sit on the benches and operate a computer mouse and view on screens displays of images that show how the frescoes, painted murals and decorative art are worked on layer after layer as the present day experts and reconstructionists attempt to rediscover the original art found in the Abby and perhaps glimpse the artistic intent of those who created the art.
I have the impression that the efforts of the experts are futile. The monks themselves who had lived in those rooms had for centuries arranged to have the frescoes altered, improved and reworked as they attempted to fight off the ravages of time, moisture and decay. Who is to say whether the later iterations or modifications of some of the original artwork made them better or worse? Different artists at different times had different skills and different visions of what the art and biblical stories should show. Was the first monk or artist who attempted to paint the scene in which Eve was created from Adam or in which Eve was tempted by the serpent the best artist? Perhaps a later artists work was better.
It is certainly true that the impact of the frescoes you see as you enter the church and gaze up at the vaulted ceiling is awesome. The beauty of the church humbles you as you look down the nave towards the choir at the end that is illuminated by the light that pours through the beautiful stained glass windows.
The brightly colored frescoes on the vault above extend for almost fifty yards and tell one Biblical story after another. Even today, after so many centuries have passed, you admire the artistry and you ponder their meaning. There are scenes from the Creation and Fall, picture stories of Eve being created, Cain and Abel, the Arc and Noah spread out drunk on a couch, the Tower of Babel being built, the Crossing of the Red Sea and, somewhat surprising to me, a scene of the raven and the fox from the fable of Aesopus. There are animals, vegetables, architectural images and figures of Christ and the Apostles with halos.
It is impossible for me to communicate in words the impact of the church and the paintings or frescoes that seem to link together to make one grand religious statement. At the bookstore I purchased a booklet that shows some of the artwork and architecture. While the illustrations and photos are very well done, even they cannot communicate the vigor and impact of the works as you view them personally. The author of the booklet text tells us that scholars debate whether a few or many artists were responsible for the paintings. No one can know. But even today, after centuries have passed since their creation and time has dimmed their glory, I look on in awe and thank them for their work.
I may never see St. Savin again but I am so pleased to have made the visit and I wish we could have stayed longer. It is good that I bought the booklet so I will be able to bring back the memories later.
Friday, May 24, 2002
I went for a walk into St. Bonnet to buy bread. The cattle are in the field along the way and again they stare fixedly at me as I pass by. Again the bread store is closed. As I start back a friendly stranger on a bicycle stops and says hallo. He seems to know me or knows about me and chats. I have no idea what he is saying. I ask him when the boulangerie opens and he gives me the kind of shrug with his eyes and arms raised up that only true Frenchmen seem capable of giving. Then he extends his hand and we shake and then he says goodbye and rides off. It is an interesting experience.
I spent the afternoon at Futurescope. Futurescope is a development launched probably a decade ago outside of Poitiers. It is filled with buildings designed to appear to be on the cutting edge of architecture design. The whole place is a marked change from the diet of churches and other places I had been visiting and that had been left standing from Frances medieval and pre-Revolutionary past. The large park is designed to give the impression that this is what the future will be like. If so, the future will be fun. The park area has many wonderful fountains and ponds where kids and young adults peddle around enjoying themselves in boats that look like water bound bumper cars. One area has waterspouts that squirt unexpectedly out of the ground to the great amusement of teenagers who push each other into the wetness. I keep my distance.
Some of the structures at Futurescope look like collections of tubes, others look like oversized crystals and another is a tetrahedron with a globe rising out of its midsection. None of the structures appears to follow the architectural dictum that form should follow function, but all house movie theaters.
The first building I check out advertises T-Rex, "le grand dinosaur carnivore le Roi Tyrannosaur Son crini mesurait 1.20 metre, 120 kilos." I enter and find myself in a small theater with narrow blue benches to sit on and three white screens on the wall. I cannot figure out what type of theater this could be. Then music starts up and the program begins. It is all in French and I dont understand anything. The pictures projected on the screen seem to be explaining gravitational collapse, quark or plasma theory. I am totally baffled by this French physics lesson. Then it dawns on me that I am being shown how 3-D glasses work and how 3-D pictures are made. About the time I figure that out, the pictures stop and the lights come up and the audience is directed into another room and we are handed 3-D glasses as we enter.
