The Discovery of France
Page 54
Rouen (Seine-Maritime) ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Rouergue, province ref, ref
Rougon (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) ref
Rousseland, nr Brécy (Cher) ref
Roussillon, province ref, ref, ref
Roussillon plain ref
Route des Grandes Alpes ref
Route des Vins, Alsace ref
Route du Grand Meaulnes (Cher) ref
Route du Sacre, Paris-Reims ref, ref
Route Thermale, Pyrénées ref
Routes de Saint Jacques ref
Royan (Charente-Maritime) ref
Rozel (Manche) ref
Le Rozier (Lozère) ref
Russia ref, ref
Ry (Seine-Maritime) ref
Saarland ref
Les Sables-d’Olonne (Vendée) ref
Sabres (Landes) ref
Sacy (Yonne) ref
Sahara Desert ref
Saint Bernard Pass see Grand Saint-Bernard, Col du; Petit Saint-Bernard, Col du (Savoie)
Saint Cirice, nr Broquiès (Aveyron) ref, ref
Saint Gengoult church, Toul ref
Saint Helena ref
Saint-Amand-Montrond (Cher) ref
Saint-André (Morbihan) ref
Saint-Bénezet bridge, Avignon ref
Saint-Bonnet (place name) ref
Saint-Brieuc (Côtes-d’Armor) ref
Saint-Crépin (Aveyron) ref
Saint-Denis basilica ref, ref, ref
Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) ref, ref, ref
Saint-Émilion (Gironde) ref
Saint-Étienne (Loire) ref, ref, ref, ref
Saint-Étienne-d’Orthe (Landes) ref
Saint-Forget (Yvelines) ref
Saint-Germain dog market, Paris ref
Saint-Gilles (Gard) ref
Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle see Santiago de Compostela Saint-Jean-du-Gard (Gard) ref, ref
Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) ref
Saint-Malo (Ille-et-Vilaine) ref, ref
Saint-Maio-Geneva line ref, ref, ref
Saint-Martin-de-Carnac, nr Cuq (Tarn) ref, ref
Saint-Martin-du-Tertre (Val-d’Oise) ref
Saint-Maurice, Verdon Gorges ref
Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume (Var) ref
Saint-Maymes (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) ref
Saint-Merry church, Paris ref
Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa, abbey (Pyrénées-Orientales) ref
Saint-Nicolas-d’Aliermont see Aliermont
(Seine-Maritime) Saint-Nicolas-de-Port (Meurthe-et-Moselle) ref
Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais) ref, ref
Saint-Oradoux-pres-Crocq (Creuse) ref
Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis) ref
Saint-Pé-de-Bigorre (Hautes-Pyrénées) ref
Saint-Raphaël (Var) ref
Saint-Remimont (Meurthe-et-Moselle) ref
Saint-Sauveur-sur-Tinée (Alpes-Maritimes) ref
Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance (Aveyron) ref
Saint-Sever (Seine-Maritime) ref
Saint-Tropez (Var) ref
Saint-Véran (Hautes-Alpes) ref, ref, ref, ref
Saint-Viâtre (Loir-et-Cher) ref
Sainte-Baume massif (Bouches-du-Rhône and Var) ref, ref, ref
Sainte-Croix, Lac de (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and Var) ref
Sainte-Marie-de-Campan (Hautes-Pyrénées) ref
Sainte-Menehould (Marne) ref
Sainte-Opportune (Orne) ref
Sainte-Reine see Alise-Sainte-Reine Saintes (Charente-Marl time) ref, ref, ref
Saintonge, province ref
Salbris (Loir-et-Cher) ref
Salency (Oise) ref, ref
Salers (Cantal) ref
La Salette-Fallavaux (Isère) ref
Salies-de-Bearn (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) ref
Salins-les-Bains (Jura) ref, ref
Salses-le-Château (Pyrénées-Orientales) ref
Sambre river ref
San Salvador see Saint-Sauveur-sur-Tinée
San-Sebastián ref
Santiago de Compostela (Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle) ref, ref, ref, ref
Saône river ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Sarrebourg (Moselle) ref
Sarthe département ref
Saulzais-le-Potier (Cher) ref
Saumur (Maine-et-Loire) ref, ref, ref
Saverne, Col de (Bas-Rhin) ref, ref
Savoie (Savoy) ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Sceaux (Hauts-de-Seine) ref
Scotland ref, ref, ref
Sebastopol, Battle of ref
Sedan, Battle of ref, ref
Sedan (Ardennes) ref
Seine département ref, ref, ref
