July 31, 2013
I awake sounding as though I have had a sex-change operation: my voice is definitely baritonal, and my lungs are spongy with mucous. My rheume de foins has turned into an old-fashioned respiratory infection, and it will take a few days before my symptoms clear.
I need to have the washing machine repairman return to try to fix it again. Calling his number, I am told he will be by at 11:30 a.m. My English guest and I decide that that might be enough time to hike the carriere du roy, the path along the marble quarry, which leads to a gorge on the far side of which is Notre Dame du Cros.
The path starts on the topmost part of avenue du Minervois, off the road that leads to Peyriac and Rieux. We soon find ourselves by the quarry, where monolithic blocks of marble stand neatly, one on top of the other, waiting to be shipped to Carrara, where they will be polished to a fine red hue and sold. The path, which is known as the carrière du roy because it was from that site that Louis XIV took the marble to make the columns of the Trianon at Versailles, turns away from the quarry and quickly climbs to one of the gorge's edges.
The view over the chasm and beyond, to the snow-capped Pyrenées (which can be seen clearly today) is surprising and wonderful. We are so near to Caunes, yet so far.
The path is being maintained by three young men, employees of the French Department of Forests, who widen the path, see to it that the markers on the path are visible, and that the wooden frames into which informational bulletins about the area are inserted, are maintained in good repair.
"Do you like your job? Do you like getting out of bed in the morning?" I ask them. They smile and affirm that they do, then add, in English,
"It is wonderful!"
My guest and I make it back to Caunes by 11:30 a.m., but no washing machine repairman ever arrives. Having had such a fine experience on the hike, I am not too upset by his failure to arrive. I call the number again and the repairman tells me no one told him of the appointment. (Which is funny, because I remember someone called out to someone over the phone, to ask whether he could be here at 11:30 a.m..) He will be here tomorrow after 2:00 p.m.
***
My guest and I drive to Declathlon Sports on the road to Foix to buy energy bars for bicycle rides as well as electrolyte-replacement drinks for each of us: the sun is beating down and it must be in the mid-90s, although there is not a trace of humidity in the air.
Having paid for everything, we get in the car and drive to the unfortunately-named FunSport. This store is a bicycle enthusiast's idea of heaven. One half --a separate building-- sells-used and inventory clearance bicycles, the other sells new ones. In their categories, prices can run into the thousands of Euros. A titanium frame might cost 4950 Euros, the wheels 1950, plus brakes, plus speeds. If you are serious about working on your bicycle, you can buy a heavy iron contraption that will allow the bicycle to hang suspended at eye-level, to avoid the back strain from having to bend down.
There are helmets that cost several hundred Euros, clothes, gloves, gears, shoes. We are there to buy one screw, which will replace one of the two on the steering mechanism on the Xootr Swift. Total cost: 50 centimes, but the staff member who handles the sale is as friendly as if we had bought an elite bicycle. FunSport is a store that reflects the French obsession with cycling, and the pursuit of technical excellence in bicycle design. Between the new, the used and the inventory clearance models, FunSport must have a thousand bicycles in its two stores, in small, medium, large and extra large sizes.
There are road bikes, track bikes, mountain bikes and every kind of gear that goes with them. All the parts for building your own bicycle are there, if you can afford the price of doing so. You can buy wheels whose rubber circumference extends halfway across the wheel's diameter, an innovation that gives the rider more aerodynamic advantage. You can buy tires for mountain bikes that look as though they would fit on mini-tractors.
You have to be seriously obsessed with bicycles to buy at FunSports.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
70 Kilometers on the Road; Zorro Washed Here; French Hay Fever
July 30, 2013
The day starts with a 70-kilometer bicycle ride through the Minervois as far as Aragon and Villegailhenc, starting at 7:30 a.m. Just before the end of the ride we have to mount a hill, and I almost crack. The bicycle I am riding will not allow me to change gears; when I do, the chain falls off. And it makes noises that only bicycles out of alignment make when I stay in the one gear I can manage.
Claude, the olive grower, and club president, saves the day. When I explain why I can't change to a smaller sprocket, he says, "Well, let's stop and we'll change the sprocket while you stop, and the chain won't fall off." Indeed, it does not, and I am able to crest the hill without difficulty, although by the end of the ride, I feel as though I have been on the Bataan Death March. Perhaps because a new rider, my English friend, is a stripling of 31, the older men want to put him on his mettle.
Patrice, the secretary waves his finger at me and says "Today I am your executioner, no?" (Au jourd'hui je suis ton bourreau, non?") He certainly is.
However, Claude's practical solution to getting me up the hill allows me a moment of glory on a hard day. For most of the ride I have been struggling to keep up. By putting the bicycle on the lower gear I need, Claude makes up for all the earlier hours when I thought I'd never stop huffing and puffing.
When I and my guest return home, I knock on Bob and Annabelle's door: the washing machine still isn't running, and Annabelle has offered to let me wash some clothes. While she is emptying her washing machine, I tell Bob, with reference to the ride, that "By the time I leave on September 9, I will either be in the best shape I have ever been in, or I will be dead --there's no in-between."
***
The washing machine repairman comes by just about when I was told he would, three-thirty p.m. Like the plumber David Martinez, David Chabbert is a youngish man who is accompanied by an adolescent boy acting as his assistant. The two of them move the washing machine out of the house and into the courtyard of the house to let the hose drain the water out. After this is done, David Chabbert unscrews a lid on the bottom of the back of the washer and finds...a sodden sleep mask with two ties, rather like Zorro might wear if he needed forty winks. The sleep mask has been living inside the tube a long time, until it reached its end and stopped up the drainage, is the explanation why the machine refused to drain. The machine is brought back into the house, and I pay 40 Euros for the service call. The repairman tells me to go ahead and wash the towels in the machine again, which I do gladly.
Unfortunately, when I return home a few hours later, the machine still doesn't drain. Perhaps Zorro left a few more masks behind.
***
The French term for "hay fever" is "rheum de foins" (literally catahrr-fever). I have "rheum de foins", and I have it bad. The sunflowers and the wine grapes and the fruit trees are all being sprayed and the harvesting of the grapes will be in two weeks for some varieties, continuing through the end of September for the darkest, reddest, most tannic wines.
"Then there are also plants to which people have allergies, in addition to the reactions to the spraying and the extra amounts of plant matter in the air", explains the pharmacist in town. Fortunately, I don't have to have a prescription for an antihistamine tablet, or for a nasal spray. I rode 70 kilometers with a swelled head rather than take an antihistamine, thinking that I would adjust to the environment. By the afternoon, I decided I would have to stop the sneezing attacks and the post-nasal drip and that I wasn't adjusting the environment.
What did people do before medicines that dried out runny noses and sinuses existed? We see Millet's The Gleaners without recognizing that it is a painting about the desperately poor picking up the leavings of the harvest to feed themselves. We forget, too, that some of them probably suffered horribly having to do so, due to la rheume du foins. Oscar Wilde once said he didn't like nature, that it was unnatural, a statement any hay fever sufferer knows rings true.
The day starts with a 70-kilometer bicycle ride through the Minervois as far as Aragon and Villegailhenc, starting at 7:30 a.m. Just before the end of the ride we have to mount a hill, and I almost crack. The bicycle I am riding will not allow me to change gears; when I do, the chain falls off. And it makes noises that only bicycles out of alignment make when I stay in the one gear I can manage.
Claude, the olive grower, and club president, saves the day. When I explain why I can't change to a smaller sprocket, he says, "Well, let's stop and we'll change the sprocket while you stop, and the chain won't fall off." Indeed, it does not, and I am able to crest the hill without difficulty, although by the end of the ride, I feel as though I have been on the Bataan Death March. Perhaps because a new rider, my English friend, is a stripling of 31, the older men want to put him on his mettle.
Patrice, the secretary waves his finger at me and says "Today I am your executioner, no?" (Au jourd'hui je suis ton bourreau, non?") He certainly is.
However, Claude's practical solution to getting me up the hill allows me a moment of glory on a hard day. For most of the ride I have been struggling to keep up. By putting the bicycle on the lower gear I need, Claude makes up for all the earlier hours when I thought I'd never stop huffing and puffing.
When I and my guest return home, I knock on Bob and Annabelle's door: the washing machine still isn't running, and Annabelle has offered to let me wash some clothes. While she is emptying her washing machine, I tell Bob, with reference to the ride, that "By the time I leave on September 9, I will either be in the best shape I have ever been in, or I will be dead --there's no in-between."
***
The washing machine repairman comes by just about when I was told he would, three-thirty p.m. Like the plumber David Martinez, David Chabbert is a youngish man who is accompanied by an adolescent boy acting as his assistant. The two of them move the washing machine out of the house and into the courtyard of the house to let the hose drain the water out. After this is done, David Chabbert unscrews a lid on the bottom of the back of the washer and finds...a sodden sleep mask with two ties, rather like Zorro might wear if he needed forty winks. The sleep mask has been living inside the tube a long time, until it reached its end and stopped up the drainage, is the explanation why the machine refused to drain. The machine is brought back into the house, and I pay 40 Euros for the service call. The repairman tells me to go ahead and wash the towels in the machine again, which I do gladly.
Unfortunately, when I return home a few hours later, the machine still doesn't drain. Perhaps Zorro left a few more masks behind.
***
The French term for "hay fever" is "rheum de foins" (literally catahrr-fever). I have "rheum de foins", and I have it bad. The sunflowers and the wine grapes and the fruit trees are all being sprayed and the harvesting of the grapes will be in two weeks for some varieties, continuing through the end of September for the darkest, reddest, most tannic wines.
"Then there are also plants to which people have allergies, in addition to the reactions to the spraying and the extra amounts of plant matter in the air", explains the pharmacist in town. Fortunately, I don't have to have a prescription for an antihistamine tablet, or for a nasal spray. I rode 70 kilometers with a swelled head rather than take an antihistamine, thinking that I would adjust to the environment. By the afternoon, I decided I would have to stop the sneezing attacks and the post-nasal drip and that I wasn't adjusting the environment.
What did people do before medicines that dried out runny noses and sinuses existed? We see Millet's The Gleaners without recognizing that it is a painting about the desperately poor picking up the leavings of the harvest to feed themselves. We forget, too, that some of them probably suffered horribly having to do so, due to la rheume du foins. Oscar Wilde once said he didn't like nature, that it was unnatural, a statement any hay fever sufferer knows rings true.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Chateau d'Argeres
July 29, 2013
There is a washing machine repairman in Trausse, a town nearby who can look at the washing machine and probably fix it. My mind is far more at rest now.
So much at rest that I happily take my English friend to the Château d'Argères for the tour of the vineyard. Which turns out to be a tour of the vineyard and much more.
The Château d'Argêres has been in the Cros-Mayrevielle family for generations. The present owner, Jean-Baptiste, gathers the fifty or so visitors and begins the tour by explaining that his great-grandfather began the restauration of La Cité in Carcassonne, and that there is even a street named after him in honor of his work on Carcassonne's behalf.
The property is large --about 32 hectares of cultivable land, or two and a half acres. The vines are primarily red wine grapes --grenâche, mourvedre, syrah, but a bit of semillon as well, cultivated on 12 hectares, all tended by hand. The wine is pesticide-free, and the fermentation process excludes all but a bit of sulfite, a percentage considerably below that which is necessary for a wine to be considered "bio" in France. Even under those stringent conditions one of the vintages has won a gold medal for Rousillon-Languedoc.
Jean-Baptiste is a man with stubborn streak, a tall, strongly-built man who leads the tour in a black t-shirt, khaki shorts and topsiders. He looks as though he just came in from trimming vines, and when he speaks of his methods, he explains every aspect of his thinking about what he wanted to produce on the land once he became responsible for the estate's production However, before he starts to speak about wine, he leads the assembled group of about sixty people (including about ten young children) on a hike across the property, which includes visiting a Gallo-Roman intersection of two roads, a Gallo-Roman cemetery, a pause along each of the varietals' vineyards, and stops to identify botanical specimens like wild asparagus and thyme. Jean-Baptiste is a fund of knowledge about the terrain in his little corner of the Minervois, and he speaks with deep love of the land he has inherited, land that has been in his family's hands since the 19th century when the land was turned to wine-growing and away from sheep farming.
Today, in order to make the land pay, Jean-Baptiste has reintroduced sheep farming on some of the land (50 lambs), created two gites (rural homes rented to tourists), and gives oenological tours, in addition to selling wine. His son, who shares his name, is now in charge of the day-to-day operations of the estate, but Jean-Baptiste and his wife remain the face of the estate to the world.
The tour takes three hours, two and a half of them a walk through the bracken of the estate. Jean-Baptiste walks through his lands as he probably does every day, but some of his guests think the tour more demanding than they expected. "I'll never do this again" says one American woman to her friends. "Wine tours are all the same."
This one is decidedly not, because this proprietaire loves his terroir and wants to tell you why it is so special, why the way he is making wine amounts to a moral choice as well as a practical one: he wants to leave his children something they can live from. At the end of the tour, a charge of 7 Euros is the cost of an assiette gourmand, a plate of patés, charcuterie and cheese assembled by his wife and served with glasses of wine made on the estate. "Yes", you have to understand French pretty well to appreciate all that Jean-Baptiste is saying (There are three hundred varieties of orchids that grow naturally in the Languedoc-Rousillon area--), but all things being equal, Jean-Baptiste is one vigneron who wants to communicate his passion for the wine of his land, which may not have the fame of the Bordeaux and Burgundies that are synonymous with fine French wine, but will be worthy of recognition so long as he has anything to say about it.
There is a washing machine repairman in Trausse, a town nearby who can look at the washing machine and probably fix it. My mind is far more at rest now.
So much at rest that I happily take my English friend to the Château d'Argères for the tour of the vineyard. Which turns out to be a tour of the vineyard and much more.
The Château d'Argêres has been in the Cros-Mayrevielle family for generations. The present owner, Jean-Baptiste, gathers the fifty or so visitors and begins the tour by explaining that his great-grandfather began the restauration of La Cité in Carcassonne, and that there is even a street named after him in honor of his work on Carcassonne's behalf.
The property is large --about 32 hectares of cultivable land, or two and a half acres. The vines are primarily red wine grapes --grenâche, mourvedre, syrah, but a bit of semillon as well, cultivated on 12 hectares, all tended by hand. The wine is pesticide-free, and the fermentation process excludes all but a bit of sulfite, a percentage considerably below that which is necessary for a wine to be considered "bio" in France. Even under those stringent conditions one of the vintages has won a gold medal for Rousillon-Languedoc.
Jean-Baptiste is a man with stubborn streak, a tall, strongly-built man who leads the tour in a black t-shirt, khaki shorts and topsiders. He looks as though he just came in from trimming vines, and when he speaks of his methods, he explains every aspect of his thinking about what he wanted to produce on the land once he became responsible for the estate's production However, before he starts to speak about wine, he leads the assembled group of about sixty people (including about ten young children) on a hike across the property, which includes visiting a Gallo-Roman intersection of two roads, a Gallo-Roman cemetery, a pause along each of the varietals' vineyards, and stops to identify botanical specimens like wild asparagus and thyme. Jean-Baptiste is a fund of knowledge about the terrain in his little corner of the Minervois, and he speaks with deep love of the land he has inherited, land that has been in his family's hands since the 19th century when the land was turned to wine-growing and away from sheep farming.
Today, in order to make the land pay, Jean-Baptiste has reintroduced sheep farming on some of the land (50 lambs), created two gites (rural homes rented to tourists), and gives oenological tours, in addition to selling wine. His son, who shares his name, is now in charge of the day-to-day operations of the estate, but Jean-Baptiste and his wife remain the face of the estate to the world.
The tour takes three hours, two and a half of them a walk through the bracken of the estate. Jean-Baptiste walks through his lands as he probably does every day, but some of his guests think the tour more demanding than they expected. "I'll never do this again" says one American woman to her friends. "Wine tours are all the same."
This one is decidedly not, because this proprietaire loves his terroir and wants to tell you why it is so special, why the way he is making wine amounts to a moral choice as well as a practical one: he wants to leave his children something they can live from. At the end of the tour, a charge of 7 Euros is the cost of an assiette gourmand, a plate of patés, charcuterie and cheese assembled by his wife and served with glasses of wine made on the estate. "Yes", you have to understand French pretty well to appreciate all that Jean-Baptiste is saying (There are three hundred varieties of orchids that grow naturally in the Languedoc-Rousillon area--), but all things being equal, Jean-Baptiste is one vigneron who wants to communicate his passion for the wine of his land, which may not have the fame of the Bordeaux and Burgundies that are synonymous with fine French wine, but will be worthy of recognition so long as he has anything to say about it.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
My dull weekend in Caunes
July 28, 2013
Today, Sunday, the Caunes-Minervois Cycling Club has arranged to meet a club in La Redorte, where the road turns towards Béziers, for an especially long ride through the area east of Caunes. Start time is 7:00 a.m. I just make it.