This is an amazing state of the art theater with comfortable seats and a very large screen that stretches around almost half the room. I put on the glasses and the movie starts. It is an IMAX movie and the story opens when we zoom across a vast expanse of wheat fields in western Canada, then across barren mountain areas and through space and time until we end up in a prehistoric time when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The story has something to do with two university professors, one a beautiful woman and the other an arrogant man, who somehow drops a dinosaur egg they have found. T-Rex breaks out of the shell of the egg and within a short time he is roaming around with a mouthful of teeth like steak knives terrorizing everyone. T-Rex provides the perfect incarnation of pure, reptile ferocity within a celluloid fantasy until a meteor lands and stirs up a big cloud of dust and we are back in a laboratory. It is a great show with a stupid story line I won't bother retell. The movie relies entirely on special effects designed to scare the audience. Kids and grownups like me enjoy such films.
In another building the audience travels along in carts through movie sets of mountainous areas, medieval villages, ships at sea and other interesting places. We are shown how special effects are created with electromechanical devices and tape recorders. Interestingly, most of the production techniques used to create the effects are already outdated. Most such effects today are created digitally. The special effects on display are certainly interesting but I wonder how Futurescope will keep up with changes in movie making.
Another show is about Atlantis and I sit in a domed theater where the seats sway vigorously in many directions to create the illusion that viewers are moving in personal submarines through an underwater world peopled with scary monsters from whose clutches we narrowly escape. It is great fun, but I am beginning to get a bit tired of so many special effects. In none of the movies has there been any meaningful plot or character development and I am beginning to wonder what the point of all these movies might be. If this is the future of movies then the future belongs to children not old men.
The final movie I saw actually did, in a curious way, link together many things I had seen previously on the trip. It helped me understand better the activities of the monks who had devoted so much of their energies and lives attempting to preserve the paintings and frescoes at the Abbey of Saint-Savin.
The screen this time was composed of what seemed to be approximately 1,000 smaller screens each about the size of a home TV. When the show started, different parts of the whole were used for a number of separate scenes. Then some man, who looked to me like a pompous bureaucrat, started lecturing away on the screen in French and as he spoke we were shown a variety of different photos of the Futurescope complex. I thought we were being shown some sort of promo for Futurescope itself and I couldnt understand the purpose of his talk because obviously we were there and knew about the place. Then, in a curious shift, we were looking into a compartment in a train that is moving across the French landscape visible through the train window.
Inside the compartment a man was waking up. He was obviously concerned about something and he kept looking out the window as the train moved. He struggled back into his clothes then moved out of the compartment and down the train passageway towards the door at the end. He pushed the door open somehow and jumped off the train. Damn fool, I thought, you could get badly hurt doing that. He picked himself up and started off across a field and into a wood where he encountered a gigantic tree. Then the real photo effects began. The tree morphed into a bark skinned peculiar man who conversed with our hero, fed him a mushroom and then led him on a chase through the woods until somehow they were both in a rowboat on a river and the bark man was rowing.
I soon recognized from places they passed that the river was the Gartempe although I had no clue why they were there or where they were going. It made little difference, however, because soon they were at an auto racetrack and our hero was driving a racecar in a race. He was doing fine and narrowly avoided a number of crashes until the bark man waived a checkered flag and the car ran through a barrier.
Then we rode through a small town with many curved streets and people were dodging out of the path until somehow we were in an airplane and flying across the landscape following the path of a river I recognized again as the Gartempe. The whole journey made little sense to me but I enjoyed seeing the Gartempe and I hoped we might pass by the Mill and I would wave. Instead, we ended up at St. Savin and somehow we were moving down the nave of the church and the pews were filled with people and it was a wedding and the bride was waiting. The bride turned and we could see her face. It was our bark man - smiling. The End.