Seine river and valley ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
source of the river ref, ref
Seine-Maritime département ref
Sens (Yonne) ref, ref, ref
Sermoise (Aisne) ref
Sète (Hérault) ref, ref, ref, ref
Seuil de Naurouze ref, ref
Seven Wonders of the Dauphine ref, ref
Severen, Col de ref
Sèvre river ref
Sèvres (Hauts-de-Seine) ref
Sexey-les-Bois (Meurthe-et-Moselle) ref
La Sibérie (‘lieu-dit’) ref
Sicié, Cap (Var) ref
Signy-le-Petit (Ardennes) ref
Sigottier (Hautes-Alpes) ref
Simplon Pass ref
Six-Fours (Var) ref
Sixt (Haute-Savoie) ref
Slovenia ref
Soissons (Aisne) ref, ref
Soleis (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) ref, ref
Solférino (Landes) ref
Sologne region ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Somme département ref
Songy (Marne) ref
Sorbonne, Paris ref
Sotteville (Seine-Maritime) ref
Soulac-sur-Mer (Gironde) ref
Soule (Basque province) ref
La Souterraine (Creuse) ref
South America ref, ref
Souvigny-en-Sologne (Loir-et-Cher) ref
Spain ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Sphinx, Le, Montpellier-le-Vieux ref
Stevenson Trail ref
Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin) ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Strasbourg Minster ref, ref
Suez Canal ref, ref, ref
Suisse d’Alsace ref
Suisse Niçoise ref
Suisse Normande ref
Surjoux (Ain) ref
Switzerland ref, ref, ref, ref
Tarare hill (Rhône) ref
Tarn département ref, ref, ref, ref [del:, ref]
Tarn gorges ref, ref, ref
Tarn river ref, ref, ref, ref
Temple, Paris ref
Tende, Col de (Alpes-Maritimes) ref
Texon (Haute-Vienne) ref
Thann (Haut-Rhin) ref
Thiérache, pays ref, ref
Thiers (Puy-de-Dôme) ref, ref
Thivars (Eure-et-Loir) ref, ref
Thury-en-Valois (Oise) ref
Tibre département ref
Tonneins (Lot-et-Garonne) ref
Toul (Meurthe-et-Moselle) ref
Toulon (Var) ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Toulousain region ref, ref
Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
bicycle races ref
boat travel ref, ref, ref
civil order ref
cuisine ref, ref
maps ref
provincial pride ref
roads ref, ref, ref
Toulven, nr Ergue-Gabéric (Finistère) ref
Le Touquet (Pas-de-Calais) ref
Touraine, province ref, ref, ref, ref
Tourcoing (Nord) ref
Tourmalet, Col du (Hautes-Pyrénées) ref, ref
Tours (Indre-et-Loire) ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Tout-y-faut (‘li
eu-dit’) ref
Tower Without Venom ref
Tranchée de Calonne (Meuse) ref
Trappe de Bonne-Espérance (Dordogne) ref
Traversette, Col de la (Hautes-Alpes) ref
Tréguier (Côtes-d’Armor) ref, ref
Treignat (Allier) ref
Tremblevif see Saint-Viatre Trembling Meadow ref
Le Tréport (Seine-Maritime) ref
Trocadéro, Palais du, Paris ref
Trouville-sur-Mer (Calvados) ref, ref
Troyes (Aube) ref, ref
Tuileries, Gardens and Palace, Paris ref, ref
Turin ref, ref, ref
Turkey ref
Tyrol ref
Ubaye region ref
United States of America ref, ref
Urdos (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) ref
Usingen, Germany ref
Uzès (Gard) ref, ref
Vacères-en-Quint (Drôme) ref
Le Val d’Ajol (Vosges) ref
Valence (Drôme) ref
Valenciennes (Nord) ref
Valensole plain (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) ref
Valle d’Aosta ref, ref
Var département ref, ref
Var river ref, ref
Varangéville (Meurthe-et-Moselle) ref
Varennes-en-Argonne (Meuse) ref, ref, ref, ref
Vaucluse département ref, ref
Vaugirard, Paris ref
Vaumale, Pas de (Var) ref
Vauxbuin (Aisne) ref
Velay region ref
Vendée département ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Venice ref
Ventoux, Mont ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Vercors massif (Isère and Drôme) ref, ref, ref, ref
Verdelot (Seine-et-Marne) ref
Verdon Gorges ref, ref, ref
Verdon river ref, ref
Verdun (Meuse) ref, ref, ref, ref
Verdun-sur-Garonne (Tarn-et-Garonne) ref
Le Vernet, suburb of Perpignan ref
Vernet-les-Bains (Pyrénées-Orientales) ref
