Farewell My French Love

by Nadine Williams

  Memories turn on the tap as I recall how bravely he had insisted on voting in the French elections on the Sunday before he died and how—in his wheelchair—he held up the ticket for Hollande and said, ‘Take a picture,’ as he threw it into the bin before marking ‘yes’ for Sarkozy. That so reflected his dynamic personality.

  Afterwards, he had said, ‘Let’s go for a coffee, but I don’t want to have this plugged in.’ And he took out his morphine drip connected to the port in his arm. It was our last coffee in a café. Five days later he died. It is only as I think, He was such a big man in every way, did I see that perhaps Jane didn’t see me in a negative way, but in a similar manner to how I viewed my adored husband. But nothing stops the tears; they have their own job to do as an escape valve for my grief.

  Then Jane is alongside me, puts her arm around me and pulls me gently towards her. ‘Darling,’ she says in a voice as sweet as honey, ‘I know I’m on the trip of a lifetime thanks to you. I don’t have to eat to enjoy my time here. Paris is beautiful; I feel happy just being here with you. You know that, don’t you?’

  I’m too emotional to speak and those silent tears keep running down my face. But I do nod.

  ‘And you know, I loved seeing the queens.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Of course I did. All those amazingly strong women. Those statues silently telling their stories. You are amazing, too, the way you looked after Olivier. He didn’t want for a thing with you in charge. It was so nice how you moved his hospital bed into the family room so you would always be around him. He was never alone.’

  I look at her and see her softened expression; her wan smile. And then she picks up strands of my hair dishevelled over my right eye, lifts them up and places them back into my hairline.

  ‘That’s better,’ she says. And I don’t know whether she is commenting on my hair or that I have stopped crying.

  At the Tours station, there must be a hundred people pouring off the train onto the platform. A slim young woman approaches us on the platform, smiles and introduces herself as Charlotte in perfect English. We must look Australian, or somehow foreign, and perhaps that separates us from other passengers.

  ‘Hello. You must be Nadine and Jane?’

  ‘Yes, we are.’

  She smiles sweetly at us and says, ‘You are very lucky. You are my only guests and we have a very nice Mercedes which seats eight people.’

  Jane and I smile at each other at the word ‘Mercedes’.

  ‘How absolutely wonderful,’ I say. ‘I have a request. My French friends tell me that Tours is a historic medieval town and I’m wondering do we have time to go there?’

  ‘Yes, of course. It will be my pleasure because I live there and people are usually so rushed to go to the châteaux that they are not interested in Tours. It was Balzac’s home town, you know.’

  As we approach the Mercedes I ask Jane if she would like to sit in front.

  ‘Oh no, Nadine, you sit in the front. Visiting the Loire means so much to you.’

  ‘What about if we take turns? Me first, then after we stop, it’s your turn.’

  ‘No, darling, really. I’m going to be very happy in the back. Remember I always sit in the back when Peter drives.’

  I don’t feel like saying ‘darling’ because I’m still hurt by her accusations, but I’m also relieved. I can’t detect any frostiness. So, I take the high front seat, flush with excitement.

  Tours, we discover, is a delightfully preserved medieval town with a picturesque square lined with les maisons à colombages or pans-debois—half-timber half-brick construction with overhanging upper levels. There are few people on the street at 10 am, but shopkeepers are beginning to roll up awnings, put out A-frames, unstack chairs.

  Posterity can thank the extravagant King François I for the mad building frenzy which led to the magnificent Renaissance castles dotted along the Loire Valley. He built Château Fontainebleau and acquired several major châteaux as hunting lodges before he built his greatest fantasy—the ostentatious Château of Chambord. These architectural treasures—and there are about sixty which remain—are keepers of stories of French history. They are the Renaissance castles of kings and knights, of queens and mistresses, of medieval troubadours and courtly life, and the settings of love stories, of arranged marriages, untimely deaths, religious orders, of wars and assassinations. The Loire Valley is also known as the garden of France, for its thick forests, vineyards, river system, and delightful towns that combine to create the prettiest landscape.