The movie was a tour de force of special effects and the plot was totally meaningless. I couldnt figure out the point of it. On the drive home something occurred to me. Perhaps the point of the movie was that the movies and visual arts of today were essentially the same as the frescoes at St. Savin were when they were painted. They both were ways of telling stories with or through pictures so that the people viewing them would get some pleasure and derive meaning. What might be the meaning? Marshall McLuhan tells us the medium is the message and perhaps that is the case and that is all there is too it. I am not at all sure. But I do have something to think about and a way of thinking about it I had not had before.
Saturday, May 25, 2002
Today we visited de l Abbave Notre-Dame de Fontgombault. We had hoped to hear Gregorian chant at a vespers service but were not able to do so. Services were open to the public only on certain days and at certain times. We arrived at the wrong time. I ended up buying CDs of Gregorian Chants sung by the monks choir, "Choeur des moines deLAbbaye de Fontgombault." I also bought two blue ceramic mugs and a green ceramic pitcher the monks had made. The pottery was to delight my eye and the CDs to please my ear. The monk who sold them to me asked in halting English where I was from. I tried to explain Iowa to him and ended up mentioning Chicago but he didnt seem to know about Chicago. I then mentioned the monks who gave Des Moines its name but that didnt register. He mentioned a monastery in Oklahoma that was settled by brothers from Fontgombault. I didnt know about that.
On the drive home I thought about the relationship of Iowa to French monks. There are many connections. Iowa was part of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase from France. Napoleon, who had once dreamed of a French empire in the Americas, felt threatened in 1803 by the prospect of a renewal of war with England when Louisiana might be lost anyway. He also wanted to strengthen America as a rival to Great Britain. So, he struck a deal with the Jefferson administration and sold the province for $15,000,000, less than the price today of just one of the homes in Aspen of the former Enron CEO, Kenneth Lay. Jefferson made a good deal.
There are other events that connect France with Iowa. Des Moines, Iowas Capital City, was founded by French monks. The name indicates that, Moine being the name for monk. Also, New Mellary, a monastery still operating near Dubuque (another famous French name), was founded by French Benedictine monks.
Sunday, May 26, 2002
Today I went to the closing ceremonies of Les Ostensions Du Dorat. I had seen a poster stapled to the door of the church in St. Bonnet de Bellac advertising the event. The poster showed statues of Saint Israel and Saint Theobald. I had not heard of either saint and I didnt know what an Ostensions was, but Le Dorat was close by, so I decided to attend. I had little idea what I might find when I drove off in the morning but I am happy I went. It was fascinating.
Les Ostensions is a major festival held in the town of Le Dorat - located about 15 kilometers from the Mill - in honor of Saint Israel and Saint Theobald. Those saints had lived in the area in the 11th century and left memories of their virtues and good deeds. The festival is a public veneration of their relics and has been held every seven years since 1659.
The Ostensions technically lasts for 62 days, from the Easter Vigil to the Sunday after Pentecost, but the opening and closing ceremonies are the highlights and provide the most spectacle. The opening ceremony that I did not attend was held on the evening of the Easter Vigil. Then, amid chants, artillery salvoes and the movement of a troupe of men on horseback, the relics in their gold gilded wood caskets were carried from their resting-place in the church and presented at a "Grande Messe." That ceremony harks back to 1495 when permission was first received to exhume the relics from storage.
The notice I had seen had indicated the Ostentations ceremony was to begin in the afternoon, I think at 1 p.m., but I left early and arrived in Le Dorat before noon in order to find a good place to park and case out the town before the activities started. By the time I got there the town was already filled with autos and I had considerable difficulty locating a space to park. I finally found a spot a considerable distance from the center of town. Across the street was a large grassy area empty of people but filled with carnival rides and booths. Most of the rides had English names and graphics. I saw Mickey Mouse, Magic 2000 and Super Jackpot. It was apparent that Ostensions was more than a religious event.
I wandered around for a while trying to locate the place where the event would be held. I had a couple of hours before it was to start and I thought if I found some people heading in a definite direction I would just follow them. But as I walked I found the streets in that part of town almost empty of people although it was obvious that Le Dorat had prepared itself well for a big event. Buildings were draped with red and green banners some with gold crosses. Everywhere I looked evergreen trees, numbering in the hundreds, with red paper poppy flowers tied to their branches, were attached to poles and building drainpipes.