Last night Bob Thorp replaced my Shimano pedals with the original Look brand which with Jean Lacroix lent me the bicycle. I need a break from trying to ride with cleats, and the shifter is giving me problems: I can manage several speeds as long as I stick with one of the three sprockets, but if I move out of that one, the drive chain falls off. After the fall caused yesterday by not disengaging the left cleat, I had the drive chain fall off, too. Just my luck, Bob and Annabelle were driving by, and picked me up on the outskirts of Villegly. Otherwise it would have been 9 kilometers on foot in the midday sun to Caunes.
That afternoon I went to FunSport, the best bicycle store in the area. They have a used bicycle depot at 18 avenue Jean Monnet, which the GPS led me to without one wrong turn, a first. The bicycles available range from bicycles selling at 2000 Euros to 200. However, I am small relative to the size of most riders, so there was only one bicycle with dropped handlebars in my size. It has Shimano brand shifters and brakes in the handles, a much easier bicycle to ride, even with cleats. It would set me back 390 Euros, a considerable sum, although relative to the price of comparable new bicycles, not a large sum. Still, having only one bicycle to choose from might not be the best way to invest in a new bicycle. Maybe I can manage on a borrowed bicycle for the remainder of my stay.
Returning home in the late afternoon, I tried to address a mechanical issue: the washing machine, which had been running perfectly, has become stuck on the rinse cycle. Friday, David Martinez, a local plumber whose family started a plumbing business here thirty years ago, came by to look at the upstairs shower head, which had stopped sending out streams of water no matter what I did to try to get it to work. The problem was a cracked internal tube inside the cable connecting the showerhead to the faucet in the wall.
When David, who is half-Spanish, half-French, arrived, I was in the middle of doing laundry in anticipation of the visit of an English guest Sunday evening. To install the new fixture, he asked me to turn off the machine. From that moment on, the machine has not worked. Yesterday Bob told me how to unlock the top-loading machine's lid so I could pull out the wet clothes; after that, I bailed water for about a half hour. Hoping the problem was a too-large load, I tried washing a small one before leaving for a break in Carcassonne. Nonetheless, on my return, I found the machine again, stuck on the rinse cycle. That pretty much sums up my Saturday. David will be here Monday at 11:00 a.m.
I might have to pick out a new washing machine for my hosts, who are certainly entitled to a working washer upon their return next year. At least the breakdown has happened while I still have enough time to order and take delivery of a new machine, if necessary. One thing to consider if I do, is that stores are closed in the afternoon, and not open after 12:30 p.m. on Sundays. Indeed, some (like FunSport) close Sunday and Monday. Time is of the essence is a relative concept here.
With the annoying prospect of the machine being unrepairable on my mind, I join the cycling club and follow along. Within minutes, my mind unwinds: the big sky and rolling hills, the vines all around me are so beautiful to me. There was heavy rain last night, but the morning is dry and cool, with the wind light. Or should I say winds. Everyone is an expert on the winds, and they are a frequent topic of conversation: the marin, the tramontane, the mistral and the "grec".
Jeannot tells me that the marin is blowing today. If the wind is blowing from the west, he says, one ought to stay to the right on the road; if east, on the left, to minimize the thrust of gusts. Il faut se proteger (You have to protect yourself), he tells me.
We reach the soccer stadium at La Redorte in short order. There is a sign-up sheet and a 2 Euro fee, which covers a map of the route, espresso and breakfast pastries without limit. Introductions are made all around. Someone comes to find me and takes me to meet an older woman with short blond hair and blue eyes, seated at the registration desk. I assume she is French, that there is something I filled out incorrectly on my registration form. She looks at me, I say Bon jour and she says nothing.
"Je vous comprends. Parlez-moi, s'il vous plait." I try again.
She stares back: she is English. The assembled have a good laugh, and then I chat with the woman, who is thinking of buying a house here with her daughter. She is volunteering to help with the ride registration and collection of 2 Euros. After a few minutes of chat, it is time to ride. The group rides to a designated point, then Jeannot and I ride back, as the meet course is strenuous, and Jeannot prefers to do his 50 kilometers on the flats. Pedaling along, at one point, I try to use the shifter again, to see whether there is a knack I need to get. Unfortunately, the drive chain falls off again. I lose Jeannot for several minutes, while I stop and re-engage the drive chain.
I have all I can do to catch up with Jeannot, whose age does not keep him from rising from the bicycle seat and pedaling vigorously when he has to take a hill, or pedaling furiously if he wants to lead. When I am side by side with him he asks me,
Am I going too fast for you?
Today, Sunday, the Caunes-Minervois Cycling Club has arranged to meet a club in La Redorte, where the road turns towards Béziers, for an especially long ride through the area east of Caunes. Start time is 7:00 a.m. I just make it.
Last night Bob Thorp replaced my Shimano pedals with the original Look brand which with Jean Lacroix lent me the bicycle. I need a break from trying to ride with cleats, and the shifter is giving me problems: I can manage several speeds as long as I stick with one of the three sprockets, but if I move out of that one, the drive chain falls off. After the fall caused yesterday by not disengaging the left cleat, I had the drive chain fall off, too. Just my luck, Bob and Annabelle were driving by, and picked me up on the outskirts of Villegly. Otherwise it would have been 9 kilometers on foot in the midday sun to Caunes.
That afternoon I went to FunSport, the best bicycle store in the area. They have a used bicycle depot at 18 avenue Jean Monnet, which the GPS led me to without one wrong turn, a first. The bicycles available range from bicycles selling at 2000 Euros to 200. However, I am small relative to the size of most riders, so there was only one bicycle with dropped handlebars in my size. It has Shimano brand shifters and brakes in the handles, a much easier bicycle to ride, even with cleats. It would set me back 390 Euros, a considerable sum, although relative to the price of comparable new bicycles, not a large sum. Still, having only one bicycle to choose from might not be the best way to invest in a new bicycle. Maybe I can manage on a borrowed bicycle for the remainder of my stay.
Returning home in the late afternoon, I tried to address a mechanical issue: the washing machine, which had been running perfectly, has become stuck on the rinse cycle. Friday, David Martinez, a local plumber whose family started a plumbing business here thirty years ago, came by to look at the upstairs shower head, which had stopped sending out streams of water no matter what I did to try to get it to work. The problem was a cracked internal tube inside the cable connecting the showerhead to the faucet in the wall.
When David, who is half-Spanish, half-French, arrived, I was in the middle of doing laundry in anticipation of the visit of an English guest Sunday evening. To install the new fixture, he asked me to turn off the machine. From that moment on, the machine has not worked. Yesterday Bob told me how to unlock the top-loading machine's lid so I could pull out the wet clothes; after that, I bailed water for about a half hour. Hoping the problem was a too-large load, I tried washing a small one before leaving for a break in Carcassonne. Nonetheless, on my return, I found the machine again, stuck on the rinse cycle. That pretty much sums up my Saturday. David will be here Monday at 11:00 a.m.
I might have to pick out a new washing machine for my hosts, who are certainly entitled to a working washer upon their return next year. At least the breakdown has happened while I still have enough time to order and take delivery of a new machine, if necessary. One thing to consider if I do, is that stores are closed in the afternoon, and not open after 12:30 p.m. on Sundays. Indeed, some (like FunSport) close Sunday and Monday. Time is of the essence is a relative concept here.
With the annoying prospect of the machine being unrepairable on my mind, I join the cycling club and follow along. Within minutes, my mind unwinds: the big sky and rolling hills, the vines all around me are so beautiful to me. There was heavy rain last night, but the morning is dry and cool, with the wind light. Or should I say winds. Everyone is an expert on the winds, and they are a frequent topic of conversation: the marin, the tramontane, the mistral and the "grec".
Jeannot tells me that the marin is blowing today. If the wind is blowing from the west, he says, one ought to stay to the right on the road; if east, on the left, to minimize the thrust of gusts. Il faut se proteger (You have to protect yourself), he tells me.
We reach the soccer stadium at La Redorte in short order. There is a sign-up sheet and a 2 Euro fee, which covers a map of the route, espresso and breakfast pastries without limit. Introductions are made all around. Someone comes to find me and takes me to meet an older woman with short blond hair and blue eyes, seated at the registration desk. I assume she is French, that there is something I filled out incorrectly on my registration form. She looks at me, I say Bon jour and she says nothing.
"Je vous comprends. Parlez-moi, s'il vous plait." I try again.
She stares back: she is English. The assembled have a good laugh, and then I chat with the woman, who is thinking of buying a house here with her daughter. She is volunteering to help with the ride registration and collection of 2 Euros. After a few minutes of chat, it is time to ride. The group rides to a designated point, then Jeannot and I ride back, as the meet course is strenuous, and Jeannot prefers to do his 50 kilometers on the flats. Pedaling along, at one point, I try to use the shifter again, to see whether there is a knack I need to get. Unfortunately, the drive chain falls off again. I lose Jeannot for several minutes, while I stop and re-engage the drive chain.
I have all I can do to catch up with Jeannot, whose age does not keep him from rising from the bicycle seat and pedaling vigorously when he has to take a hill, or pedaling furiously if he wants to lead. When I am side by side with him he asks me,
Am I going too fast for you?
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Wind
July 27, 2013
The weather all over France has been extreme this July, with floods, hail, and winds dangerously high. This morning I went out to try to ride to Carcassonne, but turned around after reaching Villegly, a mere 6 miles. I was tired of having the bicycle swerve to one side or the other on account of the 40 mile an hour gusts.
The road to Carcassonne is across farmland: sunflowers were growing in the place where I stopped. There are ditches on each side of the road, a few inches from where I was cycling. Meanwhile, cars were passing me at a good clip, locals doing Saturday morning errands. --And the occasional truck.
It occurred to me that one good gust to my left could push me right under a vehicle. A gust to the right could land me in the ditch. There are moments when it is easy to see how serious injury, even death could be hastened by foolish persistence. This was one of them, so I stopped the bicycle, walked over to the other side of the road when traffic permitted, and started to walk back.
I'd also already fallen once, thanks to a cleat that would not release. The cleats may make pedaling smoother, but if the smoothness comes at the price of falls, I think I will go back to pedals. My knees are beginning to look like I got into a swordfight with a dwarf.
The weather all over France has been extreme this July, with floods, hail, and winds dangerously high. This morning I went out to try to ride to Carcassonne, but turned around after reaching Villegly, a mere 6 miles. I was tired of having the bicycle swerve to one side or the other on account of the 40 mile an hour gusts.
The road to Carcassonne is across farmland: sunflowers were growing in the place where I stopped. There are ditches on each side of the road, a few inches from where I was cycling. Meanwhile, cars were passing me at a good clip, locals doing Saturday morning errands. --And the occasional truck.
It occurred to me that one good gust to my left could push me right under a vehicle. A gust to the right could land me in the ditch. There are moments when it is easy to see how serious injury, even death could be hastened by foolish persistence. This was one of them, so I stopped the bicycle, walked over to the other side of the road when traffic permitted, and started to walk back.
I'd also already fallen once, thanks to a cleat that would not release. The cleats may make pedaling smoother, but if the smoothness comes at the price of falls, I think I will go back to pedals. My knees are beginning to look like I got into a swordfight with a dwarf.
Friday, July 26, 2013
I Started A Rumor
July 26, 2013
I think that my comprehension of French is improving, but sometimes I get big things wrong.
An example of this is the rumor I have started regarding the "Femen" stamp that has just been released by the French postal service, a new stamp to commemorate the presidency of François Hollande.
The symbol of the French Revolution which the French live with year-in-and-year-out is the postage stamp of Marianne, the image of a woman wearing a Phyrigian cap. If you don't know what a Phyrigian cap is, it is a sock-like head-covering, a sort of loose-fitting sailor's watch cap. The Phrygian bonnet is always red in its French iteration, and it is synonymous with liberty.
Many beautiful women have modeled for Marianne, including Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, Inès de la Fressange, and Laetitia Casta. The designers of the latest Marianne stamp, David Kanewa and Olivier Ciappa, declared when the stamp was released, that an inspiration was Imma Shevchenko of the radical feminist group "Femen".
Imma Shevchenko is a radical feminist from Ukraine whose stock in trade is going topless in protest. As the French have always had an easy relationship with small-breasted topless women on beaches, the fuss over Shevchenko's inspiration is hard to fathom. She is not French, but she has French residence, and the French do not object to young, gorgeous blonds going topless for what they believe in.
Yet a great deal of ink has been spilled over the latest Marianne. I have been trying to make sense of it, but at some point my grasp of what I was reading in the newspapers fell behind what seems to actually have been placed on the page. I thought the controversy was over the fact that the new Marianne was a transvestite! I drew this conclusion from the frequent references to Femen in the press.
This is not as wild an idea as it sounds. The female gender is femelle in French, the male, mâle. Femen suggests something beyond the feminine, something that might offend the French sense of the strictness of gender roles. Although perhaps that is not a sentiment that can be easily reconciled with Liberty Equality and Fraternity in the 21st century.
On the other hand, maybe I got it wrong: maybe the protest was a picayune snipe by the Right, protesting the use of someone other than a Frenchwoman as the inspiration for Marianne.
However, if you look at the stamp itself, one thing immediately strikes you: Marianne has huge hands, the size of transvestites'! Kanewa and Ciappa admitted to being inspired by images from the Renaissance, bandes déssinés (French hard-bound comic-strips), and manga, eroticized comic books from Japan. And Femen sounds --at least to my ears-- like a merger of feminine and men --a word that bespeaks androgyny.
It was with that in mind that I went to the post office in Caunes-Minervois today, to see whether it had any of the Femen stamps, as I called them. The man behind the desk is a quiet, unassuming, friendly person, slender in build. He wears small wireless eyeglasses and has a retiring, but cheerful demeanor.
"I would like some of the new Marianne stamps, the Femen stamps?"
"We don't have any yet, but eventually we will."
"I want to buy a sheet of them--"
"They come in large and small denominations--"
"I want to frame a sheet, since the new Marianne is so controversial--"
"Oh? Why controversial?"
"It's a femen, a transvestite--"
"I have a flyer here that announces the issue--"
"There she is. Do you see how large the hands are? It's a man! --Or it's half-man, half-woman --or it's a transvestite, I don't know. All I know is that it's a scandal!"
"Where have you read this?"
"In Le Figaro and other newspapers. It's very controversial."
"Well, if you want to buy a sheet, you can buy a sheet of 100 stamps at the centime level, which will cost you a Euro."
"Great! Then I can frame it!"
Has Caunes-Minervois ever heard of such a thing? Inadvertently, I have passed on misinformation. Yet if you look at the image on the stamp, that girl has some big hands.
I think that my comprehension of French is improving, but sometimes I get big things wrong.
An example of this is the rumor I have started regarding the "Femen" stamp that has just been released by the French postal service, a new stamp to commemorate the presidency of François Hollande.
The symbol of the French Revolution which the French live with year-in-and-year-out is the postage stamp of Marianne, the image of a woman wearing a Phyrigian cap. If you don't know what a Phyrigian cap is, it is a sock-like head-covering, a sort of loose-fitting sailor's watch cap. The Phrygian bonnet is always red in its French iteration, and it is synonymous with liberty.
Many beautiful women have modeled for Marianne, including Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, Inès de la Fressange, and Laetitia Casta. The designers of the latest Marianne stamp, David Kanewa and Olivier Ciappa, declared when the stamp was released, that an inspiration was Imma Shevchenko of the radical feminist group "Femen".
Imma Shevchenko is a radical feminist from Ukraine whose stock in trade is going topless in protest. As the French have always had an easy relationship with small-breasted topless women on beaches, the fuss over Shevchenko's inspiration is hard to fathom. She is not French, but she has French residence, and the French do not object to young, gorgeous blonds going topless for what they believe in.
Yet a great deal of ink has been spilled over the latest Marianne. I have been trying to make sense of it, but at some point my grasp of what I was reading in the newspapers fell behind what seems to actually have been placed on the page. I thought the controversy was over the fact that the new Marianne was a transvestite! I drew this conclusion from the frequent references to Femen in the press.
This is not as wild an idea as it sounds. The female gender is femelle in French, the male, mâle. Femen suggests something beyond the feminine, something that might offend the French sense of the strictness of gender roles. Although perhaps that is not a sentiment that can be easily reconciled with Liberty Equality and Fraternity in the 21st century.
On the other hand, maybe I got it wrong: maybe the protest was a picayune snipe by the Right, protesting the use of someone other than a Frenchwoman as the inspiration for Marianne.