Versailles palace ref, ref, ref, ref
Versailles (Yvelines) ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Vesdun (Cher) ref
Vexin region ref
Vézelay basilica ref, ref
Via Agrippa ref
Via Aurelia ref
Via Domitia ref, ref
Vichy (Allier) ref, ref, ref
Vienne département ref
Vienne (Isère) ref, ref, ref
Vienne river ref, ref, ref
Le Vigeant (Vienne) ref
Vigneulles (Meurthe-et-Moselle) ref
Vilaine river ref
Villard, nr Bourg-Saint-Maurice (Savoie) ref
Ville-Affranchie (Lyon) ref
Villemomble (Seine-Saint-Denis) ref
Villequier (Seine-Maritime) ref
Villers-Cotterêts (Aisne) ref, ref, ref
Le Vitarel (Aveyron) ref
Vitteaux (Côte-d’Or) ref
Vivarais region ref, ref
Vizille (Isère) ref
Vole Regordane ref
Vosges département ref, ref, ref
Vosges mountains ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Voûte d’Émeraude, Verdon Gorges ref
Waterloo, Battle of ref, ref, ref
Wesserling (Haut-Rhin) ref
West Indies ref
Western Front ref
Winy Fountain ref
Yeu, Île d’ (Vendée) ref
Yeux du Blaireau, Les, Montpellier-le-Vieux ref
Yonne river ref, ref
Yonville-l’Abbaye (Madame Bavary) ref
Yssingeaux (Haute-Loire) ref
Acknowledgements
This book began and ended with the friendliness and expertise of Andrew Kidd and Sam Humphreys at Picador, Starling Lawrence at W. W. Norton, Gill Coleridge and Peter Straus at Rogers, Coleridge & White, and Melanie Jackson. Along the way, I incurred debts of gratitude to many people (some will have to remain nameless and others are acknowledged only by the frequency with which their names appear in the notes): Morgan Alliche, Jean-Paul Avice, Nathalie Barou, Nicholas Blake, Alain Brunet, Wilf Dickie, Camilla Elworthy, Laurence Laluyaux, Molly May, Claude and Vincenette Pichois, Raymond and Helen Poggenburg, Chas Roberts and team, Stephen Roberts and Morgen Van Vorst. I am especially grateful to the staff of the following institutions: the Social Science Library of Oxford University, the Taylor Institution Modern Languages Faculty Library, the Bodleian Library, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Musée Dauphinois, the Musée National des Arts et Traditions Populaires, the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris and the Musée d’Aquitaine.
ENDNOTES
1. A commune is the smallest of the administrative divisions introduced in 1790. Today, there are 36,565 communes, 3,876 cantons, 329 arrondissements, 96 dèpartements (including 4 overseas) and 22 régions.
2. These moral maps of France are still quite popular today, and even more implausible than they were in the eighteenth century. For example, in the 1997 Guide Bleu: ‘The Norman’s measured replies are perhaps an effect of the unpredictable climate’; ‘The Bretons once wore round hats [an allusion to an insulting song], and they are still hard-headed’; ‘In the land of bullfights and rugby [Languedoc], passions always have the last word’.
3. Even after the introduction of the decimal system in 1790, a ‘pinte’ was just over a litre in one Limousin village and well over two litres in another. The Nord département had thirty-five different measures of capacity, all bearing the same name. Travellers from the north found their ‘leagues’ getting longer as they headed south. Some parts had still not adopted the older systems that the decimal system was supposed to replace. In 1807, Champollion, the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphics, found that the country people of the Isère ‘have retained the custom of using Roman numerals’.
4. ‘Loudmouths of St Nicks, / Open your gob when I’m taking a . . .’ (in the local Lorrain dialect).
5. An assortment of adventurers and bandits employed by Henry II of England.
6. A man in the Basque province of Soule told me in 2002, ‘Once upon a time the sea covered the land as far as San-Sebastián, and when the sea went out, there were the Basques.’