  The moment I see the Château of Amboise looming like a multi-storey cityscape high on a clifftop overlooking the river Loire, I remember. Oli and I stopped on this side of the river and had lunch on the riverbank. It was so romantic sitting at an outdoor table in a public park as he told me how Amboise was the royal French court for more than a century. It’s a wonderful warm memory and I feel it has been the right decision to come here again and grasp those lovely feelings to temper sadness.

  Today, Charlotte repeats Olivier’s story as she leads us into Amboise, with its classic Renaissance decoration. ‘Four successive kings of France were born, lived and died here from the end of the fifteenth century well into the sixteenth century,’ she says.

  When we step into the Ceremonial Room, I stop in my tracks.

  ‘The French queen, Anne of Brittany, lived here and she had quite a tragic life,’ says Charlotte.

  I’m so thrilled at stepping into Queen Anne’s domain that the words spill out of my mouth. ‘I feel I know Anne, because Olivier told me so much about her. I have a clear picture of her, and this is like finding that last jigsaw puzzle piece—where she lived in France.’

  Olivier had told me Queen Anne’s story one day as we walked along the ramparts in Vannes, a major city in Bretagne—of the wise young girl, who became Duchess of Bretagne at the age of eleven on the death of her father in 1488. How she was married by proxy, when she was only twelve, to the widowed Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, in a move to stop any French invasion of the independent Duchy. But in late 1491, the French king Charles VIII invaded Bretagne, crushing her army. Anne was only fourteen years old, but the twenty-year-old king was taken with the young duchess and eventually she agreed to marry the conqueror. At such a tender age, she bargained hard for the rights of her country.

  ‘This is why Bretagne is so different from the rest of France,’ Oli had said. ‘She made sure the Duchy retained its own judiciary, army and taxation system. But most of all, she is the reason Bretagne has retained its own unique culture.’

  When the fifteen-year-old Anne was officially married by the Pope and crowned Queen of France in the Cathedral in Rennes in February 1492, the separate Duchy was annexed to France. She wisely enshrined in the marriage contract that if the king died, Anne would be the automatic wife of the successor. This ensured that Anne was Queen of France twice and reigned for twenty-one years from Amboise.

  Duchess Anne, who was the richest woman of her time, came to Amboise a defeated teenager, yet so spirited that she arrived for her wedding with her entourage bearing a strong symbol of independence—two beds.

  Jane is missing Charlotte’s stories because she has disappeared into the next room. I listen to Charlotte filling in the gaps: that Anne was happy in her marriage to Charles, which lasted seven years until he hit his head on the door lintel behind us on his way to watch a tennis game.

  ‘He became violently ill during the game and died at age twenty-seven,’ says Charlotte.

  I love this snippet of Anne, written by the ambassador of Venice in 1492:

  ‘The Queen is seventeen, she is of small height, slender, and she walks with a visible limp, even though she wears high heel shoes to hide her deformity. She is of dark complexion and is fairly pretty. Her wit is remarkable for her age and once she has set her mind on doing something, she makes sure she succeeds, by all means necessary and at any price.’

  Her marriage was soaked with sadness, though, because she had
six miscarriages or stillbirths and was childless when widowed at age twenty-two. We women are linked down through the centuries by our own unique stories of infertility, miscarriage and stillbirths. I suffered a miscarriage at five months between the births of my two daughters and as I write I can remember the feeling of failure, disappointment and grief. I contracted the Hong Kong influenza, which killed the foetus about a month after it began to move.

  The newly crowned Louis XII wasted no time divorcing his wife to marry Anne. Anne, for her part, was enraptured with her new spouse and was the first queen to break with tradition and instead of wearing red—the bridal fashion in the Middle Ages—she chose white. It was the colour of widowhood and yet her glorious white gown was such a sensation all the court’s ambassadors despatched glowing reports to their respective countries.

  When Anne gave birth to a little boy, her happiness was complete. But the young queen was devastated when he died at age three from the measles. She seemed to be cursed when her second child, another son, died just before he was twelve months old leaving her childless again.