However, if you look at the stamp itself, one thing immediately strikes you: Marianne has huge hands, the size of transvestites'! Kanewa and Ciappa admitted to being inspired by images from the Renaissance, bandes déssinés (French hard-bound comic-strips), and manga, eroticized comic books from Japan. And Femen sounds --at least to my ears-- like a merger of feminine and men --a word that bespeaks androgyny.
It was with that in mind that I went to the post office in Caunes-Minervois today, to see whether it had any of the Femen stamps, as I called them. The man behind the desk is a quiet, unassuming, friendly person, slender in build. He wears small wireless eyeglasses and has a retiring, but cheerful demeanor.
"I would like some of the new Marianne stamps, the Femen stamps?"
"We don't have any yet, but eventually we will."
"I want to buy a sheet of them--"
"They come in large and small denominations--"
"I want to frame a sheet, since the new Marianne is so controversial--"
"Oh? Why controversial?"
"It's a femen, a transvestite--"
"I have a flyer here that announces the issue--"
"There she is. Do you see how large the hands are? It's a man! --Or it's half-man, half-woman --or it's a transvestite, I don't know. All I know is that it's a scandal!"
"Where have you read this?"
"In Le Figaro and other newspapers. It's very controversial."
"Well, if you want to buy a sheet, you can buy a sheet of 100 stamps at the centime level, which will cost you a Euro."
"Great! Then I can frame it!"
Has Caunes-Minervois ever heard of such a thing? Inadvertently, I have passed on misinformation. Yet if you look at the image on the stamp, that girl has some big hands.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
A Visit to the Notaire's in Ariège; The Thursday Cycling Meeting
July 24-25, 2013
After much thought, much investigation and much consultation, I decided to buy the house I first looked at near Notre Dame du Cros. When I first came to Caunes-Minervois, the last thing I thought I would ever do was buy a house. Yet the house I have bought overlooks the forest and offers wonderful views, as well as being in mint condition. Thanks to the downturn in French real estate, the house is affordable. My sellers, a couple who have moved to Minerve, have done all they can to leave everything in working order so that I can turn the key in the lock and move in without further ado once the paperwork is completed.
The paperwork involves a visit to the notaire in Mazeres, Ariège, in the Midi-Pyrenées region, two hours away. The notaire is one the sellers' famlies have dealt with for generations and rely on. Ariège is the poorest of France's départments, with l'Aude one notch higher on the list. Although l'Aude is fertile, this part of Ariège is dry: this is cattle-country. To get to Mazeres will be a challenge, though. My Michelin map is only for Languedoc-Roussillon, and the GPS does not recognize Mazeres in the Ariège, only one in the Haut Garonne, five hours away.
The notaire's e-mail asked me to meet the sellers at 10:30 a.m. at the house to check on a promised repair, then meet in Mazeres at 2:00 p.m. I mistakenly thought that we were driving together, but the sellers are staying overnight in Mazeres, where they have relatives, so I have to drive myself there. With the GPS not cooperating and map-less, Madame volunteers to sit in the passenger seat with me while her husband leads the way.
The trip turns out to be much more simple than I thought it would be: there is a turn-off towards Foix where the péage splits off, but from there I have only to follow the exit to Mazeres. The two cars arrive timely at the notaire's.
The buildings in Mazeres are three-story rose-brick structures without much ornamentation. There is an austerity about the landscape and the shape of the town that reminds me of Spain, which is not surprising, as we are edging towards its border. (We are also only two hours from Andorra, the kingdom in the Pyrenées that lies between France and Spain, and which is ruled jointly today by the Count of Foix and the French President.)
The notaire's office is a storefront above a residential building around the corner from the church, an enormous brick building without ornamentation inside or out. The office is spare, two women are now in charge, having taken over from the man who originally had the license de notaire. After a wait of five minutes, the notaire whose name is on the firm's official documents comes out to greet us. She is about forty years old, and is wearing a one-piece playsuit over a white t-shirt and platform heels. She conducts us down the hall into her office.
The office is dominated by a large bureau plat, a desk table in front of which three chairs for clients have been placed, with the notaire's chair opposite. All the bureaus plats in lawyer's offices in France, indeed, all the desks of government officials of high rank, are in the style of pre-Revolutionary France. Which is funny when you think that even though France is a Republic, all the desk furniture is in the style of the monarchy that the revolution overturned, the grander the better: Louis XIV, XV or XVI.
To the right of the table is a large computer screen on which the contract appears. For the next three hours all of us go over the terms of the contract and the mechanics of the sale transaction. That task completed, buyer and seller have to initial or sign every page of the contract, including the reports of electrical, lead, asbestos, and energy experts. The transaction cannot be finalized until the mairie, the City Hall in Caunes-Minervois, declares that it has no interest in the property for public purposes; or, in stopping the sale and exercising its right of first refusal.
The latter occasionally happens. Sellers often want to get out of paying taxes on the sale and will report a sale price that is unusually low relative to the assessed value of the house, while taking the balance of the actual purchase price of the house as a payment for "furniture". In the case of one commercial property in Caunes, the sale was stopped by the mairie, which exercised its right of first refusal. After the property was transferred to the mairie, it sold the lot to a local for a price near the assessed value, but less than the total sum that would have changed hands had the original transaction gone through. The seller lost the difference between the price the mairie paid and what the cost of the "furniture" would have been.
The contract reviewed and signed, the purchase price paid, all depends on the mairie, which could take up to three months to decide whether to exercise a right-of-first refusal. We are all hoping that, with the real estate market so poor, the mairie will produce the necessary document permitting the transaction to close sooner. I will give the notaire a power of attorney to complete the transaction if all the paperwork is not completed by the time I need to return to the States. In any event, the sellers will let me store my belongings in the house, which is a great favor.
Within twenty-four hours the news I am to become a Caunoise of sorts will be all over the village: the neighbors across from where I am staying include a gendarme who just retired. Bob and Annabelle Thorp, who take me out to dinner in Villeneuve to celebrate the house purchase, introduce me to him and his family (three generations living together under one roof), as a new neighbor. Everyone remembers the house as having belonged to the curé, although he died decades ago.
***
The cycling club sets out at seven-thirty as usual, this time heading towards Peyriac and further on to L'Auriole. Everyone is happy to see that I now have cleats on my cycling shoes along with the new pedals into which they have to snap in. The group is smaller today: Bob, me, Jeannot, Patrice and Claude.
We start pedaling in the cool, early morning light: the fields glow in the sunshine. As I pedal past row after row of Minervois vines on both sides of roads mainly used by farmers, I take such pleasure in the land's fertility: la belle France, one of the most arable countries in the world, trying so hard to resist the force of bigger and bigger forms of organization, so suspicious of the world of economies of scale, which threatens the intimacy of life at the local level.
For example, while pedaling through one of the villages early into the ride, a woman crosses our path, followed by two dogs, one of which lags behind. I try to go around it, but its movements throw me off and I cannot disengage from one of the cleats fast enough and tumble to the ground. I am able to get up, but a bit bruised, and one of my knees has a scrape. Everyone stops riding and comes back for me. I get up and say I want to drink something, walking over to the wall of a house to lean against it and drink. One of the club members moves my bicycle over to the wall, while everyone makes their assessment of what I did wrong, and whether I am capable of continuing.
While this is happening the woman with the dogs comes up, clutching a bottle of Betadyne antiseptic and a bag of cotton pads. She cleans my scrape and adds a bit more Betadyne for good measure, making sure I have no other abrasions before letting me go.
"Only in the villages will you find that", says Bob. "People look after each other."
We ride on and I fall one more time, this time on the other side, without injury.
Not wanting to make much of this second failure of coordination, I joke that now I have fallen once on each side.
Vous êtes équilibrée! (You're well-balanced now!) laughs Claude and we ride on.
After much thought, much investigation and much consultation, I decided to buy the house I first looked at near Notre Dame du Cros. When I first came to Caunes-Minervois, the last thing I thought I would ever do was buy a house. Yet the house I have bought overlooks the forest and offers wonderful views, as well as being in mint condition. Thanks to the downturn in French real estate, the house is affordable. My sellers, a couple who have moved to Minerve, have done all they can to leave everything in working order so that I can turn the key in the lock and move in without further ado once the paperwork is completed.
The paperwork involves a visit to the notaire in Mazeres, Ariège, in the Midi-Pyrenées region, two hours away. The notaire is one the sellers' famlies have dealt with for generations and rely on. Ariège is the poorest of France's départments, with l'Aude one notch higher on the list. Although l'Aude is fertile, this part of Ariège is dry: this is cattle-country. To get to Mazeres will be a challenge, though. My Michelin map is only for Languedoc-Roussillon, and the GPS does not recognize Mazeres in the Ariège, only one in the Haut Garonne, five hours away.
The notaire's e-mail asked me to meet the sellers at 10:30 a.m. at the house to check on a promised repair, then meet in Mazeres at 2:00 p.m. I mistakenly thought that we were driving together, but the sellers are staying overnight in Mazeres, where they have relatives, so I have to drive myself there. With the GPS not cooperating and map-less, Madame volunteers to sit in the passenger seat with me while her husband leads the way.
The trip turns out to be much more simple than I thought it would be: there is a turn-off towards Foix where the péage splits off, but from there I have only to follow the exit to Mazeres. The two cars arrive timely at the notaire's.
The buildings in Mazeres are three-story rose-brick structures without much ornamentation. There is an austerity about the landscape and the shape of the town that reminds me of Spain, which is not surprising, as we are edging towards its border. (We are also only two hours from Andorra, the kingdom in the Pyrenées that lies between France and Spain, and which is ruled jointly today by the Count of Foix and the French President.)
The notaire's office is a storefront above a residential building around the corner from the church, an enormous brick building without ornamentation inside or out. The office is spare, two women are now in charge, having taken over from the man who originally had the license de notaire. After a wait of five minutes, the notaire whose name is on the firm's official documents comes out to greet us. She is about forty years old, and is wearing a one-piece playsuit over a white t-shirt and platform heels. She conducts us down the hall into her office.
The office is dominated by a large bureau plat, a desk table in front of which three chairs for clients have been placed, with the notaire's chair opposite. All the bureaus plats in lawyer's offices in France, indeed, all the desks of government officials of high rank, are in the style of pre-Revolutionary France. Which is funny when you think that even though France is a Republic, all the desk furniture is in the style of the monarchy that the revolution overturned, the grander the better: Louis XIV, XV or XVI.
To the right of the table is a large computer screen on which the contract appears. For the next three hours all of us go over the terms of the contract and the mechanics of the sale transaction. That task completed, buyer and seller have to initial or sign every page of the contract, including the reports of electrical, lead, asbestos, and energy experts. The transaction cannot be finalized until the mairie, the City Hall in Caunes-Minervois, declares that it has no interest in the property for public purposes; or, in stopping the sale and exercising its right of first refusal.
The latter occasionally happens. Sellers often want to get out of paying taxes on the sale and will report a sale price that is unusually low relative to the assessed value of the house, while taking the balance of the actual purchase price of the house as a payment for "furniture". In the case of one commercial property in Caunes, the sale was stopped by the mairie, which exercised its right of first refusal. After the property was transferred to the mairie, it sold the lot to a local for a price near the assessed value, but less than the total sum that would have changed hands had the original transaction gone through. The seller lost the difference between the price the mairie paid and what the cost of the "furniture" would have been.
The contract reviewed and signed, the purchase price paid, all depends on the mairie, which could take up to three months to decide whether to exercise a right-of-first refusal. We are all hoping that, with the real estate market so poor, the mairie will produce the necessary document permitting the transaction to close sooner. I will give the notaire a power of attorney to complete the transaction if all the paperwork is not completed by the time I need to return to the States. In any event, the sellers will let me store my belongings in the house, which is a great favor.
Within twenty-four hours the news I am to become a Caunoise of sorts will be all over the village: the neighbors across from where I am staying include a gendarme who just retired. Bob and Annabelle Thorp, who take me out to dinner in Villeneuve to celebrate the house purchase, introduce me to him and his family (three generations living together under one roof), as a new neighbor. Everyone remembers the house as having belonged to the curé, although he died decades ago.
***
The cycling club sets out at seven-thirty as usual, this time heading towards Peyriac and further on to L'Auriole. Everyone is happy to see that I now have cleats on my cycling shoes along with the new pedals into which they have to snap in. The group is smaller today: Bob, me, Jeannot, Patrice and Claude.
We start pedaling in the cool, early morning light: the fields glow in the sunshine. As I pedal past row after row of Minervois vines on both sides of roads mainly used by farmers, I take such pleasure in the land's fertility: la belle France, one of the most arable countries in the world, trying so hard to resist the force of bigger and bigger forms of organization, so suspicious of the world of economies of scale, which threatens the intimacy of life at the local level.
For example, while pedaling through one of the villages early into the ride, a woman crosses our path, followed by two dogs, one of which lags behind. I try to go around it, but its movements throw me off and I cannot disengage from one of the cleats fast enough and tumble to the ground. I am able to get up, but a bit bruised, and one of my knees has a scrape. Everyone stops riding and comes back for me. I get up and say I want to drink something, walking over to the wall of a house to lean against it and drink. One of the club members moves my bicycle over to the wall, while everyone makes their assessment of what I did wrong, and whether I am capable of continuing.
While this is happening the woman with the dogs comes up, clutching a bottle of Betadyne antiseptic and a bag of cotton pads. She cleans my scrape and adds a bit more Betadyne for good measure, making sure I have no other abrasions before letting me go.
"Only in the villages will you find that", says Bob. "People look after each other."
We ride on and I fall one more time, this time on the other side, without injury.
Not wanting to make much of this second failure of coordination, I joke that now I have fallen once on each side.
Vous êtes équilibrée! (You're well-balanced now!) laughs Claude and we ride on.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Forty Miles Before the Storm
July 23, 2013
I write this as a massive storm is about to attack Caunes-Minervois. There were major storms in the north of France two days ago, causing major flooding in Caen, with main streets knee-deep in water. Bob and Annabelle Thorp just gave me a candle, candlestick and matches. The power will go out during storms, so taking precautions is absolutely necessary, including removing objects off the terrace light enough to fly away.
The storm will clear the air, which has been heavy since mid-morning. The weather forecast (the mèteo) said that you could call the conditions a "heat wave" when the evening temperatures remained as high or nearly, as the day's. Indeed, in Paris, there has been a heat wave. The hot weather is expected to last through the beginning of next week.
Which did not keep the Caunes-Minervois Cycling Club from meeting this morning at 7:30 a.m. There were six of us: Claude, the president, Patrice, the secretary, Georges, Jean (who lent me Josette's bicycle), Jeannot and me. Today would be a day on the flats.
What I did not realize was that it would be forty miles on the flats. We went in the direction of Béziers towards the end so that we could pedal along a short section of the Canal du Midi and an allée nearby. No one seems to need to drink water, and stopping briefly, those that have energy bars eat them.
I am able to hold my own until the end. I realize how much my hands are used in this kind of long-distance cycling: on the fast downhills, the bicycle needs to be controlled. On the upward pushes, the bicycle needs to be kept from wobbling. Leaning over the handlebars, the brakes are more accessible than reaching across the bottom of the dropped handlebars, but the muscles of the hand that reach have to be steady. When it is necessary to drink, the water bottle has to be pulled out from the bottom of the bicycle frame. I consider it a step forward that yesterday I was able to drink and ride one-handed simultaneously. Today, I repeat the action several times, gripping the bicycle with my left hand, the weaker, while I drink with the right.
These men, considerably older than I am, can do all these things, and they have the kidneys of camels. I find out from Bob later that Patrice was a miner at a nearby gold mine, now closed. Claude --whose grip is vise-like, is an olive grower. Everyone is used to hard physicial labor.
I almost spoil the trip by having a flat tire, thanks to a thorn that embeds itself in my inner tube. Fortunately, Jeannot is with me. He gets off his bicycle, wonders where the rest of the group is, and proceeds to pull off my front wheel, then pry off the tire to reach the inner tube. In the course of doing so, one of his plastic levers breaks. I don't have an inner tube, so he puts his own in.
I immediately offer to buy him another.
Ne vous inquietez pas, c'est un club, on est solide. (Don't worry about it, we're a club, we help each other.)
George, Jean, Claude and Patrice show up and help with the last touches to the bicycle wheel, Patrice taking the wheel and putting it back easily. He can put gears on a bicycle, and is always looking for new parts dealers online to do any work on the bicycle himself. No one is put out by my puncture. It's taken care of, and we ride on to the Canal du Midi. As we are passing it, Georges tells me that the club members had decided that if I could not keep up, they would throw me in.
By the time we reach Notre Dame du Cros at the outskirts of Caunes, I have to get off the bicycle and walk a bit. Claude comes back for me, and I find Jean waiting for me. (Jeannot left earlier and Georges lives in Trausse, a town on the way back.) They make sure I get home, but not before shaking my hand and telling me I did quite well on the new cycle and I will only get better as I learn how it works. (And there was no need to throw me in the Canal.)
