woolybanana's witness

2011-05-02T01:43:00.001-07:00

C:\Users\woolybanana\Documents\jclozetrial.htm

closing and renewal

2011-04-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

I have closed down this blog and opened another with a different theme, for those who are interested.

http://gatheringfrenchmoss.blogspot.com/

Conjugal Violence

2010-02-25T10:49:00.000-08:00

The French parliament is finally tackling this huge problem but perhaps too late for my late neighbour's daughter who put up with years of "being clumsy" and "walking into doors" and not being able to mention the real cause as it might bring shame on the family.
Despite warnings, threats from the police and social services, a couple of beatings from brothers-in-law, he goes back to drinking again and again. And smacks her and the kids.
She finally got out after the last beating when he even smacked her sister, leaving the filthy house and moving with the kids to a sweet little house in the village. The gendarmes were called of course, but they are bugger all use. So no one seems able or willing to stop him driving round her house, hooting, crying on the doorstep, ringing the bell at all hours.
This time, she had just returned from home from hip and knee reconstructive surgery and he kicked her so hard it had in part to be done again. Because he wanted her to get up and cook his potatoes!!
I wonder whether he will have an electronic tag on his leg, to his shame and family's and to the cruel amusement of the village.
Or will she let him in the house and will he yet again promise to be well behaved - until the next time!!

Dramatis Personae

2010-02-22T08:05:00.000-08:00

Any number of readers have asked me to give a list of the characters involved in my little trips as they are finding all the different names confusing, so here goes:

Woolybanana: Me, the leader of the pack so to speak, to my eyes, Prince Hal, to my kids, Polonius; to others Falstaff or perhaps Pistol. Getting a bit long in the tooth, that is tooth singular as they seem to have decided they no longer wish to live with me. The dentist goes quiet when he looks in there. Prone to dribble!
Not to be confused with my sister Randy who is very fond of Le Port d'Amsterdam, so to speak.

Benny: The large dog in the blog if you just scroll down a bit. He follows me round, sits and my feet and when we are in the CC sleeps next to me with a paw under the accelerator to make sure we dont go too fast. As soft as a fresh cowpat and a real charm who, unfortunately, likes to kiss on the mouth. He is deeply attracted to border collie-type dogs as he is convinced that his mother was one, which she was not, as I met her. Wants no more than a wide open beach and a few sea birds to chase for miles.

Tad(pole): Passed to me quickly in a car park in Niort, he is Benny's little mate and is the classic "steal the sausages and run like hell with the butcher following him with a chopper" dog. Part terrier, he likes to hunt and hunt and hunt; Anything on two or four legs will do. If he doesn't like you he will piddle on your leg. Then he sleeps on my lap all evening. When travelling, sleeps under the CC table; has been known to stand on the table at the wrong moment with disastrous consequences when the brakes are applied.

Emily: An irascible lady duck who gets bad PMT and then pecks my feet when we are driving along. And so often gets left behind. Though she likes cross country skiing (sliding really) in Switzerland. We often have to pick her out of the snow where she is upside down with her ample posterior exposed to the wind. But don't you dare laugh or she will fly into a rage and lose her feathers, and have you ever tried to buy clothes for a bald duck in a Maman et Bébé shop? "I want a babygrow outfit for a bald duck please" does tend to send the over preened staff a bit daffy!
She has told me she wants to walk the pilgrim route this summer to St Confit de Canard so if you seen a stroppy duck on a lead with her feet dipped in pitch ..........

Thyril the Irish Snake in the Grass: As his name suggests, he is a unique survivor of his race. Needs watching or he'll be up to no good behind your back. Lives in the CC, as a kind of guard, in the cupboard where the valuables are kept. When the CC was being repaired, the mechanics were terrified of Thyril as he took pleasure in hissing and spitting at them and wrapping himself round their necks. He is a bit thin at the moment so I need to find some guinea pigs or a small terrier.... here kitty, kitty, kitty.
When stopped by the gendarmes I bring him out whilst handing over the CC papers. Gendarmettes are invited to stroke him but most seem to blush at the sight as if it reminded them of something seen before.

Which brings us to
Sabrina (who used to be known as Gertie then Alf ): Who is a not new but very comfy CC with a new lease of life thanks to the replacement engine. In fact, on the way back from Paris she was jumping round like a flea on speed. More worrying however was her new taste in big, powerful trucks with huge bonnets. As we drove along, she seemed to pull towards them and when one had been overtaken, she slowed right down so that they approached her from behind. particularly Volvos and Macs. It is the first time that a vehicle has forced me to park in the lorry part of the motorway services. And now she wants the van painted a delicate shade of puce. I think that a winter passed in the big Iveco truck garage has confused her!

Sabrina is coming home!!!!!

2010-02-14T03:23:00.000-08:00

After nearly five months stuck in a garage near Marne-la-Vallée, Sabrina (as she now wishes to be called instead of Alf, so draw your own conclusions!) is coming home to the Vendée.

With a different engine and a big smile. I just have to pop up and pick her up this week.

And, believe it or not, after five visits from experts (which finally had four of them poring over her) and the slow dismantling of the old engine they did eventually find what had caused the engine to seize; it seems that a largish piece of plastic from the filter protection system at the bottom of the engine broke off and floated round for a while until it jammed a moving part and bingo.....

And then the garage fixed her but found an oil leak so had to go way back again to find it.

Now, the problem of responsibility has to be ascertained because someone is gonna have to reimburse me for the dosh I have shelled out so far.

Well, the blame at present falls on the last people to work on the engine, in fact the only people to have do so as far as I can see. Who have been sent the experts' reports (including that of their own expert who concurs) and who may or may not accept the findings.

The most likely reaction will be a big "nyet" because nobody ever accepts responsibility for anything in France, with the papers being handed over to their insurance company, and after attempted negotiation, a visit to the juge de proximité or the tribunal d'instance who will then decide how much should or should not be awarded.

So far, all dealt with and paid for by my household insurance policy which includes protection juridique insurance cover, including the experts.

And I am gonna try to make sure that the camping car company who sold me Sabrina are also stuck with some of the bill because the bast**** tried to screw me.

Meanwhile, Sabrina will be cleaned and restocked and got ready for the road again.

Emily the duck has been quacking excitedly all week, the dogs have been so happy they even peed on my friends' full laundry basket and the snake who has been the CC guard all this time, a lonely vigil, wrapped himself round the neck of a gendarmette in glee Ever seen one run? Wow can they move when pursued by a hungry python, though he is only a baby; his dad would have had her in one small gollop!

But where to go? Hmmm the choice is daunting as there is so much to see and do: perhaps Aquitaine and the beaches in Spring, perhaps the Loire Valley before the grockels overwhelm it. I must say, I do fancy a trip to find traces of the watermills which used to infest the river, or to find evidence of the old bateliers.

The backroads call and I must follow.

Meanwhile, here are a few fotos of the Ardennes which was to have been the next instalment of the blog before Sabrina had her hissy fit. I was a bit distracted by family matters but would heartily recommend it to you if you like forests, deep and hidden valleys, meandering rivers, good food and Vauban forts which proliferate up on the Belgian French border. All caused by the Belgians trying to do a reverse takeover of France over the centuries, except they seem to have spoken German then.

Ooops!

2010-01-30T13:07:00.000-08:00

Part III. La Viree de Galerne (The Road To Calvary)

2010-01-24T06:54:00.001-08:00

13. Across The River.

Out of their confusion and anger, their fear and disillusion a single aim swept through the fleeing Blancs with a religious intensity.
"A la Loire, à la Loire " (To the Loire).
And a mass of 80-100,000 people of whom 40,000 were fighting men, with their full military train, in a column several kilometers long, began the long tramp north towards the river.
With them, women and children, the old and infirm, rich aristocrats in carriages and poor peasants with their possessions either on their backs or in carts, who had been chased from their homes by the Republicans. From all corners of the eastern Vendée Militaire they came, to join the exodus. Even the wounded from the hospitals hidden deep in the forests were brought along in hundreds of carts.
There are also 6000 prisoners.
The Vendéen nation on the move, defeated, making a blind leap into the unknown. Leaving the country they had sought to defend for so long for an unsure destination and future.
One of the great mass migrations in history - and one of the most suicidal.
The flood was too strong, the faith too sure for the generals to hold it back, though they did try.
On 18th October at St.-Florent-le-Vieil, the exodus began, using captured bridges and small boats linked together as rafts and prepared by Talmond. Though a few lives were lost in the choppy waters, the crossing was completed by the next night, without serious incident. Even the best of the artillery was taken.
On his death litter, against his will, even poor Bonchamps was borne over the waters. D'Elbée, perhaps more firm, refusing to leave his native soil, was carried across country to Noirmoutier, protected by Charette's army which, alone, remained in the marshlands.
Fortunately the Republicans had themselves been too shattered by the battle to follow the retreat too closely, so that their crossing was largely peaceful. A patrol arriving at the riverbank at 3 a.m. on the 19th found almost no trace of the peasant army that had disappeared like a ghost in the night.
In little over 48 hours, the whole mass had marched from Cholet, 40 kilometres away and crossed the river Loire.
And the 6000 prisoners? Faced with a move to kill them, both by officers seeking revenge and by the peasants who thought their crossing might have been impeded, Bonchamps obtained their pardon and release. With almost his last breath, he earned his place in history with an act that lightened the dark shadows of the Civil War, an act not to be reciprocated by the Republicans.
Finding these released prisoners, the Blues immediately ordered them to take up arms and fire across the river in the direction of the fleeing Vendéens. And 400 Vendéen wounded who had been left in the hospital at Beaupuy were slaughtered, apparently in reprisal for the killing at Clisson.

How the representatives of the Convention who had either accompanied the army or skulked in Nantes boasted their victory:
"The Vendée has been purged of its rebels in a week, the main bands of brigands destroyed..... and now, smoking with blood, littered with bodies and largely in flames, if is a striking example of our national justice. "
However, Kléber, Westermann and the other "victorious" republican generals were not so sure.
The Vendéens moved north, fast and in good order, the defenceless surrounded and protected by the armed, sweeping aside feeble republican defences (see map 3).
The new leader was the reluctant 21 year old La Rochejaquelein, chosen by acclaim, probably the only remaining general with sufficient reputation and charisma to command the whole force. He was advised by the mortally wounded Lescure, borne on a litter and accompanied by his wife and baby son, until he died.
But such was the new spirit that peasant and noble walked side by side. Though many of the latter carried veritable fortunes in their baggage - one wallet was subsequently found to contain 76000 livres.
However, the spirit of optimism was not to last. There was little food available as it had been carefully hidden in the forests as news of the advance spread. Enormous piles of apples, left at the side of the road to make cider, were devoured eagerly.
At Laval the defenders fled after receiving a few rounds of cannon fire and Les Blancs entered the town, welcomed by the citizens, seeking food and hoping for a few days rest.
But now, with their forces increasing daily as up to 12000 fighting men from Brittany came to join the column, the key question had to be faced, with many troops refusing to move until it was answered.
Where were they going?
There existed four possibilities - to Normandy - or Rennes, capital of Brittany to raise the region, then back to attack Nantes - perhaps straight back to the Vendée Militaire-or even a march on to Paris.
As discussions were taking place, two messengers arrived from the emigré community in Jersey and England, and re-proposed another plan - to capture and hold a Channel port, St. Malo, Cherbourg or Granville where the English Navy would supply and reinforce them from the sea.
They decided to head for the Channel.
But, unexpectedly, the enemy was just behind them! L'Armée de Mayence had quickly regrouped, crossed the Loire and was following so closely that the Vendéens had to turn and fight again. The battle took place at the village of Entrammes, on 27th October 1793.
Despite clear orders to wait for all units to arrive, to give a couple of days rest before the fight, then to attack on several fronts at once, the ever wild Westermann attacked too early with his advanced force and was routed.

Westermann

As a result, l'Armée de Mayence which was still moving into position and unready to defend itself, was overrun, losing 13000 out of its remaining 20000 men, its best units simply ceasing to exist.

And there, dear readers, the sample of the book stops. I hope that it has interested you and that you will perhaps want to read further. In which case, you might like to purchase my little oeuvre, a self-publication, which is not available in the shops.

The remaining chapters tell the rest of the story on the Vendéen Civil War, the tragedy that is about to happen, leading to the attempted Genocide by the Republic.

In addition, there is a chapter on the places to visit, and finally, a chapter on the stained-glass record contained in some 40 local churches, which, uniquely, tells the story of the brutality and suffering which took place, sometimes with touches of dark humour.

The book is not on Amazon or other sites as it is not economical. If you would like a copy, then it costs €7 including p and p (France only). Please send a cheque to me, Tim Hayward, 10 Impasse de l'Horizon, Apremont, 85220 Vendée. Allow time for the cheque to clear and for the postal services to function.

Thank you.

Nantes in their sights.

2010-01-21T11:44:00.000-08:00

11. Attack On Nantes.
Nantes was a tough military target, the major part lying on the northern bank of the Loire, the rest on two islands between two branches of the river. Access from the south was across three well-fortified bridges. The major part of the Vendéen forces would therefore have to fight its way into the city from the north through suburbs containing a substantially hostile population.
Although riven by serious fratricidal political infighting and regarded with deep suspicion by the Convention in Paris, the citizens of Nantes managed to put aside their differences as they desperately tried to organise the defence of their city.
This was in the hands of the mayor of Nantes, Baco, and General Canclaux, commander of the coastal army at Brest, a former aristocrat and career officer who had recently arrived with 2000 seasoned troops.
At their disposal they had about a total of 12,000 fighting men of variable quality, though every citizen was considered able to fight. Military support promised from other areas failed to materialise as they too looked to their defences. The city would have to rely on its own resources.
In preparation for the attack, every available weapon was bought from the arms' manufacturers, commercial riverboats were armed with cannon and money raised. A large number of Dutch sailors transiting through the port and trapped by the fighting, were conscripted to fight. They did so willingly as most were in sympathy with the aims of the French Revolution.
Redoubts for holding troops were thrown up just outside the city, defended by cannon and linked by trenches. The lens maker Fedraglio was ordered to the top of the cathedral tower with his telescopes to report on enemy troop movements and provide early warning of their approach.
When it came, the Vendéen ultimatum, kept secret from the people, was summarily rejected. However, seeing the strength of the approaching forces, two representants en mission who were trapped in the city ordered its evacuation and surrender, but local citizens stopped them leaving by unhitching the oxen from their wagon.
The plan was quite straightforward: with a strength of approximately 40,000 men (who had now answered the call to arms again), the Royal and Catholic Army would launch a simultaneous four-pronged assault on the city, from the north, the east and one across the river from the south. One exit from the city was to be left open to encourage the defenders to flee.
On 28th June 1793, Charette opened the attack as agreed with artillery barrages from the south, his troops meeting stiff resistance as they tried to advance. Surprisingly however, there was no co-ordinated gunfire from the army to the north and east as expected. Stubborn resistance from outlying defensive points had held up Bonchamps' advance. In the evening, feeling the whole attack had gone awry and running short of ammunition, Charette withdrew his forces, without making any attempt to communicate with the other columns.
Canclaux was able to reinforce the northern and eastern garrisons with those from the south.
The next day the remaining columns attacked. Progress was slow as the Nantais were well dug-in, many buildings having been made into strong points. Unused to prolonged house-to-house and hand-to-hand fighting, perhaps expecting an easy victory like Angers, the Vendéen troops were hesitant, taking serious casualties.
Disobeying orders, the Due de Talmond closed the escape route for the defenders who were preparing to flee. Completely surrounded, they fought like men possessed.
Then came the great blow. In close street fighting, Cathelineau fell, mortally wounded.
Immediately, the attack faltered as the troops in his column began to retreat, followed quickly by the others. Without the so-called "Saint of Anjou" to lead them, the men would not fight, despite his deathbed pleadings and those of the other leaders.
The failure of the attack on Nantes had probably saved the Republic.

12. The Republican Response.
On 26th July, a member of the comité de salut public (the executive committee of the Revolutionary Government), Barère, made this speech,
"The Committee of Public Safety has prepared measures to exterminate this race of rebels, to destroy their farms, burn their forests and cut down their harvests, just as medicine uses fire and steel to destroy gangrene (..........) so must political medicine use the same methods and remedies. "
On 1st August 1793 the Convention in Paris ordered the total destruction of the Vendee Militaire.
Such was the rage against the insurgent region that the name of one Department was later changed from Vendée toVengée (Revenge or Vengeance) as were the names of sometowns to make them sound more revolutionary:

Chaize-le-Vicomte became Haute-Chaize
Fontenay-le-Comte - Fontenay-le-Peuple
Mouilleron-le-Captif - MouIlleron-le-Libre
St. Gilles-sur-Vie - Port-Fidèle
St. Hilaire-du-Bois - La Courageuse
St. Michel-en-l'Herm - L'Union-sur-Mer
St. Paul-en-Pareds - La Régénérée
St. Philbert-du-Pont Charrault - La Résolue
St. Sulpice-en-Pareds - La Fertile
L'île de Yeu - L'île de la Réunion

In 1795 the original names were readopted, largely for military reasons, but also as a gesture of reconciliation
At the same time, any Republicans remaining in the region were ordered to leave, adding to the flow of these refugees who were already regarded with suspicion by the authorities - a number of rebel spies had been found, usually carrying passports for the republican and Vendéen zones. Whilst many cities did their best to accommodate them, others were left penniless and unhoused or were simply arrested and became forced labour.
With Nantes safely in republican hands, the insurgent region was effectively cut off from the outside world and surrounded by ever strengthening republican forces that could attack from whichever direction they chose, putting the rebels constantly on the defensive.
However whilst the Vendée Militaire had a finite number of men who could bear arms and who could not be replaced, the Republic could continue to send more and more troops to the area, slowly wearing them down. Though they could continue to win victories within the region, the Vendéens would eventually be overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers.

The Vendée Militaire would literally bleed to death.

Though not immediately apparent to all, this situation was clear to some of the generals (particularly Bonchamps) who knew that the region could not continue to fight on alone indefinitely and who foresaw it effectively being squeezed like an orange by the surrounding forces.
Their situation was still being made worse by the constant and continuing squabbles amongst the Generals who were even more inclined to stay in their own little areas. Attempts to reunify the command failed again.
Before the Vendéens could recover from their defeat at Nantes, General Westermann, coming from the south-east, chased les Blancs out of Parthenay in a night attack (the rebels almost never put out guards at night, even when ordered to, leaving themselves wide open to such attacks).
His troops then captured Châtillon (nowadays called Mauléon), the political and emotional heart of the region, with its printing presses, reserves of ammunition and supplies. The town was also the seat of the Vendéen Grand Council, an embryonic governing body for the region, made up largely of civilians.
As an augury of things to come, Westermann adopted a scorched-earth policy as he advanced, with its accompanying devastation. The chateau homes of the La Rochejaquelein, La Durbelière, and Clisson, residence of Lescure, were both sacked and burnt, as were villages and farms on the republican route.
Particular targets were the thousands of windmills throughout the region, essential for grinding flour in the days before electricity. Perched high on hills and therefore visible for miles around, Vendeen troops used their sails to indicate the presence and. whereabouts of the enemy and to order assemblies of troops (see page 105).
For the sake of the morale of their followers, the Whites had to recapture Châtillon immediately.
The counter-attack by 25000 men was quick, unexpected and merciless. Westermann lost 4000 dead and wounded with the same number taken prisoner. The artillery and baggage train together with many of his troops, who had panicked, fell to their destruction in a ravine.
In all the Vendéens now held over 60,000 prisoners, a serious drain on food and other resources. Most were simply liberated, after being shaved, whether they promised not to fight in the area again or not, and given a safe conduct to their own lines. Needless to say, the Republicans did not recognise promises made to rebels and pressed them back into service immediately.
Mindful of the danger of allowing the region to become encircled, Bonchamps now attempted to break out and establish a second front on the north bank of the Loire, linking up with rebels in Brittany. He therefore attacked Angers again. But the city, reinforced, rallied and he failed. Other attacks on Doué and Thouars (again) to the east failed.
Similar attempts were made against Luçon in great flat plain the south-west, with a view to obtaining a route to the sea, but again the 40,000 Vendéens failed to break out of the gathering ring of steel, in three hard fought battles. These defeats were largely caused by the unwillingness of their leaders to cooperate in the field, as well as the army's inexperience at fighting set-piece battles.
The noose was tightening.
There were now something over 150,000 republican troops surrounding the area including the Armée de Mayence, led by Kléber, experienced front line troops and probably the toughest fighting force available to the Convention, sent to reinforce existing units and to act as the executioner of the Vendéens. Ironically these troops still wore the white uniforms of the Royal Army because blue ones were in short supply.
However as with all republican troops, each soldier wore a red, white and blue cockade in his hat, symbol of loyalty to the Revolution.
Their orders were quite simple: destroy the Vendée Militaire completely - to achieve no less than the total genocide ordered by the Convention.
However before that they had to defeat the rebels, which was no small matter.
On 8th September, the advanced guard began sweeping down the west coast from Nantes, often marching in ranks with fixed bayonets, with Charette's army retreating in good order before them.
This however was a new and total war - villages were pillaged and burnt, women raped and massacred. Any men caught were slaughtered like animals. Following the fighting men were the "vautours des champs de bataille" (literally, "vultures of the battlefields"), scavengers who bought plunder from the soldiers for next to nothing and finished off anyone left alive after their passage.
However despite stunning victories against republican columns advancing from the south and east, including the Armée de Mayence during September at Torfou, Coron and St. Fulgent the Vendéen forces were gradually forced to concentrate in the Cholet area.
Much of the fighting was now hand-to-hand or using the bayonet, the results bloody. Angered by reports of the brutality of the Mayencais, Les Blancs themselves (who up to that time had been very generous with their captives,) became more brutal, taking fewer prisoners and committing revenge massacres, notably at Clisson.
Their successes however owed as much to the disorganisation of the republican high command and to the interference of the political representatives as to Vendéen prowess and bravery.
But the rebel generals recognised that they were dealing with a different, tougher enemy who had renewed heart. They also knew that a decisive battle was imminent and tried to make plans contingency plans in case of defeat.
What to do? Where to go?
Some leaders wanted to turn south, back into the Vendée Militaire, others wanted to cross the Loire, to abandon the whole region to the mercies of the Republic and make common cause with the rebels in Brittany. Or to obtain aid from the British.
This view was argued strongly by the Duc de Talmond, who had joined the rebels after the capture of Saumur and who had immense estates further north around Laval which he was desperate to liberate from republican control. His plan therefore contained more than a modicum of self-interest.
The war council decided to stay in the region.
But, true to the pattern of disorganisation in the high command, a minority managed to get the decision reversed the next day and sent a small, advanced force to secure a bridgehead on the north bank of the Loire.
If they lost the final battle the population of the Vendée Militaire would abandon their homeland and cross the Loire. But to do what? The aim remained unclear.
Meanwhile advancing republican forces burned Chatillon, Tiffauges, Clisson and Montaigu.
After an indecisive battle at Mortagne, a strong defensive position abandoned when Lescure was mortally wounded, the Vendéens retreated to Cholet. Instead of garrisoning the strong points and defending the town however, they again retreated 17 kilometres further north towards Beaupréau, for reasons that remain unclear. Were they short of ammunition? Was de Talmond's influence predominant, taking the army towards the Loire? Were they worried about the numbers of civilians in Cholet, or the morale of the troops?
On the 17th October, the army turned back to Cholet, sensing perhaps that this was the final battle, the battle for the Vendée Militaire, for their homes and lives. From the distance came the sound of cannon fire as de Talmond and 4000 men attempted to force a bridgehead over the river. Already some civilians were fleeing in that direction.
Some 30-40000 soldier peasants lined up, parish by parish behind their parish captains.
On the right, La Rochejaquelein with the Forest of Cholet at his rear, on the left D'Elbee and Bonchamps. Facing them, 27000 republican troops of whom 12000 had marched all night and were exhausted.
Tired, unsure and demoralised, La Grande Armée Royale et Catholique went into battle, without the usual psalm or hymn singing, without the sound of trumpets, barely even speaking and without their usual battle cry of "Rembarre', ("Into 'em") as if knowing the importance of the coming fight.
The initial charge of La Rochejaquelein's troops forced the Republicans back so that his forward troops were in the suburbs of Cholet, almost breaking the enemy line. Kléber then threw in his reserves under Haxo who gradually forced the Vendéen back.
On the left, there was a similar picture of success, then a republican rally.
The fighting was long and bitter, lasting all day, mainly hand-to-hand in thick smoke, the Vendéens unable to use their sharpshooters. Even the grass in the fields burned.
Bonchamps and d'Elbée charged and charged again until, at dusk, caught in a trap set by Kléber, their troops were cut down by a sudden barrage from hidden artillery.
The peasant army broke and ran, pursued initially by republican troops who killed without mercy, though they were too exhausted themselves to go far.
The Battle of Cholet was lost.
And perhaps worse, d'Elbée and Bonchamps, the only real strategists on the rebel side, lay mortally wounded, the latter reputedly shot by a musket ball from his own ranks. A traitor in the ranks? History is unclear.