As I trudged along the narrow empty streets I heard country western music piped through speakers placed high up on posts at intersections. I passed through a false stone archway designed to resemble a twin towered medieval castle entrance. Nearby a lady was busy putting red paper flowers on a tree attached to a drain pipe in front of her beauty parlor (coiffure) on the Rue Roulotte. Further down the street I passed Mme. Duponts Phamacian where a window display showed photographs of a prior years Ostentation parade. One photo struck my eye. It was that of a group of soldiers in uniforms from the time of Napoleon. I wondered how those soldiers ended up in a religious celebration to honor two 11th century saints.
I went through another arch decorated with red paper flowers and clothed in red cloth. I passed a fat lady and a thinner old man as they entered a pastry shop, typically open for business on a Sunday unlike all other shops. I could tell the lady liked her pastry. Then I rounded a corner and entered a large cobbled stone square. There, finally, I found more people.
They clustered around sidewalk tables at the entrances of two cafes located across the square from each other. The square was empty except for the occasional walker who passed casually around the metal barricades that blockaded the square. In the center of the square mounds of red paper flowers surrounded a tall monument enclosed by a low black mental picket fence. A metal figure atop the monument looks towards the far end of the square. There a large platform has been constructed for the Ostentation. It is roofed to resemble a castle with towers on the front corners. It is draped with red paper flowers. Evergreen trees are fastened to the sides and the structure gives the appearance of standing in a forest. Nearby loudspeakers pipe out the American country western music I had heard before: "So dont be scared, I knew you cared." The contrast between the music and the medieval appearance of the platform is a delight.
I go into one of the cafes, Café Tabac de le Poste and it is stuffed with people smoking and drinking. I order a big cup of coffee with cream and it is perfect and between the warmth of the coffee and the room I lose my chill. Men crowd together to lean against the bar and drink wine or cognac from small glasses while they chat. Kids of all ages run around underfoot. I watch a man enter carrying a nicely made portable three legged stool with a leather seat. He has obviously been to an Ostentation before and has insured himself a place to sit. Another older red-faced man with a scraggy beard and half in the sauce also wanders inside and walks around with the deliberateness of an experienced drunk as he hunts for a place to sit. I am happy when he finds a friend at a table with a spare chair and leaves me alone.
The women behind the bar do all the work as a mustached middle-aged man, who appears to be the owner, patrols the room with a propriety air and keeps his eye on things and occasionally wipes a table. He looks comfortable and lazy. This is his world and today is going to be a big day for business.
I watch the bearded tipsy red-faced fellow attempt to strike up a conversation with a couple at the bar but they ignore him. The man with the younger woman is obviously trying to make an impression but I sense she feels she has his number and her eyes cast about over his shoulder and around the room. Then a large group of middle aged people enter; the café becomes very crowded and I exit. As I step out into the square the red faced bearded old guy follows and tries to strike up a conversation but I explain I dont speak French and he wanders off across the square. A soldier in a uniform of the Napoleonic era sits at a café table sipping a drink and smoking a cigarette while he adjusts the top of his high military hat. His incongruous presence is encouraging; perhaps the festivities are about to begin. A few other similarly dressed soldiers appear from around the corner and they all stride off together across the square and disappear down a street. I start to follow them but it begins to rain and I duck into the other café on the far side of the square. There at the bar I spot my old friend, the bearded red-faced fellow, seated at the bar and sipping a glass of wine while he chats with the girl behind the counter. I order another cup of coffee and he starts to talk to me; again I re-explain I dont speak French. He seems puzzled by this and takes a sip of his drink and looks me over. It is quiet in the bar and all the patrons look out the window at the rain. Will God let Saints Theobald and Israel down?
My friend, the red-faced drunk, walks firmly to the toilette. He is about 5 5" and his outfit would be firmly rejected as a donation by any Salvation Army store. His walk is designed to let us know he is not tipsy. The rain ceases and the patrons point outside to the sun coming out from behind the clouds. I can sense the sigh of relief and the conversation picks back up. I am certain they are telling one another that God is indeed good and the saints should be praised. .