I write this as a massive storm is about to attack Caunes-Minervois. There were major storms in the north of France two days ago, causing major flooding in Caen, with main streets knee-deep in water. Bob and Annabelle Thorp just gave me a candle, candlestick and matches. The power will go out during storms, so taking precautions is absolutely necessary, including removing objects off the terrace light enough to fly away.
The storm will clear the air, which has been heavy since mid-morning. The weather forecast (the mèteo) said that you could call the conditions a "heat wave" when the evening temperatures remained as high or nearly, as the day's. Indeed, in Paris, there has been a heat wave. The hot weather is expected to last through the beginning of next week.
Which did not keep the Caunes-Minervois Cycling Club from meeting this morning at 7:30 a.m. There were six of us: Claude, the president, Patrice, the secretary, Georges, Jean (who lent me Josette's bicycle), Jeannot and me. Today would be a day on the flats.
What I did not realize was that it would be forty miles on the flats. We went in the direction of Béziers towards the end so that we could pedal along a short section of the Canal du Midi and an allée nearby. No one seems to need to drink water, and stopping briefly, those that have energy bars eat them.
I am able to hold my own until the end. I realize how much my hands are used in this kind of long-distance cycling: on the fast downhills, the bicycle needs to be controlled. On the upward pushes, the bicycle needs to be kept from wobbling. Leaning over the handlebars, the brakes are more accessible than reaching across the bottom of the dropped handlebars, but the muscles of the hand that reach have to be steady. When it is necessary to drink, the water bottle has to be pulled out from the bottom of the bicycle frame. I consider it a step forward that yesterday I was able to drink and ride one-handed simultaneously. Today, I repeat the action several times, gripping the bicycle with my left hand, the weaker, while I drink with the right.
These men, considerably older than I am, can do all these things, and they have the kidneys of camels. I find out from Bob later that Patrice was a miner at a nearby gold mine, now closed. Claude --whose grip is vise-like, is an olive grower. Everyone is used to hard physicial labor.
I almost spoil the trip by having a flat tire, thanks to a thorn that embeds itself in my inner tube. Fortunately, Jeannot is with me. He gets off his bicycle, wonders where the rest of the group is, and proceeds to pull off my front wheel, then pry off the tire to reach the inner tube. In the course of doing so, one of his plastic levers breaks. I don't have an inner tube, so he puts his own in.
I immediately offer to buy him another.
Ne vous inquietez pas, c'est un club, on est solide. (Don't worry about it, we're a club, we help each other.)
George, Jean, Claude and Patrice show up and help with the last touches to the bicycle wheel, Patrice taking the wheel and putting it back easily. He can put gears on a bicycle, and is always looking for new parts dealers online to do any work on the bicycle himself. No one is put out by my puncture. It's taken care of, and we ride on to the Canal du Midi. As we are passing it, Georges tells me that the club members had decided that if I could not keep up, they would throw me in.
By the time we reach Notre Dame du Cros at the outskirts of Caunes, I have to get off the bicycle and walk a bit. Claude comes back for me, and I find Jean waiting for me. (Jeannot left earlier and Georges lives in Trausse, a town on the way back.) They make sure I get home, but not before shaking my hand and telling me I did quite well on the new cycle and I will only get better as I learn how it works. (And there was no need to throw me in the Canal.)
Monday, July 22, 2013
My new "Look"; FedEx, "Midi" Style
Monday, July 22, 2013
I was planning to do a few minor errands before riding to Carcassonne to see if I could find one of the bicycle shops I'd been told about: I want a lightweight knapsack so I can carry a few groceries back from the Pont Rouge "Intermarché" while simultaneously getting a bit of exercise in. I'm in my cycling clothes and about to put on my biking shoes, however, when there's a knock on the door.
It's Bob Thorp, come to tell me that he just ran into Jean Lacroix, the former gendarme. Jean wanted me to know that his wife Josette's bicycle was mine for the borrowing, I just had to call. With that, Bob handed me Jean's number and took off.
I called Jean shortly thereafter and first spoke to Josette, whom I'd never met before.
Ah, Marta! You've called about the bike. Let me put Jean on.
In a few minutes we'd established that I could certainly come by this morning, and where the Lacroix house is. I was there in a half an hour, carrying a bottle of water for the ride, and a bottle of golden muscat I'd picked up in Mèze.
The Lacroix house is off the memorial to Caunes' war dead from the two World Wars. It is opposite a field of vines, a large, well built house with a garden on the town's outskirts. Jean was in the garage. We shook hands and I handed him the bottle of muscat. He was simultaneously surprised and appreciative of the bottle of muscat, which I offered as a small token of my appreciation of his and Josette's kindness.
Would you like to meet Josette? he asked.
Of course I would, and we went upstairs.
Josette was taking the ends off the French beans she had just harvested from her garden. She didn't shake hands because she said they were dirty from doing so, but offered her wrist. She is a lively, petite woman with small features. Immediately, she asked me to sit down. She and Jean had a bit of a back and forth about whether I shouldn't be taken to the salon, but I said I would be perfectly happy right there, and sat down.
Would you like an espresso? Would you like some orange juice?
I took a glass of water and we talked a bit, with me wanting to verify that I would not be depriving Josette of the pleasure of riding the bicycle if I borrowed it.
No, not at all. I have a little bicycle with five speeds that I run around town with, and that is what I use now. I used to ride the other one, but I'm too old now, I need to be careful.
We talked a bit more, and it turned out that Jean and Josette are both involved with Notre Dame du Cros. I had seen a sign for a kermesse for the benefit of the chapel to be held in August, and wondered what it was.
It's a fair with Mass at 11:00 a.m., then food and games, all to raise money for the church. You can contribute without going, or you can go and eat the food, which is quite good.
They were pleased to know I attended services at the chapel, and remarked that my French was good enough to understand what the preacher said. A short conversation about my family background followed, with them mentioning that their son would be going to New York in a few weeks. By then it was time to see the bicycle.
The bicycle is a top of the line road bicycle, designed by a Tour de France rider from Carcassonne. It has special shoes, designed to lock onto a metal nub where the pedals would normally be. This is a convention of most high-end road bikes, but this one comes with a specially designed pair of shoes, marketed under the brand "Look". My riding shoes are made with the same principle in mind: there is a plastic plate where the ball of the foot sits in the shoe, which when unscrewed, permits the shoe to lock onto the pedal. There seems to be a problem because my riding shoes are not "Look", and therefore don't lock in, but after riding around on the bicycle a bit, I realized I would be able to ride at least to Carcassonne, where I might either buy a pair of "Looks" or put pedals on the bicycle.
The problem with having the shoes lock onto the metal nub is that non-professional riders frequently brake without remembering to release a foot from one of the metal nubs, crashing to the ground as a result. Not wanting to win any races, I thought, I would rather ride with pedals. In any event, I thought I could get to Carcassonne. Once there, Jean told me, Decathlon Cycles could change the pedals at a reasonable price, .
Off I went, discovering that I rode perfectly well without either Looks or pedals. When I got to Carcassonne, I wanted to find the bicycle shop off the Canal du Midi, Cycles Raynaud on Avenue Varsovie to buy a knapsack. The only problem was that by the time I got there, it was 12:30 p.m., and all the stores were closed. I had a quick coffee and a quiche lorraine aux poireaux (leeks), but I got turned around and couldn't find the way I back.
After riding around, wasting a half an hour, a young woman on a main street leading to the highway set me straight.
Oh, you'd better take that road across the street towards Feojolles. Go straight through the first roundabout, then take the one on the left at the next towards Feojolles. You'll go under a little railroad bridge and then see a sign for Castres and Mazmet take that one--
Once I get there, I'll know where I am, I say, thanking her.
Her directions are absolutely correct. I pass the race track at Feojolles, which I had not known existed and make it back to the main road between Carcassonne and Caunes, from which I came. I push to cycle as fast as I can because a courier is supposed to pick up a package between 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., and it was 1 o'clock when I left the pastry shop where I had the coffee and quiche. I'm heartened by seeing a clock on the school at Villalier saying it's only twenty minutes of two p.m. , but that's hard to believe --I'm not that fast, even at my fastest, and it's hot and sunny.
As I turn into the valley, the wind kicks in and cools the temperature, but I have still got a long way to go. Indeed, when I turn the key and look at the clock in the kitchen it is 3:10 p.m. There's no sign on the door or in the mailbox that FedEx has been there, though.
I call the company, and they assure me that no one has yet arrived. At 4:10 p.m. the driver calls: the waybill says the address is 3 avenue du Minervois, not 30. The driver is there in five minutes and my package safely away. The pick-up is not by FedEx, but a subcontractor in Carcassonne. At 4:15 p.m. the package is on its way. I ask whether I could have dropped off the package in Carcassonne.
No, no --you would have had to go to Blagnac.
Blagnac is the suburb of Toulouse, two hours away, in which the Toulouse airport is located. There is no other way to get a package out of Caunes, to a national or international destination.
I think that the pick-up would have come at the end of the specified period, even if the address had been correctly noted on the waybill. The delivery of the original document the week before, also came just at the end of the promised pick-up time. This is the Midi, and no one rushes, except for fools.
I was planning to do a few minor errands before riding to Carcassonne to see if I could find one of the bicycle shops I'd been told about: I want a lightweight knapsack so I can carry a few groceries back from the Pont Rouge "Intermarché" while simultaneously getting a bit of exercise in. I'm in my cycling clothes and about to put on my biking shoes, however, when there's a knock on the door.
It's Bob Thorp, come to tell me that he just ran into Jean Lacroix, the former gendarme. Jean wanted me to know that his wife Josette's bicycle was mine for the borrowing, I just had to call. With that, Bob handed me Jean's number and took off.
I called Jean shortly thereafter and first spoke to Josette, whom I'd never met before.
Ah, Marta! You've called about the bike. Let me put Jean on.
In a few minutes we'd established that I could certainly come by this morning, and where the Lacroix house is. I was there in a half an hour, carrying a bottle of water for the ride, and a bottle of golden muscat I'd picked up in Mèze.
The Lacroix house is off the memorial to Caunes' war dead from the two World Wars. It is opposite a field of vines, a large, well built house with a garden on the town's outskirts. Jean was in the garage. We shook hands and I handed him the bottle of muscat. He was simultaneously surprised and appreciative of the bottle of muscat, which I offered as a small token of my appreciation of his and Josette's kindness.
Would you like to meet Josette? he asked.
Of course I would, and we went upstairs.
Josette was taking the ends off the French beans she had just harvested from her garden. She didn't shake hands because she said they were dirty from doing so, but offered her wrist. She is a lively, petite woman with small features. Immediately, she asked me to sit down. She and Jean had a bit of a back and forth about whether I shouldn't be taken to the salon, but I said I would be perfectly happy right there, and sat down.
Would you like an espresso? Would you like some orange juice?
I took a glass of water and we talked a bit, with me wanting to verify that I would not be depriving Josette of the pleasure of riding the bicycle if I borrowed it.
No, not at all. I have a little bicycle with five speeds that I run around town with, and that is what I use now. I used to ride the other one, but I'm too old now, I need to be careful.
We talked a bit more, and it turned out that Jean and Josette are both involved with Notre Dame du Cros. I had seen a sign for a kermesse for the benefit of the chapel to be held in August, and wondered what it was.
It's a fair with Mass at 11:00 a.m., then food and games, all to raise money for the church. You can contribute without going, or you can go and eat the food, which is quite good.
They were pleased to know I attended services at the chapel, and remarked that my French was good enough to understand what the preacher said. A short conversation about my family background followed, with them mentioning that their son would be going to New York in a few weeks. By then it was time to see the bicycle.
The bicycle is a top of the line road bicycle, designed by a Tour de France rider from Carcassonne. It has special shoes, designed to lock onto a metal nub where the pedals would normally be. This is a convention of most high-end road bikes, but this one comes with a specially designed pair of shoes, marketed under the brand "Look". My riding shoes are made with the same principle in mind: there is a plastic plate where the ball of the foot sits in the shoe, which when unscrewed, permits the shoe to lock onto the pedal. There seems to be a problem because my riding shoes are not "Look", and therefore don't lock in, but after riding around on the bicycle a bit, I realized I would be able to ride at least to Carcassonne, where I might either buy a pair of "Looks" or put pedals on the bicycle.
The problem with having the shoes lock onto the metal nub is that non-professional riders frequently brake without remembering to release a foot from one of the metal nubs, crashing to the ground as a result. Not wanting to win any races, I thought, I would rather ride with pedals. In any event, I thought I could get to Carcassonne. Once there, Jean told me, Decathlon Cycles could change the pedals at a reasonable price, .
Off I went, discovering that I rode perfectly well without either Looks or pedals. When I got to Carcassonne, I wanted to find the bicycle shop off the Canal du Midi, Cycles Raynaud on Avenue Varsovie to buy a knapsack. The only problem was that by the time I got there, it was 12:30 p.m., and all the stores were closed. I had a quick coffee and a quiche lorraine aux poireaux (leeks), but I got turned around and couldn't find the way I back.
After riding around, wasting a half an hour, a young woman on a main street leading to the highway set me straight.
Oh, you'd better take that road across the street towards Feojolles. Go straight through the first roundabout, then take the one on the left at the next towards Feojolles. You'll go under a little railroad bridge and then see a sign for Castres and Mazmet take that one--
Once I get there, I'll know where I am, I say, thanking her.
Her directions are absolutely correct. I pass the race track at Feojolles, which I had not known existed and make it back to the main road between Carcassonne and Caunes, from which I came. I push to cycle as fast as I can because a courier is supposed to pick up a package between 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., and it was 1 o'clock when I left the pastry shop where I had the coffee and quiche. I'm heartened by seeing a clock on the school at Villalier saying it's only twenty minutes of two p.m. , but that's hard to believe --I'm not that fast, even at my fastest, and it's hot and sunny.
As I turn into the valley, the wind kicks in and cools the temperature, but I have still got a long way to go. Indeed, when I turn the key and look at the clock in the kitchen it is 3:10 p.m. There's no sign on the door or in the mailbox that FedEx has been there, though.
I call the company, and they assure me that no one has yet arrived. At 4:10 p.m. the driver calls: the waybill says the address is 3 avenue du Minervois, not 30. The driver is there in five minutes and my package safely away. The pick-up is not by FedEx, but a subcontractor in Carcassonne. At 4:15 p.m. the package is on its way. I ask whether I could have dropped off the package in Carcassonne.
No, no --you would have had to go to Blagnac.
Blagnac is the suburb of Toulouse, two hours away, in which the Toulouse airport is located. There is no other way to get a package out of Caunes, to a national or international destination.
I think that the pick-up would have come at the end of the specified period, even if the address had been correctly noted on the waybill. The delivery of the original document the week before, also came just at the end of the promised pick-up time. This is the Midi, and no one rushes, except for fools.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
The Caunes-Minervois Cycling Club
Sunday, June 21, 2013
Yesterday Bob Thorp told me that the Caunes-Minervois Cycling Club would be going out at 7:30 a.m. in the morning today, so I planned to join them at their regular meeting place, on Avenue du Minervois in front of the farmacie. There were eight guys in all, every one of them older than I am, some of them wearing team shirts, which have the image of the abbey on the back. Bob introduced me around and we shook hands in greeting, as acquaintances always do. Everyone looked with interest at my bicycle: as a folding bicycle, the circumference of the wheels is considerably smaller than on a road bicycle, although mine is kitted out with racing handlebars. It also has only five speeds, while most road bicycles have twelve or more. My bicycle is puny by comparison with those of the club members, but everyone was too polite to suggest that I might be overmatched, although it was logical for them to think I would be.
The members of the group include a former gendarme, as well as an eighty-one year old, Jean, who everyone calls Jeannot. The average age of the men is about seventy. I think there are no women members.
Three days a week the club goes out for three or four hours. The destination changes each time. This time, as luck would have it, the goal of the ride would be the Pic du Nord. I'd heard about the Pic the day before, in Lespinassière. I thought it was a local landmark because there was a television tower at its top. It turns out that there's a television tower there because it's the highest mountain in the region. This climb would not be for sissies.
We set out, pedaling towards Villefranche, a nearby town, where we would turn in the direction of the peak. There was low-lying fog everywhere and it was cool. The visibility was not good. Georges, who rode wearing a a pork-pie hat and a red shirt with the cross of Rousillon on the back, had a tail light on his bicycle, so he rode in the front to keep club members in a line and away from any oncoming cars that might be out that early in the morning. The fog was a thick mist until we got to the turnoff at Cabrespine, where people were out early, preparing for a white truffle festival later in the day. The sun started to shine and burned the damp off our clothes just as we started to climb.
