Читать книгу Of Rivers, Baguettes and Billabongs - Reg Egan - Страница 10

The most convenient, and the most spectacular view of the birth of the Dordogne River is from your bedroom balcony looking to your left over toward the forbidding bulk of the Puy de Sancy. (Puy in Celtic is “volcano” or perhaps simply “peak” and Dore is “ water”).

A long plane trip, a short plane trip, a rental car, and suddenly there it was cascading from what appeared to be a wound in the side of the rocky mountain still partly snow covered at the end of May. You can approach Sancy from the other direction, no doubt, and if you did, equally without a doubt you would come upon small streams which gathered together either short of, or in a cleft in the mountain, but to see it from the Mount Dore side is wonderfully impressive and picturesque. If you walk out of your hotel and up towards the ski lift you will come upon a bridge and under it is the fat and fast stream that the waterfall has begot. This stream plunges straight down to the thriving spa and ski town of Mount Dore and the road runs beside it. On one side of the road are a series of ski lifts and ski nets above the road cutting, presumably to catch unwary skiers before they break their bones, and on the other is this sturdy brown stream and a succesion of chalets, hotels, and the like. You are in the region of the Auvergne but the department of Puy de Dôme; and you are also in the proximity of a young and racy river. Brimful of water and turbulence and excitement, it cannot wait to get there. And despite its impetuosity and its gauche immaturity you admire it and you are intrigued by it. You are beginning to fall under its spell.

The Auvergne is not as well known as places like Burgundy or Alsace or Provence, and it is very different, but so astonishingly beautiful. I must say that my previous impression had been that it was of a land of austerity and mystery. I wonder now how I got that impression. Many years ago we had stayed at what was then the rather passé spa town of Vichy and I had spent a few hours late one afternoon walking in the hills to the west of that town, but why did I have this notion that the Auvergne was remote and sombre? I determined to find out.

I went first to consult our ancient Fodor, an old light blue covered and rather tattered volume dated 1971, and I looked at the entry under a section entitled “The undiscovered provinces”. It was headed “Exploring Auvergne” and it plunged straight into its spa towns, its healing waters and its health resorts but then it did go on to describe its volcanic mountains, its snow fields and its lakes. It even mentioned the famous literary mother Madame de Sévigné (who apparently frequented Vichy in the seventeenth century) and it went on to extol the architecture of the “beautiful twelfth century church of St. Nectaire”. It wasn’t a lengthy entry on this wonderful region, but there was nothing derogatory in it.

The aging Encyclopaedia Britannica was not adversely critical eitherit gave a brief history of the Celtic confederation of the Averni under the fierce and famous chieftain Vercingetorix, and it mentioned Julius Caesar and the Bourbons.

I turned to the battered and travelled green Michelin and also drew a blank. Why then this impression? Maybe it was the Songs of the Auvergne, the lovely but haunting songs sung and recorded by some of the best mezzo-sopranos. These songs have a sadness about them which perhaps was rooted in former days, the days when the farmers and villagers of the Auvergne were poor and remote; but then going back only a century there was material poverty in many parts of the world.

The songs of the Auvergne entitled les chant paysan were collected by an unusual Frenchman, Joseph Canteloube (1879 – 1957). Canteloube was born in the relatively nearby hunting, fishing region of the Ardeche (where incidentally Louis Latour has some lovely vineyards). Canteloube was a man of unusual talents and after graduating in Paris spent much of his early life in the Auvergne. He was captivated by the place and its history. He maintained that ‘peasant songs often rise to the level of purest art’. It comes as no surprise to learn that he entitled one of his operas “Vercingetorix”. You have only to glance at the huge and fantastic equestrian statue of that warrior near the Place de Jaude in Clermont-Ferrand to realise what an inspiration he must have been to the composer. Canteloube, the man with the artistic soul, became a sympathiser with the once famous but rather aged Petain during Petain’s collaboration with the Germans in the 1939 –1945 war. Canteloube survived the war and Petain, and died peacefully in the Île de France in 1957.