I go back outside and across the way I notice a number of unformed firemen shaking hands beside a fire truck. The music from the loudspeakers has now shifted to an Irish melody, a jig. Two fellows, part of a small group, pass by carrying a gold monstrance on a litter. Someone starts to test the speakers by saying what sounds like "testing, one, two, and three" in French. I sense something is about to happen. But if the event is to be here, where are the people? Then a troupe dressed as uniformed Chevaliers pass by on horseback. I figure they must know where they are going and I follow, being careful not to step on the occasional droppings they leave behind.
The trail leads to another, slightly smaller square, and I know immediately as I approach that this is the place to be. This square fronts a large church and is packed with people. I push my way through the crowd and find a high spot with a good view. Les Ostensions Du Dorat has obviously begun. It is quite a spectacle and only after I was back in Iowa, where Peter translated some portions of a brochure I had picked up, was I able to gain a perspective on what I had witnessed.
From my spot off to the side of the crowded square I view the events unfold. It is a very confusing scene. Some 34 groups from parishes in the diocese of Limoges are received with ceremony as they enter the square by the church. I watch them march by and into the square. An honor guard that precedes each group is continually reconstituted to lead the groups of parish marchers to the end of the square and by the church entrance. There they are stopped by a troupe of soldiers dressed in the uniforms of Napoleons army and asked three questions:
"Qui vive?" (Who lives?) - France;
"Quelle paroisse? (What parish?) -- Saint-Bonnet de Bellac (or whatever parish);
"Que venez-vous faire dan tout cet appareil?" (What have you come to do with all this stuff?) - We have come to venerate Saint Israel and Saint Theobald;
"Vosfusils sont-ils chrges? (Are your guns loaded?) - No.
After the inspection of arms each group is told they are welcome to enter into the town. A commander then meets the parade at the doors of the church with his sword lifted and he salutes. The mayor of La Dorat, a priest and the leaders of the Brotherhoods of St. Israel and Theobald offer holy water to the pastor of each parish who blesses the faithful. They shake hands and all the parish marchers (numbering about 4,000) gradually enter into the church in groups for the Grande Messe.
I watch as group after group marches by my spot in the square. Some groups enter the square from a street to my right, others from a street to my left and a few from a street behind me. My viewing spot is close and sufficiently high so I can see clearly over the heads of the crowd. I can see a priest shaking holy water over each group. I can also hear the thump of marching feet as groups from the various parishes move into the square. Almost every group includes men in white shirts and blue pants carrying rifles or shotguns. A few groups include men carrying spears and dressed as Roman Soldiers wearing gold helmets. Many marchers hold up banners announcing the name of the parish and the name of the saints whose relics are typically carried in chests resting on liters borne up high. Chevaliers on horseback wearing red tunics and broad brimmed hats are easy to spot and three of them lead each parish group through the square and to the entrance of the church.
I recall the words from the jazz tune, "Oh, when the Saints go marching in," because that is exactly what I saw. Saint after saint went marching by. The saints were sponsored by the various churches or parishes and were identified by banners. Relics of saints were paraded by in glass or metal containers trimmed in gold or silver and carried aloft on liters born by able-bodied men. But there was no jazz music and no Louis Armstrong played. The only music was the music provided by what looked like a high school band wearing black and white uniforms and playing what sounded much like some of the Sousa tunes I used to play when I marched along with the Brunswick High School band and tooted my trumpet. While the whole ceremony was obviously a religious ceremony, it could easily have been confused with a veteran's day parade. Groups of armed men marched along in step as if they were going off to the front. They had some semblance of military bearing but I was certain that, if the Germans were at all inclined to invade once again, these men, posing as soldiers, would be quickly routed.
But all the groups did not consist of soldiers marching. Many men were dressed up like monks. Perhaps some were monks but I was confident the teen-age boys dressed up in bishop outfits were not bishops. There were also groups of women who sometimes surrounded a young girl dressed up like the Virgin Mary in flowing white lace and veil.