And climb we did. Every once in a while I or someone else flagged, but another member of the club would turn back to check on the lost sheep. When I needed to stop to drink water, the group stopped with me and made sure I was willing and able to continue.
--Nous sommes solides, on n'abandonne pas-- (We look after each other, no one is left behind.) And I rode on.
I pedaled for twenty-three kilometers, just over fourteen miles, before stopping at Pradelles, six kilometers from the top of the Pic. From Pradelles to the summit of the Pic is a ride at the steepest possible grade. The group stopped for five minutes to determine who would go all the way: Jeannot had already said he would not go further than Pradelles, and someone else also decided the ascent would be too much for him. There was a long discussion about why I ought to stop and turn back, which it was not difficult to persuade me to do.
One of the oldest men in the group, a stocky, barrel-chested man with a twinkle in his eye, said he hadn't thought I would ever make it this far, and that if I'd had a proper bicycle, I'd probably be in the lead. Others agreed and said I had nothing to reproach myself for, having gotten to Pradelles, if I turned back now. I agreed with the wisdom of the club's decision and we made plans to meet again next Tuesday. By then, one of the club members would have a suitable bicycle for me.
By the time the three of us got back to Caunes, four and a half hours from the start, near noon, I had pedaled about twenty-eight miles. Before I turned off towards home, one of the men who'd turned back with me said I'd earned the respect of the club, including his.
The day ended with me watching the final stage of the Tour de France, a race around Paris that ended after sunset, when Paris is all aglow. Watching the battle of the sprinters --Mark Cavendish, David Millar and the winner, Marcel Kittel-- all big men with propulsively powerful legs-- I couldn't help feeling proud of my first outing with the club, solide.
Yesterday Bob Thorp told me that the Caunes-Minervois Cycling Club would be going out at 7:30 a.m. in the morning today, so I planned to join them at their regular meeting place, on Avenue du Minervois in front of the farmacie. There were eight guys in all, every one of them older than I am, some of them wearing team shirts, which have the image of the abbey on the back. Bob introduced me around and we shook hands in greeting, as acquaintances always do. Everyone looked with interest at my bicycle: as a folding bicycle, the circumference of the wheels is considerably smaller than on a road bicycle, although mine is kitted out with racing handlebars. It also has only five speeds, while most road bicycles have twelve or more. My bicycle is puny by comparison with those of the club members, but everyone was too polite to suggest that I might be overmatched, although it was logical for them to think I would be.
The members of the group include a former gendarme, as well as an eighty-one year old, Jean, who everyone calls Jeannot. The average age of the men is about seventy. I think there are no women members.
Three days a week the club goes out for three or four hours. The destination changes each time. This time, as luck would have it, the goal of the ride would be the Pic du Nord. I'd heard about the Pic the day before, in Lespinassière. I thought it was a local landmark because there was a television tower at its top. It turns out that there's a television tower there because it's the highest mountain in the region. This climb would not be for sissies.
We set out, pedaling towards Villefranche, a nearby town, where we would turn in the direction of the peak. There was low-lying fog everywhere and it was cool. The visibility was not good. Georges, who rode wearing a a pork-pie hat and a red shirt with the cross of Rousillon on the back, had a tail light on his bicycle, so he rode in the front to keep club members in a line and away from any oncoming cars that might be out that early in the morning. The fog was a thick mist until we got to the turnoff at Cabrespine, where people were out early, preparing for a white truffle festival later in the day. The sun started to shine and burned the damp off our clothes just as we started to climb.
And climb we did. Every once in a while I or someone else flagged, but another member of the club would turn back to check on the lost sheep. When I needed to stop to drink water, the group stopped with me and made sure I was willing and able to continue.
--Nous sommes solides, on n'abandonne pas-- (We look after each other, no one is left behind.) And I rode on.
I pedaled for twenty-three kilometers, just over fourteen miles, before stopping at Pradelles, six kilometers from the top of the Pic. From Pradelles to the summit of the Pic is a ride at the steepest possible grade. The group stopped for five minutes to determine who would go all the way: Jeannot had already said he would not go further than Pradelles, and someone else also decided the ascent would be too much for him. There was a long discussion about why I ought to stop and turn back, which it was not difficult to persuade me to do.
One of the oldest men in the group, a stocky, barrel-chested man with a twinkle in his eye, said he hadn't thought I would ever make it this far, and that if I'd had a proper bicycle, I'd probably be in the lead. Others agreed and said I had nothing to reproach myself for, having gotten to Pradelles, if I turned back now. I agreed with the wisdom of the club's decision and we made plans to meet again next Tuesday. By then, one of the club members would have a suitable bicycle for me.
By the time the three of us got back to Caunes, four and a half hours from the start, near noon, I had pedaled about twenty-eight miles. Before I turned off towards home, one of the men who'd turned back with me said I'd earned the respect of the club, including his.
The day ended with me watching the final stage of the Tour de France, a race around Paris that ended after sunset, when Paris is all aglow. Watching the battle of the sprinters --Mark Cavendish, David Millar and the winner, Marcel Kittel-- all big men with propulsively powerful legs-- I couldn't help feeling proud of my first outing with the club, solide.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
La France Profonde
July 20, 2013
With 300,000 people making their departures from the Gare de Lyon station in Paris today, the loneliness of the road from Caunes to Lespinassière, 7 miles away, makes a striking contrast to the clogged arteries of France's highways. The roads are clogged, the heat is unabated and expected to continue until late in the week, as the flight out of the cities continues. There is a major effort to keep the French cool, whether through visits to the elderly at home to avoid deaths from heat exhaustion, to the inauguration of city beaches inspired by Paris Plage, the capital's installation of misters and chaises longues on the banks of the Seine.
In Caunes, the weather is not quite as hot as elsewhere due to the mountains, but it is still advisable to travel with lots of liquids. I pull out a large bottle of frozen water in a large container, strap on my fanny pack, grab my walking sticks and set out in the direction of Citou, where my Renault Clio 4 had a close encounter with a wall in the village of Citiou, and I saw my life spread out in front of me.
I set out at one o'clock. Five hours and forty minutes later, I return from a fourteen mile hike. On the way to Citou I discover that my shoulder blades and the back of my long-sleeved shirt make a kind of knapsack for the water bottle. The ice melts slowly and keeps me cool. I want to reach Lespinassiere, a village perched on a mountainside in the Black Mountains, part of the Cevennes chain that runs across southern France.
At Citou, I need to replace my ice cubes, but the first people I see, the parents of a young family about to get into their car, tell me there is no commercial establishment in Citou in response to my inquiry about where I might buy ice cubes. They are summer visitors, judging from the neat polo shirts.
Fortunately, a bit further on a man and a woman are chatting. I make the same request, but this time I encounter a kind soul. The woman tells me to follow her, that she has ice cubes in her refrigerator. I enter her house, and follow her into the kitchen, where I fill the bottle with ice cubes and tap water.
After Citou, the road becomes still more desolate. Occasionally a car mounting the hills passes, but few descend. The road is direction north, towards Paris, over the mountains past Castang. I learn this when I reach Lespinassière, nestled between several mountains. The village has some late-model cars, and I pass a fancy private home with built-in swimming pool, as well as a villa. The rest of Lespinassière boasts pretty flower gardens, almost no people. A string of black clothes are drying against a wall, the owner or owners out of sight. I pick up a clothes-drying rack that the wind has knocked over in front of a house, earning thanks from a man walking towards it. Continuing on, I see that there is a nice café, but it appears to be closed. Its terrace is visible from the road, so I walk to it, thinking there might be table service.
I encounter a Spanish woman and a Frenchman of middle age who are tending the place for the owner, who is away. There is nothing on offer, although tonight there will be a Belgian dinner --mussels-- offered. As there is nothing to eat or drink, I thank them for their time and walk out, only to be followed by the woman, who offers to give me some ice cubes and water. Gladly accepting, I get to talk to the two, who are more than happy to put the local geography on the points of a compass, pointing out the direction of Spain, the direction of the Mediterranean, and the Pic du Nord, which is not a mountain but a television tower, and a local landmark.
Walking back, I hear the Argent Double burbling, and with the heat just beginning to subside, the crickets are a symphony. My legs are holding up, although the thought of hitch-hiking has crossed my mind. A vain hope: few cars pass, and those that do are filled. I motivate myself by thinking that when I get to Citou I will be able to identify where in the village I reached the vertiginous way above the sweet onion fields below.
Citou is known as "the sweet onion capital of France". Even in my panic, when I was there last time, I remember noticing the field I was afraid of falling into was planted with onions. Yet I can't find it. In fact, Citou is a much bigger place than I remember, with two roads, not a tiny way. Also, the road up to Citou and to Lespinassière is a two-lane highway, comfortable enough for two cars going in opposite directions. Where was I?
After establishing that it wasn't Citou, I continue my walk back to Caunes. I retrace my steps and keep my eyes open, wondering whether I missed something. I got into the fix I did because I turned off rue du Minervois in the direction indicated by the road sign indicating Citou and Lespinassière along D620, using the GPS to direct me. When I found myself perilously close to falling off the road into the onions, I backed the car out inch by inch past the only two houses on the narrow road, finally turning around and returning to Caunes.
I made it back to Caunes, tested but happy, never having seen a sign of the hamlet I entered a month ago. Having gone almost fourteen miles into the mountains and back, I cannot find the picturesque site of my waking nightmare. It has vanished into the mist, like Brigadoon.
This is la France profonde, deep France. Bob Thorp once told me that on one of his regular drives through the countryside he met a man who had never left his village. The village doors are often shut, the windows shuttered and locked: the owners only return in the summers, except for a few permanent residents. Every village has a church, larger ones, abbeys: in Languedoc-Roussillon alone there are forty-nine. Villages like Caunes have ex-pat communities, including some year-round residents that keep the café and a few other businesses open, but tiny ones like Citou and Lespinassière are just a collection of houses, joined to the outside world by the automobile. Bicycling to Villegly, on the road to Carcassonne yesterday morning, I tried to get a coffee there, but there was no café in town. If foreigners do not settle there, the village sleeps. Which is not to say that the people who do live there do not go to the doctor and the dentist or watch television and read the occasional newspaper, or that the few children living in these hamlets do not get educated (in Lespinassière there is a rather large public school, a souvenir of when it was more populated), but the villages truly exist in a world of their own. Caunes-Minervois is exceptional, because it attracts foreigners, but the isolated villages are more like 19th century villages than 21st century communities, untouched by the world outside, even that of France.
With 300,000 people making their departures from the Gare de Lyon station in Paris today, the loneliness of the road from Caunes to Lespinassière, 7 miles away, makes a striking contrast to the clogged arteries of France's highways. The roads are clogged, the heat is unabated and expected to continue until late in the week, as the flight out of the cities continues. There is a major effort to keep the French cool, whether through visits to the elderly at home to avoid deaths from heat exhaustion, to the inauguration of city beaches inspired by Paris Plage, the capital's installation of misters and chaises longues on the banks of the Seine.
In Caunes, the weather is not quite as hot as elsewhere due to the mountains, but it is still advisable to travel with lots of liquids. I pull out a large bottle of frozen water in a large container, strap on my fanny pack, grab my walking sticks and set out in the direction of Citou, where my Renault Clio 4 had a close encounter with a wall in the village of Citiou, and I saw my life spread out in front of me.
I set out at one o'clock. Five hours and forty minutes later, I return from a fourteen mile hike. On the way to Citou I discover that my shoulder blades and the back of my long-sleeved shirt make a kind of knapsack for the water bottle. The ice melts slowly and keeps me cool. I want to reach Lespinassiere, a village perched on a mountainside in the Black Mountains, part of the Cevennes chain that runs across southern France.
At Citou, I need to replace my ice cubes, but the first people I see, the parents of a young family about to get into their car, tell me there is no commercial establishment in Citou in response to my inquiry about where I might buy ice cubes. They are summer visitors, judging from the neat polo shirts.
Fortunately, a bit further on a man and a woman are chatting. I make the same request, but this time I encounter a kind soul. The woman tells me to follow her, that she has ice cubes in her refrigerator. I enter her house, and follow her into the kitchen, where I fill the bottle with ice cubes and tap water.
After Citou, the road becomes still more desolate. Occasionally a car mounting the hills passes, but few descend. The road is direction north, towards Paris, over the mountains past Castang. I learn this when I reach Lespinassière, nestled between several mountains. The village has some late-model cars, and I pass a fancy private home with built-in swimming pool, as well as a villa. The rest of Lespinassière boasts pretty flower gardens, almost no people. A string of black clothes are drying against a wall, the owner or owners out of sight. I pick up a clothes-drying rack that the wind has knocked over in front of a house, earning thanks from a man walking towards it. Continuing on, I see that there is a nice café, but it appears to be closed. Its terrace is visible from the road, so I walk to it, thinking there might be table service.
I encounter a Spanish woman and a Frenchman of middle age who are tending the place for the owner, who is away. There is nothing on offer, although tonight there will be a Belgian dinner --mussels-- offered. As there is nothing to eat or drink, I thank them for their time and walk out, only to be followed by the woman, who offers to give me some ice cubes and water. Gladly accepting, I get to talk to the two, who are more than happy to put the local geography on the points of a compass, pointing out the direction of Spain, the direction of the Mediterranean, and the Pic du Nord, which is not a mountain but a television tower, and a local landmark.
Walking back, I hear the Argent Double burbling, and with the heat just beginning to subside, the crickets are a symphony. My legs are holding up, although the thought of hitch-hiking has crossed my mind. A vain hope: few cars pass, and those that do are filled. I motivate myself by thinking that when I get to Citou I will be able to identify where in the village I reached the vertiginous way above the sweet onion fields below.
Citou is known as "the sweet onion capital of France". Even in my panic, when I was there last time, I remember noticing the field I was afraid of falling into was planted with onions. Yet I can't find it. In fact, Citou is a much bigger place than I remember, with two roads, not a tiny way. Also, the road up to Citou and to Lespinassière is a two-lane highway, comfortable enough for two cars going in opposite directions. Where was I?
After establishing that it wasn't Citou, I continue my walk back to Caunes. I retrace my steps and keep my eyes open, wondering whether I missed something. I got into the fix I did because I turned off rue du Minervois in the direction indicated by the road sign indicating Citou and Lespinassière along D620, using the GPS to direct me. When I found myself perilously close to falling off the road into the onions, I backed the car out inch by inch past the only two houses on the narrow road, finally turning around and returning to Caunes.
I made it back to Caunes, tested but happy, never having seen a sign of the hamlet I entered a month ago. Having gone almost fourteen miles into the mountains and back, I cannot find the picturesque site of my waking nightmare. It has vanished into the mist, like Brigadoon.
This is la France profonde, deep France. Bob Thorp once told me that on one of his regular drives through the countryside he met a man who had never left his village. The village doors are often shut, the windows shuttered and locked: the owners only return in the summers, except for a few permanent residents. Every village has a church, larger ones, abbeys: in Languedoc-Roussillon alone there are forty-nine. Villages like Caunes have ex-pat communities, including some year-round residents that keep the café and a few other businesses open, but tiny ones like Citou and Lespinassière are just a collection of houses, joined to the outside world by the automobile. Bicycling to Villegly, on the road to Carcassonne yesterday morning, I tried to get a coffee there, but there was no café in town. If foreigners do not settle there, the village sleeps. Which is not to say that the people who do live there do not go to the doctor and the dentist or watch television and read the occasional newspaper, or that the few children living in these hamlets do not get educated (in Lespinassière there is a rather large public school, a souvenir of when it was more populated), but the villages truly exist in a world of their own. Caunes-Minervois is exceptional, because it attracts foreigners, but the isolated villages are more like 19th century villages than 21st century communities, untouched by the world outside, even that of France.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Friday on a summer night in Caunes; Alpe d'Huez stage of the Tour de France
July 19, 2013
I have a ticket for a classical concert in the Benedictine abbey of Caunes, but it doesn't start until 9:30 p.m. Cheek by jowl with the abbey is "Le Cantine du Curé", a warm-season tapas bar that has been a big success since it opened five years ago. It stays open until 2:00 a.m., to the joy of those who want action in Caunes, to the despair of those who want quiet. The portions are huge, the prices are cheap, the drink potable, it is a successful bar.
I think the classical music concert is due to start at 7:30 p.m., another example of how Anglo-Saxon culture has permeated my thinking, even if I am living in France. I see an arrow near the abbey that says Concert and, seeing some musicians removing instruments from their cars ask them where the concert will take place.
"Right here", one of them says, as he walks into the Cantine. I have gotten my concerts mixed up.