Full Civil War.

2010-01-19T09:23:00.000-08:00

8. Sweeping All Before Them.
Initially, the different Vendeen armies, called "Les Blancs" after their white banners, swept all before them in their own regions, as small towns fell like ninepins. The sight of a massof peasants approaching or the sound of the tocsin in the adjoining parishes produced panic amongst the defenders and remaining republican sympathisers.
Chemillé fell, Cholet, a strategic target, fell, Clisson besieged by 20,000 men, fell. And Montaigu, a fortified town that prepared to defend itself by placing cannon on the old walls, fell because the peasants were able to enter the town via a series of forgotten, undefended tunnels linking the town chateau with the countryside.
Then Machecoul, in the marais, where a sinister massacre of Republicans took place. The island of Noirmoutier was taken as well as the port of Pornic. However, Paimboeuf, the deep-water port of Nantes was ignored, a serious strategic error.
Only Les Sables d'Olonne, strongly Republican, the key to the coast and eventually reinforcements, defeated the efforts of the Les Blancs.
There were almost no front line republican troops in the region, as they had been sent to defend the eastern frontier of the country. The remaining defenders (called Les Bleus because of the blue colour of their uniforms), often inexperienced National Guardsmen or garrison troops, were put to flight, though some resisted well enough for a while.
Occasionally, the tactics used were dubious. Advancing on a town, Les Blancs pushed chained republican prisoners to the front, usually dignitaries from the area, to dissuade Les Bleus from opening fire. This threat did not always work!
Angers and Saumur quaked with fear. Had they been occupied, the road to Paris was open. Right up to the gates of Nantes, which lay helpless, marched the Vendéens, but the largest city in the region and a strategic prize beyond price remained untaken. Had it been occupied, emigré groups waiting in England could have poured in men and supplies in support.
But that was not the way of the popular uprising - the peasants had few aspirations beyond chasing the Republicans out and being left to return to their parishes to lead life as they saw fit.
In the south of the Vendée Militaire, at La Guerinière, on 19th March, Les Blancs won a great victory. A relieving column from the Armee de La Rochelle made up of 2200 infantry, 100 cavalry and eight cannon, sent from La
Rochelle towards Nantes under the highly respected General Marcé, was first surrounded in a wooded valley, then massacred by the Vendéen troops who lulled, the enemy by singing their own version of the revolutionary Marseillaise.
Marcé was eventually guillotined for his failure.
In an attempt to trap the Vendéens in a pincer movement, the Republicans sent up to 40000 troops scavenged from units on the eastern front, into the region from the south and north-east. They were not always happy to know they would be fighting in the Vendée Militaire. No doubt wily line officers were only too glad to take the opportunity of unloading their troublemakers and cowards.
With them came units made up of "idealistic volunteers" from the streets of Paris, "sans-culottes" ready to "enforce" the revolutionary word by whatever means. Alongside them too were those whose motives were rape, pillage and profit. They marched with money in their pockets, becoming known as "héros à 500 livres" (500 pound heroes), named after the sum they were promised if they volunteered. Few lived long enough to enjoy this largesse,
They suffered some significant defeats, notably on 11th April at the "Grand Choc de Chemille". A republican column was however able to retake Machecoul and Noirmoutier which was "fined" 100,000 livres, effectively cutting off the Vendée Militaire from the sea.
Les Blancs easily took Bressuire, capturing a large supply of arms and ammunition, also liberating two noblemen and former soldiers held prisoner in the dungeons of the fortified city. These were Lescure and Marigny, both to be outstanding commanders in the Vendéen army.
Then on 5" May Thouars, with its magnificent fortifications and heroic past, fell to the insurgents who managed to scale the walls, opening up the route to Saumur, the republican headquarters in the north and the Loire, as well as the largely undefended route to Paris. Besides arms and ammunition, a treasury of over 500,000 livres made up mainly of gold and silver objects stolen from churches was taken. The victors celebrated.
But instead of pursuing the strategic goals of crushing their enemy and toppling the Revolution, the Vendéen armies turned back, giving up their territorial gains. The key towns they had taken were left ungarrisoned for the Republicans to reoccupy and fortify, despite the urgings of Bonchamps, who saw the stupidity of the move. But the other Generals doubted that their men would follow them beyond the confines of the Vendée Militaire for fear of leaving their homes and families undefended. Besides, most had no grasp of military tactics and only wished to clear their own areas of the oppressor.
Instead it was decided to relieve the pressure on the small Armée du Marais under Charette which was being severely harassed, by attacking in the south-west of the region.
After taking Parthenay the army moved towards the lovely Roman and Renaissance town of Fontenay-le-Comte, the rich administrative and cultural centre of the Departement de la Vendée. Strategically, it was the key to Niort and La Rochelle. Losing such an important place would be a major psychological blow to the Republicans.
But the Vendéen army was melting away again as the soldier peasants returned to their homes, often carrying significant booty, with only 7-8000 continuing the march. Instead of moving directly towards Fontenay, the army spent two days attacking and sacking La Chataigneraie, giving the republican, forces time to organise.
A major choc took place at Pissotte, just outside Fontenay, in which the Vendéen forces were defeated, losing 600 men and most of their artillery, including the mascot cannon Marie-Jeanne. This was followed by eight defeats in ten days round the area for les Blancs, by a republican force under Chalbos.
However the Catholic Army's losses were minimal as many of their soldiers simply fled the battlefield, fading away into the countryside, ready to fight again, whilst the Republicans celebrated.
The Vendéen generals, conscious that to lose battles would lose the support of their troops, immediately announced a major call to arms. 40,000 men responded, swearing to recapture Marie-Jeanne. And in a major battle two weeks later on the same battlefield at Pissotte, the republicans were roundly defeated, losing 3000 prisoners.
On 25th May, decorated with flowers, the old cannon was pulled triumphantly through the streets of Fontenay right into the main church. 240 prisoners, many under sentence of death, were freed. Several hundred Republicans were guillotined whilst those spared, including the military prisoners, had their heads shaved, a mark of shame in an epoch when the hair was worn long. They were then released after swearing fealty to the King and never to fight in the Vendée Militaire again. A simple passport document acted as a laissez-passer out of the area.
The town was pillaged, with public records again attracting particular venom. To regain control of their troops, who were threatening to go too far, the Vendéen generals announced a call to arms outside the town.
Finally after the battle, the Armée du Centre and the Grande Armée formed a joint High Command, but faced with total disarray as to their next move they split up again, and on 28th May evacuated the town, again leaving no garrison. The republican army reoccupied it the next day.

9. "I'm going to change my shirt"
There were still no clear objectives to the campaigning, no overall plan or even command. On only one occasion was the entire Vendéen army united in a single attack. More seriously, conquered territory was being given up again and again, enabling the Republicans to gradually surround the region with strong points that were never to be retaken
In addition, the fighting men still owed their loyalty to their village captains who in turn approved the general. If these men disapproved of a planned military action, neither they nor the fighting men from their parish would take part. And although there was now a small nucleus of regular troops who formed the centre of most attacks (mainly deserters from various republican units), most soldiers would still not stay in the field for more than a few days. After a battle, they would typically announce,
"Je vais changer de chemise." I'm going to change my shirt,
meaning that they were leaving the campaign for a while to return home to tend their fields and look after their families.
Battles were not fought in the accepted military manner, disconcerting the republican generals, giving the Vendéens many of their early successes.
Where they could, they fought a hit-and-run guerrilla war, ambushing and shooting at the enemy from behind hedges and from forests, the sharpshooters decimating the enemy lines. General Turreau of whom more later, reckoned that the Vendéen marksmen killed ten men for every one of their own hit - officers in particular were prime targets.
With their enemy totally disconcerted, the Vendéen troops then charged head-on, with extraordinary courage and reckless for their own lives, shouting and screaming, blowing huge rams' horn trumpets, wielding their sharp blades with deadly effect.
When threatened, these same troops disappeared, racing along the hidden paths and by-ways of the area, down which the republican troops were too terrified to follow, then regrouping elsewhere.
The hardiness and determination of Les Blancs, coupled with their intimate knowledge of the area in which they were fighting, enabled them to move with great speed across country, so often catching the enemy unawares. A large force spotted in one place could simply be gone in an instant, then reappear just as quickly at a different location.
It is worth noting that the Vendéen officers who had been trained in traditional warfare in the royal armies made some attempt themselves to make the peasant soldiers fight differently, and may thus have inadvertently contributed to a number of their defeats. Only Bonchamps gave his troops formal military training.
In open combat, the rebel army proved less effective. It was, for example, impossible to make the various units manoeuvre in the accepted manner.
Before going into open battle the peasant-soldiers received a blessing from their priests, who usually stood with their backs to the enemy's fire. There is no evidence that these brave men actually took up arms, but rather they were present during the battle to encourage the fighting men, to help the wounded and administer the last rites wherever possible.
As the republican artillerymen applied a burning match to the touchhole of their cannon, the Vendéen soldiers threw themselves flat on the ground so that the shots passed harmlessly overhead. Before the guns could be reloaded, the foot soldiers would jump to their feet and charge the enemy line that was already being peppered by the lethal sharpshooters. Their own generals and the best fighters always led from the front.
In open battle the main attack was usually led by the nucleus of regular troops in each rebel army who were invaluable in piercing the enemy lines and protecting the leaders, often very exposed on horseback (one reason why so many were killed). The fighting was intense and at close quarters, with blades and bayonets doing most of the damage.
However, when their attacks were unsuccessful, the Vendéens would tend to falter and if not rallied quickly, would then disperse, particularly when enemy cavalry units appeared behind their positions or if night was falling. Whilst this meant that wasteful loss of life was avoided as the men would reform and fight another day, it also meant that winnable battles were lost for little reason.
After a victory, Bonchamps' troops recited their rosaries whilst the "Moutons Noirs" (Black Sheep, named after their dyed, sheepskin waistcoats) of the Armée du Marais drank, sang and danced.

10. Ephemeral Victories.
Having almost swept the opposition from the region, the Vendéen forces then moved towards strategic Saumur, the republican headquarters. The town was taken easily on 9th June, thanks to their speed of the advance and co-operation from within the town, as either spies or sympathetic citizens opened the main gates, let prisoners out of the jails and spiked the heavy guns. For once the Vendéens had prepared the attack well, even taking care to cut down trees which could be used to block the roads, in case they had to retreat. Caught off guard, with many soldiers carousing in the town taverns, the republican forces fled towards Tours and Angers, spreading fear as they went. 1,500 defenders died, 11,000 prisoners were taken along with 80 artillery pieces and 15,000 rifles - booty indeed.
Faced with potential resistance from the well-fortified town chateau, the Vendéens sent forward an emissary, accompanied by the wives and children of those inside. The surrender was immediate.
Finally the leaders of the different armies came together for a council of war, to try and agree their next move. Some, notably Charette, wanted to move west, to capture Angers and Nantes, which would give a vital access to the sea and reinforcements from the British Navy and the emigré army said to be waiting in England.
Nantes whose fall would have been a crushing blow to the Revolution, was also the key to Brittany where there was already a substantial resistance movement.
Other generals wanted to move towards Tours and Paris to try and topple the Republic, hoping that the Departements they crossed would also give support. But their leaders again doubted whether the bulk of their men would follow their leaders out of the region, leaving their homes and families to the mercy les Blcus.
Recognising the need for a unified High Command, a general-in-chief was at last chosen from amongst the generals - Cathelineau, the former hawker, regarded almost as a saint by his men and one whom they would certainly follow to the death. He was also the only man that all the senior command would trust as they would not trust each other.
Again, this delay cost dear. By the following day the bulk of the fighting men considered they had fought enough and that Saumur itself was the end of their campaign. Within a few hours the strength of the army fell from 30,000 to 10,000 as it advanced, leaving behind barely enough men for La Rochejaquelein to garrison the town.
Even with these reduced forces however the Vendéen army entered Angers without a fight. The terrified garrison fled without resisting to towns up to fifty kilometres away, again reinforcing the message of death and destruction.
But, because of the shortage of troops defending it, the republicans regrouped and easily retook Saumur.
Fatally now the Catholic and Royal army dithered in Angers for a week giving Nantes time to prepare for the onslaught.
They could not have known that it was to be the apogee of the fortunes of the Vendée Militaire.

Part 2 - A Time of Hope

2010-01-17T11:40:00.000-08:00

5. Resistance Begins
Throughout the Vendée Militaire, the peoples of the countryside refused to denounce their priests, despite the searching of their homes and interrogations (even children were roughly questioned). Rewards offered for their capture generally failed to produce results. Angry peasants besieged local councils when they tried to implement search orders amid increasingly violent scenes.
By the middle of 1791, religious fervour and. mysticism had begun to grip many areas, particularly les Mauges. Large numbers (up to several thousand were recorded) of people went on candle-lit, night-time pilgrimages to holy sites in the area, including sacred oaks, as well as to the many new ones that began springing up.
Strange visions were reported, and miracles. At Chatillon a statue of the Virgin was said to have turned on its base. At Somloire a mentally retarded child began prophesying the future, discovering the past, whilst at Saint-Laurent-de-la-Plaine, the Virgin Mary appeared in an oak tree.
Deprived of their priest who had been captured and exiled to Spain, the faithful of Saint-Hilaire-de-Mortagne held des messes blanches (white masses). They gathered, (usually in the open), at a certain time and held a service on their own, as if the priest had been present, knowing that he was holding a service for them, at that time, in his exile.
Aware that religious fervour and mysticism were often the forerunners of serious social unrest, the authorities sent National Guards to break up the processions and to destroy many of the symbols that had drawn the crowds, often at the point of a bayonet. Others were taken forcefully to urban churches where the Guards could control access to them. The result was to exacerbate the situation.
Efforts to introduce the new priests met with less and less success and they often had to be accompanied to their new posts by National Guardsmen. The truts would often find that their church had been stripped, the ornaments carefully hidden, the presbytery defaced, even daubed with excrement or that the church doors had simply been nailed up against their entry. And that the congregation, generally so numerous, had evaporated.
On their arrival in a parish, most truts were met by angry, armed crowds, who either chased them off or gave them a thrashing. Many were stoned and a few killed.
Desperate, the National Guard attempted to force the people to be baptised, married or buried by the new priests. Non-compliance was punished with whipping and public humiliation such as making women strip and ride through the community sitting backwards on a donkey. These efforts also failed.
Tension mounted and bloodshed became inevitable.
The first serious episode seems to have been at Saint-Christophe-du-Ligneron at the beginning of May 1791 where a troop of three hundred National Guards fired on a group of about forty villagers protesting against the imposition of a new priest. The result was four killed, including one Barillon, whose last words have become a legend. Almost dead from his wounds and hanging onto a local cross for support, he was ordered to surrender
"Rends-toi" (Give Up)
He replied,
"Rendez-moi mon Dieu" (Give me back my God)
At about the same time, a group of nobles together with their families and a few retainers had gathered at La Proustiere near Les Sables d'Olonne to raise the country in revolt, but their plans, ill-conceived and confused, had been betrayed to the authorities. Their efforts were quickly defeated by republican troops. Most of those involved fled abroad but a few went into hiding and later joined the uprising.
In August 1792 the first major violence occurred in the region of Bressuire when a force of several thousand peasants from surrounding parishes, giving both religion and refusal to do military service as their excuse, rose up and sacked most of the government and municipal buildings in the area. Particular targets were recruitment centres and registers of the population as well as the homes of administrators and republican sympathisers.
Their revolt was put down with the loss of five hundred lives.
Many rebel prisoners were simply killed out of hand with unforgivable brutality by National Guards troops. The noses and ears of the dead were cut off and made into necklaces, worn publicly by the "victors" as souvenirs, a sad precursor of the barbarity to come.

6. Popular Uprising
The abolition of the Monarchy and the establishment of the Republic in September 1792 had been preceded by the massacre of 1200 prisoners (mainly priests and aristocrats) in the Paris gaols by the city mob, as the Revolution lurched towards an increasingly violent future. Yet neither these events, nor the guillotining of King Louis XVI on 21st January 1793 seem to have made any practical difference in the Vendee MilUtaire. However the long-term psychological effect was to persuade many rural folk that the threat to their lives could only be met with violence. There was no way back!
In 1793 the popular uprising began in earnest.
In January, groups of armed peasants began chasing away tax collectors and refusing to be considered for service in the National Guard.
In February the Government announced the military call up of 300,000 men to defend the eastern frontiers of the country against the alliance of Austria and Prussia. Several thousand of these were to be taken from the VendeeMiliiaire region. In the absence of sufficient volunteers, lots were to be drawn to see who would serve.
In the Departments of Western France this was the last straw. Why, it was reasoned, should the men be obliged to defend the new Republic, "La Nation", that was destroying their way of life and causing so much misery and to which there was no local loyalty? Besides married men, most National Guards and fonctionnaires were excused military service, a detail that only served to fan the embers of revolt in the region. These, after all were the very people who were oppressing the rural world.
As the news spread, the response was immediate and violent throughout the Vendee Militaire. Military recruiting centres were immediately attacked by groups of several hundred, often young, men wielding mainly stout sticks or simple farm implements. Public records were destroyed and the few National Guards who tried to resist were chased away after being disarmed. Those unwise enough to open fire were killed.
The new bourgeois were again a target, particularly those holding public office or known to hold republican sympathies, their homes being pillaged and property stolen.
In Cholet, for example, a mob disarmed the few National Guards present, but only after three Vendéens bad been shot, several badly wounded. At St. Florent-le-Vieil, faced with cannon fire from a determined National Guard unit, the mob simply kept advancing. Four were killed, 48 badly injured, but the town was taken, republican homes sacked and 20,000 livres (pounds, but worth much less than the modern British pound), stolen from the public treasury. The attacks over, the peasants returned to their homes.