7. These doors are often said to have been made unusually low to humiliate the cagots, but the surviving examples (Duhort, Monein, Navarrenx, etc.) are well above the average height of the population, then and now. There is no sign of any attempt to conceal the prejudice. At Monein, the cagot section is marked by a dwarfish figure at the base of a column on the north side (see illustrations). An almost featureless stone head, not much bigger than a tennis ball, can be seen under a window-sill in the Pyrenean village of Bielle. Another cagot head survived in Hagetmau until 2004, when a clump of semi-derelict old houses known as the Quartier des Cagots was pulled down.
8. E.g. the Parlement de Bordeaux, judgement of 14 May 1578: The ‘officers and consuls of Casteljaloux and all other places’ are instructed to force ‘ladres and lépreux’ (lepers) and ‘capots and gahets’ (cagots) to wear ‘the marks and tokens they have always worn in the past: for the former, a rattle; for the latter, a red sign on the breast in the form of a duck’s foot.’
9. In Béarnais. Recorded near Oloron-Sainte-Marie, c. 1844.
10. The ‘discovery’ of Francoprovençal is always attributed to the Italian linguist G.-I. Ascoli, who described it in 1873. However, ‘a patois that is neither the language of Oc nor the language of Oïl’ was known in the 1820s to a travelling cabinet-maker, Agricol Perdiguier, and presumably to most other itinerant artisans and traders. Perdiguier called it ‘Allobroge’, from the tribe that once occupied the region of Geneva, Grenoble and Vienne.
11. ‘A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.’ (Luke 15:11–12)
12. For example:
En
glish bird horse water pear ripe
Latin aucellus caballus aqua pera maturum
Occitan aucel caval aiga pera madur
French oiseau cheval eau poire muˆ r
13. The États-Généraux: the disjointed predecessor of a national parliament, composed of the three ‘estates’: clergy, nobles and commons.
14.In 1887, a priest near Toulon recommended, as a practical form of exorcism, spilling lentils on the floor and leaving them overnight. Apparently, picking up lentils was too tedious even for a supernatural being.
15. ‘[ . . . ] d’ine si baëlle fraichur qu’y paeu ja meille t’quimparerr qu’à t’chié chimps d’junes chaoux avin qu’les ch’neuilles y seillejin passerr.’ (Maraîchin sub-dialect of Poitevin.)
16. Since 1768, all distances have been measured from a point in the square in front of Notre-Dame in Paris. The octagonal brass plaque that now marks ‘Point Zéro’ replaced an earlier triangular stone with a post bearing the arms of Notre-Dame of Paris.
17. About 2.2 percent of the population of France was Protestant in the mid-nineteenth century – just over 833,000 people, four-fifths of whom were concentrated in Alsace and around Montbéliard (Lutheran), in the region of Nîmes and western Provence, and in a narrow crescent from Montpellier to La Rochelle and Poitou (Calvinist or ‘Huguenot’).
18. The Bête du Gévaudan was an unusually fierce and daring wolf, which roamed over a sparsely populated area of about nine hundred square miles, claiming at least twenty lives in two years (1764–65) and giving rise to two pilgrimages. The Beast now makes an important contribution to the tourist economy of the southern Auvergne and is responsible for the controlled reintroduction of wolves to the Gévaudan.
19. Apprentices from France and other parts of Europe whose trade involves the transformation of raw material (carpenters, stonemasons, plumbers, bakers, etc.) still undertake a Tour de France and stay in hostels run by ‘Mothers’. Football matches have taken the place of pitched battles. There are three orders: le Compagnonnage du Devoir, le Compagnonnage du Devoir de Liberté and l’Union Compagnonnique des Devoirs Unis.
20. One of the three main Orders of Compagnons believed that their founder was a Frenchman who helped to build Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem and retired to the Sainte-Baume. Compagnons still make a pilgrimage to the grotto in July. Relics of their patron saint, Mary Magdalen, are enshrined in the nearby Saint-Maximin basilica, where the graffiti of nineteenth-century Compagnons can still be seen on walls and columns just inside the entrance.
21. Deaths caused by speeding vehicles have a significant effect on animal populations. The 600,000-mile-long menagerie-morgue includes some relatively rare or rarely seen species: adders, kites and martens. Larger animals such as boars, deer and of course human beings are removed from the road. A law of 1791, long since repealed, imposed a fine on owners of speeding carriages that ran over animals. The earliest reference to large-scale road-kill appears to be an entry in Jules Renard’s diary (8 October 1906): ‘The automobile lives on the animals of the road, especially on hens. It consumes at least one hen every fifty kilometres’.