So I walk into the bar and sit at one of the tables by the bar, order a draft beer, and half-orders of grilled cuttlefish and patatas bravas. I have a memoir of Corsica I picked up at Patrice Cartier's bookshop to read, so I settle in. There is a male crowd around the bar, but their French is so local, packed with slang, I can't follow even if I wanted to. Nonetheless, I am seated under a tree, the air is fresh after a shower an hour earlier, and the musicians have not yet set up their amplifiers.
Within a half an hour the bar is heaving with middle-aged English and French tourists and my seat is an object of covetousness. I pay the bar bill and take off, passing the outside tables of Le Mangeoire, where one or two customers are sitting, including a local dealer in African art.
Cutting through the parking lot on the "Esplanade de l'Europe" and its overlook of l'Argent Double, stream that runs through Caunes, another group of people enjoying a Friday night have congregated around a truck that makes pizzas. Among them is one of the two brothers who keep the chicken coop near the old village wall. Walking up the stairs and past the café, I spy another cluster of diners. It is summer, and the living is easy.
***
Yesterday, a Frenchman, Christophe Riblon, became the third Frenchman in the history of the Tour de France to win the stage at the Alpe d'Huez. The stage is 150 kilometers (90 miles) and one of the most grueling of the entire race. This year the organizers of the Tour imposed two ascents of the Alp just to make it tougher. The stage was won by Riblon in the last two kilometers. The other two French winners of the stage are Pierre Rolland (1992) and Bernard Hinault (1986). After watching Jean-Christophe Péraud fall twice, finally fracturing his collarbone the day before, the French victory was not only one for the record books, but demonstrated Riblon's stamina.
The Tour de France is not just a race to the finish, with the one rider who outshines all the others in average speed over the entire course winning the yellow jersey (maillot jaune), it is also a contest of endurance over the mountain climbs built into the course. So the best climber is honored and gets to wear a polka-dot riding shirt for his efforts. The best team is honored for maintaining the fastest overall pace. There used to be an award for last place, but the Tour organizers eliminated the prize as bad for competition.
The riders rid in a pack, or peloton which often includes several members of the same team. There are aerodynamic reasons for doing so, nine riders all going at full speed together create greater momentum than one rider could alone. Being at the head of the peloton makes it possible to breakaway and offers more protection against accidents, as they tend to happen at the back of the pack. Brilliant riders may ride together, as Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault did. However, when the time came, Hinault left LeMond in the dust, having brought LeMond in only to keep his own pace at his fastest possible.
There are rules about what time meals can be taken: today Christopher Froome was docked points because he ate after the designated times, as a result of having to replace a bicycle on the road. Different cycling champions have different strengths, a select few are so gifted they dominate all the groupings. Bernard Hinault, "the Badger" (a nickname associated with his prickly personality) is one of them. Writing a brief column for today's Le Figaro, about Riblon, all he said was, "Welcome to the club".
The Tour may be tainted by doping scandals, but it still brings out the fans, who line the route for kilometers, and run after their favorite riders carrying national flags if they are compatriots. The event is a bacchanal for spectators (most of them men), who come in campers days before to get a good place on the route, those campers loaded with lots of booze. It is, after all, one of the greatest endurance contests ever, fought over a diverse and beautiful terrain at the height of summer. Who can blame fans for keeping the faith even in the light of the doping scandals? If the leader, Christopher Froome, wins --whoever wins-- there will be murmurs. Yet for the moment, all that matters is the race.
I have a ticket for a classical concert in the Benedictine abbey of Caunes, but it doesn't start until 9:30 p.m. Cheek by jowl with the abbey is "Le Cantine du Curé", a warm-season tapas bar that has been a big success since it opened five years ago. It stays open until 2:00 a.m., to the joy of those who want action in Caunes, to the despair of those who want quiet. The portions are huge, the prices are cheap, the drink potable, it is a successful bar.
I think the classical music concert is due to start at 7:30 p.m., another example of how Anglo-Saxon culture has permeated my thinking, even if I am living in France. I see an arrow near the abbey that says Concert and, seeing some musicians removing instruments from their cars ask them where the concert will take place.
"Right here", one of them says, as he walks into the Cantine. I have gotten my concerts mixed up.
So I walk into the bar and sit at one of the tables by the bar, order a draft beer, and half-orders of grilled cuttlefish and patatas bravas. I have a memoir of Corsica I picked up at Patrice Cartier's bookshop to read, so I settle in. There is a male crowd around the bar, but their French is so local, packed with slang, I can't follow even if I wanted to. Nonetheless, I am seated under a tree, the air is fresh after a shower an hour earlier, and the musicians have not yet set up their amplifiers.
Within a half an hour the bar is heaving with middle-aged English and French tourists and my seat is an object of covetousness. I pay the bar bill and take off, passing the outside tables of Le Mangeoire, where one or two customers are sitting, including a local dealer in African art.
Cutting through the parking lot on the "Esplanade de l'Europe" and its overlook of l'Argent Double, stream that runs through Caunes, another group of people enjoying a Friday night have congregated around a truck that makes pizzas. Among them is one of the two brothers who keep the chicken coop near the old village wall. Walking up the stairs and past the café, I spy another cluster of diners. It is summer, and the living is easy.
***
Yesterday, a Frenchman, Christophe Riblon, became the third Frenchman in the history of the Tour de France to win the stage at the Alpe d'Huez. The stage is 150 kilometers (90 miles) and one of the most grueling of the entire race. This year the organizers of the Tour imposed two ascents of the Alp just to make it tougher. The stage was won by Riblon in the last two kilometers. The other two French winners of the stage are Pierre Rolland (1992) and Bernard Hinault (1986). After watching Jean-Christophe Péraud fall twice, finally fracturing his collarbone the day before, the French victory was not only one for the record books, but demonstrated Riblon's stamina.
The Tour de France is not just a race to the finish, with the one rider who outshines all the others in average speed over the entire course winning the yellow jersey (maillot jaune), it is also a contest of endurance over the mountain climbs built into the course. So the best climber is honored and gets to wear a polka-dot riding shirt for his efforts. The best team is honored for maintaining the fastest overall pace. There used to be an award for last place, but the Tour organizers eliminated the prize as bad for competition.
The riders rid in a pack, or peloton which often includes several members of the same team. There are aerodynamic reasons for doing so, nine riders all going at full speed together create greater momentum than one rider could alone. Being at the head of the peloton makes it possible to breakaway and offers more protection against accidents, as they tend to happen at the back of the pack. Brilliant riders may ride together, as Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault did. However, when the time came, Hinault left LeMond in the dust, having brought LeMond in only to keep his own pace at his fastest possible.
There are rules about what time meals can be taken: today Christopher Froome was docked points because he ate after the designated times, as a result of having to replace a bicycle on the road. Different cycling champions have different strengths, a select few are so gifted they dominate all the groupings. Bernard Hinault, "the Badger" (a nickname associated with his prickly personality) is one of them. Writing a brief column for today's Le Figaro, about Riblon, all he said was, "Welcome to the club".
The Tour may be tainted by doping scandals, but it still brings out the fans, who line the route for kilometers, and run after their favorite riders carrying national flags if they are compatriots. The event is a bacchanal for spectators (most of them men), who come in campers days before to get a good place on the route, those campers loaded with lots of booze. It is, after all, one of the greatest endurance contests ever, fought over a diverse and beautiful terrain at the height of summer. Who can blame fans for keeping the faith even in the light of the doping scandals? If the leader, Christopher Froome, wins --whoever wins-- there will be murmurs. Yet for the moment, all that matters is the race.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Deflated; French Catholics:The Bookstore In the Mountains
July 18, 2013
My first day on my own for the next ten days begins with a bicycle ride to Carcassonne, which almost never happens. A little after 8 a.m. I pull out my Xootr Swift and, spying the bicycle pump, decide to replenish the air the tires must have lost over the last few weeks. Unfortunately, I manage to deflate my front tire, instead of inflating it. After several failed tries, I give in. It's too early to bother my cycling next-door-neighbor Bob Thorp, but if I walk down to the café, perhaps someone will know how to properly fix a bicycle pump to a wheel. The cafè is always peopled by men of varying ages and states of sobriety, rough and tumble types. I imagine that at worse, the sunburned drunk who cleans tables between glasses of beer might be my volatile recourse: angry at being thrown out for smoking in the bar one morning, he let fly various curses (Je ... ce putain bar....) before walking outside to have his fag.
However, I get to the outside tables and see in front of the entrance to the café a table of six or seven sturdy-looking men enjoying coffees and cigarettes. They take me in, I greet them, and ask whether one of them might be able to help me fill my bicycle tires with air from the pump I am carrying in the knapsack on my back.
Nothing easier, several say, although there is a bit of a debate as to which one has most experience with bicycle tires. A big guy dressed in beige fatigues gets up and walks over to the bicycle. An older man next to him warns him that 7 kilos of pressure is the maximum the tires can take without exploding, which he fully expects to happen. This bit of good-natured ribbing done with, the two of them get my tires filled with air. I thank the two men and wish all around a good day: How nice to be in a place where being a damsel in distress still means something.
The ride to Carcassonne --about thirty miles back and forth-- is very smooth, as it is early and the sky is overcast, the temperature cool. The Thursday market in Carcassonne has few vendors and everyone seems a bit listless from the last few days of heat. I go to the café I've been taken to before, Café Moka, parking my bicycle next to my designated table. A waiter, very energetic for so early in the morning, comes over and I order a grand crème, a large, strong coffee with steamed milk, which comes out quickly.
As I am enjoying the coffee, a gust of wind sends a card flying off the table and onto the macadam, where the shoe of an older man in shorts stops it. I get up, take it from him and sit down, thanking him. He walks over and starts talking to me, asking me about my bicycle. He too, has a bicycle, a cruiser with high handlebars and no speeds. "It's tough sometimes, but good enough." He asks me where I'm from, probing. When I tell him that my family came from Spain, he tells me his did, too, from Cáceres, a long diagonal west from Carcassonne.
"Where is it? I have no idea", he says. By this point we are speaking Spanish, which he speaks quite well. He is old enough that his parents probably left in consequence of the Spanish Civil War, although Extremadura is a famously poor region --many of the Conquistadores were born there-- so poverty could have pushed them out, too. Amazed I've ridden what, is to him, a very long way, he tells me to be extra careful cycling on the highways. The roads in l'Aude are not difficult to ride, I assure him (he's never ridden in Manhattan traffic), and he is off.
Indeed, riding back is easy: I am back in Caunes by 11:35 a.m., and ride on to the Chapel of Notre Dame du Cros as fast as I can, hoping to make at least part of the Mass that has just begun. I walk in at 11:50 a.m. and find that two little girls I saw there yesterday with their father, mother and two little brothers, are there again, just their father accompanying them today. The girls are close in age, both wearing kerchiefs over their brown hair, in simple dresses. At the end of the Mass they each take a hand of the Passionist priest who has celebrated the eucharist, and walk over to the marble statue of the Virgin and Child, where together they say three Hail Marys.
This is at least the second day in a row that these little girls have gone to Mass before lunch (I have only been to the chapel twice this week). Looking at them, and their young father (who looks educated, rather than a manual laborer, judging from his clothes), I am reminded of the days when Catholic families gave a daughter to a convent, or a son to the priesthood. In the family of Saint Thèrese of Lisieux three sisters all became nuns. What these little girls will grow up to be is a mystery to me, but the memory of standing with the Passionist priest in front of the statue of Notre Dame du Cros, "the Virgin of Tenderness", as she is popularly known, will always form part of their imaginations.
Visiting churches in France, I am struck by the fact that several generations of Catholics attend Mass together. In Mèze I was startled to see three tall, good-looking brothers in their late teens and early twenties standing in a pew at Sunday Mass in Saint Hilaire. What is so striking about all this to me is that, unlike the United States, where freedom of religion is a core principle, France's revolution of 1789 seized all religious property, defrocked those in holy orders and prohibited religious worship. Although the extremes of the Reign of Terror (which subsided with the guillotining of the Carmelite nuns of Compiegne) are no more, a legacy of the Revolution is laicité, or secularism. In France, no Catholic priest, Jewish rabbi, Protestant clergyman or Muslim imam has the authority to solemnize a marriage, as in the United States. The law prohibits the display of religious symbols in the schools, meaning that no type of religious pendant or other identifying mark of adhesion to a religious faith may be displayed by either students, teachers or school officials.
Which makes the intensity of the devotion of French Catholics provocative. I am always surprised that when I go to a Mass in France, there are people attending in significant numbers. There are not enough priests, but there are plenty of congregants, although the former may explain the latter. In the first decades of the 20th century, the Catholic Church was associated with Charles Maurras and his anti-semitic ideology, but today's French Catholic Church seems more concerned with missions in Africa and the inner lives of the faithful. One evidence of this is that La Croix, the French Catholic daily, takes positions that are neither right nor left, but consistent with Catholic social teaching.
Perhaps there is something about being in the decided minority that makes more tenacious the attachment of French Catholics to their churches. It might be a bit like the situation in the former East Germany, where Protestantism (which had formerly been the state religion) was not outlawed, but Protestant practice came at the price of all preferment professionally. For that reason, the sons of many Protestant families chose to become carpenters, the better to live a life in imitation of that of Jesus. (And some attribute Chancellor Angela Merkel's tenacity in no small part to the example of her father, a Protestant minister in East Germany.)
It is easy to think of France as a liberal country, but there is a deep strain of conservatism, too. Not just the Front National's brand of anti-immigrant rabble-rousing, but a deep attachment to the old ways, based on France's history, and in small towns, the history and customs of the region. The divide between Paris and the rest of the country is nowhere more apparent than in the small villages and towns. Paris and its bureaucrats may decide, but the stubborn people of the countryside will outlast them. Paris outlawed the churches, but the faithful outwitted the Revolutionary Committees: local people bought up privately the lands that had belonged to the churches, then turned them over to the commune (the local government), which re-established them as parishes after the Revolution's frenzy subsided.
***
There is no bookstore in Caunes. Indeed, even magazines of any substance are thin on the ground, with the café's offerings limited to a few newspapers, a few horse journals and a lot of celebrity magazines. Carcassonne has a few good bookstores and one very good outlet for lots of newspapers and magazines. Otherwise, books have to be ordered from the Web.
Unless you know about Patrice Cartier. Patrice Cartier lives across the way from Notre Dame du Cros, in the foothills of the Black Mountains, the only other person inhabiting this remote spot. He runs a used bookshop there, where no one can find him. I only knew about him because I had seen a poster for a new book about Languedoc-Roussillon's historic sites on the door of the shop, although there was no sign identifying it as such. Walking out after Mass, I saw that the door was open and walked in.
Inside there were English books, there were lots of books about Marx, about Mitterand, there were magazines from a hundred years ago and two copies of Paris Match of May 1968 when students rioted and de Gaulle threw in the towel. There was bric-a-brac, there were multiple copies of a book about residential swimming pools, there were post cards. Patrice began his career as a journalist, then worked in radio, then wrote articles for a trade magazine about swimming pool construction, which led to the contract for the book about swimming pools. After the book came out the magazine folded. Not because the book was too costly, he told me, but because the publisher of the magazine ruined himself chasing African girls who took him for every cent he had. End of job writing articles for magazine about residential swimming pools, beginning of life as a bookseller.
Patrice had a geography of France for children published in 1896. Its brightly colored pages highlight France's many rivers, and list the départements as they were then, as well as skewing the attitudes of French children in a decidedly anti-German direction: France includes all these départements, minus those Germany took from us, Alsace and Lorraine. Another book, a child's history of France was published in 1916. It too, has a decided slant on history. Who were the Normans? The Norman pirates came from the sterile shores of Northern Europe. Their joy was to die amidst the clash of armies. Then, they believed, a paradise called Valhalla would open to them where they would drink mead forever in a place of honor.
The bookstore is a fun house mirror onto France's past.
My first day on my own for the next ten days begins with a bicycle ride to Carcassonne, which almost never happens. A little after 8 a.m. I pull out my Xootr Swift and, spying the bicycle pump, decide to replenish the air the tires must have lost over the last few weeks. Unfortunately, I manage to deflate my front tire, instead of inflating it. After several failed tries, I give in. It's too early to bother my cycling next-door-neighbor Bob Thorp, but if I walk down to the café, perhaps someone will know how to properly fix a bicycle pump to a wheel. The cafè is always peopled by men of varying ages and states of sobriety, rough and tumble types. I imagine that at worse, the sunburned drunk who cleans tables between glasses of beer might be my volatile recourse: angry at being thrown out for smoking in the bar one morning, he let fly various curses (Je ... ce putain bar....) before walking outside to have his fag.
However, I get to the outside tables and see in front of the entrance to the café a table of six or seven sturdy-looking men enjoying coffees and cigarettes. They take me in, I greet them, and ask whether one of them might be able to help me fill my bicycle tires with air from the pump I am carrying in the knapsack on my back.