Vercingetorix was a Celt, or if you prefer a Gaul, for that is what these tribes were called by the invading armies lead by Julius Caesar in the middle of the first century BC. You may, or you may not, admire the famous crosser of the Rubicon, but what he did at least do was leave written records of his travels and deeds, his “commentaries”. And, to an extent, we rely on those records to trace the movements and history of the Celts who, for some centuries, occupied a swathe right across central France before the Romans came to disturb them.

I’m impressed by the Celts and their enterprise and their artistry, especially in all forms of metallurgy, and by their predilection for moving ever westward in a broad band: not too far to the south and not too far to the north. So many Australians could conceivably trace their ancestry right back to France, the Auvergne and the headwaters of the Dordogne itself. They might have to go via Wales, Scotland, Ireland and parts of England, particularly Cornwall, but the line would be there.

Julius Caesar was stopped by the Celtic people at the famous battle of Gergovie, on the plateau just south of Clermont Ferrand, but the war was not over. Caesar re-grouped and at the subsequent battle at Alesia (near Dijon) the redoubtable Vercingetorix was finally defeated. It is thought that there were some six million Gauls in France at the time of the Roman occupation. It is estimated that perhaps one million of those were killed in the wars with Rome or subsequently executed (apart from those who had their right hands cut off for daring to oppose the invaders).

Alesia does not exist on most maps of France for it is the old Roman name for the town. The French name is actually Alise-Sainte-Reine, and yet when you read about that second and decisive battle, it is always referred to as the battle of Alesia, without any reference to the modern name. Napoleon the Third, the second Napoleon Emperor of France, located the exact spot in 1865 or thereabouts. Before he got the boot over the Franco-Prussian war and other things, he had excavations done on and around Mount Auxois, and as the experts had prophesied there they found the remains of a Gallic oppidum (Celtic hill fort) and, of course, a Roman town hard by-as Julius Caesar would have written, I have no doubt, in those famous chronicles of his.

Napoleon commissioned a copper statue of Vercingetorix to mark the historic spot, and it stands no less than seven metres in height and is visible, as you might imagine, from very considerable distances. Napoleon, with perhaps a whiff of his imminent downfall had the scuptor Bartholdi, who also created the Statue of Liberty, give the statue a face in his own likeness. Ah, these great men.

Should you be in the Cote-d’Or, this very, very beautiful part of France, I strongly urge you to go to the village and then drive just a few kilometres to the exquisite and historical neighboring village of Flavigny-sur-Ozerain. According to Ulrike Laule, author of the wonderful hardback called simply Burgundy, it is “one of the most picturesque small cities of Burgundy whose historical centre has been almost completely preserved”. Its situation in the soft countryside and its wonderful stone and even the production of anis pastilles in the monastic buildings, will enthral you. But back to Caesar and the Celtic warrior.

It is hard to imagine the Roman soldiers mixing too readily with the Celtic women and even harder to think that they stayed on after the occupation or that they colonised the Auvergne and the Dordogne Valley in any significant way. You could say, therefore, that this then remote area of France remained largely Celtic, except, of course, that there were subsequent invasions by the Alemanni (Germanic people), the Franks, the Vikings and no doubt one or two others; and not forgetting the Greeks, Italians, Arabs and others who came as traders in the south and stayed on. A mixed bag; and yet as you wander through the Auvergne and down the Dordogne you often look twice at the villagers, the shopkeepers and the hoteliers and you think, “They are not the olive skinned, brown eyed dark haired French. They are Australians.”

And what happened to the brave Vercingetorix, the Celtic warrior who united some of the native tribes and who even had his likeness minted on some gold coins? Sadly he did not die in battle but was captured by Caesar, kept imprisoned and then taken to Rome where in 46 BC he was paraded through the streets as a war trophy and then executed, some say strangled, at Caesar’s behest. The only consolation is that Julius Caesar himself was executed a year or two later by Brutus and his mates.