  Charlotte says history records that Anne left courtly life for some time to recover. ‘She moved close by to a château which Louis bought for her; I will take you to Château du Clos after lunch,’ she says.

  Eventually Anne had a daughter, Claude. But Anne’s distressing story of motherhood continued when she lost another three boy babies, all stillborn, before her second daughter, Renée, was born. Renée was only three years old when Anne died at age thirty-seven from kidney stones.

  I look up to see the ornate ceiling rose bears Anne’s large initial ‘A’ and the fireplace is plastered with royal initials ‘L’ and ‘A’ and the symbols of Bretagne and France—the tassel and fleur-de-lys. I’m thrilled to be standing where Anne ruled as queen for twenty years. What a pity Olivier didn’t take me here.

  ‘Queen Anne is really the forebear of four kings of France,’ says Charlotte. ‘Her daughter, Claude, married the future King of France, François I,’ she continues. ‘Anne’s grandson, Henri II, became king and his three sons all became kings of France. She was a great queen and I love telling her story because she has been ignored by history.’

  When we move into Henri II’s chambre, we have skipped two generations. Charlotte tells us that the king and his queen—the notorious Catherine de Médicis—brought up their children here. ‘They grew up to become François II, Charles IX and Henri III; all Anne’s great grandsons born here.’

  I wait for her to tell the classic French love story that unfolded here at Amboise between King Henri II and his lifelong love for the older noblewoman, Diane de Poitiers, a widow. Because it was here in courtly life that Henri II treated her as the unofficial Queen of France, much to the chagrin of his real queen, Catherine de Médicis. When he was crowned king, he gave Diane the château of Chenonceau, setting the scene for bitter rivalry between the two women. When he gave Diane the crown jewels, the whole court, which presided here in this castle, understood that she was the real royal powerbroker. Charlotte says nothing of this.

  Jane and I team up once more as we climb onto the rooftop of the castle, its site on a spur providing sweeping views. Far below is the River Loire, the ancient arched bridge, the quaint old row houses lining the opposite bank, and pitched rooftops to the horizon.

  ‘Let’s have our photograph taken together,’ says Jane, linking her arm through mine and I pass Charlotte my camera to snap us against the ramparts. Jane remains a conundrum. She has paid a small fortune for our own individual tour guide, yet she is absent when Charlotte is doing her job telling us the stories, which make visiting the castle such an enriching experience. Perhaps she wants personal space to discover everything alone. I don’t want to consider that she cannot tolerate accompanying me. Then I think, Is she running away from the burden of my grief? Is it a leaden presence in our holiday?

  Soon Charlotte is leading us past touristy restaurants in the heart of Amboise to a backstreet for lunch. La Fourchette, on the corner of Rues Corneille and Malebranche, is an ancient pan-de-bois (timber framed) with centuries-old window frames of solid squared logs.

  ‘This is an authentic regional restaurant. I have dined here with friends, but I would like your opinion as you are the first tourists,’ says Charlotte.

  We choose to sit outside and Christina, the owner, comes to meet us. ‘Tout est de la cuisine maison,’ she says proudly. Everything is homemade. ‘Terrine et rillette par example.’

  ‘J’aime les rillettes; mon mari, qui’est mort, faisait des rillettes de lapin chaque année,’ I say. I love rillettes; my husband, who has died, made rabbit rillettes each year.

  It’s a great feeling to enter into the moment and speak French.

  Olivier made his own rillettes from rabbit and the fatty pork back-strap, which was hard to procure in Adelaide. He would spend all day cooking without a recipe. The rabbit simmered for hours and then he would shred every morsel. I never went near the stove during this process because one year I ‘helped’ putting in ordinary table salt.

  ‘It must be sea salt, Nahdeen,’ he said. ‘We have sea salt from Guérande in Brittany right here!’

  The kitchen would smell like a French country farm all day. Finally, he would pack the very fatty mixture into his glazed pottery, seal it with liquefied duck fat, and store it in the fridge.