Nothing easier, several say, although there is a bit of a debate as to which one has most experience with bicycle tires. A big guy dressed in beige fatigues gets up and walks over to the bicycle. An older man next to him warns him that 7 kilos of pressure is the maximum the tires can take without exploding, which he fully expects to happen. This bit of good-natured ribbing done with, the two of them get my tires filled with air. I thank the two men and wish all around a good day: How nice to be in a place where being a damsel in distress still means something.
The ride to Carcassonne --about thirty miles back and forth-- is very smooth, as it is early and the sky is overcast, the temperature cool. The Thursday market in Carcassonne has few vendors and everyone seems a bit listless from the last few days of heat. I go to the café I've been taken to before, Café Moka, parking my bicycle next to my designated table. A waiter, very energetic for so early in the morning, comes over and I order a grand crème, a large, strong coffee with steamed milk, which comes out quickly.
As I am enjoying the coffee, a gust of wind sends a card flying off the table and onto the macadam, where the shoe of an older man in shorts stops it. I get up, take it from him and sit down, thanking him. He walks over and starts talking to me, asking me about my bicycle. He too, has a bicycle, a cruiser with high handlebars and no speeds. "It's tough sometimes, but good enough." He asks me where I'm from, probing. When I tell him that my family came from Spain, he tells me his did, too, from Cáceres, a long diagonal west from Carcassonne.
"Where is it? I have no idea", he says. By this point we are speaking Spanish, which he speaks quite well. He is old enough that his parents probably left in consequence of the Spanish Civil War, although Extremadura is a famously poor region --many of the Conquistadores were born there-- so poverty could have pushed them out, too. Amazed I've ridden what, is to him, a very long way, he tells me to be extra careful cycling on the highways. The roads in l'Aude are not difficult to ride, I assure him (he's never ridden in Manhattan traffic), and he is off.
Indeed, riding back is easy: I am back in Caunes by 11:35 a.m., and ride on to the Chapel of Notre Dame du Cros as fast as I can, hoping to make at least part of the Mass that has just begun. I walk in at 11:50 a.m. and find that two little girls I saw there yesterday with their father, mother and two little brothers, are there again, just their father accompanying them today. The girls are close in age, both wearing kerchiefs over their brown hair, in simple dresses. At the end of the Mass they each take a hand of the Passionist priest who has celebrated the eucharist, and walk over to the marble statue of the Virgin and Child, where together they say three Hail Marys.
This is at least the second day in a row that these little girls have gone to Mass before lunch (I have only been to the chapel twice this week). Looking at them, and their young father (who looks educated, rather than a manual laborer, judging from his clothes), I am reminded of the days when Catholic families gave a daughter to a convent, or a son to the priesthood. In the family of Saint Thèrese of Lisieux three sisters all became nuns. What these little girls will grow up to be is a mystery to me, but the memory of standing with the Passionist priest in front of the statue of Notre Dame du Cros, "the Virgin of Tenderness", as she is popularly known, will always form part of their imaginations.
Visiting churches in France, I am struck by the fact that several generations of Catholics attend Mass together. In Mèze I was startled to see three tall, good-looking brothers in their late teens and early twenties standing in a pew at Sunday Mass in Saint Hilaire. What is so striking about all this to me is that, unlike the United States, where freedom of religion is a core principle, France's revolution of 1789 seized all religious property, defrocked those in holy orders and prohibited religious worship. Although the extremes of the Reign of Terror (which subsided with the guillotining of the Carmelite nuns of Compiegne) are no more, a legacy of the Revolution is laicité, or secularism. In France, no Catholic priest, Jewish rabbi, Protestant clergyman or Muslim imam has the authority to solemnize a marriage, as in the United States. The law prohibits the display of religious symbols in the schools, meaning that no type of religious pendant or other identifying mark of adhesion to a religious faith may be displayed by either students, teachers or school officials.
Which makes the intensity of the devotion of French Catholics provocative. I am always surprised that when I go to a Mass in France, there are people attending in significant numbers. There are not enough priests, but there are plenty of congregants, although the former may explain the latter. In the first decades of the 20th century, the Catholic Church was associated with Charles Maurras and his anti-semitic ideology, but today's French Catholic Church seems more concerned with missions in Africa and the inner lives of the faithful. One evidence of this is that La Croix, the French Catholic daily, takes positions that are neither right nor left, but consistent with Catholic social teaching.
Perhaps there is something about being in the decided minority that makes more tenacious the attachment of French Catholics to their churches. It might be a bit like the situation in the former East Germany, where Protestantism (which had formerly been the state religion) was not outlawed, but Protestant practice came at the price of all preferment professionally. For that reason, the sons of many Protestant families chose to become carpenters, the better to live a life in imitation of that of Jesus. (And some attribute Chancellor Angela Merkel's tenacity in no small part to the example of her father, a Protestant minister in East Germany.)
It is easy to think of France as a liberal country, but there is a deep strain of conservatism, too. Not just the Front National's brand of anti-immigrant rabble-rousing, but a deep attachment to the old ways, based on France's history, and in small towns, the history and customs of the region. The divide between Paris and the rest of the country is nowhere more apparent than in the small villages and towns. Paris and its bureaucrats may decide, but the stubborn people of the countryside will outlast them. Paris outlawed the churches, but the faithful outwitted the Revolutionary Committees: local people bought up privately the lands that had belonged to the churches, then turned them over to the commune (the local government), which re-established them as parishes after the Revolution's frenzy subsided.
***
There is no bookstore in Caunes. Indeed, even magazines of any substance are thin on the ground, with the café's offerings limited to a few newspapers, a few horse journals and a lot of celebrity magazines. Carcassonne has a few good bookstores and one very good outlet for lots of newspapers and magazines. Otherwise, books have to be ordered from the Web.
Unless you know about Patrice Cartier. Patrice Cartier lives across the way from Notre Dame du Cros, in the foothills of the Black Mountains, the only other person inhabiting this remote spot. He runs a used bookshop there, where no one can find him. I only knew about him because I had seen a poster for a new book about Languedoc-Roussillon's historic sites on the door of the shop, although there was no sign identifying it as such. Walking out after Mass, I saw that the door was open and walked in.
Inside there were English books, there were lots of books about Marx, about Mitterand, there were magazines from a hundred years ago and two copies of Paris Match of May 1968 when students rioted and de Gaulle threw in the towel. There was bric-a-brac, there were multiple copies of a book about residential swimming pools, there were post cards. Patrice began his career as a journalist, then worked in radio, then wrote articles for a trade magazine about swimming pool construction, which led to the contract for the book about swimming pools. After the book came out the magazine folded. Not because the book was too costly, he told me, but because the publisher of the magazine ruined himself chasing African girls who took him for every cent he had. End of job writing articles for magazine about residential swimming pools, beginning of life as a bookseller.
Patrice had a geography of France for children published in 1896. Its brightly colored pages highlight France's many rivers, and list the départements as they were then, as well as skewing the attitudes of French children in a decidedly anti-German direction: France includes all these départements, minus those Germany took from us, Alsace and Lorraine. Another book, a child's history of France was published in 1916. It too, has a decided slant on history. Who were the Normans? The Norman pirates came from the sterile shores of Northern Europe. Their joy was to die amidst the clash of armies. Then, they believed, a paradise called Valhalla would open to them where they would drink mead forever in a place of honor.
The bookstore is a fun house mirror onto France's past.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Ryanair; A Visit to the "Dechetterie"; A True Grease Monkey
July 17, 2013
Returning to Caunes last night, the evening was taken up with packing Jazmin for her flight to Paris this morning. With only two days in Paris, time was of the essence, so the relaxing ride on the TGV from Carcassonne I had foreseen for her was not on the agenda --thanks to Ryanair.
Ryanair, an Irish company, is the leader in no-frills short-haul flights in Europe. Everything has its price; indeed the website is user-unfriendly, dragging the consumer through multiple iterations of its extras before concluding a ticket purchase. A glass of water, for instance, will cost you.
Ryanair shrewdly identifies underutilized local airports in Europe, then approaches the management and offers to fly there in return for landing privileges at below-market rates, if not for free. Ryanair's argument is that it creates new tourist destinations by doing so, bringing money into the local economy that would otherwise not benefit.
The cheapest way to go Ryanair is with one carry-on, which has to weigh 10 kilos or less; anything more, gets pricey. Checking one bag in the hold is 35 Euros; a flight from Carcassonne to Paris is about 30 Euros: much cheaper than the TGV, although you arrive at Beauvais airport, some miles outside of Paris and have to take an inter-city train (at nominal cost) into Paris and take a taxi from there.
Ryanair put Carcassonne on the map twenty-two years ago. Judging from the number of tourists that now visit there from all around the world, let alone the English who have bought homes in l'Aude since the flights began, the argument, in that town's case, is proven.
***
Unlike people who live in apartment buildings in major American cities, where the staff takes recycled garbage out onto the street for pick-up, in Caunes-Minervois, you drive to the déchetterie, the recyling center a few kilometers outside the village. You take a left and drive up the slope to the top, stop, and a uniformed worker walks over and asks what village you are from. Only people from Caunes and the vicinity can use this déchetterie, which like the rest of Caunes, closes for lunch from 12:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
The workers wear citrus green pants and vests and include a young woman. There are giant bins for cardboard, for cans, for plastic, and a giant square-shaped module with portholes on all four sides to dump glass. I love the crashing sound bottles make when they hit --it is one of the chief pleasures of going to the déchetterie. I park at the far end, in the direction of the exit and start to remove items from the blue plastic container in which I place cans and plastic bottles. Usually, someone comes over and picks up the cube for me, throwing things out as we talk. Task accomplished, I put the blue container back in the trunk of the car and drive slowly down the exit slope.
Except last week, when three employees from Meubles Negre (Black's Furniture) in Peyriac, alerted me to damage to my tires, tiny strips of rubber that scraped off when I got too close to a curb driving through one of the villages. For an experienced driver, the narrow village roads, dropped in between high curbs on both sides of the road to slow drivers down, present no problem. Having only had to drive since getting here (I have driven only rarely since obtaining my license at the age of thirty-two), my learning curve has been high.
The guys from Meubles Negre were very excited about the state of my tires.
"You must go to a tire shop and have them looked at. At any moment, a tire could burst! No, no! --You have to have them looked at before you have an accident. You probably have to have the tires replaced."
I asked where I could find a tire dealer.
"Go to the Spar in Peyriac--"
The Spar there is where I fill the car with gas, and not far.
"There's Monsieuir Pneu there, he has lots of types of tires, he probably has them for your car." ("Pneu" is the French word for "tire".)
The guys find my predicament worth talking about, even as I am departing the déchetterie for Peyriac.
"--By the way, you also have liquid dripping from the bottom of your car. You'd better hope it's not oil!"
I find Monsieur Pneu without difficulty; park and walk into the office, where a fit-looking young man with a shaved head, tanned face and arms is looking at paperwork behind the counter.
I explain my dilemma and say that perhaps I will have to buy new tires.
"Well, let's have a look", he says, rising from quickly his chair.
Driving is one of those skills that many believe a measure of general competence. By those measures, I am an abject failure. I am maladroit behind the wheel, although I have been told that driving is one of the few things one gets better at simply by doing more. The GPS and I have still not made friends, although I am getting a better sense of how to read the screen while moving. Yet I still lose time, making a wrong turn in a roundabout and having to turn around, when I am not driving completely off-course. All that is excusable as the growing pains of a new driver. Destroying the tires on a new car, however, represents another level of error, a costly one. What else could go wrong?
The young man and I walk out to the car. He circles around it, taking in the four tires.
"No, you have no problem with the tires. They are completely road-worthy. You have a few strips of loose rubber--"
And he kneels down and slices them off with an Exacto knife.
"Well, I was told that I also have some liquid dripping from the bottom of the car--"
"Let's have a look--"
And the young man flops down on the asphalt and slides his body under the chassis of the car. He lies there a few seconds, then slides out from under and gets to his feet.
"No, nothing to worry about. It's just condensation from the air-conditioner."
"What do I owe you?"
"Rien" (Nothing), he says with a cheerful smile.
"Well, wait--" I say, as he starts to walk away, handing him a 5 Euro note. "At least you can have a glass of wine on me."
"C'est gentil!" (That's nice!"), he replies before bidding me good day.
I now think "Grease Monkey" are two of the most beautiful words in the English language. In French, the term is a literal translation, singe de graisse.
"Vive le singe de graisse!"
Returning to Caunes last night, the evening was taken up with packing Jazmin for her flight to Paris this morning. With only two days in Paris, time was of the essence, so the relaxing ride on the TGV from Carcassonne I had foreseen for her was not on the agenda --thanks to Ryanair.
Ryanair, an Irish company, is the leader in no-frills short-haul flights in Europe. Everything has its price; indeed the website is user-unfriendly, dragging the consumer through multiple iterations of its extras before concluding a ticket purchase. A glass of water, for instance, will cost you.
Ryanair shrewdly identifies underutilized local airports in Europe, then approaches the management and offers to fly there in return for landing privileges at below-market rates, if not for free. Ryanair's argument is that it creates new tourist destinations by doing so, bringing money into the local economy that would otherwise not benefit.
The cheapest way to go Ryanair is with one carry-on, which has to weigh 10 kilos or less; anything more, gets pricey. Checking one bag in the hold is 35 Euros; a flight from Carcassonne to Paris is about 30 Euros: much cheaper than the TGV, although you arrive at Beauvais airport, some miles outside of Paris and have to take an inter-city train (at nominal cost) into Paris and take a taxi from there.
Ryanair put Carcassonne on the map twenty-two years ago. Judging from the number of tourists that now visit there from all around the world, let alone the English who have bought homes in l'Aude since the flights began, the argument, in that town's case, is proven.
***
Unlike people who live in apartment buildings in major American cities, where the staff takes recycled garbage out onto the street for pick-up, in Caunes-Minervois, you drive to the déchetterie, the recyling center a few kilometers outside the village. You take a left and drive up the slope to the top, stop, and a uniformed worker walks over and asks what village you are from. Only people from Caunes and the vicinity can use this déchetterie, which like the rest of Caunes, closes for lunch from 12:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
The workers wear citrus green pants and vests and include a young woman. There are giant bins for cardboard, for cans, for plastic, and a giant square-shaped module with portholes on all four sides to dump glass. I love the crashing sound bottles make when they hit --it is one of the chief pleasures of going to the déchetterie. I park at the far end, in the direction of the exit and start to remove items from the blue plastic container in which I place cans and plastic bottles. Usually, someone comes over and picks up the cube for me, throwing things out as we talk. Task accomplished, I put the blue container back in the trunk of the car and drive slowly down the exit slope.
Except last week, when three employees from Meubles Negre (Black's Furniture) in Peyriac, alerted me to damage to my tires, tiny strips of rubber that scraped off when I got too close to a curb driving through one of the villages. For an experienced driver, the narrow village roads, dropped in between high curbs on both sides of the road to slow drivers down, present no problem. Having only had to drive since getting here (I have driven only rarely since obtaining my license at the age of thirty-two), my learning curve has been high.
The guys from Meubles Negre were very excited about the state of my tires.
"You must go to a tire shop and have them looked at. At any moment, a tire could burst! No, no! --You have to have them looked at before you have an accident. You probably have to have the tires replaced."
I asked where I could find a tire dealer.
"Go to the Spar in Peyriac--"
The Spar there is where I fill the car with gas, and not far.
"There's Monsieuir Pneu there, he has lots of types of tires, he probably has them for your car." ("Pneu" is the French word for "tire".)
The guys find my predicament worth talking about, even as I am departing the déchetterie for Peyriac.
"--By the way, you also have liquid dripping from the bottom of your car. You'd better hope it's not oil!"
I find Monsieur Pneu without difficulty; park and walk into the office, where a fit-looking young man with a shaved head, tanned face and arms is looking at paperwork behind the counter.
I explain my dilemma and say that perhaps I will have to buy new tires.
"Well, let's have a look", he says, rising from quickly his chair.
Driving is one of those skills that many believe a measure of general competence. By those measures, I am an abject failure. I am maladroit behind the wheel, although I have been told that driving is one of the few things one gets better at simply by doing more. The GPS and I have still not made friends, although I am getting a better sense of how to read the screen while moving. Yet I still lose time, making a wrong turn in a roundabout and having to turn around, when I am not driving completely off-course. All that is excusable as the growing pains of a new driver. Destroying the tires on a new car, however, represents another level of error, a costly one. What else could go wrong?
The young man and I walk out to the car. He circles around it, taking in the four tires.
"No, you have no problem with the tires. They are completely road-worthy. You have a few strips of loose rubber--"
And he kneels down and slices them off with an Exacto knife.
"Well, I was told that I also have some liquid dripping from the bottom of the car--"
"Let's have a look--"
And the young man flops down on the asphalt and slides his body under the chassis of the car. He lies there a few seconds, then slides out from under and gets to his feet.