The Celts have left their mark on the Auvergne and the Dordogne and indeed, on France itself, especially in relation to the preservation of trees, streams and the countryside. There is evidence to suggest that the Celts were earth worshippers and that groves, wells, streams, rocks and the like were revered by them. As you travel from the Auvergne south-west down the Dordogne to Bordeaux you marvel at the rich mosaic of the forests of beech, oak, linden and fir trees. There is hardly a hill in France which has been cleared right up to its top, the grazing and the cultivation are confined to the lower hillsides and the valleys. This tradition has stood the countryside well in terms of erosion, climate, winds and rain. The beech forests in the spring in the Auvergne generally, and the Cantal and the Haut Loire in particular, are just as beautiful as the startlingly burnished copper beeches of the autumn. In fact, the shimmering gold of the spring beeches is quite amazing, contrasting as it does with the dark green of the pines and the grey blue of the firs, the deep green of the lush spring grass and the shapes of the puys (volcanoes) against a sky which seems always to have white and silver-grey clouds floating past. It is all rather lovely.

There is not that much evidence of the Roman occupation in the Auvergne for the Romans, it seemed, liked the softer countryside in the Berry and around Bourges and indeed made their headquarters in Bourges. But there is some: the simple but exquisite little bridge at Saurier, the temple of Mercury (and perhaps remains of a Celtic temple also) and of course the statue of Vercingetorix in Clermont Ferrand. The Romans came from a warm climate and perhaps that was a factor in their rather brief and transient occupation of the mountains and valleys of the beautiful Auvergne, an area with a climate utterly unlike that of the Imperial city.

The Auvergne can boast of the birth and/or occupation of many famous people. The first French pope, for example, Pope Sylvester 11, (also known as Pope Gerbert) was born in Aurillac (the capital of the Cantal department) in AD 945 and was educated at the St. Géraud Abbey. He became the pope in 999 at the relatively young age of fifty-four, young anyhow in the terms of 20^th and 21^st century popes, and he died only four years later in 1003. It is written of him that he “had a reputation for exceptional learning”. His statue stands in the Place Gerbert.

Blaise Pascal the mathematician, physicist and philosopher was born in Clermont Ferrand in 1623 (Louis X111) and regrettably died a year before his fortieth birthday. Although he was a mathematician and scientist extraordinaire, at the early age of thirty-one he turned to philosophy and theology — a sort of Faustian about-turn. Pascal was a man who reflected deeply and has left us his Pensées or thoughts; and just diverging a little, I remember being in a market in St. Julien when I realised for the first time that the French called pansies “thoughts” or pensées. So I bought a few pots in full bloom and gave them to our hosts of that evening. But back to Pascal the thinker. Here are a couple of his thoughts:

“Not to care for philosophy is to be a true philosopher”, and “If you want people to think well of you, do not speak well of yourself.”

Pascal was once beloved by the “systems” men of the gambling fraternity but perhaps is more familiar today for the honour of having the S1 units of pressure named after him. It is said that the famous twentieth century Existentialists drew on some of his thoughts on religion.

A contemporary of Pascal’s who lived for a time at Naddes and Espinarre in chateaux in the north of the Auvergne owned by her husband the Comte, was Madame de la Fayette, born Marie-Madelaine Pioche de la Verne. It is claimed that her novel La Princesse de Clèves published in 1678 when she was aged forty-four, was “the first true French novel”.

Although she was born in Paris in 1634, after her marriage to the Comte she divided her time between his estates in the Auvergne and Bourbonnais before settling permanently in Paris in 1659.

And then there was the birth in 1885 in St. Julien Chapteuil (on the east of the Massif Centrale) of Jules Romain. Romain was drawn to Paris (of course) and did brilliantly in philosophy. Subsequently he turned to writing and in his books expounds his theory of “unanism” loosely translated as “the collective spirit”; for example, the spirit of a city.