7. The Vendéen "Army" Is Born
Initially there were no leaders of what was a spontaneous uprising in the whole region. At the sound of the tocsin, the men simply left their fields, their villages, their families and occupations, marching together as a parish, usually following their traditional leaders, called parish captains. Many hunted priests also came out of hiding to join their flocks who often carried with them crosses or holy vases. On the road, psalms and hymns were sung, prayers said.
Sometimes, none too gently at the point of a bayonet, reluctant villages or even whole parishes were forced to join in the march.
Mobs of thousands began to assemble as the parishes came together, carrying lethal, razor-sharp scythes with the blades reversed, hunting spears, knives attached to sticks and a few old hunting rifles, whatever was available.
Republican sympathisers fled for their lives, mainly to the illusory sanctuary of the large towns. Leaving their property to the mercy of the angry peasants, they spread tales of mayhem and murder that terrified the bourgeois and quickly reached Paris.
But by now the initial, spontaneous outpouring of anger was turning into a CRUSADE as the Vendéens realised that their only hope was to chase Republicanism out of the region.
The rebels began searching for leaders, preferably former soldiers who had the experience to organise them into a fighting force. For these they turned to the aristocracy, many of whom had served in the royal armies and had either retired or resigned their commissions at the time of the Revolution.
In addition the Vendéens also sought out charismatic leaders whom they were prepared to follow blindly if necessary.
To Gigost d'Elbee they went and to Charles-Melchior de Bonchamps. Both minor aristocrats, the former a retired cavalry lieutenant, the latter a retired infantry officer who had fought campaigns in Europe and India. Reluctantly they agreed to join the fight "unto death" - both were to die.
To Henri, comte de La Rochejaquelein they went. Aristocrat and former sub-lieutenant of Polish cavalry and the King's guard who was only twenty years old and whose family was to give so much to the revolt. He was threatened. He shed tears of anguish, but agreed to lead. His legendary motto:
Si j'avance, suivez-moi,
Si je recule, tuez-moi,
Si je meurs, vengez-moi.
(If I attack, follow me,
If I retreat, kill me,
If I die, avenge me.)
To Francois Athanase de Charette they went. Aristocrat and former naval officer, he hid under his bed when the peasants came to find him. He was to fight longest of all, earning an almost mythological status in Europe, then bravely faced a firing squad. To the peasants he said:
Soit! Mais je commande et on m 'obeit! Celui qui n 'obeit pas, je lui casse la tête.
(I will agree to lead you, but I give the orders and you obey. If you don't I'll break your heads.)
And others like the Marquis de Lescure and Rene Bernard de Marigny, or Sapinaud de la Rairie, a former infantry officer who was threatened with death twenty times if he did not join. He was to be the only senior Vendéen general to survive the wars. Danguy, aged 63, almost blind, who was forcefully lifted onto his horse.
More sinister was the Prince de Talmond who returned from exile to lead the cavalry. Did his self-interest lead to the destruction of the Vendéen army?
Some non-aristocrats were chosen like Jean Nicolas Stofflet, former soldier and then gamekeeper to an aristocratic family, one of the first to join the revolt. Proud, stubborn and tough, an excellent soldier who fought to the bitter end but was eventually betrayed.
And Jean Cathelineau, called the "Saint of Anjou". A hawker and carter who was approached whilst making bread for his large family. Not a soldier but a charismatic leader whose death was to be a sad turning point for the Vendée Militaire.
Even a fervent Republican, citizen Gelligné of Saint-Aignan was forced to lead, under the threat of long knives taken from a grape press.
Amongst these men there was often fierce rivalry so that effectively a unified high command was seldom possible. Each was prone to act on his own initiative, his men loyal to their region and reluctant to move out of it because it meant leaving women, children, villages and farms defenceless.
And within each army there were dozens of minor local leaders again jealous of their commands and reluctant to cede any of their authority, whom the peasant soldiers knew and trusted and to whom they gave their loyalty.
Dressed as men, a number of women also joined the fighting bands. Most famous was Renée Bordereau who already had a reputation as a smuggler of that precious commodity, salt. She fought in four of the uprisings and was one of the few survivors of the Virée de Galerne, eventually dying on 20th July 1822. Often leading her own troops, she was famous for her ferocity and her sang-froid in battle, even chopping off the head of her uncle who was fighting for the republican side, because she believed him responsible for the death of her father. She was reputed to have been seriously wounded three times and to have had three horses shot from under her. Following an interrogation in September 1809, a gendarme wrote:
"This woman is both ferocious and dangerous and should be locked up!"

Four major "armies" established themselves, each very regional in character and identity:
l'Armée du Marais in the west (up to 10,000 men); (under Charette)
l'Armée du Centre (up to 5,000); (under Sapinaud)
l'Armée d'Anjou (up to 15000) (under d'Elbee and Bonchamps)
l'Armée du Poitou called la Grande Armée (up to 40,000). (under la Rochejacquelein and Stofflet)
And there was a subtle change in the aims of the war as the aristocrats infiltrated their own agenda. The new battle cry, inscribed in gold on their white battle banners was
Mon Dieu et Mon Roi (My God and My King)
This loose alliance of forces became known as
La Grande Armee Catholique et Royale.
(The Grand Catholic and Royal Army)
But how to organise and train this mass of men from scratch, how to set up this army and supply it with weapons, munitions, food, clothes - the list was endless.
Money had to be raised quickly. At first the problem solved itself as the Republican Treasuries in each town were seized. From Fontenay-le-Comte for example over 900,000 livres were taken.
It was symptomatic of the "unworldlyness" of many Vendeen peasant soldiers that they did not initially recognise the value of this paper money, as they began using it for lighting fires and even wrapping pilfered sweets. Had most been able to read, they might have realised what was in their hands. Fortunately the officers were able to intervene before too much damage was done.
There was even a serious suggestion that a loan of 300,000 francs might be raised in Nantes!
But shortages of money were to be a problem throughout the uprising, eventually replaced with promissory notes and simple promises in good faith.
Food, particularly bread, and other items were requisitioned. Republican supply columns were easy targets.
After disastrous experiments with wooden-barrelled cannon, quickly abandoned, the artillery was almost all stolen or captured from the Republicans. In the first two months of the uprising, the Republicans lost 300 artillery pieces, many of which were stored in fields, unusable until appropriate ammunition could be procured.
Unfortunately the lack of skilled artillerymen on the Vendéen side mean that their guns had little effect. And many of the peasants, scared stiff by the noise of artillery had to be trained not to run away when the guns were fired.
Some of the larger guns took on an almost mystic symbolism for the superstitious peasants who believed they would bring victory just by their presence. Drawn by oxen, these went into battle garlanded with flowers and were given names like Missionaire, Marie-Jeanne, Brutal.
The need for adequate small arms was urgent - republican armouries were emptied, National Guards relieved of their muskets, bayonets, ammunition and swords. Many peasant soldiers "won" their arms on the field of battle.
Ammunition factories sprung up in many locations, notably Cholet, manned amongst others, by captured artificers and artillerymen working under guard, using lead stripped from church buildings, old bits of metal, old nails, even stone to make shot.
When desperately short of ammunition the Vendéens even exchanged food and wine with the starving enemy for powder and shot.
However ammunition always remained in short supply, most again being captured from the opposing armies. In 1794 Stofflet even went so far as to steal ammunition held in reserve by his fellow general, Sapinaud.
A chaotic and largely ineffective cavalry was born, using horses taken from the Republicans, called the marchands de cerises - The Cherry-Sellers. Apart from those owned by the wealthy and those used for coaches, there were few horses in private hands amongst rural folk who had little use for them. For saddles, saddlebags; for stirrups, ropes made from wheat straw; for boots, wooden sabots (clogs). And instead of a cavalry sabre, a clog-makers knife.
And at the heart this army, the people of the Vendée Militaire, not soldiers but labourers, farmers, tradesmen, journeymen, deliverymen, artisans, craftsmen, drawn from the whole region.
A relic from the past perhaps, deeply tied to the land, religious yet deeply superstitious. Loosely bound together by a wish to be apart.
There were no uniforms, so they wore what they had - a simple jacket of country cloth and baggy breeches, crude leggings and clogs or bare feet. Their headgear, rough felt hats with enormous brims to keep off the elements when working outdoors or a simple red handkerchief from Cholet. Around the necks often a cross or rosary.
But determined, tough and totally fearless in their cause, not afraid of death or hardship and when necessary, ruthless. With one eye always for families left behind, their crops, the harvest.
They received no pay, marched on a pocketful of bread or what could be scavenged, lay down and slept in the fields, covered only by an old blanket - and when any eau de vie or wine was captured, drank themselves senseless or danced the whole night (and then fought all the next day).
Sewn on the clothes of almost every man was the enduring symbol of their struggle for liberty, a red heart surmounted by across on a light brown background, Le Sacré Coeur.

2010-01-16T11:36:00.000-08:00

2. Changing Times
But as the rural areas and smaller towns lay slumbering in their mediaeval torpor, change was about to burst upon them, with unforeseen and tragic consequences. Two cultures, the one, rural, harmonious and introverted, the other, urban, educated and forward thinking, eager for new ideas, were about the clash headlong.
By 1789, the growing prosperity that France had known since 1730 had disappeared, as abundant harvests forced down the prices of produce. In 1785, drought and a subsequent lack of winter feed caused the slaughter of huge amounts of livestock. The wheat crop of 1788 was destroyed by hail, and the winter that same year was exceptionally hard, freezing the rivers so that the mills could not turn, causing a shortage of flour. Famine stalked the land.
In addition, foreign competition and trade practices were overwhelming French industry, throwing thousands out of their jobs. Unemployed workers wandered the country, part beggars, part thieves, creating panics by their presence, causing the peasants to take up arms to protect themselves. In Paris alone there were well over a 100,000 paupers in a population of just over half a million, many close to starvation.
And the coffers of the State were almost empty, drained, amongst other things, by the long war in America against the British, which is said to have cost the staggering sum of £125,000,000.
This unique combination of events together with the restlessness of the middle classes was to lead directly to the explosion that shook Europe to the core and to the tragedy south of the Loire.
By 1788 King Louis XVI, having all but bankrupted the nation, needed to raise money urgently. His credit with French bankers and international moneylenders was fast drying up and he did not dare raise taxes further for fear of civil unrest.
His attempts to spread the tax burden and force the nobility and large landowners to pay their fair share (many were almost exempt) through reform of the tax system were defeated by an alliance of the aristocracy and bourgeois. This led to recrimination and violence.
Finally, in May 1789 the reluctant King was forced to agree to summon the Etats-Généraux, (a kind of national parliament) to obtain consent for his reform plans. It had not been called for 150 years.
Traditionally, this was divided into three 'orders', which were supposed to represent the orders of society in France: the Nobility, the Clergy and the Tiers Etat. This was obviously an out-of- date picture of French society as 90% of the population fell into the Tiers Etat.
The elected representatives of the Nobility gathered, determined to force the King to share his absolute power with them and to reinforce and protect their own feudal rights. Whilst many were prepared to pay a greater share of taxes they were unwilling to share their political power with the other orders.
The representatives of the Clergy gathered, sharply divided in their aims. Some wanted to obtain a share of power for the Church or share it with the nobility. Others, the so-called lower clergy - the priests who ministered daily to their flocks in town and country and who lived in relative poverty, wanted not just a fair wage for themselves, but change for the people, to give them a better life.
The Tiers Etat, elected throughout the country came to Paris. The majority of these representatives, called, as they are still today, députés, were drawn from the bourgeois class. Two thirds were either lawyers or had legal qualifications of some sort.
They were determined to seize this chance to finally obtain the hold on political power so long denied them and which they saw as their due, as well as institute reform of the creaking feudal system.
Particularly, there was a determination to achieve a constitutional monarchy and constitutional liberties, as well as sweeping away the bloated powers of the aristocracy. Many too were keen to curb the powers of the Church.
Each group carried with it the cahiers de doléances for their region. These were books of grievances, really petitions to the Monarch, drawn up locally throughout the country, after consultation with the people and were supposed to form the basis for debate in the Etats Généraux. The common thread
running through them was the need for root and branch reform.
The cahiers for the Western Loire (few actual examples have survived, thanks either to the subsequent Civil War or to later wilful destruction) sought major constitutional, social and legal change, having been largely drawn up by those with a strong interest in these changes, bourgeois political activists.
As most of the country folk were illiterate they would have been unable to read or write the petition, though they might have been able to sign it.
There is little evidence that they were interested in constitutional or other major reform, but rather in improving the conditions of their daily lives, particularly in paying less tax.
The list reached every corner of day-to-day life in the country.
Many wished to see the abolition of the milice, a locally constituted military force that took men away from their homes for several months at a time on military duties. The choice of individuals was made by drawing lots, though the wealthy could pay someone else to take their places.
Others sought the abolition or easing of traditional taxes such as la gabelle, a heavy tax levied by the State on salt (a vital commodity for preserving food in the days before refrigeration). Or capitation, a tax levied on individuals, which was not paid by the nobility. Many attacked the dime, a percentage of the harvest paid to the Church. A few wanted the resale of monastic lands as many religious orders had degenerated and no longer served their original charitable purpose.
Most traders wanted the abolition of customs posts on regional boundaries, farmers, the freedom to choose the mills to grind their wheat instead of being tied by their landowner's choice, tenants and small landowners the right to hunt on their own lands. Even though they owned the land, the right to hunt was reserved for the nobility. Other demands included removing the tax on leather, the provision of medical services, teachers in each parish, and the establishment of a fund to help the poor.
Thanks to their larger voting power and an alliance with the representatives of the lower orders of the Clergy, as well as through the King's political ineptitude, the Tiers Etat was able to take over the sitting of the Etats Généraux. This had the effect of marginalising the Nobility, effectively destroying their power.
The Tiers Etat then went on to claim sole authority in matters of taxation.
Exasperated at this usurping of his traditional powers, Louis XVI attempted to dissolve the Etats Généraux, but it refused to disperse, to the famous words of Mirabeau:
"Go tell your master (i. e. the King) we are here at the will of the people and that we will only be driven out at the point of a bayonet"
Though the King did not acknowledge it, effective power was now in the hands of the Tiers Etat representing those who had for so long been excluded from the political process.
Some rich aristocrats and members of the Royal family began to emigrate immediately, unwilling to see their privileges disappear.
Angered by what they saw as Royal intransigence and attempts by the King to regain power, fed up with high prices, shortages of food and unemployment, on 14th July 1789 the people of Paris and the local militia, egged on by the radical bourgeois, stormed the Bastille, a hated symbol of oppression. They freed the seven prisoners it contained and laid their hands on a considerable supply of arms and ammunition. The Paris mob then became the real arbiter of power.
The real French Revolution had begun.

3. Reform
Over the next few years, massive changes took place in all walks of life as the old feudal order was swept away, touching every "citizen" (who were no longer subjects of the King). A Constitution was drawn up, as well the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Amongst other things these documents guaranteed freedom of religion and political thought. They were, alas, to be honoured in the breach.
New administrative areas were created (Départements, divided into Districts, Cantons and Communes) which became the basis for civil administration. The law, taxes and even religion was reformed and reorganised. Elections were held for the new posts of mayor and local civil servants and even judges, frequently pitting supporters of the Revolution against local aristocrats.
In most of bigger cities and small towns, the bourgeois grabbed power from the nobility who continued to emigrate in greater numbers. Some, including those too poor to leave the country, lived quietly on their estates, whilst others embraced the new order or became involved in anti-republican activities. In Vendée, out of 242 nobles whose actions are known, 182 emigrated, 26 served or accepted the Republic whilst only 34 took part in the eventual uprising.
However, simply being born into the nobility became dangerous as the revolutionaries became obsessed with largely imaginary plots by the aristocracy against the Republic. Many nobles had to go into hiding if they were not to be imprisoned or worse. As émigré lands were subject to confiscation, unscrupulous individuals took advantage of their apparent absences from their estates and had the lands declared forfeit - to themselves.
The State coffers however were still empty and the need for money was great, both to reorganise the country and to defend the frontiers against invasion. The old feudal tax system had been abolished and the new one, based, on fairer taxes for all was not functioning well,
To raise money, the Government decided to confiscate and sell most of the land and property owned by the Church and religious orders. Many churches and country chapels, seen by the local fonctionnaires (state and local government employees of various types, largely supporters of the Revolution) as being surplus to need, were added to the sale. Overt opposition from the Pope as well as less openly from the King failed to change the Government's mind.
The lion's share of this giant asset sale was bought not by the nobility (though Queen Marie-Antoinette did buy former Church lands) or the peasant and small farmers, but by the bourgeois, keen to enlarge their land holdings and able to pay for their purchases in cash.
Pushed by more extreme politicians, largely rationalists, who were keen for both practical and ideological reasons, to see the power of the Church substantially reduced, even abolished, the Government decided to create a French Catholic Church, owing loyalty to the French State, and not to the Pope in Rome. In addition, the old religious orders, many of which had fallen into decrepitude, were abolished and their members turned away,
All priests were to be elected by their communities and salaried by the government (which was the least the State could do, having taken away the very lands and taxes which paid their meagre wages). The effect was to turn priests into fonctionnaires
In addition and more contentiously, before being allowed to take up their duties, priests had to take an oath of loyalty to the French Republic, swearing to uphold the new Constitution. For many the clash of loyalties with their duty to Rome was too much.
Those who failed or refused to do so (les refractaires) were not legally able to carry out their functions and had to forfeit their parishes in favour of those who had sworn the new oath, les assermentes, known in Western France, pejoratively, as les truts.
Finally, the old locally-based Civil Guard system for dealing with internal dissent and maintaining law-and-order was replaced by a new National Guard. This force drew its officers largely from the new bourgeois classes and its manpower, at least initially from the towns and cities. Its function was to carry out the Government's bidding.

4. The Rural Reaction
The rural world saw the Revolution as a mixed blessing, welcoming the sweeping away of the frequently onerous feudal taxes and levies as well as duties owed to the landowner. Many also gave a cautious welcome to the sale of Church lands as an opportunity to better their own holdings.
However, by 1790 their enthusiasm had begun to evaporate as it was realised that many of the changes were not for the better. With the disappearance of feudal duties had also gone feudal rights.
Heavy-handed implementation of many reforms by local administrations, often employing the National Guard, caused rapidly growing resentment and anger.
The peasants found themselves governed by new, unfamiliar institutions, and by a tiny minority of petty bourgeois who now formed the bulk of the elected and non-elected officials. Whilst some owed their position and allegiance to the Revolution through conviction, many had also purchased church lands, giving them, a strong vested interest.
The new councils, struggling to implement the masses of new laws emanating from Paris, often made unpopular and contradictory decisions, many of which were blatantly illegal, whilst those controlled by extremists sought to push revolutionary ideas and fervour further and further.
Indeed, the whole Revolution quickly became more extreme and less tolerant of any opposition, particularly after January 1793 when threatened by insurrection in several regions and by the forces of Holland and England on whom France had declared war. The revolutionaries reasoned that war was the one way of uniting the disparate elements of French society into a whole and of forging loyalty to the new concept of the "Nation".
In addition to being generally inexperienced in their new roles, the elected fonctionnaires often spoke only the language of the educated classes, French, whilst the bulk of the rural world spoke only their own local patois. The two were mutually incomprehensible.
These problems were often highlighted at the level of the new District Councils. Frequently several rural parishes were grouped with a small town, which tended to dominate affairs through its bourgeois and revolutionary minority, further alienating the country areas.
Very quickly, the rural majority found they had exchanged a feudal overlord whom they knew well, for new masters who had little understanding of their needs, habits and traditional ways. And who regarded the rural folk and their culture with contempt, seeing them as hangovers from the past, ripe for imposed education and change.
In addition, already angry that they had not been able to purchase more than a very small share of the ecclesiastical lands, many farmers now found their new secular landlords to be much more demanding than their predecessors as rents increased sharply or their leases were terminated.
With the abolition of feudal tithes payable to the landowners, most peasant farmers believed they would no longer be taxed at all. But the new tax burden was heavier than before and kept increasing. The ceiling for land taxes for example which had been set at a maximum of one sixth of income increased to half whilst that for personal taxes increased from an eighteenth to a quarter.
Taking advantage of the uncertainty of the times, many rural dwellers simply intimidated the tax collectors and refused to pay anything.
Exasperated, peasant farmers began refusing to sell food to government buyers as their prices were too low and the promissory notes used for payment quickly devalued. Many too had no wish to supply a government that was seen as oppressing them, taking away their rights and attacking their rural culture.
The towns and cities began to starve, leading to riots and looting as the food distribution system broke down. The premises of anyone thought to be hoarding flour and food were attacked and even ships on the Loire had their cargoes stolen.
National Guardsmen were sent into the rural areas to requisition food from the reluctant farmers, further exacerbating the situation.
Great opposition too was generated by clumsy attempts to change rural religion. The country folk did not want their rural chapels sold off for barns or factories, nor did they relish seeing their much loved church bells taken away to be melted down for coinage (each parish was allowed to keep one only).
Groups of revolutionaries called La Societe Ambulante des Amis de la Constitution (The Travelling Society of the Friends of the Constitution) criss-crossed the countryside preaching the advantages of the new Reason-based, almost deist, religion over the old, sublime and irrational. Others openly preached atheism. The peasants generally gave them short shrift.
Mysteriously, rural roadside crosses and other traditional religious monuments including the sacred oaks, often the sites of local pilgrimages, were destroyed in the night by revolutionary fanatics or by over-zealous communes anxious
to remove anything to do with the old religion which might become the focal point for agitation.
Real fury however was generated when the Government finally ordered the replacement of revered and respected refractaire parish priests by assermentes, many of whom came from the abolished religious orders and did not even speak the local patois or understand the rural "way of religion".
In western France, 70 - 90% of priests had refused to swear the new loyalty oath and in the country as a whole 46,000 out of 70,000. In addition, 153 out of 160 bishops also refused.
The National Guard was employed to search out and imprison (generally in hideous conditions) the refractaires, many of whom were subsequently banished (over 200 left the Vendée alone) or killed. In turn the rural population resisted the installation of the new priests, both actively and passively.
The greatest number of these banished priests went to England, which sheltered 10,000. Spain received 8,160, including most of the contingent from the Vendée Militaire, whilst others went to Switzerland, Germany and even Canada.
Those who stayed behind were essentially outlaws, hidden by their loyal parishioners who refused to acknowledge the truts, to attend their services, to be baptised or married by them, largely because they doubted the authority of their offices. Many preferred to attend clandestine services held deep in the woods at night by the refractaires, word of whose presence was passed by word of mouth and who were protected by armed peasants.
The bourgeois on the other hand seem to have been quite at ease with the new priests.
Anxious to ensure the purity of the Revolution, to ensure the implementation of its laws and to counter any opposition, the Government, now led effectively by Robespierre sent representants en mission (the equivalent of parliamentary commissioners) into the regions. They were given unlimited powers to oversee local authorities and the military, and to report back to Paris on problems in the regions.
Most had little or no contact with the rural majority, listening instead to local patriotes (supporters of the Revolution). Often fanatics, these men fed back to Paris the most one-sided and lurid tales of the state of the country. Later, particularly when accompanying military units into action they were frequently responsible for overriding the authority of military commanders in the field and ordering the most violent and shameful incidents.
Their reports spoke in very alarmist terms of insurrection and counter-revolution, of plots by the aristocracy and by priests to overthrow the new Republic. Particularly they imagined British and émigrés involvement, with the English Navy landing arms and spies along the coast.
In reality there was almost no evidence of this. The country people were opposing the imposition of change for which they saw no need and in which they had no part. Too much was being done too quickly without preparing the people for it or explaining the reasons.
As a result of these reports and appeals from the largely republican local administrations, National Guard units were stationed in the villages, further exacerbating the already strained relationship between the rural folk and their "rulers".