"No, nothing to worry about. It's just condensation from the air-conditioner."
"What do I owe you?"
"Rien" (Nothing), he says with a cheerful smile.
"Well, wait--" I say, as he starts to walk away, handing him a 5 Euro note. "At least you can have a glass of wine on me."
"C'est gentil!" (That's nice!"), he replies before bidding me good day.
I now think "Grease Monkey" are two of the most beautiful words in the English language. In French, the term is a literal translation, singe de graisse.
"Vive le singe de graisse!"
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Bastille Day; President Hollande's Interview; Sarkozy's Game; The End of the "Cumul des Mandats"
July 14, 2013
Bastille Day in Paris is an opportunity for the powers-that-be in France to strut their stuff, and 2014 is no exception. The French president reviews the armed forces detailed to the ceremony, who are lined up from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde. He does so standing up in an open car, with the French equivalent of the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff standing next to him. When he reaches the reviewing stand at the Place de la Concorde he joins the other dignitaries and listens to an elite armed force choir, which does a neat bit of choreography visible from the air, and broadcast on millions of French TV screens. The ceremony ends with a designated singer (Florian Marconi, this year) belting out "La Marseillaise" as the French air patrol (La Patrouille de France) flies over Paris, red, white and blue streamers of smoke decorating the skyline.
After that, traditionally, the president gives an interview from the Elysée, although during the campaign last year, Hollande said another place might be more conducive to a freer exchange between the president and journalists. A year later, Hollande arranged to be interviewed by Claire Chazal of Telefrance 1 and Laurent Delahousse of France 2 in the Elysée Palace gardens, a decision said to have been taken by Hollande to turn media attention away from Nicolas Sarkozy, whose speech to UMP leaders last Monday, has created a firestorm of press attention.
If Hollande thought that the prospect of interviewing the French head of state on live television from the Elysée would intimidate his inquisitors, he was very much mistaken. The economy was the first and only topic aside from a few detours about Delphine Batho, Minister for Ecology, bounced a few days ago; and Manuel Valls, the visibly ambitious Minister of the Interior. Laurent Delahousse wanted to know whether taxes on the middle class would increase next year, a question Hollande tried to parry by saying that the government would continue to cut expenses to the greatest extent possible. Delahousse persisted, and Hollande again tried to parry by talking about the increases in the "wealth tax", a tax on incomes over 1M Euros that at the highest end, taxes at 75%.
Hadn't he taxed the wealthiest, whose capital, a magazine recently reported, had increased in value 25% last year? He wasn't trying to spoliate these fortunes, but he wanted the very wealthy to show solidarity with the rest of France.
What about the reforms of the government's role in the economy Hollande said he would make if elected?
The system has to be reformed, Hollande pursued. The job market, particularly the system of retirement benefits, has to be made over: as people are living longer, they will have to contribute longer to have the same benefits.
Turning to a more sensitive question, did Hollande fear the return of Nicolas Sarkozy to public life?
"I have so much to think about from day-to-day, that I do not have time to think about him" came the rejoinder.
What about the lack of confidence a majority of French feel about the country's future?
"We are the most pessimistic country in the world" came the answer.
Finally, the president was asked whether, were an Islamic party to be founded in France, would it be compatible with democracy. "No religion is incompatible with democracy", Hollande asserted.
The interview lasted thirty-six minutes. Hollande, dressed in a navy blue suit and tie, no doubt tailored very well, is nonetheless unprepossessing. Balding and bespectacled, he resembles a middle-aged insurance salesman for whom the business lunches hold no small part of the appeal of the job. Indeed, the former député (representative) from Corrèze in central France is known to enjoy a good meal in the French tradition. He is said to be steady, affable and witty, perhaps too content to lead a country that wants to continue to be thought of as a great power (Hollande repeatedly said in the interview that France was a "great" country), but needs major structural reforms bring down a 10.4% unemployment rate, and to stanch a 450 billion Euro deficit.
***
François Hollande may be too busy solving France's problems to be concerned, let alone afraid of Nicolas Sakozy's return to politics, but for François Fillon, his former boss is proving a major thorn in Fillon's side. Fillon is said to have smarted at pointed public rebukes contained in Sarkozy's speech to UMP leaders last Monday, although he is a man too emotionally disciplined to let it show. Rather, close allies have begun to poke holes in Sarkozy's remarks, pointing out that the former president talked about "big picture" issues, while making no mention of the UMP's enormous campaign debt, a debt created by Sarkozy's losing race for a second quinquennat.
In fact, Fillon is said to have commented that Sarkozy introduced no new ideas, just warmed-over ones. Fillon was indispensable to Sarkozy, softening, with his dignified and ever-so-polite manner, Sarkozy's "Energizer Bunny" persona. French Presidents often sacrifice their Prime Ministers, making them the fall guys for policies that failed. Jacques Chirac fired Dominique de Villepin when the latter's plan for lowering unemployment by creating more jobs for youth was pilloried. Sarkozy reshuffled his cabinet more than once, but he kept Fillon, who was his partner in power.
It is easy to understand why Fillon is rattled by Sarkozy's reappearance. First of all, Sarkozy lost the election. True, had Marine le Pen of the Front Nationale not run, enough of her voters would have voted for Sarkozy to put him over the top. However, ex-Presidents of France are supposed to make a dignified exit, with honors easing their retirement, along with elder statesman status.
Nicolas Sarkozy wants neither, but what he really wants is anyone's guess. To pull the strings, probably, to be a kingmaker, to make his former vassals pledge allegiance once more, even if he knows deep inside he can't be the candidate again. Fillon, who definitely knows what he wants --to be the candidate of the center-right in 2017, has created an organization, Force Republicain, to raise money and structure his eventual campaign.
Fillon finds himself in the position of a man who should be the logical choice of his party, but finds the way littered with obstacles. A distinguished public servant whose public remarks and demeanor are always appropriate to the occasion, Fillon is fighting off challenges, on the one side from Sarkozy, and the other Jean-François Copé, the first secretary of the UMP. Copé is a provocateur, who has taken positions not so far removed from those of Marine Le Pen and the Front National, in an effort to siphon off votes. Copé is no shrinking violet: his father once told a reporter that he thanked God that France had been given his son. Copé is ardent, where Fillon is unruffled.
Fillon is perhaps temperamentally ill-suited to what will be a rough-and-tumble campaign for the nomination of France's center-right voters. He is said to dislike networking via the telephone, which means that sometimes allies find out things they ought to have been told directly through intermediaries like the press. Laurent Wauquiez, a telegenic junior minister in Fillon's cabinet, is one who has distanced himself from Fillon out of frustration with Fillon's mandarin style, and complaints about it are not limited to him.
Copé is a frontal politician who likes confrontation. In response to the gay marriage bill enacted by the French legislature, Copé led a demonstration in opposition. Perhaps to Fillon's credit, rather than march in the demonstration, Fillon went to a road rally.
***
This week the French legislature voted an end to the cumul des mandats. Rather than try to explain it, I will quote Art Goldhammer, a distinguished French translator and student of French politics. Goldhammer's blog, French Politics, is an opinionated, but informed and detailed review of French political life. In his January 16, 2013 post Goldhammer said this about the cumuli des mandate:
As long as I have been involved in the study of French politics, I have been hearing about the reform to end all reforms: the banning of the cumul des mandats. It is telling indeed that French has a phrase for the holding of multiple offices that rolls so trippingly off the tongue, whereas any English circumlocution gives the reader pause. Is le cumul des mandats simply illegal in, say, the United States? I doubt that any law exists that would prevent someone from serving simultaneously as, for instance, Mayor of Indianapolis and representative in Congress. It's just that it's-well, not the done thing.
In France, however, it is not only the done thing; it is practically a necessity of political life. If a man or woman wants to be a player at the national level, it's essential to have a local power base with patronage powers that can be used to groom a loyal staff, a cadre of backers, and bridges to important resources in civil society. Banning le cumul would indeed constitute a major reform, just because it would disrupt so many vested interests. Whether it would achieve any useful goal beyond altering the status quo has never been so clear to me as to the idea's many staunch supporters. Would the quality of representation be increased? If so, why? Might reform not widen the distance between the national and local levels and therefore have the opposite of the desired effect?
That day has now come, with the double mandate (as it is known in English-speaking countries) now threatened. Of course the cumul des mandats (which is as old as the French revolution) violates a concept dear to Americans: the tripartite division of government functions, with a separate legislature, executive and judiciary. That concept of separation of powers was the brainchild of a Frenchman, Montesquieu, who said, famously:
Bastille Day in Paris is an opportunity for the powers-that-be in France to strut their stuff, and 2014 is no exception. The French president reviews the armed forces detailed to the ceremony, who are lined up from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde. He does so standing up in an open car, with the French equivalent of the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff standing next to him. When he reaches the reviewing stand at the Place de la Concorde he joins the other dignitaries and listens to an elite armed force choir, which does a neat bit of choreography visible from the air, and broadcast on millions of French TV screens. The ceremony ends with a designated singer (Florian Marconi, this year) belting out "La Marseillaise" as the French air patrol (La Patrouille de France) flies over Paris, red, white and blue streamers of smoke decorating the skyline.
After that, traditionally, the president gives an interview from the Elysée, although during the campaign last year, Hollande said another place might be more conducive to a freer exchange between the president and journalists. A year later, Hollande arranged to be interviewed by Claire Chazal of Telefrance 1 and Laurent Delahousse of France 2 in the Elysée Palace gardens, a decision said to have been taken by Hollande to turn media attention away from Nicolas Sarkozy, whose speech to UMP leaders last Monday, has created a firestorm of press attention.
If Hollande thought that the prospect of interviewing the French head of state on live television from the Elysée would intimidate his inquisitors, he was very much mistaken. The economy was the first and only topic aside from a few detours about Delphine Batho, Minister for Ecology, bounced a few days ago; and Manuel Valls, the visibly ambitious Minister of the Interior. Laurent Delahousse wanted to know whether taxes on the middle class would increase next year, a question Hollande tried to parry by saying that the government would continue to cut expenses to the greatest extent possible. Delahousse persisted, and Hollande again tried to parry by talking about the increases in the "wealth tax", a tax on incomes over 1M Euros that at the highest end, taxes at 75%.
Hadn't he taxed the wealthiest, whose capital, a magazine recently reported, had increased in value 25% last year? He wasn't trying to spoliate these fortunes, but he wanted the very wealthy to show solidarity with the rest of France.
What about the reforms of the government's role in the economy Hollande said he would make if elected?
The system has to be reformed, Hollande pursued. The job market, particularly the system of retirement benefits, has to be made over: as people are living longer, they will have to contribute longer to have the same benefits.
Turning to a more sensitive question, did Hollande fear the return of Nicolas Sarkozy to public life?
"I have so much to think about from day-to-day, that I do not have time to think about him" came the rejoinder.
What about the lack of confidence a majority of French feel about the country's future?
"We are the most pessimistic country in the world" came the answer.
Finally, the president was asked whether, were an Islamic party to be founded in France, would it be compatible with democracy. "No religion is incompatible with democracy", Hollande asserted.
The interview lasted thirty-six minutes. Hollande, dressed in a navy blue suit and tie, no doubt tailored very well, is nonetheless unprepossessing. Balding and bespectacled, he resembles a middle-aged insurance salesman for whom the business lunches hold no small part of the appeal of the job. Indeed, the former député (representative) from Corrèze in central France is known to enjoy a good meal in the French tradition. He is said to be steady, affable and witty, perhaps too content to lead a country that wants to continue to be thought of as a great power (Hollande repeatedly said in the interview that France was a "great" country), but needs major structural reforms bring down a 10.4% unemployment rate, and to stanch a 450 billion Euro deficit.
***
François Hollande may be too busy solving France's problems to be concerned, let alone afraid of Nicolas Sakozy's return to politics, but for François Fillon, his former boss is proving a major thorn in Fillon's side. Fillon is said to have smarted at pointed public rebukes contained in Sarkozy's speech to UMP leaders last Monday, although he is a man too emotionally disciplined to let it show. Rather, close allies have begun to poke holes in Sarkozy's remarks, pointing out that the former president talked about "big picture" issues, while making no mention of the UMP's enormous campaign debt, a debt created by Sarkozy's losing race for a second quinquennat.
In fact, Fillon is said to have commented that Sarkozy introduced no new ideas, just warmed-over ones. Fillon was indispensable to Sarkozy, softening, with his dignified and ever-so-polite manner, Sarkozy's "Energizer Bunny" persona. French Presidents often sacrifice their Prime Ministers, making them the fall guys for policies that failed. Jacques Chirac fired Dominique de Villepin when the latter's plan for lowering unemployment by creating more jobs for youth was pilloried. Sarkozy reshuffled his cabinet more than once, but he kept Fillon, who was his partner in power.
It is easy to understand why Fillon is rattled by Sarkozy's reappearance. First of all, Sarkozy lost the election. True, had Marine le Pen of the Front Nationale not run, enough of her voters would have voted for Sarkozy to put him over the top. However, ex-Presidents of France are supposed to make a dignified exit, with honors easing their retirement, along with elder statesman status.
Nicolas Sarkozy wants neither, but what he really wants is anyone's guess. To pull the strings, probably, to be a kingmaker, to make his former vassals pledge allegiance once more, even if he knows deep inside he can't be the candidate again. Fillon, who definitely knows what he wants --to be the candidate of the center-right in 2017, has created an organization, Force Republicain, to raise money and structure his eventual campaign.
Fillon finds himself in the position of a man who should be the logical choice of his party, but finds the way littered with obstacles. A distinguished public servant whose public remarks and demeanor are always appropriate to the occasion, Fillon is fighting off challenges, on the one side from Sarkozy, and the other Jean-François Copé, the first secretary of the UMP. Copé is a provocateur, who has taken positions not so far removed from those of Marine Le Pen and the Front National, in an effort to siphon off votes. Copé is no shrinking violet: his father once told a reporter that he thanked God that France had been given his son. Copé is ardent, where Fillon is unruffled.
Fillon is perhaps temperamentally ill-suited to what will be a rough-and-tumble campaign for the nomination of France's center-right voters. He is said to dislike networking via the telephone, which means that sometimes allies find out things they ought to have been told directly through intermediaries like the press. Laurent Wauquiez, a telegenic junior minister in Fillon's cabinet, is one who has distanced himself from Fillon out of frustration with Fillon's mandarin style, and complaints about it are not limited to him.
Copé is a frontal politician who likes confrontation. In response to the gay marriage bill enacted by the French legislature, Copé led a demonstration in opposition. Perhaps to Fillon's credit, rather than march in the demonstration, Fillon went to a road rally.
***
This week the French legislature voted an end to the cumul des mandats. Rather than try to explain it, I will quote Art Goldhammer, a distinguished French translator and student of French politics. Goldhammer's blog, French Politics, is an opinionated, but informed and detailed review of French political life. In his January 16, 2013 post Goldhammer said this about the cumuli des mandate:
As long as I have been involved in the study of French politics, I have been hearing about the reform to end all reforms: the banning of the cumul des mandats. It is telling indeed that French has a phrase for the holding of multiple offices that rolls so trippingly off the tongue, whereas any English circumlocution gives the reader pause. Is le cumul des mandats simply illegal in, say, the United States? I doubt that any law exists that would prevent someone from serving simultaneously as, for instance, Mayor of Indianapolis and representative in Congress. It's just that it's-well, not the done thing.
In France, however, it is not only the done thing; it is practically a necessity of political life. If a man or woman wants to be a player at the national level, it's essential to have a local power base with patronage powers that can be used to groom a loyal staff, a cadre of backers, and bridges to important resources in civil society. Banning le cumul would indeed constitute a major reform, just because it would disrupt so many vested interests. Whether it would achieve any useful goal beyond altering the status quo has never been so clear to me as to the idea's many staunch supporters. Would the quality of representation be increased? If so, why? Might reform not widen the distance between the national and local levels and therefore have the opposite of the desired effect?
That day has now come, with the double mandate (as it is known in English-speaking countries) now threatened. Of course the cumul des mandats (which is as old as the French revolution) violates a concept dear to Americans: the tripartite division of government functions, with a separate legislature, executive and judiciary. That concept of separation of powers was the brainchild of a Frenchman, Montesquieu, who said, famously:
"If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are." (Auden and Kronenberger 1966)
and,
"Success generally depends upon knowing how long it takes to succeed." (Auden and Kronenberger 1966)
The end of the cumul des mandats, and the success envisioned for the reform may take longer than François Hollande and the reform's backers think. Perhaps in part because the reformers envision the repudiation of the system leading to a new class of elected officials happy to line up for places the former holders of more than one office enjoyed. In practice, the reality may prove quite different.
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