French National Holiday Weekend (Bastille Day Weekend)

Saturday, July 13, 2013

     Anglo-Saxons think the 14th of July is called Bastille Day, but actually the French merely refer to "La Fête Nationale Française".  Confusingly, while everyone celebrates it, some municipalities do so on the 13th, others on the 14th.  In Caunes, for instance, the holiday is celebrated on the 13th so anyone who wants to go to see the fireworks over the Cité of Carcassonne, the walled, medieval town, can do so on July 14, when Carcassonne celebrates the holiday.

     In Mèze, there are festivities Saturday and Sunday, starting with the petanque competition, which lasts two days.  There is also a fireman's ball.  These balls, organized by the local fire brigade for their support, are ubiquitous throughout France.  Even in Paris, there is a Bal des Sapeurs Pompiers in each arrondissement, with young and trim junior firemen selling tickets on the sidewalks, accosting anyone they think might buy a ticket.  I have bought one every year, without regret, just for the fun of talking with one of the firemen.

     This being Saturday, it is market day.  I am staying in Mèze, a half hour away from Pézenas, whose market is always a treat, provided you are up early enough to find parking comfortably.  Pézenas has lots of parking, but Pézenas being a center of fine craftsmanship, a place to buy antiques and, on Saturdays, to enjoy the market, the town is jammed.

     I and my sister Jazmin (who is making her first trip to France) get to Pézenas by 8:30 a.m. and find one of the last spaces in the Voltaire parking lot near the Tourist Office.  Several people, the early birds, carrying full market baskets, make their way to their cars; they must have arrived at the market at 7:30 a.m. to be done so early.  We walk on past the Tourist Office, an 18th century building near the market's start.  We walk over to the market and note that, although it is almost 9 o'clock, many vendors have not yet completed setting up their stalls --last night must have been a night on the tiles.

     Walking past the cheap sunglasses, knapsacks, striped tops; beyond the oilcloth paper in Provençal designs, the orthopedic sandals, the embroidery depots and the scented soap sellers, you come to the food vendors.  Out of cast iron skillets of Brobdingnagian size, some are selling paella, cous-cous or, strangest of all, whole cuttlefishes.  The latter are white globes, the size of light bulbs, simmering in a sizzling tomato sauce.  

     Further on, there is a food truck featuring all manner of Vietnamese food, operated by a handsome Vietnamese man.  Other stands feature traditional French foods --cheeses, hams, roast chickens, charcuterie, breads and viennoiserie, local candies, nougats in ten different varieties.  And of course, fruits and vegetables: giant purple bulbs of garlic, orange-red tomatoes, and melons de cavaillon (cantaloupes).

     At the end of the food market, just before the start of the used-clothes market, there is a new vendor, one I have never seen before.  He has a unique selling tool: a small, black, hairy pet pig standing on a box on a small table.  The seller is about five years old, dressed in a sleeveless striped top and shorts, with a bead necklace around his throat.  He asks me, in a soft, gravelly child's voice, whether I would like to buy some Bonbons Résineux du Père Dépret --Father Dépret's Resinous Candies.

     This child, who is a blond charmer, is accompanied by a little sister about a year older, wearing glasses and taking the money --and their father.  The boy first tries to sell me a metal box of candies for 30 Euros, then a smaller one for 15.  When I ask for just one, at 5 Euros, he tells me that if I take two, he will let me have them both for 7 Euros.  The father, is meanwhile, watching all the proceedings with an baleful eye, and the boy's sister with an impassive one.

      I ask the boy whether he is from Pézenas, and he says he comes from Paris.  The candies, though, are made in Bouchain, in the Vosges, from a family recipe created by a botanist from Bouchain named Dépret.  Bouchain is in the Belgium-bordering Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, considered the ugliest area of France, partly because its weather is like that of southwest England, rainy and colder than the rest of France.  I think that it is likelier that he is from Bouchain than Paris, but Paris sounds more romantic a place to be from than Bouchain.

     "We are collecting money for the animals", the little boy tells me, as I hand the money over to the urchin.  "Thank you on behalf of the animals", he says, as his sister hands me change of a 10 Euro bill.  I have just paid about $10 USD for two boxes of cough drops.  I don't believe for a second that the money is going to benefit animals, but a good salesman deserves his reward.