2010-01-15T07:14:00.000-08:00

- Background and History

1. The Area, The People
The Vendée Militaire, as it became known, (Map 2) lies south of the Loire, takes in the Départements of Maine-et-Loire and La Vendée as well as northern Deux-Sevres and the southern part of Loire-Atlantique. It stretches from the ancient towns of Saumur, Thouars and Parthenay in the east to the Atlantic coast in the west, from the banks of the Loire in the north, to Renaissance Fontenay-le-Comte and Luçon in the south.
Geographically it is an area of wide contrasts and historically its peoples were (and still are) as different as chalk and French cheeses.
On the western coast have always been fishing and trading communities, who look to the Atlantic and beyond for their prosperity. Traditionally they provided the crews for the French Navy. Their enemies had always been the English, largely in the form of the British Navy, whom they had fought for supremacy of the sea throughout the world, during countless wars.
Many had fought with French forces on the side of the rebels in the American War of Independence and had seen at first hand the birth of the new Republic. Broadly they welcomed the Revolution.
The immediate hinterland is flat and marshy, the great Marais Breton and Pays de Retz, huge marshes with rich, reclaimed farmland and forests, broken up by canals, deep drainage ditches and dykes, making access difficult for outsiders, easy for those with local knowledge to move around. Its people were introverted and private, lovers of wide-open skies.
They knew the hidden routes and paths through the marshes and were highly skilled in the use of small boats (called nioles) for getting about the maze of waterways and rivers. For moving swiftly from dyke to dyke they simply jumped across, pivoting on long poles (lingues). Renowned as skilled hunters and superb shots with their ancient hunting muskets, their later reputation as lethal snipers and sharpshooters made them feared by the enemy.
To the east, the Bocage, perfect country for guerrilla warfare, a heavily farmed land of gentle hills and hidden valleys, with many woods and forests, criss-crossed by hundreds of streams that turned to torrents in the frequent rains. Its thousands of small irregular fields around which the tracks that passed for roads in the area twisted and turned, were protected by deep ditches and high, impenetrable hedges. Many of the villages hidden down these primitive lanes had remained unchanged for centuries.
The farmland was fragile but fertile, needing careful management, supporting one of the highest population densities in France. However, a couple of bad harvests meant that famine could still strike the land.
The system of crop rotation meant that after a couple of seasons cropping, fields were planted with genets (a type of broom), which grew impenetrably thick and high. Then they were allowed to lie fallow for five years. At any one time, a substantial number of the fields were planted in this way. Many refugees from the violence were able to hide deep inside these plantations and escape the attentions of republican troops.
Further to the east, the Haut Bocage, and the Gatine, high plains with colder winters and a more begrudging, rocky land, its people harder and unforgiving of wrongs, again a place of small thickly hedged fields and mysterious unmapped by-ways.
To the north, Anjou and les Mauges, a wide high plateau broken up by steep rocky valleys that could hide whole regiments and which were perfect for ambush.
And to the south, suddenly discovered in the space of a few kilometres, La Plaine, wide-open, flat, rather boring country with huge fields, stretching as far as the eye can see, with yet another huge marsh, Le Marais Poitevin leading to the coast. Both these areas remained staunchly Republican throughout the wars.
Unlike other parts of France, many of the peasant farmers in the Vendée Militaire were relatively well off. Their lands were self-sufficient, very intensely farmed units dedicated to raising and selling cattle at the many traditional markets in the region (a practice stilll widespread throughout the area).
In consequence the farmers dealt amongst themselves and were largely independent of animal dealers and moneylenders. Food produced in the region not only fed the towns and cities on the circumference, but also travelled by road and water (along the Loire and via associated rivers or canals) to such places as Paris, and even to the Mediterranean.
In the north of the region, the production of grapes for wine, also largely sold to the capital, was paramount.
As with many other areas, craftsmen often combined their skills with working the land. Ownership of a piece of land, however small, meant independence, so this was the ambition of most landless families. There was much competition to purchase when any became available.
The region has long been inhabited, first by prehistoric peoples (there are still a few complete megaliths that have not been broken up because they were in the way or because the stone was useful). Then, after the long Roman occupation, followed those people, for example, Visigoths, Arabs, Normans, the English and even the French themselves, who spent centuries fighting each other in the political and religious wars that eventually led to the forging of the French nation.
As a result, the region is full of often rebuilt churches and chateaux in many different styles, and any number of evocative ruins. Many of the missing stones from these buildings have gone into the construction of the towns, farmhouses and peasant cottages nearby where they can often be spotted.
Until Napoleon took a hand, there were few major roads beyond the Routes Royales, which joined the large towns situated round the periphery of the area ( Map 2.). The rest were largely narrow twisty tracks with not enough room for a cart to turn. In summer they were dusty and rutted, and in winter made impassable through mud or raging streams, which swept them away. Many villages could be effectively cut off for months.
Because of these inadequate roads, much of the region was isolated, not only from the rest of France and the currents of change, but also from itself.
So it remained inured in its own introverted traditions -religious, social, agricultural - and resentful of outside interference in its ways. Most peasants remained illiterate, regarding reading, writing and advances in medical science with suspicion. Even agricultural development, so necessary if French farming was to move forward, had failed to penetrate the region.
News and ideas from the outside world spread via the mass of travelling merchants and salesmen who went from market to market throughout the area. In addition, the Vendéens were great long distance walkers, used to going miles to market. This attribute was to prove a significant factor in their military success.
Loyalties were very local, largely within the parish boundaries, or those immediately adjacent. The concepts of Paris and La Nation (i.e. the French Nation) were too distant to have any real force or relevance, often seen as interfering with local life.
The essentially feudal relationship between the Church, the Nobility and the smaller farmers and peasants had remained largely harmonious for more than a century, thanks to the region being agricultural and prosperous.
Particularly strong was the devotion of the country dwellers to their rather old-fashioned form of Catholicism, a major focal point of their lives. This sat easily with pre-Christian traditions of sacred oaks, sacred places, holy vases and image worship (though the images were largely Catholic ones) and a completely irrational terror of the dark.
In the large towns on the perimeter like Nantes, Angers, Fontenay-le-Comte and Luçon, lived the wealthy, educated, professional and merchant classes, influenced by the American Revolution and by the reforming ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Their culture and thinking had almost nothing in common with the isolated rural areas of the Vendée Militaire and there was certainly no interchange beyond the commercial.
It is interesting to notice that rural areas in La Plaine, which had increased social and commercial intercourse with cities such as Niort and Luçon, as well as the area immediately adjoining Nantes, did not join the insurrection, remaining loyal to the Revolution, though sometimes provoked by republican troops.
Nationally, absolute power still remained in the hands of the King and great nobles. Locally, the aristocracy, lived cheek-by-jowl with their peasants on their estates, but maintained hereditary power. Despite the "purity" of their blood and antiquity of their titles, many were very poor, for all their pretensions. Others had acquired their titles either through money or other more dubious means and were known as the "petite noblesse". There was a tension between the old and new aristocracy.
The Church too, living off its huge landholdings, both in the countryside and in urban areas, also managed political and social affairs with an eye to its own interests and was not keen to share this hold on power.
The emerging and wealthy bourgeois middle-classes that effectively controlled the economy of the country had become increasingly resentful of this archaic political and social system. It effectively excluded them from the running of national or local, affairs, whilst at the same time extracting heavy taxes to finance the extravagance of the King and Court. They resented too the land and property holdings of the Church and Nobility, seen as impeding the growth of their own wealth.
Broadly speaking then, the inhabitants of the larger towns were supporters of any change which would enable them to grab power, whilst the countryside was largely immutable.
Apart from the traditional moans and groans, nobility and peasantry lived largely in harmony, content to operate a system sanctified by time. If rents were low and their income consequently reduced, the methods of production often antique, at least there was time for such pastimes as hunting, protected on the seigneurial (aristocratic) lands.
The small plot of church land which the local priest and his predecessors had cultivated since time immemorial not only provided food for the poorly paid (sometimes unpaid) incumbents but also gave them a tie with the same land as their parishioners.

An Unacknowledged Genocide

2010-01-13T16:34:00.000-08:00

I have decided to put several chapters of my book online for fun and to stimulate interest. It will come in sequential, chapter-length chunks. I hope you enjoy it.

Civil War and Genocide in the Western Loire

Introduction

In the spring of 1793 the population of the Western Loire, took up arms against the French Revolution that was destroying their way of life, but also increasing taxes and demanding more and more young men for military service in foreign lands. A wave of incomers had taken for themselves most of the land confiscated from the Church and the nobility and were running many of the communes in their own interest.
The response of the Revolutionary Government to this popular uprising was to order the massacre of the entire population and to try to turn the region into a desert, as an example to anyone else wishing to oppose them.
As a result, between March 1793 and December 1794, up to a quarter of a million inhabitants of what became known as the Vendée Militaire were brutally and senselessly killed by military units, both irregular and regular, sent by Paris.
Nobody knows for sure how many troops and others from the republican side died because nobody bothered to count their bodies when throwing them into communal burial pits (one hundred thousand seems a reasonable estimate).
Many villages and towns were so totally destroyed and depopulated that for years they were inhabited only by packs of wolves and wild dogs fighting over the human remains rotting in the streets.
The people of the Vendée Militaire fought with such courage and tenacity in an essentially hopeless cause, against superior numbers and resources, that they earned the admiration of Europe. The Emperor Napoléon said, "it was a war of giants" and that he "would have been proud to have been born Vendéen".
Even when supposedly at the mercy of their enemies, their army totally destroyed, this brave people rose off their knees and fought a ferocious guerrilla war for their survival, forcing the French Republic to sue for peace.
The Civil War in the Western Loire has spawned no triumphal monuments to Victory because in truth there were no winners. The new and first French Republic may have carried the day militarily in the end, but in doing so, it besmirched its soul with that most horrible and unforgivable state crime, Genocide.
This act of genocide, perhaps the first in Europe, was committed by Frenchmen on Frenchmen, in a land where the Declaration of the Rights of Man had just been passed into law and where the key words were Liberté, Egalité and Fraternité.
As a result one of the most populous and prosperous areas of France was laid waste, leaving a trail of disease, famine and misery, as well as a legacy of bitterness and distrust that lasted well over a hundred years and which still exists in some areas today.
There were, in all, five uprisings in the Western Loire between March 1793 and June 1832. The first two were against the Revolution, then two against Napoleon and the fifth in support of the Bourbon monarchs after they were ejected from the throne in the revolution of 1830. The direct cause in each case was an increase in central government sanctioned religious persecution and interference with the values of the area. It is said that some "hardheads" continued to resist until the 1850's.
Only the national demands of the First World War finally healed the wounds and reconciled the region to the rest of France.
But even after almost two centuries of determined republican education in schools which has largely suppressed the Civil War and distorted its causes, the memory lives on in the region and perhaps grows stronger.
It is present in those few memorials which Republicans have allowed to be erected; in the ruined or partially rebuilt chateaux that dot the area; in discreet plaques placed on buildings and in fields, marking the site of hideous crimes against humanity, as well as in the unique testament to the Civil War - the stained glass windows of the regions churches.
And more powerfully, despite official and semi-official attempts to deny or distort the historical record, particularly the extreme brutality of the republican troops, the history lives on in the folk memory of the region's people.
So, when a piece of ground was being cleared on the isle of Noirmoutier, officials chose to ignore the folk legend that it was the site of a major Civil War massacre. Hundreds of skeletons were unearthed, still bearing the evidence of their violent ends, and reburied in a local churchyard.
At Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne, folk memory spoke of the hideous massacre of most of the parish - apologist historians denied it. In 1863 the site of an ancient ruined church was cleared and the remains of hundreds of victims discovered. In 1874 a manuscript was found in the roof of a local house bearing the names of the 564 victims, compiled by the refugee parish priest who had come across the scene and recorded the names of his dead flock whilst administering what rites he could. Many historians still chose to deny the events or the authenticity of the document.
Even today, archaeologists, working against time to record historic sites ahead of the construction of motorways, find unmarked and unknown grave pits into which bodies were hurriedly thrown by the hundreds, to avoid the spread of disease and perhaps to hide the horror of what wTas taking place.
Such was the rage of Robespierre and the Convention in Paris at the popular uprising that from the end of January 1794, for nine months, the entire region was criss-crossed by mobile incendiary columns, whose sole purpose was the destruction of every living thing in the area, as well as the means of survival or making a living. One column commander reported proudly that his troops had "sent 600 people behind the hedge"(i.e. killed) in one day.
In their eagerness to punish the simple farmers and peasants, who had defied them, even the name of one Departement was changed from Vendée to Vengée (Vengeance).
Only after Napoléon took power was an uneasy peace and pacification eventually achieved, but at the price of further repression under his Chief of Police, Fouché.
However such was the remaining tension and distrust as well as general lawlessness that twenty-five thousand troops had to be permanently garrisoned in the region. Had these men been available, the balance might have been tipped in favour of France at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. But they were busy putting down another uprising in the Vendée Militaire, but this time instigated, armed and partly paid for by emigrés and the British Government.
The Western Loire was not unique in opposing the aims of the young Republic. In 1793 almost half the country was in arms against the Revolutionaries (see map below).
The aims of the different regions were however not always the same. Some were avowedly Royalist, others engaged in a fratricidal war with the ruling clique in Paris, either because they disapproved of the influence of the "sans culottes" (people of the streets), or wanting power to return to the bourgeois. Still others were more Federalist in approach, wanting power to be spread to the regions.
The citizens of Toulon even went so far as to hand the city over to the British who were eventually removed thanks in large part to the artillery fire of a young officer named Napoléon Bonaparte.
In every case, opposition to the Revolution was crushed with great cruelty, particularly in Lyons where the name Fouché became synonymous with terror.
However nowhere in France was the insurrection so determined or so long as in the Vendée Militaire and nowhere was it repressed with such ferocity and barbarity.

Necessarily I have had to be brief and select only a fraction of the information available - I have tried to choose what is readily accessible to the visitor, but to anyone with the will to explore there is so much more to discover around almost every corner.
I have also had to compress the complex issues of the French Revolution and the war in the Vendée Militaire into a hundred odd pages and may have erred on the side of oversimplification. For this I apologise in advance.
If readers should sense that I have shown a little partiality towards the people of the region, they are right, but I hope this minor bias will not spoil your enjoyment of this text.

Hope at last!

2010-01-12T16:18:00.000-08:00

Well it has been a long silence and numbers of you have contacted me to find out why, so here goes (this is the shortened and expurgated version): At the end of September I was returning from Belgium, after a delightful ten days in the hilly French and Belgian bit of the Ardennes, and cheerfully working my way round Paris on the little roads when the engine on my camping blew up, or rather seized, which left me by the side of the road with a buggered CC, two dogs, a duck and a snake - not ideal for hitchhiking.
It was towed in of course and then out again. Because there was not hire vehicle available to get the menagerie and bits from, roughly, Marne-la-Vallée village to the Vendée. So we had to sleep on board but not inside the garage perimeter as it was patrolled by dogs at night who pulled huge blokes around with them.
Not a good night, not just because I was having fits about the costs but also because it was the kind of area where stuff gets nicked. You don't believe me? Well, ten yards from me in the filthy car park was a Brit plates CC who had gone shopping a hundred yards away and come back half an hour later to find that all his back lights had been pinched.
So, I cuddled the iron bar and kept my legs closed round my jewels and man bag with all the papers and cards in it, and kept the dogs a bit hungry. Funny how many vehicles came and went, strange night creatures. In the end I read the History of Sicily until dawn.
This was coupled with a very nasty bout of family in-fighting which led to the the alienation of one daughter.
And the last chance for the love-of-my- life and I to patch things up!
As a result lots of anger, depression, and bottles of wine.

Being positive I popped along to the company who had sold the vehicle which was perhaps still under guarantee. The director was most concerned, helped get an independent expert, at his cost, looked at all the possibilities, which took about six weeks. Then crunch time; he and his company were not responsible in any way but he would make a token payment of €600 towards a bill of nearly five figures. He was very keen for me to get the repairs underway.
The eureka came as he was shaking my hand; the bastard was trying to screw me.
That night I went on a French CC forum and one guy said immediately that I should use my household policy legal protection and get the lawyers involved. So I stopped the repairs and did just that. Relief.
So far there have been three site visits to find and agree the cause, and later this month there will be a fourth, with a neutral expert and present will also be anybody who had anything to do with the CC at all, which seems to include uncle Tom Cobbley's horse. And my expert seems to be something of a legal thug as well as knowing his engines, which is a relief.
Just maybe the CC might be on the road by the middle of Feb. Which had better bloody happen as I am going absolutely nuts, having nearly had a nervous breakdown worrying about the costs. Now, I might get some money back at least.
So, I shall no longer be a nice guy when it comes to dealing with companies; I know my rights now and will go at then with a nastiness they have not even dreamed of in their worst nightmares, and like all good and sensible French people, I shall get experts and huissiers and go at it like a rottweiler on speed because they are out there trying to screw me.
And, dear readers, is the story so far.
However, I have decided to start blogging again, beginning with a few chapters from a book about the Vendée War and some nice little bits I have tucked away. UNTIL I CAN GET ON THE ROAD AGAIN!

Great Italian Admirals

2009-09-06T14:19:00.000-07:00

An aristocratic Genoese by birth and of a great ruling family, Admiral Andrea Doria won numerous sea and invasive battles in the Mediterranean, notably capturing Tunis, Koroni and Patras from the Ottomans but he got totally hammered by Barbarossa at the Battle of Preveza in 1538, giving the Turks dominance of the Grand Bleu for 33 years. But, his great fighting spirit lives on, oh yes, it lives on - on the Canal du Nivernais.
Now this is what I call a nice canal, nice condition, nicely navigable, nice locks, nice scenery and lots of rather big and nice boats. Frankly, after a night sleeping next to it, quite legally as not all the towpath is forbidden to camping cars, it is well, boring.
But it is popular with holiday makers who can wander the 180 kms of the canal's length at their ease, stopping off for a cycle ride or a walk in the abundant countryside, then return to their luxury craft to relax and wander on.
Of course, getting under lowish bridges and through locks does require some minimal skills and every year there are accidents as boats attack bridges and damage themselves, removing chunks of hull with gay abandon. It is covered by insurance and most people accept it as a fact of life.
And then came Andrea Doria and his mate, Andrea Doria II; oh boy.
Well, first, they were Italians, the heads of two families, with pretty, well presented wives and something like four kids per family. Therefore a bit traditional and Catholic perhaps. And they had decided to holiday on the Canal de Nivernais with a bicycle each for 'health', which they stacked at the bow of their plastic-fantastic cruiser.
And they has decided to do the whole canal at speed.
I 'met' them, so to speak, as I was reading the Fall of the Roman Empire, in a nice comfy chair with the dogs tethered and moaning, and a nice chilled rosé in hand, by the side of the canal, near a bridge.
As were they.
I first heard a noise, like bees, then birds buzzing and squawking, which was interesting so I looked up and there they were. One big boat, a babble of men women and children all of whom waved and laughed at my preferred glass.
But the admiral had spotted the bridge and ordered all hands; all except madame moved who continued to film. He ordered the crew to man the sides and began to oversteer so that the boat made bigger and bigger lurches side to side and he turned the wheel more and more. He was going flat out, and only eased back at the last minute.
I suggested that they might remove the parasol as the bridge was low and it high which caused a hurriies conference. Finally madame removed it with a wave of thanks.
They crawled under the bridge, losing I think a mop or a brush, shouting like a football crowd, the captain at least remembering to lower his head though I think someone told him to. The fenders died a death.
And then, off, flat out, to forget their shame.
Next morning, I went off slowly, zigzagging across the canal, exploring, and came across the modern locks and keeper who was waiting for a boat to come through. She weaved into view; guess who?
Different skipper, same result; they zigged and zagged and manned the sides and sort of squished into the lock. The lock keeper kept a straight face as he saw it daily.
Some eccentric Swiss cyclists took their lines and we all sighed with relief.
Apparently there are loadsa locks to come.
Blessss.
(my Flip mino will not let me edit the film so there is just a snippet shopping the admirals and a lady; the other lady is keeping the kids below lest they fall in)

3: South to Morvan and beyond

2009-09-06T10:53:00.000-07:00

In the forests of Morvan, unknowable things are hidden from the searching of human eyes. Strange writings appear at night on stones and disappear during the day; in the deepest darkest valleys, wild creatures, half man, half plant have been seen to walk, and laugh and sing. Their sound can be heard by people in villages far away which close their shutters tighter and draw their blankets tighter, clutching the children to their bosom lest they be spirited away.

So go into the park of Morvan if you dare, follow the little roads not on the map, feel the brooding beauty of the place, swim in the dark, dark lakes, get deep down unmarked tracks and feel the jealous trees reaching out to try and grab you, scratching the paintwork and bending the mirrors. But not leave the safety of your transport, do not walk in those dark places for you will surely be lost, your soul trapped inside a piece of amber, screaming unheard in the Cave of the Beings.

We went there and survived, wondering at its beauty, spending a night at Anost where the serving wench had such soft eyes that I thought she was a sapling of the deep forest come to tempt us, but served copious amounts of rosé and a decent pizza instead, and we slept in peace in a human village.

Then, slowly, to Autun, appreciated from prehistoric times for being a peaceful seat, facing south, sweet water to hand, a lovely town. And a place of light after the dark spirits of the forest.

With, of course, a stunning cathedral with some excellent stone carvings which is what I was after.

And I to sleep on the towpath by the Canal du Nivernais.