My encyclopaedia sums up the word unanism as “the transcendent power of collective emotion…as a whole rather than the individuals composing it”. Rather like terroir, in some ways. I wonder if we should try and revive unanism. The cult of the individual: the me, me, what about me? has its merits, but perhaps a stimulating dose of unanism say every ten years or so.

Jules Romain also wrote Les Copains, which was set partly in the circular town hall of Ambert. As a result, an excellent local restaurant or auberge is known by that name. I always think of Ambert on the Dore River (another Dore), as being on the wrong side of the Massif Centrale, too close to the infernally busy St. Etienne. And besides, the waters of that Dore River flow to the north into the Allier, and then into the Loire. But that river redeems itself by flowing eventually through the oak forests known as the Allier and also the oak forests of the Tronçais (near St. Bonnet Tronçais, bien sûr) and those forests are very dear to the hearts of all winemakers, be they French or Australian, for there isn’t a winemaker in either country who wouldn’t fall to his knees for a whiff of a skilfully toasted barrique (225 litre wine barrel) from this blessed region. And perhaps I should say in passing that it is the subtlety of the toast that matters — toast that blends with and complements fruit, not oak that dominates it.

Auvergnats are those people whose hearts will never leave their somehow remote and wild countryside, even though they have streamed and continue to stream into Paris in their thousands. If I were a young man who lived within sight of the Puy-de-Dome, I too would go to Paris, but I would come back, or I would resolve to come back. I would not forget the Auvergne.

There are many reminders of the Auvergne in Paris: in its restaurants and its restaurateurs, its wine from St. Pourçain, its show business, its music, its literature and its politicians. Wasn’t Georges Pompidou born in Montboudie and weren’t the d’Estaings, both Charles-Hector and Giscard also sons of the Auvergne? Charles-Hector (18^th century) and Giscard (20^th century) were very successful in France but it must be said that Charles-Hector stumbled a few times as commander of the first French Fleet at the time of the American War of Independence and unluckily was guillotined during the Terror, as a reward for his efficiency as Commander of the National Guard during the Revolution. Giscard can and, no doubt, has claimed that he was a distant relative of the great Charlemagne.

And there was, or rather is, Jacques Chirac, one of the most enigmatic of them all, and long lasting. Chirac was born in Paris but spent some of his early life in nearby Corréze where his family had useful connections. Chirac and then Nicolas Sarkozy, quite a contrast for the conservative French. Sarkozy certainly was not born in the Auvergne. It is said that Auvergnants like to describe France as “The Auvergne with a bit of land around it”.

And finally we must give the Bourbons a mention. The Chateau of the Bourbon Dukes stands on the top of the hill in the town of Montluçon and the remains of the old feudal castle still exists on the rocky promontory of Bourbon l’Archambault, both in the north of the Allier Department. This general area was once known as the province of Bourbonnais. Henry 1V (“Paris is worth a Mass”) was the first Bourbon (son of Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme and King of Navarre) and Charles X, who was deposed in 1830, was rightly, or wrongly, the last, or in any event, the last to reign. The old Louis-Phillipe imposed himself on the French for a while but then he made the mistake of preferring the Fleur-de-Lis to the Tricolor, and that was certainly that.

Auvergne, land of mists and snow, of mountain peaks and inverted cones, of icy rivers, waterfalls and gentle lakes, of grass and cereals of the deepest green, of shining clouds and skies of clear blue, of wonderfully long-horned red cattle and short but powerful horses, of sheep and goats and cheese and wine, of the headwaters, indeed the origin, of the Dordogne River, we love you. But we must move on, we must become more specific. You are still around us, but we must go back to Puy de Sancy and then journey south-west down the river to Bourg and Bordeaux. In short, we should become a friend of the river and maintain that friendship throughout its life: its turbulent youth in the Auvergne, its middle age in the Perigord and its old age from the Entre deux Mers to its death in the Atlantic.