  I’m still reminiscing, but faintly hear Jane order, ‘I will have the salad, please Charlotte, but nothing more.’

  Thankfully, Charlotte also orders the special of the day.

  ‘The food here is very nice and I’m going to have the Gâteau au Chocolat, for dessert,’ she adds.

  ‘I will order Christina’s special of the day, too, because I want to try her homemade terrine,’ I state with conviction.

  When my rillette arrives, it’s rich, gamey and stringy, just like Olivier’s. I wonder if Christina uses the original recipe, which hails from the Loire. It was a favourite of King Charles IX who lived in Amboise in the sixteenth century.

  ‘Our next destination is not so well known as the royal châteaux, but because you are so interested in Anne of Brittany, I think you’ll like Château du Clos,’ says Charlotte as she parks the vehicle.

  ‘I’m delighted to see something different in the Loire.’

  ‘Leonardo da Vinci lived here for three years before he died,’ she adds.

  Inside the large exterior courtyard, Charlotte explains that Louis had the little white limestone chapel built into the side of one of the pink brick Renaissance towers.

  ‘He added on this private chapel after the death of her second son when Anne retired from court life for a while.’

  ‘Poor Anne. She must have been heartbroken. Perhaps she suffered a nervous breakdown losing her only two children, both boys, so close together,’ I comment.

  Then we reach Anne’s small chapel and peer into her private spiritual space. It has faded rust red walls, and two large single candlesticks and a small crucifix sit on a primitive raised altar. There is a hymnal on a bookstand and small statues of the Christ and the Virgin Mary.

  So this was her place for prayer, I think. She made no secret that she prayed ceaselessly for a son. Anne and I have something powerful in common. We have learnt through bitter experience the futility of some prayers. But I do wonder if prayer helped Anne recover from the crushing grief she suffered.

  Afterwards, Jane sprints away again. So we don’t learn until we meet over afternoon tea in the pleasant garden that she has had an ‘incident’.

  ‘I slipped on those crude stone steps going down to the exhibition of all of Leonardo’s inventions,’ she says. ‘Now my ankle is very sore.’

  ‘Will you be able to walk?’ asks Charlotte. ‘We have a winery to visit this afternoon.’

  ‘A winery will be okay.’

  ‘Would you believe that! Just when my ankle fixes itself up, you injure yours. How sore is it?’ I ask, having experienced a broken ankle and several sprains.

>   ‘It’s quite painful, but I’m fine.’

  Then Jane laughs a little oddly. ‘This is my karma for not being sympathetic with you in Paris when your ankle was aching.’

  We return onto the D751 route which follows the banks of the River Loire, until Charlotte pulls into Les Caves Duhard, a kind of wine bank established in 1834 in a series of deep, man-made caves in the Amboise cliff face.

  Winery owner Daniel Gatay leads us into the cavern, but Jane soon returns to the car. When we return, having seen some of the oldest wines in France, she joins us for the wine tasting set up under an ancient tree.

  As we taste a sweet white sauvignon blanc, I say, ‘Isn’t this heavenly, Jane? Sitting here sipping some of the region’s best wines overlooking the Loire River.’

  She murmurs her agreement.

  But the bliss is broken when Jane says, ‘I should go to the hospital you know, if only to get some strong painkillers so I can sleep tonight.’

  We readily agree and once at the hospital, Charlotte flashes her tour guide certificate and takes us to the waiting room.

  ‘The doctor will see you promptly and I have a colleague coming to stay with you, Jane,’ she says. ‘I have another engagement this evening and I must leave you.’

  ‘Darling, you go back to the hotel with Charlotte,’ says Jane, touching my arm.

  ‘I can’t leave you here!’ I cry at the thought of abandoning her.

  ‘Don’t be silly. What can you do? You need your rest, too, before tonight.’

  So, I return to the hotel because I’m tired, even though it has been a beautiful day of new experiences that has got our friendship back on track. The train incident is forgotten.

  The receptionist at the hotel-restaurant, Château de Pray, takes all my details and my voucher, which includes our two-night accommodation and two banquet dinners.