2: Across the Loire to Burgundy

2009-09-05T04:28:00.000-07:00

The road goes on and on and I am its prisoner. Somewhere in the valley ahead is the Loire

Backroaders sometimes find frontiers that motorwayists or redroaders don't; thus, the west east route has a series of river crossings which define different Pays or even, historically, different countries. 'Tis thus with the Loire.

Our crossing, was an entry into a different world: Burgundy.
'Twas hard to come there though as the river was in spate, the bridges long since swept away and there was civil war on the other side. Still, we managed to get a rope across the river, though it cost us a few bearers (note to self: remember to reduce food ration by five portions and only take bearers who can swim in future). Then we swam the oxen over in pairs and yoked them up to a raft we had made the previous day on which we placed the supplies and of course Carruthers who was ill yet again with Balihigh fever, though I am now inclined to believe it is syphilis.

All was well until mid-stream when a rain of spears fell on us and we were fortunate to get to the other bank with so few casualties. Bless you Mr Gatling and our own foresight in placing the gun on the bow of the raft. We could hear wounded attackers groaning in pain in the jungle. Pity some of the bearers got in the way, but we did the right thing and put them down of course, though to save ammunition we used a club (note to self: remember to reduce the food ration by 10 more portions and to get the blood off the travel trunks; leather does stain so badly).

At last, into Burgundy, a new country, rich and ripe for the exploring, and a region called Le Puisaye. So kind in the summer sun, so gentle, so friendly, backroading heaven, with ancient churches hidden in tiny villages in tiny valleys, often with an arbre de la Liberté, or hidden treasures such as the wall paintings below. Up in the lonely hills (just look at the map), some villages even with a full set of old fashioned shops; it was a pleasure to take morning coffee on a terrace and watch people going from shop to shop, crossing the square, chattering away, on a perfect morning.

And people seemed so happy to talk of their lives and environment, even do a little troc, as the delightful elderly lady who happily swapped a goodly pile of blackberries for some of my shallots.

But why, oh why, don't doesn't France look after its old buildings; I came across possibly the finest church wall paintings I have ever seen in a scruffy village, at a hot, hot lunchtime when people were guzzling heartily on the terraces of the local pizzeria, but the church was in decay. Reading the visitors book, it was clear that there was much anger directed at this neglect and aimed at the histroic buildings commission in Paris, but yet nobody can do anything about it.

Another old church which was unlocked for my inspection had been restored by a cowboy subcontractor, and as the proud old lady pointed out, they were not even allowed to clean the birdshit off 15th century monastery benches, complete with misericordes, which had been defaced by the Revolution and getting permission took three years!

And then to Joigny on the Yonne; it should be a lovely little town with a mediaeval centre, splendid section of river and overhung by vine fields. But no, the place was empty, sterile and oddly threatening, particularly the narrow lanes of mediaeval houses running up the hill towards the old centre. These were dark and seemed seedy, full of white vans, bikes and cars being repaired, dark corners with piles of rubbish bags, some buildings unkempt,smelling of cat piss. The contrast with other places was startling. We hurried away.

And spent the night in laagered encampment at the end of a steep, twisty lane that the locals said went nowhere, but was possibly the highest point in northern Burgundy, with the whole country splendid in the fading light, next to an old Roman road.

And in a cool autumn breeze, the dogs ran free, the rosé chilled outside, and as the light faded, families of sangliers appeared a few metres from us, and NO, Mildred there is no foto because sitting on the heads of two dogs going berserk, trying to shut the cc door and get the camera was too much. One half strangled bark and they were back in the forest.

We slept deep, accompanied by the sound of Roman legions moving north where there must be some trouble, some silent, some singing dirty songs about ladies' parts, some about their commander who seems to have the prowess of a randy elephant on the little blue pills.

Then early, we take the same route as those troops for 20 kms or so, a road in superb condition, thanks to farmers and plenty of flinty stone, with just enough grass in the middle to clean Missy's bottom a little. Wellllll, a girl needs attention!

The bestest sleeping place ever.

And then we turn south a little, to Chablis and flee fast. A rich little town with splendid wine and not a lot else. But in leaving we stumble on the valley of le Serein, a step back in time as almost every village oozes mediaeval character, topped by Noyers which seems to have been totally untouched by the centuries, except for the tourists, the tat shops and the sheer impossibility of parking a cc.

So we go to Epoisses instead where the dogs sulk and I rubberneck the chateau, once visited apparently by Good Queen Bess the Second, and meet a Parisian couple (yes, Mildred, I do speak to them), who spit out that the aristoctatic owner is also a banker; then coffee with a divine, young thing, all alone, blessed with the best bum ever and the smile of an angel.

And we travel onwards, without the lady who matters, but with Leonard Cohen to remind us of the dark and the light and the space between, and perhaps there are tears in our eyes too for the person missing. But that is another story.

East and easting with a fair wind at our backs.

2009-09-04T10:58:00.000-07:00

We struggled past Parthenay, Missy the camping car, two dogs and a snake, in a foul mood all of us, for different reasons.

The snake so because he had been stopped from slurping up the tadpoles when he went to the bowl to drink on a hot, hot day, and had hissed horribly until shown a recipe for snake soup. But then Irish Grass Snakes (the Gaelic actually translates as 'snake in the grass') can be a bit fractious if not given a firm talking to from time to time.

The dogs were peed off because it was so hot and I because I was becoming the Mariner

"The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone,

He cannot choose but hear,

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner.
'The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the lighthouse top.'"

And we were all driving through a place we knew well and did not particularly like, perhaps our bit of purgatory before getting to the promised land.

But then relief came suddenly from a really unexpected quarter, going up the hill into Mirebeau, when we were following, of all things, a tractor and trailor; the overpowering, rich, drugging smell of shallots, freshly dug and filling the trailor to overflowing. It entered my brain, took it, over, more powerful than pot, much deeper, closer to opium. I was lost, made no attempt to flee, followed to the farm and stood close as he unloaded, and he laughed and pointed to his nose as he too was taken. And he watched as I buried my face into the pile, a lost soul now. Then he gave me bagfuls to smell on the road, like glue, and we travelled onward on a the highest of highs.

And we were up and running,

To Loches.

A delightful town, clean, well run, good shops, including one which sold shooting sticks at a reasonable price, with a mediaeval heart that is, for once, well restored and loved. So many restorations in France are bloody awful. I was happy to get drunk there. And recommend it to you.

Next morning going due east, we follow the Road of Treasures, where every village, hamlet and field seems to hide a ruin or a chateau or a chapel or some place that is meat and drink to a backroader. Starting with this little snip, in the middle of a field that was a forest:

Mediaeval, restored, containing these beauties:

But what I liked is that this strange little chapel, perhaps originally a hermitage, has been the meeting place of lovers for so long, lying in the damp grasses or the forest, innocence lost and perhaps gained. And leaving their mark in the soft material of the walls a sort of marriage witness. The one in the foto below dates, apparently, from 1913, just the age to have died later in the War to End All Wars.

Then 'la Chatreuse' and Mr le Compte de Marsay in dirty jeans who has a good 700 hectares, andand

(http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartreuse_du_Liget)

but who was kind enough to let me fotograph this 19 century greenhouse which is magnificent but unused now:

And then we hid in the forests from the heat and fotographed the colours of the fields

And then to the Loire, but that story is for later.

The Belgians Are Coming, the Belgians Are Coming and I Am Worried

2009-08-15T03:13:00.000-07:00

Now don't get me wrong, I love the Belgians generally and have loved a good few specifically and long ago appreciated that making war is not their thing, as opposed to the subtle arts of compromise and political and economic corruption, into which cess-pools they dive with glorious unabashed gusto, from their Royals downwards, undivided by language barriers.
So, when the Belgians decide to go on the military offensive, I get twichy, not because I doubt their courage (there are plenty of incidents of that in the 2WW), but because they just don't belong there.
For they are sending a frigate, a glorious gunboat, against the pirates of the Indian Ocean. Now, you would think that these rapscallions who have been kidnapping ships for dosh might quake in their little boats and return to pot farming if they heard that HMS Vicious or Avenger or Warrior were arriving, but surely they will pipi their little pants with laughter when confronted by........ the good ship Louise Marie.
Imagine the loss of face if said pirates are forced to retreat or are captured by the Louise Marie. They will give up banditry in shame and rush to Calais to escape the ignominy heaped on them by the countrymen.
Which ship's name is not the only one to show just how unwarlike the Belgians really are; Other ships in the Belgian navy are called Aster, Crocus, Narcis, Primula and Lobelia. And there is even one that goes under the even more unlikely name of Barbara.
The LM will patrol in the Indian ocean, but will then hastily return to be back by 23rd December and Xmas. Ennit nice, so the lads and lasses don't miss out?
There in another problem too, that of the crew which is MIXED for Bobo's sake. This is not a racist statement as we might understand it, or a sexist one (18 percent sailorettes), but one of linguistics, for she carried 35-40% Francophones! This matters in Belgium where guns have been used to defend the linguistic border.
Whoa there Captain De Beurme, there is a slight irregularity there; how many Francophones, surely you have a better idea than 35-40%, or are some of them awol or being shy about admitting their linguistic affinity, or even better, by lying about it, they get additional pay for speaking the other language well.
But even more serious, what language will they speak on board ship? Most Flemish will not speak French and most Walloon can't can't speak Flemish. Will there be multilingual orders on this now polyglot frigate, starting with French one week and Flemish the next. Woe and behold if the single German speaker insists on his or her rights too.
Or perhaps, as in many mixed administrations, a translator or two for every sailor. The possibilities are endless.
How do you say in Flemish " There is a boatload of pirates with bloody great bazookas about to open fire from point blank range"? Which is then translated, the order retranslated, then action taken........ a bit late, for the pirate is by then on board and you are lying flat on the deck while he rifles your puckets, steals you shoes and then slings you in the clink (notably, a word from Middle Dutch klinken) or the brig.
Frankly, I am fearful that this wonder of the waves may turn out to be the first warship captured by the pirates - "Captain Abdelsalaam Blackbeard Terrorizes Indian Ocean in Louise Marie". No, even he would have had to change the name to المطرقة الله

On The Road Again (Part 4 - please scroll down for Parts 1-3)

2009-08-13T11:53:00.001-07:00

Onward, but not far in distance, as again I am made drunk by the richness of it all, this magnificant countryside, and feel the urge to fall into its arms.

We stumble, as ever, back onto the Canal du Berry, now disused, sometimes unwanted and destroyed by unthinking communes or taken by voracious farmers. Happily there is now a plan to save the remains for recreation. It was never one of the big wide French canals, but a narrow one in this area, which twisted and turned through le Berry, bringing prosperity to the region. The barges were not pulled by horses but donkeys. I notice there are loads of donkeys in the area too.

We find this

Is this the 'peace which passeth all understanding'? Oh Suzanne, you would have so made love on the tow path.

And then, as we am rudely awoken from a little afternoon snooze by the fellow below braying his heart out a couple of metres away (the last trump will be a donkey braying, I am sure), an old man wanders by, and tells a story which makes me look twice at this donkey, who is indeed worthy of our respect

For Charlie is much travelled. His owner, a flowing white-haired, old gentleman, got it into his head to go aroaming, so, he took himself first of all a long way north, to the borders of the Baltic. On foot, with Charlie to carry his kit. Following the pilgrim route. Then, they turned round and followed the route right down to Santiago to Compostella, then back to the middle of France.

Charlie is now a very old and much loved member of the family, living in a lovely field next to the canal and ready to roam or carry children any time, or talk at the fence, and makes his way daily to the owner's kitchen window and knocks to obtain his breakfast. He follows one metre behind the owner without a cord, like a well trained dog.

And so we must travel onward, completely enclosed in all this, lonely yet satiated, me, two dogs and Missy, the duck having met a drake and buggered off to do what a duck gotta do.

On The Road Again ( Part 3 - please scroll down for parts one and two)

2009-08-13T10:23:00.000-07:00

And you want to travel with her

And you want to travel blind

And you know that she will trust you

For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.

(Suzanne, Leonard Cohen.)

And I must travel onward and I must travel blind but is my Suzanne really behind me, now in another place and another life? Or is she there, mop of unruly hair, shyly waiting on the next corner with a slight smile and a large battered handbag with all she needs.

A good night by the river at St Amand Montrond, getting very stinky, chatty, raucous drunk on Roumanian wine (don't ask).

Good, clean little town though, on the remains of the Canal du Berry where we walk in the silence of the morning and watch old men at their vegetables and it crosses my mind that the strength of France is in these millions of veggie patches which feed the kitchens and the freezers of so many and without which ends will never meet.

Then onwards, a backroad somewhere near St Amand, and what a little beauty, just nestling there amongst the farmbuildings, leaving me breathless. The photos will speak for themselves:

And of this day there is so much more to add but this blog will only take four photos, so I shall have to do another to get them in.

On The Road Again (Part 2 -please scroll down for part 1)

2009-08-13T05:30:00.001-07:00

We climb to the dried out hills now, vast expanses of resting fields, seeking places to stop and rest, backroading an empty land with quiet and tiny villages, until, in the middle of nowhere, we come across the HLM of the future, the solution to France's housing problems, but what will happen if the wicked wolf huffs and puffs? Where will Rachida's Granny Riding Hood go then, pigs being unclean ?

The straw bail dealer is starting a factory nearby to make insulation panels from the stuff. Seems a good idea for non-smokers.

Always an exciting moment, we have changed maps, now Le Centre.

And onward, seeking a place to sleep, a little, unguarded, safe corner for the CC (called MISSY by the way), but, oh lovely fate, sweet moment and a pair of sharp eyes, there is this beauty way in the distance. Who needs sleep, this we gotta see:Screech of brakes, a little rubber on the road and a fast U turn in front of the startled village boules league. Down a tiny track, across the flat bottomed valley, no tractors thank Bobo as my reversing ain't so hot, and the thought of getting MISSY in a ditch is just too much.
A hamlet at the bottom of a hill and my treasure at the top, the Tour de Marmande. But access is difficult, so we do as ever and ask a local - actually a rather attractive local as it turns out, quite ready to chatter from her front gate, but I can hear a man grunting from a sty somewhere so am discreet.

The Tour is private property, she says, but if I climb the little track just over there, I can slip through the fence and have a look round, and the owners are usually not about. And oh what a sad story of family intrigue and in-fighting over the years as the tower and castle fall into disrepair, even the French State being rudely rebutted when they attempted to step in and restore. What they really wanted was to get some very silly, wealthy foreigner to buy it, as happened just down the road, so they could have loads of dosh and do bugger all to the place. And so the decay goes on.

It is though too late to go up to the Tour now, so MISSY and I chug just out of town, onto the topmost point of the Cher and stop on a track between the fields, somewhat gingerly, as we do not want to rub MISSY's bottom. The farmer's son doesnt mind and carries on harrowing as we walk in the cool of the evening in a wood.

But they were just too curious; the sight of a camping car on the high fields, all alone with a single man and two dogs was just too much, and as the dusk fell, so one brave soul decided to come and look "because my daughter said there was a camping car on the hill and I didn't believe her. She is about 75 and has brought her friend for protection, a friend who is huge and pulling her arm off and is held by what looks like frayed washing line. Half St Bernard and half hound of some sort, and filthy, and not prone to like my dogs. So we compromise; I put my dogs away and help her hold Baskerville while he curiousity is satisfied.

"Ah", she says, " My daughter wuz right. Tiz a camping car up 'ere on the field. But, you'm not frum roun 'ere, nouw, 85, that's Vendée." Simply a delightful old lady full of charm and curiousity, whiling away her widowhood with her daughter and son-in-law, wishing she could sell the house and have a smaller in the village but they won't sell, not that they couldn't as the farm has long been sold and they would also be better in town, but there she was born, trhe daughter, and there she will stay.

Baskerville pulls her home, a little more gently.

Next day, we climb that hill, round the Prop Priv signs, and in we go, but the owners are there. We hear then from a good distance, going at it hammer and tongs, about a honey pot I think, and where it should be put. My knock brings silence, and then two very elderly ladies peer round the door, both wearing seriously dirty dressing gowns. And yes I can have a look round, but only a little one. And they resume their rowing, these decayed remnants of a once wealthy family

Here is a little of what was there:

And another day, and a thousand treasures of which I can only see so few, but I am comforted by knowing that there will always be one more just yound the next corner.

On The Road Again(Part 1)

2009-08-13T03:59:00.000-07:00

Slipsliding away again, after rounding Parthenay, north-west, into the empty rather depressing land of the north Deux Sèvres; strange, small crazy-shaped fields, many unplanted apparently, granitic soil (I am told) and not too good as farmland. High unkempt hedges which cannot have been trimmed for years, kept that way, presumably, to break the winter winter wind that whips across this high plain. Not much sign of wealth (or even wealth lost or wasted) or comfort here in the houses or the equipment, just dourness. The contrast with the Vendéen Bocage is startling. I am uncomfortable and hurry on.

And so to St. Loup on the Thouet, my river of the moment because accessible and willing to talk of its past. Picture-postcard St. Loup, such a contrast from the uplands just left behind. Not a soul in sight, like the grave, and I wonder if the village is real or just some Disney park which forgot to charge an entrance fee. But no, it is a searing hot midday, and France is sensibly eating or bonking or asleep. So the dogs and I can wander uninhibited, and eventually rest under wonderfully cool plain trees by the river.

And on a building, a memorial of sadness to a child who once played in these streets, was sent to get bread by his mother, was maybe scolded for swimming in the river on just such a hot day, but who then went to a hideous death in some far off land, for the crime of trying to impose his values on some other culture. I wonder if he knows he is a saint, or whether he would have preferred to have been the carpenter I met who had been born, raised and worked within ten yards of his workshop in the village. And was happy.

Dipped my toe into pure gold!

2009-08-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

Only a five-day shakedown cruise in the camping car but what a trip!

Pure backroading without a map, almost never on a main road; in fact, starting at Thouars, I couldn't tell where I was or even how managed to end up somewhere south of Saumur, then somewhere east of Poitiers, and finally slap in the middle of the Brenne Marshes. And most of the time, not a tourist in sight.

Uncounted miles of gently sloping, golden-syrup coloured hillsides of harvested fields, resting for a short time after their labours; four story 'buildings' of straw bales; thousands of hay rolls waiting to play their part in some John Wyndham sci-fi fantasy; tractors somehow silent, pulling trailers loaded with grains; birds of prey sharing out the rodents. An overwhelming sense of abundance and riches and peace.

Fields of melons in poplar-shaded and well-watered fields, peopled by pickers who, like herons, stalk slowly along studying the plants, then suddenly swoop and pick a fruit, to fill their baskets.
Dozens of ancient villages, somehow clinging onto life, crouching round some ruined mediaeval tower or chateau, firmly owned and defended by Propriété Privée signs and high walls or hedges, but ne'er a supermarket or shop even. But a kind lady, small and round and smiling, did let me into her garden to take fotos.

And a surprising number of crumbling or abandoned churches, their roofs gone, spires supported by thick bolsters of wood, often alone with their graveyards, away from the village they serve, if there is one.

South of Saumur, the Thouet, a clear, quiet river these days, seemingly bypassed by the hordes, but not the patient fishermen, but which was once the 'roadway' for hundreds of barges carrying goods to the Loire and beyond. Zigzag round the confusing mishmash of lanes and meet the river again and again, even its canals. Sleep on the riverbank in a village whose name and whereabouts I do not know.

Then, off a high road that stretches forever, the dogs run wild after heaven knows what ground feeding birds. And later, surprised and pleased, we find a village with a Benedictine monastery and hermits' caves, down a dark cool lane for t'was hot then.

A semi-naked vision of loveliness carefully walking across a weir from a private place when she (and he) had been sunbathing. The village is where she will bring up her children, she says, because it is safe and peaceful, though to work she must drive forty kilometres away, and if you get a job in the village you hang onto it like grim death. Their motorbike seems obscene in this setting.

A restaurant, a simple meal, the lamb is good, a wealthy, French lady, alone, who is happy to chat, which is itself unusual, but she lived in Chicago for many years and now Paris, and who speaks of chateau life, and that she has come to visit her nephews who have both entered the monastery. And to my query, such things do exist still, young men and women do still shut themselves away to achieve a spiritual understanding, beyond my world!

An Anglo-American couple, he in torn shorts, she obsessed by a biography of her sister she is writing, to the extent of a thick notebook full of revisions and rerevisions and rererevisions. She has made the mistake of showing it to other people who have begun to rewrite it. I tell her she must stop now, give herself an hour per chapter to tidy up then give it to the editor and go get drunk. He nods wisely but had been too polite to be so direct.

They have spent their years restoring an old chateau and want to sell it because it has drained their energy and resources and they want now to be free of it. Which is why many chateaux are left to die picturesquely; they drain your blood!

And so I slipped from the Gartempe to the Creuse and the Anglin, along small back roads, seeing their beauty at dawn and dusk, knowing I will be back- sometime, sometime, for beyond the next line of trees is more gold to explore and then more and more. Perhaps after all I will not return but just keep going away, away.

Backroading on the Thouet by camping car: just the beginning of the journey

2009-07-17T09:45:00.001-07:00

Dear friends, if you see a portly old man who talks too much, with a couple of badly behaved black and white dogs, and an incontinent duck wearing pampers, a snake called Thyril and, in a plastic bag looking disgusting, a broken heart, it is only me who is off.....

a wandering round the backroads and tracks of France, where a camping car should not go, looking for solace in whatever he finds.

Thus far, a beautiful river at peace, an old mill, fruit for the taking and a medieval bridge rotting quietly away. But no peace of mind!

Bless you Marie-Jo, you restore my faith!