The crowd was densely packed but reasonably attentive and respectful although occasionally somebody would push through to get a better viewing spot closer to the marchers. There were no barricades but the Chevaliers on horseback did a good job of keeping the crowds back and I offered up one silent prayer that a particularly obnoxious women, who pushed me aside to get to the front, would be trampled on by one of the big spirited horses. My prayer was not answered.
Not everyone in the square tried to view the parade. Large groups clustered around the two red beer tents across the street from one of the church entrances. Wine seemed to be the drink of choice. I looked for my red-faced friend to see if he had found the tent scene but I couldn't spot him. But I did note a number of the armed men, who had marched by me, earlier had paused to quench their thirst with a spot of pre-communion wine, before going into the church.
I did not enter the church (only the participants were permitted). The watchers gradually dispersed as the parade came to an end, although a swelling crowd reassembled around the wine tents. Perhaps they felt that if they could not go inside and participate in this most sacred of events, they would find their spirits elsewhere. I moved on to another part of the town and to the larger square that I had been in earlier. I felt certain that would be the place the ceremonies would end. Later, after the two-hour mass ended, I proved myself right.
While I waited in the "grande" square, I could hear the mass being said over the loudspeakers placed above the platform and tied to posts around the square. Because I had no idea what was being said, I gradually tuned out the sound. Earlier in the day when the square was empty and the Ostensions ceremonies had not begun, I had heard American rock and country western music piped out of the same speakers. The contrast in the sounds of the Mass being said and the earlier music was striking. I could understand the earlier lyrics but I preferred the Gregorian chants and the music used in "la grand Messe".
All the tables under the awning and in front of the Café Tabac de le Poste were filled and the café itself was crammed. The owner had set up another bar outside and had baskets of long submarine sandwiches prepared for sale. I bought a ham and cheese and munched away content while I found a good spot nearby behind the barricades from which to observe. What I didnt realize was the High Mass would last a good long time and that the crowd would swell and swell until I was crushed against the waist high barricade. I prayed there silently to Saints Theobald and Israel to please get the show on the road and into the square so I could go home. The woman to my right pushed hard against me in order to make room for a friend with a teen-aged daughter. I was pressed solidly against a man to my left who obviously was a good buddy of one of the parade marshals. They chatted nonstop, smoked cigarette after cigarette while they waived at friends across the way they spotted in the growing crowd. I just stood there, munched on my sandwich, observed and grew tired.
As I waited a light rain starts, stops, starts up again and finally stops for good as the gray clouds part and the sun reappears. The crowd is patient, but no one seems to pay any attention to the religious service being broadcast over the speakers. From the loudspeakers I can hear a very sincere voice preaching to us. I have the feeling I am listening to a young pastor who knows that his audience is not only those in front of him inside the church but that the plaza and streets are crowded with the faithful and he has this one golden opportunity to give them the message. He will have to wait seven years before he has such an opportunity again. He reaches deep within himself and preaches on and on. But I can see that those in the crowd care not a wit about what he is telling them. They behave like kids in school who pay no attention to the teacher in the front of the room who is trying in vain to bring order into the classroom. His audience is here for the party and to watch a parade. God and the Church are of some importance to them or they wouldn't be there, but most really did not come to Le Dorat that day to worship. The cafes are doing a great business and the tables outside under the awnings are filled with people who are happy to have found places to eat and drink while sheltered from the rain.
Finally, after about an hour and a half, the character of the sounds coming out of the speakers changes. First I hear a soprano sing Ave Maria. Next I hear triumphant organ music and what sounds like an alleluia chorus. Then I hear a command that sounds like "present arms" followed by military band music. I know my wait and the church services are coming to an end. But almost another half hour passes before I spot two bearded Chevaliers on foot, followed by a line of similarly dressed men on horseback, enter the square from a narrow street far off to my left. A helicopter flies overhead as the two lead Chevaliers on foot pause to chat briefly with parade marshals standing almost directly in front of me.
