Saturday, June 15, 2013
The Saturday Market at Pézenas

     Francine has planned a trip to Pèzenas, an old town associated with Molière, for Saturday.  I will drive and Francine will be my monitor d'école d'auto --my driving coach.  A natural driver, she urges me, in various ways to refine my performance behind the wheel, explaining that it might be a good idea not to lift my foot off the accelerator so abruptly, to give the car some gas after I have made it half-way around a turn, not to turn the car wheels when backing out without ever-so-slowly moving, so as to save wear and tear on the tires.  I foresee a summer of drives to Mèze from Caunes, which would not be the worse thing in the world.

     I look at the Michelin map of Languedoc-Rousillon and see all the errors I made yesterday.  In addition, when I set my route on the GPS, I neglected to eliminate the prompt that makes mandatory the use of toll roads and payment for the use thereof.  I did everything wrong but drive into Bèziers, a town notoriously difficult to drive in and out of.

     We make it to Pèzenas later than advisable for purposes of finding parking in the open-air municipal lots near the start of the market.  Every space is taken and only when someone leaves is their an opportunity to take a space.  Francine and I drive around five or six times, wedged between the lines of cars on each side of the three rows of parking.  Finally we find a spot at the very end of one of the rows.  An older woman, squat and lined, looking like she stepped out of one of Lartigue's photos of working people enjoying a picnic, kindly offers to stand in the spot she and her husband are vacating --when, just as she is about to reach it, a young man and woman drive their car ahead of mine and try to claim the space.

      A general furor ensues, Francine (who has stepped out of the car), the woman and I all raising a hue and cry.  The young man is indifferent and after shouting something back, slides in.  I roll down my window and after reviewing in my mind my limited repertoire of French curses, I opt for the worst thing I can think of saying in French that isn't utterly vulgar:

     Soyez maudit!  Be cursed!

     Later, after Francine and I finally find parking, I ask Francine whether I used the right French phrase:

     "You did, but no French person would ever say something as elegant as that when cursing someone."

                                                                 ***

        The market is colorful and fun, particularly the stands for vintage clothes and soft furnishings, which sell table and bed coverings, nightshirts and blouses made in heavy cotton, which are a collector's item in Paris and elsewhere.  Here they are sold at 5 Euros each, a fraction of their price at the Porte de Vanves in Paris, let alone in New York, where they run a few hundred dollars.

          Even more lovely than the Saturday bazaar's offerings are the 17th century buildings with their vaulted interiors.  We meet a Syrian man from Damascus who runs his own silk weaving enterprise, turning out exquisite scarves in various weaving techniques.  These are silks made individually and every bit as luxurious as those produced in St. Gallen, the Swiss capital of the fine textile industry.  The weaver, a very friendly man, left Damascus when the Assads took over.  He represents the latest generation in a family of weavers that dates back two hundred years.  The quality of their products is such that his father helped weave the coronation robe of the Queen Elizabeth II in 1953