2009-07-12T12:41:00.000-07:00

Visiting Marie-Jo is generally a bit of a risk these days; not just because her coffee is inclined to burn holes in the lining of the stomach but because one never knows how she is going to be.
At her splendid worst, she babbles incoherent, half formed-sentences that have no logic, no beginning and no end, from which key words flyout irregularly and have to be grabbed as the only way to find out what she is talking about. They trip themselves up as she speaks faster and faster, until she is so tongue-tied that she goes off to swat a fly or wipe the tap or shout at her husband who is well hidden away.
And then remembers you are there and pours more coffee. And starts again.
Most of these intervals relate to her last born son, his less-than-robust physical and mental state, or the shortcomings of his current girlfriend whom she is convinced will take the boy (he is 36) away from her, use him up, and drive him to yet another breakdown. As this has happened with just about everyone of his girlfriends, she worries from experience.
At her best, she is witty, sharp, coherent and lethal in her way, for she is able to spread village gossip faster than a politican flipping houses; yet to my knowledge she never actually visits the village and sees almost noone, beyond a bread delivery lady and a monthly hairdresser.
So what happens, where does the gossip come from, how does it travel, does it have a life of its own, is it like a virus or a bird? These questions remain to be researched as significant historical alternatives to radio, TV, the internet, and satellite communication.

I saw Marie-Jo last week for the first time in a while and, thank Bobo, she was on form.
Within ten minutes I knew it all: there was the girl down the road, the one who replied, when asked if she was courting ah oui, il le faut, who had just got married, well, not married, but PACSd, and what did this mean, and what a thing to have happened in the village, but her parents were ok with it and only relieved she had not married the boyfriend before who was well, you know, dark.
Then there was the gay marriage, between those two boys from the Church school who were thought a bit odd anyway, and what a thing to happen in the village, and they were living just up the road in the house where the gay English vicar and his friend had spent every summer for ten years.
But worst of all, the mayor had left his wife who was a depressive and who had moved into town, and was being seen to by the widow §§§§§§§§ which was not a surprise really as she was that type, and wasnt it really bad for the image of the village that the mayor should be separated and at it.
And then she remember I was there and asked loads of questions.
Ah Marie-Jo.

The Germans are back, the Germans are back.

2009-07-05T03:49:00.000-07:00

It may, of course, be because all French women have suddenly started going commando (and what a nasty little expression that is!), the hot weather having encouraged an outbreak which would have drawn the Germans by the army load. Under the mighty tabard lurks a nice cool ...... well, let us draw a veil over this unveiling.

But, for whatever reason, they are definitely here but remaining hidden, in hungry packs, lurking in the fields, the camp sites, the gites, even the forests.

How do I know this? Well, it was picked up from hard and painful experience in the village this very morning.

And it concerns the official day of rest, when we are all supposed to have a lie in, have a graceful morning copulate, maybe go to Church. After which we would wander down to the boulangerie, choose a nice loaf, perhaps a croissant or two and some pain au chocolat.

And get any gossip that might be going, such as who broke down the wooden fence at the back of Marie Thèrese's place the other night, and who owns the large wellington boot left sticking out of the pond? Has she been welcoming late night callers again; Well, it is six months since the last poor, little mite was born, him with jet black hair just like Maurice le maçon at the end of the lane...

But much as I would like to enlighten you as to the Clochmerlian goings on in the village, I must return to those Germans.

We went in there, I and my hungry hangers-on, with the expectation of excess, to find, along with other villagers, that the cupboard was bare. The display cabinet was empty, not a bit of indulgence in sight, zilch, bugger all.

Now had it been lunchtime, then it might have been expected, but not directly after Church, not possible.

And in response to raised eyebrows, Madame la Boulangère seemed to smile her 'I told you so' smile as if to say it was our faults that she had not enough for us.

"It was ze Allemands!"

Silence whilst the awful truth sank in.

No more lie in, no more little cuddle, no more leisure on Sundays because the bloody Germans were there, and now we would have to get up early too, hit the bakers at 0730hrs or even earlier, stand in orderly queues, hope we were there before them. Towels on pool loungers all over again.

Won't they ever learn that on Sundays you do not go into the bakers and buy all fifty croissant for your hungry youth party staying at the old campsite just across the river (where the last bloody German army camped I am told). You do not get up early, you do not destroy the natural order of things. Or people will get to dislike you all over again.

You bloody order in advance.

Long service medal needed for whores and politicians??

2009-06-30T13:58:00.001-07:00

When I was a young man and foolish and being returned to the YouKay to complete my education, we sailed, my mother and I, into Genoa harbour aboard a stately Union Castle liner, my mother to return to the bosom of her family whilst my father packed up the African paradise which took both our souls, and whilst I was stuck in Grimellington Houseofshit Pubic School.
Now the seafront at Genoa was an old fashioned place designed for sailors and their needs but my mother wanted blankets and from Genoa, so we went in search of blankets, not alone, but accompanied by the master-at-arms who was a man who missed his family on long voyages and had kids of my age and was not after my arse nor my mother's (well, she never said anything), but who gave me a much treasured model of HMS Cossack set in a painted plaster sea.
And it was hot in Genoa so we went shopping, the three of us, at dusk, through the seafront where the sailors gathered, as did the ladies of the night. Being fifteen years of age and intensely curious, I noticed things, like the come-ons from the whores on Seventh Avenue (actually Lampedusa Street).
Particularly, one very elderly lady, of enormous stature, who touted her wares, shall we say, from a wooden stool, all her wares, nothing left to the imagination. The master-at-arms laughed when he saw my curiosity and said that she had been there when he was a lad and that I should never touch raddled meat, which expression I did not fully understand 'til later. But my mother seemed glad for his intervention.
We bought blankets which I still have though what to do with them I shall never know.
Twenty years later, returning to Libya via Genoa where a filthy ferry awaited, my new wife and I took a stroll through the sailors' quarter and what did we find? Same stool, same old crone but not dated by a day. Was it her, was it her sister, her cousin, her daughter, her grandchild? I shall never know, but, by then, pompous fart of a husband, I told her of the ways of the ladies of the night and sailors and she was shocked as she was innocent of such things (well, wilfully blind as Belgians are, where such things are not seen). And she hurried us away as if not willing to engage, but I would have liked to share a glass with this old crone, to discover her life, her hopes her dreams.
Instead I became bourgeois and had bank accounts and mortgages and people judged us by the size of the car and the house and the dinner parties.
But now, Leonard Cohen wise I will rise and be ANGRY

Fostering: what do I do with the cultural side?

2009-06-28T11:19:00.000-07:00

Perhaps this is a plea for help, or maybe simply a letting awf steem!! Anyway, I have unintentionally become a foster parent to a load of litle 'uns- just how many I am not sure as they never stay still long enough to be counted, but they are all sleeping in my big studio, sort of piled up together.
But they are so sweet, black as the ace of spades, big, white appealing eyes, just begging to be looked after. And they seem to be developing individual characters too; there is Mabel who likes being picked up, then there is that naughty Nigel who seems to be chasing all the girls, at least I think it is girls as they all look the same to me.
But this pleasant experience has brought responsibilities too; not just the changing of tiny pampers and worries about balanced diet, but the greater worry about their education and upbringing.
Should they be told that they were ripped away from their parents for their own safety because the environment was far too dangerous for them, or should we have left them there with mummy and daddy and tried to give social services support? Have I committed a major sin by bringing them into my comparatively wealthy white man's world so that they might lose their own cultural background; Will they grow up to be black in a white world, rootless misfits, doomed to a life Frith knows what, eating disorders, drugs, rejecting me and my values.
Or should I try to teach them stuff about where they came from, encourage them to go on home visits and stuff.
And then there are the practical things; how to teach the boys and girls that their bodies will change, that they will get strange protruding bits which will just seem to grow and grow.
Which will bring on strange longings and desires, so that Rufus will want to play more than tag when he takes the little girls under the vegetation, and he might even try to bring his friends? And how a good girls should not say yes too quickly, at least until the marriage contract is signed and the lobola paid.
But some of the girls are just as bad, wagging their little tails in the boys faces. It really has to stop.
This is a huge moral responsibility and I feel so alone with these youngsters. Even such things as their language needs; should I teach them English or their native Frog.
Please, how do I bring up a hundred tadpoles.
And how do I tell them that someone is going to catch them, rip off their legs and eat them?

Oh what dirt is finally rising to the surface!

2009-06-25T02:27:00.000-07:00

Take one juicy military contract, worth about $950, signed in 1994, for France to build three submarines for Pakistan, which contains clauses for commissions worth about 10% to be paid to various parties.
Take an apparently secret clause in the contract which provides for reverse commissions to be paid to various figures in France, one allegedly being Edouard Balladur (a former prime minster), money to finance his presidential election campaign (run by Mr Sarkozy), against the eventual winner, Jacques Chirac.
Take one vengeful incoming president who blocks the commissions and retro-commissions.
The recipe for an explosion.
On the 8th May 2002, Karachi, a coach carrying French engineers and their Pakistani counterparts is blown to hell causing 14 deaths of which 11 Frenchmen and 12 injured.
Al Khaidi they all cry, Obama's mob, terrorists and off goes the investigation.
BUT, not a smidgin of evidence is found to link it to the said troublesome Saudi expatriate troublemaker. He doesn't even claim the bombing as one of his own.
NOW it transpires, allegedly, that it was not terrorism at all, but a revenge attack for the failure to pay the commissions to various highly placed Pakistani politicians and functionaries.
L'Exception Français seems to have reached its limit!
Watch this space!

Annual haircut; who can I be?

2009-06-14T05:04:00.000-07:00

It has been annual haircut week, (well thanks to a little cheating, 15 months in fact) and I have indulged in the rictual of the annual shearing which is both a pleasure in itself (where else do you get so much attention from a nymphette in a thin gown and not much else by the look of it), and a trial of will power over heart!
Now, long hair is one of Nature's pleasures that I attempt to enjoy, despite discreet sniping from the shadows ("Oh but you look so much younger with it short", sounds like my mother!). It is also a means of showing that I still have some left to grow, which is more than most of my generation (sorry guys) or my father at my age. Under no circumstances would I ever appear shaved like a glass fishingnet buoy to hide the fact that I am a baldieeeeeeeeeeee.
But, being an appeasing sort of chap, compromse on this is wiser, to avoid stamped feet and general disapprobation. So, the deal is this: haircut once a year in late spring at a proper hairdressers but without matronly or other supervision.
By which I mean one of those lovely little salons peopled by practitioners young enough to be my grandchildren where they play very odd music and have magazines of such superficiality that they become fascinating and compulsive reading.
As this was the first time in this little French town, a saloon had to be found and investigated, not on grounds of price, but for ambiance, lighting, reading material, coiffeuses and photos of well tanned men with impossible hairdos on the walls.
"Yes monsieur, we also cut men's hair. Yes Monsieur, it is €13 for a basic (tip not mentioned but bowl prominent though strangely empty of anything bigger than a groat). And yes monsieur, we have a cancellation so we can do you.... (did she really say that?) "in twenty minutes."
"Merci madamoiselle, alors je serai entre vos trés jolis mains dans un peu plus de quinze minutes?". And she blushed the little goose, I swear she blushed.
Anyway, there we are, back again, having calmed the nerves, got the sweating palms under control, looking at an unnaturally airbrushed bimbo who is now famous for going to the Chanel party and getting her picture taken with Le Comte de Malmaison d'Arbrevilles de Pimply d'Arse, actually a Renault salesman until he comes into the family money and estates.
My (already mine and so young?) coiffeuse appears with that discreet smile of hers, but before she leads me to the final chair I point to the foto on the wall of the impossibly brown young man with the supercurly, supersexy (?) hairdo.
"Ah, qu'il est beau avec ces cheveux comme ça" . Her interest rose a little as she sensed something was up. She sat me down wrapped me in a bearskin and asked quietly in my ear how I would like it.
Shaking with anticipation, I replied, "Like the photograph". She laughed out loud at my joke. I persisted.
"Mais, monsieur, vous ne pouvez pas". I insisted.
She popped off for a consulation with her colleague working at the electric chair next door, covering some teen with metal aluminium foil, probably for a barbeque later. Together they tittered, and frowned. And tried to find a way to tell me as I smiled like Liberace on speed and looked longingly at the photo.
"But monsieur, it ees not posseeeble". How did she know I was English?
"Pourquoi, madamoiselle?" She squirmed, the little minx, she ran her hands right down her sides and then across.............(no!).
Together they went into a giggling huddle with the chief warder, a kindly looking, little cherub of 30 summers with loadsa gold 'n silver jewellery and a face apparently covered in a thick layer of tanned putty. Then it became a frowning huddle with glances at the furriner who was CAUSING DIFFICULTIES.
"Monsieur, that haircut is not for you" and they blushed in unison and sympathy with their boss.
What was wrong with me? My hair was long and luxurient, I had both money and time to devote to the creation of this New Beauty.

Now, I knew what they didn't want to say, the little lovelies in this tiny provincial town which appears so modern but is yet so stuck in its ways.
Finally, after another huddle and a silence, my girlie came back, nervously, perhaps shivering a little, a doe before the hunter.
"Mais monsieur, ce coup de cheveux, c'est pour ............ les jeunes".
And I took the little lovely to my heart and placed the scissors in her hand gently and told her to give me un coup pour un vieux. And she smiled and did just that.
But I did leave a decent tip, for she did deserve it.

French Open Tennis: Another Tradition Gone!

2009-05-29T09:58:00.000-07:00

There was a time when the French Open Tennis was an event to look forward to on TV, plus beer and nibbles, even if the sun was belting down outside, with an extra frisson of anticipation that did not exist for any other tennis tournament. But alas, I fear that yet another example of the L' Exception Française has bitten the dust, slaughtered by the advancinf barbarian armies of PC.

However a digression first; who in the name of sweet Bobo the Goat ever designed bright orange tennis court surfaces that look like bits of roadways across the Sahara, even down to the spurts of dust when the ball lands or sandstorms when the wind blows and filthy players who have taken a tumble? I mean, where is the dignity and grace of grass or even a hard court which can be coloured green, the sound of gut on canvas, the ball sliding so deceptively slowly across the grass. But no, the ball rises and rises and the return shots get faster and wilder and less and less varied. And the players actually get paid to compete.
It is almost as bad as using aluminium cricket bats and drop-in synthetic pitches.

Bloody heresy!

However, back to the main problem. Put simply, it used to be that French TV cameramen at the Open tennis were a freewheeling band of uninhibited professionals who found the most exciting, the most stimulating, the most uplifitng camera positions to entrance the armchair audience. Shown in bars, booze consumption increased a hundred fold, shown on big public screens, the world stopped with admiration.

The thing was, being French and probably young, they were not that interested in the tennis anyway but the people involved, because tennis produces both beautiful young players and often as not a large sprinkling of beautiful watchers in the crowd. And onto them they would focus regardless of the state of play. And a treat it was too.

Now, they are "cabined, cribbed, controlled, confined, bound." No more dolly wandering freely over the crowd to pick out the pretty girls and boys who responded with a knowing smile, a delicate lingering over the best of French personhood, and if there was a low cut dress with a pair of twins straining at the leash, so much the closer. But now, a simple and not very good concentration on the desert patch and the tennis.

At first I thought it was PC, but then I remembered that bloody privacy law which says you cant just go out photographing people willy nilly (now there is an idea to play with). Is it that Monsooeur Gaston De Plonk does not want to be seen by 20 million viewers with Madamoiselle Christine Bouvy from administration as she is supposed to be typing the redundancy notices at the company headquarters in Muchmuck-sur-Orrible, whilst he is in last minute critical talks about saving the thousand or jobs involved with the Minister of Handouts? And that just conveniently they happen to have double booked the same room at the Hotel de Plaisir when they have been at it like rabbits on amphetamines for the last two nights.

And unfortunately Madame De Plonk, she of a long and rich line of Plonkers who made their money supplying plonk to Napoleon's armies could not attend as she has her Christian charity work but might watch the tennis on TV for a while. (Please note that although both poor and deserving, Christian is six foot four, can go at it for hours and is hung like a donkey).

Of course, France 1, 2, 3 or 4 know damned well that the said De Plonk will sue the hell out of them if pictures of his dirty little scheme go out through La Belle, particularly if Mad. De Plonck happens to stop riding the hell out of Christian for a second and look up at the TV.

At the same time too, yet another splendid tradition of close up TV camera pictures has bitten the dust and we are the poorer for it. It used to be that whenever a delightful young lady player was doing her level best against some hulking favourite sex undefined beast that the cameramen would take pity and come down to her level, and a bit lower, so that as she served, La Belle could see the beauty of her thigh in full, the delicious shape of her little bum as the dress lifted when she served. And the delicacy of her bosom as the sports bra struggled to hold Nature in place, the gentle sweat on her throat and brow, the slim waist......

Of course the score was forgotten and the crowd was silent as they admired this fantasy, this swan, then Helen of Troy who was broken again and again and never returned. And their applause for the womaman winner was just a little muted by the thought that the Beast had yet again got the better of Beauty.

And we are all the poorer for it.

Those were the days, my friends

2009-05-20T07:10:00.000-07:00

The Braemar Castle, June 1960

Backroading from the armchair: an underrated pleasure

2009-05-18T04:14:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the best backroading is done quite simply, from the armchair, searching out those bits of text which have escaped from their creators and which seem to just jump off the page in their eagerness to recognized, to have their meanings liberated from the obscurity of their contexts. In this type of search, it does help to be slightly drunk.
Here are a few examples of recent stumble upons:

"Thomas Cholmondeley given 'light' sentence for poacher's killing": So, the said TC is apparently to be incarcerated in permanent bright light, regardless of cost to the Kenyan Government or the environment. Is he scared of the dark, perhaps or will he be on a diet of fat free food?
Or, is the said TC is a bit on the dense side, after Eton, so has to have things explained in simple, phrases as opposed to heavy text?And what in Bobo's name was a poacher doing wandering the Kenyan backwoods? A poacher in search of an egg, perhaps, or had it been lured there by a gang of wild eggs seeking revenge, an impi of wild bush eggs high on dagga?
Do we have a case of discrimination against poachers by TC, or does he have a phobia about being poached as a child because his nanny used to drop him into a marmite of hot water to toughen him up?
And that name, straight out of Rider Haggard; Does he spend his days, when not incarcerated, seeking She Who Must be Obeyed? Is it Ayesha or Hilda that is the object of his desires? Has she set him a task to complete before she will give in to his desires; ridding Africa of poached eggs of which she has a deep and life destroying phobia? Is TC destined to spend his days in the hapless pursuit of the Last Poacher, high in the Monambo Hills, where the sunsets rob a man of his mind and enslave him, such is their beauty?This case is not over.

"MP pays back trouser press claim": Hmmm, this charming member of the House of Perquisites has a problem because he has apparently tried to repay a claim which is a demand. Perhaps he should have repaid the allowance he had been given for said trouser press. But, could it in fact be a back trouser press which is the reduced model that presses only the back of the trousers? Or is it the famous colonial article which was attached to the back of a humble peon, the trousers inserted and the servitor then laid on his back on a flat surface in order to decrease said trousers? Questions will be asked in the House as to whether the servitor in this case was paid the minimum wage and if he had a day a week when he was released from pressing duties. And would a female presser have been cheaper, but then, the News of the World would have loved the scandel: "MP Claims for Female Trouser Presser". The mind boggles.

Now this one struck me as odd too: "Deuxieme Guerre Mondiale", though it has been round a while: well, will there be qualifying rounds, regional eliminators? "Germany beats Norway in tight contest. Did a Norwegian player throw match?" "Japan team strike before the whistle. Was the referee paid off?" Will it be sponsored by Coca Cola or the ever challenged Walt Disney? I fancy Russia and Germany for the final. Where will the final be I wonder, Berlin?

And this very common French expression is just waiting to be caressed into life: "prendre son pied" (literally: take one's foot). Not, as you might imagine, the French builders' way of getting bills paid, by removing the foot of the wall, nor an announcement that you are going to leave and not come back, but, quite simply that you are going to get laid good and proper.
But only the French could do this with their feet, imagining perhaps a baby sucking its toes, hence adult toe sucking and much much more over which we will draw a writhing veil and pretend not to hear the associated gruntings and squeaks.
But it does throw up some serious questions about French parenting; do they stop their babies sucking their toes, do French mothers encourage a lifelong habit by sucking their babys' toes when they are in the cradle. Is this the land of ze foot feteesh?
Its origins have nothing to do with feet, of course, because in nineteenth century robber speak a pied meant a share of something, as in I've just been given my share of the spoils; quite how the word made the jump to satisfaction/orgasm/ridden the white tiger, is obscure, but there we are.
So, the next time your beloved 16 year old daughter says she is going to prendre her pied, do not assume that she is going to have a little walk in the woods for the fresh air, but that the big, hairy lumberjack working next door is ........ well, work it out.

But the gem in the collection, the Koh-in- oor set in a silver sea comes from a lovely, bilingual friend of mine who boasted her shopping prowess on May day as she had managed to get a 'cheap trainer bottom' and a 'cheap trainer's bottom' Now, you can imagine where this might go! Did she prend her pied so much that the sole (or soul) of her trainer was worn out and had to replaced, was he worn to a frazzle by her demands, what does one do with frazzles?
The idea of gangs of trainers sleeping under bridges and crying their nights away because they have lost their souls is really very appealing. Could one then assume that the multitude of trainers washed up on the beach are poor soulless trainers who jumped from a passing paquebot, seeking a watery grave. Perhaps there should be a Mission to Trainers in every town to save these poor soulless creatures.
Or was it simply the innocent pleasures of healthy jogging and cycling that did it? Maybe it was the bottom half of a trainer, one of those bright pink, shell suit jobbers from the stall in St. Version des Faits, in which case I could understand that certain parts wear away with use or just clap out, or was it just not big enough to do the job and stretching had failed, leaving a lot ot trainer tops needing partners.
Or is the emphasis on cheap? Was the old trainer demanding too much for bottom services, is my friend a victim of the recession, will she have to go back to UK and get an even cheaper trainer there, say a young, strong, East European model, full of strange odours from a Budapest sweatshop.? Or has she decided to get a new pair of firm buns for the existing trainer? If they are Chinese buns, then how are they different from a well formed pair of, say, French buns. Has she contributed to the bun drain which is putting good buns out of work in France.
Of course, all this begs the questions: what is she training for and what are bottom services?

Well, do they, don't they?