Then I hear drums and trumpets. The music is coming not from the loud speakers but from a street that empties into the square. I lean forward over the barricade and look to my left and see them coming. First, an Imperial Guard of sixteen Chevaliers on horseback comes down the street and parades right before me. Right behind them marches the local band from La Dorat with beating drums, tooting horns and clarinets. Then, carried high by sturdy men, a splendid green and gold banner comes into view to proclaim "Les Enfents las Dorat." Behind the banner marches a troupe of rifle carrying soldiers dressed in uniforms of the Napoleonic era. They had been summoned from the past to protect those who bear the liters on which are borne the golden reliquaries of Saints Israel and Theobald. The fragments from the past are held up high in honor. Behind the saints men march carrying a large cross and the banner of St. Bonnet de Ballac. I feel a sense of local pride when I see the hometown banner and I cheer for St. Bonnet as his relics are paraded by.
Now all the groups and saints I saw before go marching by before me as the band plays on. Group after group gathers throughout the square and in front of the "grand arc de triomphe edifie" until the square is packed. There are boys wearing helmets and dressed as Roman soldiers. Women are dressed as nuns or to resemble the Virgin Mary. There are more riflemen than I can count marching in step into the square. Signs and banners proliferate as do small boys dressed as bishops and monks dressed in brown robes. Little girls toss flower petals that are later trampled on by men in red uniforms carrying large axes or double-barreled shotguns. A pilgrim holding a Bible leads a group of students carrying an assortment of objects that include a guitar, a computer keyboard, and a large globe. Behind them follows a large man dressed to look like Christ and dragging a large cross. The square is running out of space but still they come. Angels with wings and halos pass by, as does a large figure of St. Sebastian with feathered arrows protruding from his bloodied body. A youth pulls a white lamb along on a cord and behind him walks an Oriental Potentate. Impressive groups of Napoleonic soldiers and bearded grizzled warriors in fur hats make their way to a spot in front of the speaker's platform.
There, on the platform, prelates of the Church are standing. I can make little sense out of any of this but the most interesting parade I have ever seen finally comes to an end. The band plays one last march and the crowd, which must number well over 20,000, grows silent and a Bishop begins to speak. I cannot understand what he is saying. I ease my way through the crowd and head home.
As I return to my car I notice that the carnival rides in the park across the way have started up and children are waiting their turn in line. It is obvious that an evening of fun has just begun. The rituals of the past have been observed and the young have walked in the footsteps of their elders in the parade through town. The reverence displayed has been for the saints but, equally important, for tradition. The rhythm of life and the parade of history go on. It was not just the saints that were marching by; it was the history of France.
Usually writers and teachers of history start at the beginning and you arrive at or close to the present time at the end of the school year, the semester or the book. But you don't remember history or even your own past in that way. Your mind pops around. You might be thinking of some event while you were in high school playing in the school band. Then you start thinking about a friend you were with at a party, or the boat that sailed by while you were on a beach in Maine and how the girl by the rudder laughed at the man she was with, and what the fat lady at the Hy-Vee supermarket had in her basket, and what the picture on the wall in the dining room of the restaurant outside of St. Bonnet looked like, and how the speaker orating in front of you at the microphone in the Iowa Senate looked as he leaned forward to stress a point. History and your own past are collected in a chronological way but that past unfolds or is remembered in a haphazard manner that often makes little sense. That was also the way the scenes from the Biblical past were presented in the frescoes painted on the ceiling of the church at St. Savin, and it was the way the scenes, embedded in the psyche of the viewers, from the religious history of France and La Dorat passed by in the long parade with which the 49th Ostensions concluded.
On our visits to places near the Mill and along the banks of the Gartempe, Mary Jo and I had, perhaps because we did not speak French, a sense of outsidership similar to that Conrad depicts in Heart of Darkness. But on our journey up the Gartempe River we found not darkness but optimism, hope and a respect for the past we had not anticipated. I think we learned a great deal. It was certainly our most interesting visit to France. I am beginning to view France more like I think the French themselves do, as a country with a rich history that continues to wrap itself around the present and helps to shape the future. We look forward to returning.