2009-05-05T15:53:00.000-07:00

(Disclaimer, both to avoid getting a beakful by a matronly duck and lest I should be accused by the less imaginative amongst us of being a dirty old man, it should be understood that the following essay is a result of many hours of carefully undertaken fieldwork, mainly on sunny days, across several départements and in several countries and is a contribution to scientific research in several fields. I have no personal interest in the results.)

You should know that I am also blessed with a highly developed curiousity which means that I have to know what is round the next corner at all times, something which I am disturbed to find is not always well appreciated in this increasingly judgemental world.

It all begins, as do the best John Le Carré novels, in the much lamented former colony of Hong Kong. Where the government has built miles and miles of high- rise social housing blocks, without a single washing line. As a result, attached to most windows or sticking outwards from the balcony rails are large brackets with washing lines stretched between them. When the washing is strung out, the sides of the building come alive, with millions of multi-coloured butterflies flapping their wings.

Seen through binoculars, the individual items are clearly visible and it is obvious that Chinese ladies wear them, but that they are not perhaps the most attractive, the emphasis being on those little white numbers with butterfly motifs.

Which brings us, via the backroads, to France.

As one wanders the highways and by-ways of this glorious land, as one does, with its paradisical way of life ( http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1177207/Bonne-nuit-French-spend-hours-le-sac--half-hour-average-Brit.html ), one cannot help noticing the washing lines stretching out long and proud across the gardens of bungalowland. Also full of bright colours flapping away, though somewhat less butterly like.

However, throughout years and years of observing these things, and after checking and rechecking the data, it has been discovered that something is missing, not just occasionally or frequently, but almost totally ('almost', as there has been one exception); there are no ladies knickers. Men's drawers, yes, even the odd pair of brightly coloured men's daring things, but no ladies stuff at all.

Which, given the number of sometimes quite magnetic ladies underwear shops in town and the enormous, well-patronized displays in the supermarkets, is troubling, I am sure you will agree.

So, where are the frilly things?

They could all be hand washed and hung on a drier in the bathroom but that seems rather unhygienic; they could be hung in the garage or the cave, but it sounds unlikely, given that most of these places have a distinctly porcine smell; hung up in the kitchen or in the living room sounds squalid and they would end up smelling of pizza; dried in a dryer, perhaps, but then they lack that devil-may-care freshness that would encourage interaction.

Or, perhaps I have been labouring under the delusion all these years that said beautiful, frilly, attractive, delicate, lacy little numbers are made or cotton and related materials, when in fact, they have been biodegradable - worn once and then into the bin. This would perhaps be the single greatest contribution science has made to social progress since the discovery of champagne. However, I sincerely wonder if the thrifty french would tolerate that.

Another thought is that they are made of some edible material. The idea of most Frenchman ripping off their lover's banana flavoured string in the heat of passion or of a wonderful night of lust being spoiled because he can't stand smoky bacon flavoured Sloggis is quite raffish but again, I fear that however wild their love lives, most French wives don't want his false teeth that close to their muffins.

The truth had slowly begun to dawn when I saw a piece of research by Coward, Spirit and Blithe of the University of Grabbentight in Sweden who had carried out a comparative study of the visibility of panty lines amongst European nationals and had found, worryingly, that French women do not have panty lines.

I had an epiphany, a eureka moment: in this land of the afternoon nap, the word being a euphemism for a 'quickie', and lots of sleep and rest, the lifestyle is dedicated to bed. NOT sleep, but just plain, old-fashioned rutting.

And, crafty as they are at getting their men and keeping them, as well as keen to keep the household bills down, French women do not wear knickers.

Which accounts for many things, particularly why the Germans are always so ready to invade France and leave so reluctantly. They are escaping those draughty eastern cities when women wear whalebone and hessian to cool their ardours.

Now, if anyone would care to fund a study of the effects of knickers in warfare in the last say 100 years, I have a team ready to go. We have already attracted money from the EU. If anyone wishes to carry out a further field study to reinforce what I have already found out concerning French women, I would be happy to cooperate.

How does a left-winged duck learn to drive?

2009-04-24T11:04:00.001-07:00

Out of the mouths of babes and ducklings!

Someone out there driving though the Vendée near Aizenay may have noticed an elderly lady duck sitting nervously on the verge of the big roundabout and shaking with fear. The fotos immortalize the scene

Well, it started late last week and believe me it was a shock; no early morning peck of the nose or delicate attention to the toes, no damp marks on the duvet cover, no bits of weed left for me to chew on, no humid settling down on the pillow next to my eye with a polite little 'Quik' (which in Duck means 'sorry to disturb you but I am really comfy now').

Emily was sulking big time and it took hours to worm it out of her as she kept turning her head away and ducking my questions, wouldn't even put a beak to her bowl of bread soaked in slightly warmed milk, with raisins left overnight in vodka. She just squatted in the corner, wings down, beak resting on the floor. I thought we had lost her, I really did.

Then it all came out, suddenly, in a big gush, as is the case with ducks who cannot hold themselves back once they have started; you see, Emily has been spending her egg money on learning to drive and not doing too well to be honest; so far she has quacked off several driving instructors who really seem to have it in for elderly lady ducks. One even called her feather brained. I ask you.

Apparently, it was all because of French traffic roundabouts or rather the way that people drove round them, which terrified her.

Now, you remember that Emily is a HonKonDuk, though I suspect she paddled down the Pearl River one dirty night and slipped into the Territory (as it was then), ducking under the vigilant eyes of the HK Police. Which means she has an ordered mind and is also left-winged.

Which I had not realised until very recently. Well, you don't do you? How often do you see a bird writing or bowling a decent leg spin and getting someone out for a duck.

The only sure way is to watch which way they turn when they fly. Left or right. Which, using the opposite sides of their brain, means the opposite. Clear? Well is wasn't to me either. Watch the ducks next time and you will understand. Those who turn anticlockwise are right-winged. Sooooo, her instinct is to round roundabouts clockwise. This is Ok in HK and YouKay where plenty of old ducks get round quite successfully.

But in France it is not so. L'exception française

And, she confessed tearfully, out of sheer fear, she has been ducking down behind the car seats every time we go round one which, given the number of roundabouts that the Magic Roundabout Minister has been installing, is very often, resulting in a severely strained neck and a right teasing from the dogs who have been calling her 'chicken'. Now, one thing you should never, never do is call a duck 'chicken'. It is like calling a Scotchman 'Englishman' and the like.

'Why are there so many roundabouts?' she wanted to know. 'Well, they were invented by the Americans to speed up traffic at junctions, but in France they are used to slow traffic down because so many French people used to kill themselves in cars. So they put in lots and lots to make the traffic go slower and slower.' L'exception française.

'But they don't slow down. In fact they speed up. Unless there is a slim lady in blue from Air France, taking fotos. Then they crawl by and smile and flash their lights afterwards to say thank you. Or is she like the ladies in the Bois de Boulogne, offering to sell something?

And some drivers go straight, some go in the inside lane, some go in the outside lane and they meet and wave at each other and talk with their hands and tap their heads. Then there are the trucks which are too big or the roundabouts which are too small and they squeeze any poor car that is next to them so that the driver makes a poo or exits early.

And lots of drivers, parduckularly trukkies induckate they are going left and go on the outside lane then they suddenly change their minds right in the middle and turn off right and make the cars on the inside lane break and wave.

Then there are the single drivers who always stay in the inside lane and go all the way round, and then there are the old couples with a big smile on their faces who just go round and round and round. As do lots of new drivers who want to make their girlfriends nervous so they will do rude things to them.

Best of all are the express medical delivery drivers; they drive at 100 and dont stop at all and their big, big vans bed over and over and frighten the cars. If they hit the curb they will fall over. Oh and the men with big, flat, flash Mercedes cars that just flash their lights and cut up all the other cars and they never do less than 110 because they are big men and powerful and we have to get out of their way as they are going somewhere important. But they are always alone in their cars. Except when they go down the Bois de Boulogne when they meet painted ladies and then stop and sit their and the ladies bend down and clean out the ashtray.'

And the holiday makers with funny number plates who all drive big 4x4s and it is the only time she gets to drive his big car instead of the nice environmentally bucycle at home, and she is really nervous and he keep telling her what to do so she comes to the 50th roundabout of the morning and he shouts at her to stay right but she wants to go faster and straight like the van in front but he gets all frothy and says something horrible like 'company car' and 'insurance rates' and 'silly lady dog' and she has tears in her eyes and can't make the exit so they go round again and she nearly hits the white car with the blue words on the side and the blue flashing light and he screams at her....'

'How on earth is an elderly left-winged HonKonDuk supposed to learn to drive when there are no rules?'

By which time she was crying piteously, so I offered to accompany her to a roundabout and try to work it out with her. And now I am thinking of giving up driving after seeing what I negotiate every day.

A Very Bad Week For Ducks

2009-04-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, ducks are very sensitive creatures and very proud that they once ruled the world. But they have always been trained never to show their feelings; "Stiff upper beak, Emily," I once heard her mother say before she came to live with us, "Stiff upper beak and you will always get through. Just remember you are no chicken. So, no brooding, just get on with it. Remember that when we ruled the world, geese laid their eggs at out feet for our seal of approval and if we did not like what we saw, they hid their eggs in the fields and the drains out of fear. Still do. Nowadays all you hear from them though is 'move over ruddy ducks', goose stepping all over the place. I blame the wild fowl reserves, letting in just anyone, and as for interbreeding, wellllll, imagine a goose and a duck - a guck or a dooose, nasty!!!!!"

But this week Emily has been in a state; no cute little shuffle of the tail as she walks, feet dragging, lots of low hung head, hiding in her bed, no ambushes of the fridge as soon as the door was opened. Finally, after she climbed into the stockpot and tried to drown herself, I had had enough. A sulky duck is not on in my household, so I took her gently on my knee which she likes, and patted her little derriere and gave her lots of little pecks on the top of her head. Finally she broke down with a great blobbery sob and told me all.

It all started in the supermarket. Now understand, good people, that Emily goes to Super U with me where she is a well known landmark, has a special pass and sits good as gold in a cabas in that bit of the trolley normally used for children. She does, of course, wear Quackers Best Nappies, available at Goslings or by mail order, so no risk of a birdy leak.

And to be fair, she is quite an attraction to the kiddies who like to run up and pet her, offer her choice bits from the bottom of the veggie bins and the like.

Anyway, we were doing our usual shopping; wine for me, food for the dogs, and a long hard look at the vegetable displays from which she was served her usual portion. Of course, lest you think me unworthy to harbour a duck, we kept away from the poultry meat section

And a couple of kids ran up to her, pale things, sickly they were, with cropped hair and toothbraces, wearing outsize trainers. Just as they started to stroke her, there was a cry from a distance " For Gordon's sake, duck, duck" and we all did, looking round of course in case Osram bin Lightning had arrived on his caramel to drop an Easter dong on us.

"A bloody duck in a supermarket. Disgusting, hideous, call the health inspectors. Agamemnon, Clitoris, come here this moment, you touched the bird. Disease, illness, wash, scrub, now go." All the while looking at me pityingly, dressed as I was as a typical Frenchman, in blues, beret and clogs, and with onions round my neck and a bagette in my trousers.

This at the top of her rather shrill voice from a buxom (or should that be obese, these days?) female with cropped hair, strong chin and a teashirt which should have said "I am French at heart" but, because of the need to follow the line of her cleavage, actually said "I am French tart". It was addressed to a lightweight male who seemed to be carrying a third offspring in a nosebag and to be hiding in the female knicker section. He had, I must say, the harrassed look of someone who works in a wealth producing sector.

I of course, shrugged my shoulders and turned away, farting loudly as I did so, but she strode over, determined to put right this heathen: "Vuz ne doit paz bring ze canard in ze supermarketé; Non good, veree bad. Salé, malade." And I realised that she worked in something worthy, saving the lives of others who did not know they needed saving; And was irresistible.

Gently I picked up Emily in my arms and kissed her on the beak, pointing her to my ring finger, "Madame moi et canard marreeed. Elle est ma femme, wifey. Nous are en moneyhoon."

And we left, me to reconcile Emily to human failings, the woman to spread the word of disease and bestiality in France, and to admire the culture that is so broadminded as to allow human animal intermarriage and isn't this an issue to be considered at the next panel on animal discrimination.

And perhaps to ponder an article for the Daily Telegraph Expats section.

A sombre reminder

2009-04-05T08:40:00.000-07:00

http://tf1.lci.fr/infos/jt/0,,4331553,00-decouverte-d-un-charnier-de-la-guerre-vendeenne-.html

A sad memorial to one of the most vicious internecine wars in French history which gave the lie to any hope of Liberty, Fraternity or Equality, and one which is likely to open some old wounds, as archaeologists investigate human remains contained in three grave pits, dating from the Battle of Le Mans on the 12th and 13th December 1793.

Towards the end of the second day of the fighting, thousands of Vendéens, mainly women and children sheltering in houses in the town, were dragged onto the streets by out-of-control Republican troops, slaughtered, stripped and laid out like so many animal carcasses.The sheer brutality of the hand-to-hand fighting is shown by the severe wounds on the skeletons, particularly the skulls, caused mainly by heavy sabres. The killing technique was first to sever the leg and then to bring the sword down on the back of the skull.

In all, some 15,000 Vendéens died, their bodies tossed into hastily dug grave pits, mainly to avoid disease as they were already carrying typhus and dysentery.

How did this happen?

Quite simply, the Vendée and the Départements north and east had had enough of the Revolution by the beginning of 1793; taxes were rising, food was short, the wealthy bourgeois class had taken the lion's share of the confiscated lands, administrators were being parachuted in from outside who knew nothing of the area, well-loved church figures had been forced to go into hiding and, critically, the government had just announced the call up of 300,000 men. Who were to fight outside France as the Revolution was exported to keep it alive, a Revolution that the Vendéens no longer believed in.

Ras le bol!

In January 1793, a peasant uprising began, which, officered by former Royalist nobility who had been living quiet unnoticed lives on their estates, was initially very successful. But by the autumn, Paris had sent experienced troops to stem the revolt and the Vendéens were on the back foot.

On 17th October they were defeated at the Battle of Cholet. The main Vendéen army of 40,000 fighting men and 40-60000 women and children and the infirm, then crossed the Loire and headed for the Channel where they tried to take the port of Granville as a base for expected British support.

They failed and attempted to return to the Vendée but could not get across the Loire. So, disease ridden, exhausted, hungry, they took Le Mans where the army broke up in the search for food and lodgings.

Where they were found by the Republican army!

Those few hundred who did manage to get back to the Vendée and those still there had much worse to come.

-----------------

The question remains as to what should happen to these remains. Should they returned to the Vendée, even to their families, should they be buried at some central memorial or should they have a burial place where they died? It is too early to answer yet, but whatever happens, this find will only intensify calls from local groups for an official apology from the French Republic.

A few years ago I wrote a short history of this Civil War in English which engulfed the departments south of the Loire, mainly with visitors and expatriates in mind. Perhaps naively, I thought that the anger might have settled. I was wrong. Not only was I castigated by some for not being pro-Republican enough, but I was also taken to task for not describing it as a war to save the Catholic faith and the Monarchy.

I innocently asked whether the events were in the school curriculum and was told that they were not relevant.

What happened after the survivors returned has been called a Genocide, which in turn has been denied furiously by historians.

Links between the Vendée and Armenia are strong, encouraged by Phillipe de Villiers, the head political honcho in the Vendée, who has recently called on Turkey to admit and apologize for the genocide of the Turkish Armenians.

But for the French Government to do this poses a nice conundrum, for if they do the same, then surely they will be under immense pressure to apologize to the Vendée and surrounding departments for the slaughter of 200,000 of their citizens?

The City in the Valley

2009-03-27T15:11:00.000-07:00

Now I don't mind admitting that I have a problem with valley towns, that is towns located in valleys and surrounded by high hills, usually with a more or less commercial river running though the middle and a couple of bridges across it which attracted the interest of every army that ever roamed their way.

So that most of them have some sort of citadel high on the hills overlooking the town, a building which has attached to it dozens of legends of heroic defence over the centuries and which has been converted into some worthy building such as a hospital, maybe just a museum.

Or which has been left to rot all alone except for the usual detritus left by spray painters, winos and courting couples; with of course the occasional find of a somewhat decayed body that causes a brief interest in the place and calls to do something with it. Which interest usually lasts until the EU refuses to fund the white elephant. And the town returns to its business again, the business of itself. Therein lies the rub, the rub of geography, for those high hills have cut the town off from the world outside and the outside world from it, for passers-by stay on the motorway which goes straight across the plateau above, to the rest of the world. And so Belgian towns like Charleroi, Namur, Liège remain only road sign realities.

This affects the mindset of the good citizenry too, for unlike towns on the plain or the coast where you can climb a building and see (or at least get the sense of seeing) somewhere else, a world beyond, your view in a valley town is blocked by those bloody hills. So, because the sheer effort of climbing them, either physically or mentally is so draining, the citizens look inwards and turn their back on the outside world.

Which is the fate of the city of Liège; for example, it has a river, the Meuse, nowadays denuded of commerce, and hills which encompass it. And everything, opera, theatre, museums, cafés, shopping, an international station fit for Paris, and, according to its citizens, it is a fine place to live, perhaps the finest, on a par with London, Barcelona and Paris.

And the phallic Perron as its symbol, which is no more than a middle finger stuck up at the world, for the Cité Ardente, as it was called in 1904, looks in on itself, gazes with loving pleasure at its navel, or rather with the same pleasure with which an adolescent boy takes in manipulating his 'apparatus.'

Mention Germany, Holland, and people will go quiet, mention Brussels and they will shrug, for they are held to the town by some magic, so that even those who escape are pulled back by elastic cords. People are born there, study there, mate there (though they have taken in Italians and Arabs to improve the stock), spend their lives in the city and its environs and eventually die there. Leave permanently and you will be given that look of blank misunderstanding which is reserved for ideas that our so beyond our ken that we cannot conceive of them.

And it never crosses anyone's mind that the city is so isolated as to be a Neverland. It maintains itself on its own illusions of quality, excellence and progress. Comparison with the outside world is impossible because of those bloody hills. It knows it is the best of all possible worlds.

I spent just under thirteen years with a 20 years gap in the middle working at the Univeristy of Liège, an institution whose staff, overwhelmingly, were schooled locally, went to the Uni locally, moved onto the Uni. staff, intermarrried and bred amongst themselves without ever moving beyond. It was insular, introverted and isolating of the mind. And lived almost entirely in its own circularity. Which a university should never do.

When I returned for the second stint, nothing had changed, same faces, same courses, same notices, same thinking, same discussions. It could have been the next day.

It was relief when I took the road away, anywhere away, a Patrick MacGoohan figure, a prisoner trying to break out. The difference was that I could as I was not born, or nurtured or inoculated there, though the damned place took a large part of my heart as penance for leaving.

But it is best left to its own mutation, whilst the world moves on, for I fear that the shock of seeing its mediocrity in plain light would cause a crisis of identity from which recovery is by no means certain.

So please, do no ask me to go again into that deep valley but let me free to roam the rest of the world.

This year, Sunday is good

2009-03-21T16:53:00.000-07:00

Normally I hate Sundays with a passion but not this year.

Sunday round here is like the grave, depressing, still, silent. Even cars seem not to move, as if some Higher Power flattened their batteries by divine Prote- or Catho- laying on of hands, for 24 hours. The only real sound is the neighbour going down to the village to fetch bread on his trial bike which he never uses any other time.

And if you go out you almost feel you're breakin some unwritten Shabbat law about doing stuff on a Sunday. People seem to look you a bit oddly, a cold judgemental stare.

What they with the day is unclear. Noone seems to go out, garden, do anything, though occasionally odd strolling groups can be spotted round the lake or wandering gently along the nature paths, rather like those flocks of fat geese that crash land here for a few days on the way somewhere else and stumble round the fields feeding and flapping their wings, just being social, catching up with the feathery news . My theory is that they get up late, eat lunch, then crash all afternoon, get up, eat, watch the film on TV then go to bed. Without speaking.

But this year is definitely different. I positively prayed to Bobo the Goat for Sunday, couldn't wait for the silence to fall. Which is partly the fault of the strikers and partly the fault of the calendar as the day, the great day fell on a Friday, thus between the strike day and Saturday. No, not the first day of Spring, welcome though it was, but another much more significant day, always marked in the community as a day of rictual and effort and noise.

It was, of course, as everyone knows, Grasscut Day, that great annual rictual of the First Cut, when every mower for miles around is dragged out, kicked, fuelled and started, hopefully. Then the man of the house pushes it round every inch of the green sward, smoking, protesting, striking stones, killing any live creature in its way. And woebetide any mower that fails to start for it is sworn at, kicked again, disassembled, and more often than not, replaced by the latest FI lookalike. All that sir needs is a helmet.

And sir, rolls of flat wobbling from winter indulgence when the teashirt shrunk by at least one size, jeans too low and unbuttoned, hunter's boots shiny clean, sir waddles round getting sweatier and sweatier, swearing because the grassbox clogs up, sticks his hand in to clear it and collects a dry dog turd. Madame usually bends herself over a flowerbed and pfaffs around, her even larger derrière stuck up in the air, revealing the top of a string, and sickly pink mottled winter flesh.

But this year, the fest lasted not one day, which is quite acceptable, but three; on the first day, the strikers (plus skivers) cut their grass, on the second, the 35 hour weekers and the laid off and finally, on Saturday, those who really work a full week. Which meant three days of a minimum or eight mowers at a time, all day, even unto dusk, shattering the peace, stinking out the place, in a cacophony of a Briggs and Stratton symphony.

Unfortunately, this hell coincided with two other days of note; Brushcutter Day and Chopitalldown Day, each with their stinking high pitched motors, competing to add a new section to the mower orchestra.

We, the dogs, the duck and I, took refuge at the beach, with a substantial picnic. And preyed to Bobo for Sunday.

Windmills on the hills

2009-03-15T10:55:00.000-07:00

Harvest season and the hour before a summer dawn, on the top of the hills above Mouilleron-en-Pareds. The sound of the nightjar perhaps, even wild boar snuffling in the thick forests that cover the hillsides below.

And as we ghosts from the future walk the narrow track, a new noise, regular, waveform, hissing, with a mechanical burrr; the sound of wind in sails, wind in windmill sails that turn and turn and turn, waiting. Is this where the wind is made?

Then, above this rhythm, from below, far below, new noises: wood straining and groaning against restraint; cartwheels squealing despite thick layers of grease; human voices, trebles, some singing, some shouting; crack of whips,an occasional animal groan; the rumble of wooden wheels on stone. The Pied Piper perhaps?

Dawn slips into view as they climb the hill, a dozen or so carts, each pulled by two patient oxen with steaming nostrils, surrounded by a tribe of young boys over which they tower, barefoot, running noses, shivering, cracking whips above the animals' heads and often enough endangering themselves as the lashes flick close to eyes, ears.

The carts, loaded with enormous baskets of corn to be ground space themselves next to the six windmills that have now emerged, dark wood and stone structures with great bars behind for turning the sails into the wind.

Whilst the youngsters and the few accompanying adults struggle to unload the baskets and carry them inside, the miller slips the gear lever and the grindstones begin to turn, adding their rasping to the children's treble, whilst the oxen patiently feed on the nearest grass, not tired, just too lazy to move again.

Thus a peaceful scene that has taken place on this hill, since Roman times. And they are still there, hanging on in their retirement, these old dowagers, neglected, slowly, slowly decaying. Their remains on every high point in the Vendée.

But there was a time when the windmill was life and death, when the Vendée was ravaged by civil war and when an attempt was made to exterminate the population. When the people lived in terror of sudden descents on their villages by punishment columns who burnt, raped, and killed anyone that moved.

So lookouts were posted in the towers and the windmill sails were positioned to indicate safety or danger, call to arms or danger passed. And the message was passed from hil to hill, and people were able to hide in the forests or the fields of broom and if they were lucky go undetected.

And now they are objects of curiousity, to be visited, admired, and photographed, whilst their successors again cover the land.

Well, how should we educate our daughters?

2009-03-10T11:32:00.000-07:00

A little while ago, in the far corner of the upstairs floor of an old barn I spied a pile of paper which turned out to be some 50 odd editions of a magazine called La Femme Chez Elle, a magazine for the bourgeois French housewife, containing household tips, recipes, stories, patterns, correspondence and advice. They dated from 1903 to 1913.

Here is a translation of part of one discussion from a series entitled How Should We Raise Our Daughters, just for fun. The language appears heavily rhetorical to our ears, but that was the style of the day which I have tried to follow.

La Coquetterie

Why does the word coquetterie scare timid spirits as if it were some fatal personality defect? Everyday, do we not see mothers of otherwise irreproachable reputation struggling to stamp out this pernicious defect in their daughters.

Let us reflect for a moment however. It may be good, once and for all, to examine this habit which some see as the crowning female grace and which other harshly condemn, as representing in their eyes the lies and perfidiousness of the weak sex.

If we understand coquetterie to be part of the wily armoury of cuteness, little deceits, ruses and boldness employed by a great number of women, then there can never be enough curses with which to flog it and no sufficient means to root it out of an education programme.

But if, on the contrary, we understand it to mean the elegant choice of dress, care of the person, the desire to please which is possessed by all women of delicacy and sensitivity, then we find outselves having to recognize the utility of a legitimate seduction which we can reckon a permitted quality.

Certain women who lack even the most elementary coquetterie have inspired profound and lasting passion, though this does not mean that one should imitate them to achieve the same result; this peculiarity simply shows that in life luck and privileges are dealt out by chance and that one should not count on it because destiny is more miserly with her gifts than prodigal with benefits.

Let us look now at different instances where a woman has recourse to coquetterie to conserve her physical charms and maintain her beauty.

In the world, the refined care of 'Me' is part of the tyrannical obligations of an elitist society: noblesse oblige.

A question of pride controls the different parts of the lives of the rich; running a household involves hundreds of details which are managed by a strict code, deviation from which would shock accepted wisdom; toilette and dressing, the table, servants, receptions, all have their respective importance; noone who moves in high society can escape their demands. The women of society who pass their time taking care of themselves, embellishing themselves, trying to push back the ravages of age have few problems because they have the two great advantages of money and time on their hands;

The same cannot be said for the middle classes where women accumulate the multiple tasks of motherhood, household management, and managing the budget, all of which are strewn with difficulties when resources are modest and which need constant courage and permanent devotion and perseverance.

Which is why a woman of the petit bourgeoisie who cuts and sews her clothes and those of her children and makes their hats, and who manages her household with love and who knows how to stay, despite so many jobs, seductive and appealing, has a hundred times more merit than than the beautiful Madame whose greatest occupation consists in getting into her carriage and being driven to her stylist and her dressmaker.

..................

If we look at random at many households, a similar spectacle is always to be seen. From sixteen years old, young girls become interested in coquetterie, and though the resources to achieve it are limited, such is their wish to please that they can always find modest baubles to enhance their young beauty and highlight their natural charms.

She marries young. And then with a young family, she is worn, faded and deprived as never before. The children absorb all the resources, money is so tight that there is just enough for food, if that! Where will she find the means to buy the frills which tempt her as she can barely find enough for her family. Before she can even think of cheap ribbons and lace there are the essential clothes which may even have to be bought on credit.

Poverty is hardly compatible with good dressing and toilette. If it were only such fripperies that she gave up it would be acceptable, but a woman who lives in perpetual discomfort sacrifices her own health, she gets worn, she neglects her hair, her teeth, her hands, her colouring, because dentists are expensive, and she has to put her family ahead of the other needs. The life of the simple wife is made up of sacrifices but when her husband is hard working a reasonable, the joys of the family compensate for the sacrifices but if she also has to fight laziness and drunkenness, what misery.

In the 'mixed' classes, coquetterie is part of feminine dignity; the compagnon of a teacher, a doctor, a civil servant must look after herself. If she allows herself to dress inappropriately, she will be harshly judged.

But the main reason for coquetterie in a woman is not fear of what others will say, nor the obligation to copy one's neighbour, but, above all, the desire to keep the affection of her husband until old age.

Many women make the mistake of letting themselves go as soon as they are married and do not bother any more.

A husband must never think his wife inferior to that of a neighbour. There are some women who are consummate geniuses at discerning just what it is that will keep their husband interested in them and what will not because they have understood that for some men, the power of the loved one diminishes as the physical graces lessen. They know that it is not necessary to cover themselves with jewels and expensive clothes to keep their husband's eye. It is sufficient keep changing toilette, not to allow personal negligence and to ensure absolute cleanliness. But after all, what is this but true coquetterie which contains nothing reprehensible in essence and which all mothers should teach to their daughters.

Of funny neighbours and missing planning permission

2009-03-08T06:27:00.000-07:00

My neighbour is more than a bit weird, no doubt about it; soon as I got to the village people warned me, not to get too close, not to say too much. After all, they said, with their eyes narrowing sharply, he's a tax inspector and you never know whether he's not trying to find out if you have got a little bit you haven't declared or if there's been a little noir going on, which is everybodys right in France of course.Well, isn't it?

And the man putting in the double glazing said we could only do the cash-in- hand on the other side of the house, where he couldn't see.

Then there were the hints about him being chased out of another village, just down the road, for sticking his nose in where it was not wanted. Hmmmm. And then there's his wife who hasn't been seen for years and years, never leaves the house, not even to shop. Not natural said the villagers, lowering their voices. But she is there as the shutters are raised and lowered at the same time every day apparently to keep the sun out, and the outside light goes on five minutes before he comes home every night. And what a time, 1130 every night and it was 1230 on Friday as I just happened to notice. Not nice, elle est sequestrée said one, he makes her, says another; there have been such violent rows that the neighbours have thought of intervening says another, which is just unheard of of course.

I even tried ringing the door bell to let them know there were tiles hanging off the roof after the last big storm, but there was no reply, twice. Nah they said, she doesnt answer the door.

The one person who is supposed to have met her said that she said that she was very strictly brought up by her father and so didn't like to go out. Which suits my neighbour, say others. It means he can spend his time elsewhere, but where, noone knows.

Maybe with his mother who he adores; I met her once in the local Super U, and she is a delightful old crone of about 85 with one good eye and one tooth which she displays proudly, but she's got all her marbles still that one, that's for sure. Trolley was full too, but only the Bien Vu stuff. He is rich, they say, got four properties, even owns his mother's house and could turn her out in a second, so he could afford better than the cheapest.

Nah, he's not with ma in the evenings. With the lads then? Nah, too late, they'll all have gone home to the bosom of, so where does he go, then? Well, you can see what they are really thinking can't you.

Even at weekends he is off like a ferret after a rabbit, except when he is cutting the grass. And no flowers or bushes or pretty stuff in the garden except for twelve (I counted) dahlias in front of the lounge window, and the house getting all tatty too. Looks like someone killed an animal by the front door, judging by the stains on the concrete.

And then there is the story about the bit of land next door, for 30 years non-constructible with a footpath running right throught it down to the chateau, and protected of course. Then one day the footpath is deviated at great expense and the land suddenly becomes constructible and is bought by a young couple who immediately start work on the foundations, with a nod and a wink from Monsieur le Maire (Enarque, in office since the beginning of time).

But my neighbour doesn't like it at all, doesn't want it built on anyway, and he has the gendarmes out and the young couple have to stop everything because they don't have planning permission, do they, even though the mayor gave them the ok.

And then he digs a bit further and finds that the mayor did not have the right to make the land constructible at all, acting all by himself as he did, so he slaps him with a civil suit and a criminal prosecution for malfeasance in office, and he does the same to the deputy mayor too. But the mayor then tries to get him sacked from les impots, which is not a good idea, and it's the mayor who has to resign.

Now the land is now non-constuctible again unless it can be linked to a lotissment which it can't unless my neighbour or I give up a strip of our land which neither is gonna do.

And my good neighbour will only withdraw the criminal stuff if the new Mayor, who used to be the deputy will make the land totally non-constructible and put back the footpath where it was.

Which leaves the young couple renting a house and repaying €40000 they borrowed for a piece of land they can't build on. So my neighbour offers them €20000 for the plot to piss them off which they refuse, then he offers them the full price that they paid, and they refuse, just to piss him off.

And there we are, village life in the raw, in rural France, really!

Oh I do love a good bit of gossip!

Au Revoir Vieux Georges

2009-03-03T09:49:00.000-08:00

Well, le Vieux Georges has left us, and gone to meet his Maker, though quite what He is likely to make of him is another matter for it is doubtful if Georges was what he had in mind on the Sixth Day of Creation, though the catalogue is pretty large. And we must mourn his passing, if only for a fleeting moment, along with the very large number of people who packed the church and courtyard of St Pierre du Chemin.

He, his wife and his tribe of squalling, squabbling brats (some of whom were fathered by an understudy, so the local gossip goes, and to be fair, at least one daughter does not look in the least like any of the others), grand brats, unexpected great grand brats, barking dogs, breeding cats, fleeing rabbits and erring sheep were my neighbours for close on 14 years. Subsisting, as far as I could judge, on various pensions, benefits, hand outs and contributions from a very generous French State.

During that time our minds never met; we were each as aliens to the other, observing and circling warily, I from an urban, rootless, intellectual background, he from the oldest and deepest roots of peasant stock that the Vendée has to offer.

For most of his 90 years, for which he owed at least 15 to the perseverance of French medicine and its ability to fix his eyes, knees, blood, feet and arms, he greeted the morning, and the whole road by clearing his throat, long and loud and spitting copiously, which act always spoiled the coffee and croissants of my frequent viitors, myself being inured to it.

Then, if it was the weekend or a school holiday, he would bellow in a deep, rusty voice that carried across ten fields "Loïk, Loïk", which was answered by an irritated growl, if at all, from somewhere over yonder where his son was up to no good. The conversation carried on at an equal distance, usually ending up in the boy getting a mouthful of obscenities, from which I picked up quite a few.

He had been a domestique (de ferme), by which he meant a farm labourer, whose job had been to take care of and drive les boeufs , though when we met he was already 76 and long retired. He spent his time observing the vegetables grow, in wonderfully straight lines, a state achieved by the efforts of his son under the howling supervision of himself, from the comfort of a bench in a warm corner of the garden, a small round man with sharp, searching eyes, wrapped in generous layers of clothing, looking rather like an elderly hobbit.

Our meeting ground was always neutral or indirect and concerned hedges and fruit, for, on these topics we were as chalk and cheese.

Hedges, he believed, should be two feet high and about three inches wide and should be trimmed at least twice a year. This is what he had been trained to do, and whenever he had the chance to cut and cut and cut, usually when I was away, he would send his son with the hedge trimmer.

Which meant that he and his tribe could see exactly what we were up to and boy did they watch, but then, everybody watches everybody else in rural France. The difficulty was that his son had a problem with young girls - he liked them rather too much- and was kept in a special institution during the week, returning to the supervision of his parents at weekends, from which he 'escaped' regularly as they were too old to watch him. And I had daughters and we liked our privacy, so the problem becomes apparent.

Remonstration over this cutting was useless; on other boundaries I grew proper hedges to encourage wildlife, six or more feet high, three or four metres wide, and he offered to cut them. When I showed him a poster from the Mairie advocating my practice, he laughed. I had forgotten that he could neither read not write. When I pointed out that there were pheasants nesting in the hedge, he told his son-in-law, and in appropriate season, shot them.

Now fruit was his other major concern. Not eating it, but getting enough to make gniôle, a brew first fermented at home then distilled in one of the few itinerant stills which the French government has allowed to remain in operation under strict contol and paying the appropriate dues and brewing only to 50° proof. However, control did not extend beyond working hours, by the end of which the still had to be empty and cool. However, as the fonctionnaires left for the day with a very pointed comment that they would not return until 0830 hrs the next day, the wood was thrown into the embers and the serious business of brewing 80° proof or better began. This was of course subsequently smuggled away via backroads, and, in the early and gullible days, under a blanket in my car.

To this was added fruit juice and any other substance which the maker fancied. The subsequent brew was drunk in caves (a cave, in the Vendée, is a men only drinking den; any woman entering it would be shouted out). I went to Georges cave only once, and took several days to recover, not from the drunkenness, but from the poor hygiene! He, his son and his sons-in-law drank copious amounts of the stuff from dawn to dusk, until their health broke, when they merely drank a bit less.

To make his litres and litres of hooch Georges needed mainly plums, mirabelles and reine claudes in any condition. Under his trees and those of his neighbours, more often than not without without their knowledge, he would have spread enormous baches into onto which the fruit would fall, aided by copious shaking of the trees. Where he could not do so, he and his son would be seen at dawn, on their hands and knees, picking up even the slightest remains of soggy, stinking fruit.

We clashed of course because he thought my fruit was his by right, to which I naturally objected. Many a time I had been away overnight in the picking season to return to denuded trees, and broken branches as the locusts from next door were not over scrupulous. When I confronted him, he, of course, denied any knowledge and blamed someone else (who, being seriously diabetic, would not have touched the fruit with a bargepole). However, he was concerned about this potential loss of fruit in the future and was quiet, pondering, his little eyes moving about as he thought.

"May I have the fallen fruit then?" To which I agreed immediately, and forgot about it.

A while later I was awoken at 0630 (I looked) by a strange noise in the garden. There was Old Georges shaking my fruit trees with an ardour that almost broke them. Seeing me he stopped immediately and pointed to the ground.

"Look, they have fallen and you said I could have those." I went back to bed.

But there was another man beneath the slightly comic exterior. Towards the end of the war, he once told me, when slogging back my single malt with gusto, he was 'volunteered' to go on the forced labour programme in Germany. He arrived there hungry and with a bad back. Which the Germans operated on and fixed. But he spun it out and never did a day's work. Our George was a one man weapon against Nazism!

Then, when it was all over, in the chaos that ensued, he simply set off in the middle of winter with just what he stood up in, and on frozen canals, broken roads, scrounging cabbages and roots, maybe a bit of bread here and there, sleeping in isolated barns, freezing, he simply walked home to his beloved Vendée and never left it again.

RIP mon vieux.

The Mystery Chapel, a Backroader's delight

2009-02-28T10:55:00.001-08:00

Some rules for backroading.

2009-02-28T08:40:00.001-08:00

(Before beginning, I would like to clear up a misunderstanding: Miss D of The House of Four Women, Street of the Valley, Bombay, thank you for your email, but I must assure you that Emily is not meant to be you, nor do you walk like that, and as to her "bad" character, well......, but you may sue if you wish).

Well, either you are a backroader or not; if you see a tiny little track with lotsa grass growing in the middle, do you feel pulled towards it like those two toy scotties with magnets in their bots; does the steering wheel or the boot or the handlebar instinctively turn, and you follow like an addict? And you follow it to the end regardless, always knowing their is treasure round the next corner? If so, congratulations, you are a true Backroader and should feel honoured as one of a chosen few.

But it is both an art and a science to be perfected, for at the end of every backroad, there lies a cross of gold and your function in life is to dig it out. Your reward is to see and hear and feel and experience things and places and people that most do not even know exist.

So, a few rules:

Never go backroading on a bicycle with two ill-disciplined dogs, and an overweight duck on the handlebars. You may, of course, take the risk but the chances are the duck will try and imitate a lammergeier at some point and set a wobbly course sort of airwards, to crash land a few metres away in a flush of feathers, dust and indignation. And woebetide he or she who laughs for they will receive a nasty beaking of the lower leg. So, I backroad either on foot or by car, unless Emily is having her weekend with her mother (we have shared custody, you see), in which case, the two dogs and I cycle.

Of course, you can't backroad in a shiny new car either, definitely not one of those 'knock 'em dead' 4x4 efforts, because quite simply, although you can see over the hedges, they are too wide, and a good backroad should have you pulling in your mirrors and leave a good few scars of battle along the sides, brambles being the most artistic scratchers. Besides, you might need to reverse a good few miles when you meet an angry stream or a bull or a flock of sheep. Oh, and always have a car with a back entrance. Well, it is logical; if you are in a deep track with cliffs on either side and the doors wont open and you need a pee.... so much nicer than a tin can!

Do not ever use a map or one of those heretical satnav jobbers; they are the sworn enemy of backroaders as the whole point is NOT to have a clue where you are. Which is a lie because there is always the sun.

Why have a compass then they bellow at me? Well, silly, to understand why a building or cave or route or whatever is where it is; facing south for warmth, north to be cool (try icehouse and food store), east to be dry etc. Or so it can be seen from a long way away.

Keep off straight roads, they are a sign of creeping bureaucrats and to be avoided like the plague. Backroads meander at their will, and their sinuousness should be celebrated, not straightened. And remember that signs reading KEEP OUT, CUL DE SAC, VATEN, NO THROUGH ROAD or whatever are there for other people, not you.

Do take waterproof boots and oilies as you will need them, plus a snack as the dogs will need that. And be prepared to dig the car out of the mud in case it was deeper than you thought.

Do test out your partner first. If they show the slightest signs of wanting to get on to the next town to find a nice four star hotel with pool and sauna and exquisite local cooking, and if they bridle at walking through cow pats and won't let you climb on their shoulders so you can see what is on the other side of the wall, and if they jabber away when you are trying to listen to the sounds of a place, then perhaps you might suggest they would be happier with a subscription to National Geographic, and discreetly move on. Trust me, I have been there.

Anyway, I went out in this lovely Vendée weather and I got lost and found this little gem slumbering in the sun, content I suppose to slide into peaceful ruin, its original purpose abandoned as no one lives near there anymore except for a rather lost old lady talking to her cabbages who wondered why a mad foreigner was photographing the building. Enjoy. (see next message)
For tractor fans, it is a Massey Ferguson of a certain age.

New Beginnings and endings

2009-02-26T06:10:00.000-08:00

Well, there we were sitting on the beach, hard against the dunes, two wet dogs, a duck wearing incontinence pads and me, the Woolybanana, enjoying, respectively, water and some left over chicken (there was also some duck but that would have been too cruel), a bowl of bread and milk (fat reduced, for who wants an overweight duck) and a somewhat crushed pain au chocolat washed down with coffee from a flask, to which a little nip of something had been added.

And, in the warm sun we got to talking about this and that, eventually considering beginnings and endings for I had just discovered that there some new ones.

Not the sort of life changing ones I don't mean, but the little ones we live with daily; you have an end on Fridays and a beginning on Mondays if you work. And then there are the holidays. And important ones round Xmas and New Year. Of course, if you are a teacher, then you get starts and stops at the beginning and end of term and round half terms too. In fact your life is built around them.

And if you teach abroad, then there are also the beginnings and ends of contracts, the beginning and ends of the long holidays, Ramadan, Chinese New Year.

The best, when I was a youngster, was Friday afternoon when the nice lady from accounts used to bring round the paypackets, all nicely done up, with the payslip sticking out so you could check it if you wanted to (you bet we did!). And when I was a journo (well trainee really), Thursday afternoon when the proofs had been checked and the building started to quiver as the presses began the run, and we were like kids on holiday and went off for coffee and warm doughnuts next door (boy, were those ever good).

But now, these have gone, and been replaced by a whole new set which are a bit odd; there is the 22nd of the month which is pension day, then (coincidentally) the 23rd of the month, which is accounting day for my credit card, the significance being that if on the 23rd I have spent less than on the 22nd then I am joyful, if more, then sad. Then there is the 6th of the month, when the credit card actually debits and when I can check everything physically.

Oh and I found a new annual one this morning; longjohns day, when the longjohns go on for the winter and when they come in the spring.

And that is it. But I need them, these beginnings and endings, they are important, so perhaps I shall have to find a few more: blog day perhaps which means I spend all night composing in my head and then frantically scribbling and editing to get it right.

Any ideas?

Beginnings

2009-02-22T15:42:00.000-08:00

A way to wander, to butterfly round the world, to nose out those snippets normally missed or just seen and never noticed. Of the mind, of the senses, of the eye. Often with a camera, backroading wherever and whenever. Sometimes love, sometimes anger. Often in France or Belgium but not exclusively. At times alone or with the canines whom you shall meet shortly.
These are the intentions and beginnings.
Let us hope!