by Sam Juneau
With a modest buzz of excitement, we all trundled into the great hall. I was struck again by the opulence and taste of Fontaines’ country home. Fine furniture in Louis XIV and Louis XV style, the real things, not like our nineteenth-century knock-offs. During a conversation about house insurance, Fontaines had once told me the furnishings in the house were worth roughly four times the house itself. It was a delight to be surrounded by beauty.
We dallied in the hall and shortly entered the Fontaines’ private area which consisted of an entire wing complete with salon, kitchen and dining room. We entered a vast room with oak panelling and fat, sumptuous drapes fitted around massive windows like Renaissance bishops. A fire was roaring in the monumental stone fireplace just behind the large oak table. I was excited about the meal as Fontaines had arranged for chefs from the famed Cordon Bleu school in Paris to work at the chateau in the summer. It was part of his marketing plan but also had the benefit of providing him and his family and friends with meals fit for kings.
Wine was poured, a contradictorily dry and fruity Sancerre as we were all seated around the table. I was put next to Eleanor and Helene, the mistress of the house. Eleanor was full of questions and intent interest. Our conversation was filled with observations of living in France. I tended to express my frustration with French ways while she corrected my misapprehensions by beginning each sentence with ‘Here in France, we…’ More French than the French, it seemed.
Bud was placed between François, the count himself, and Jake. I could see her struggling with the French as the two men spoke of meaty, businesslike things and Bud looked on. Jake suggested English and Bud relaxed into the meal. The wine came freely and generously. I knew I liked Helene when she tapped her glass on the table for a refill. It shattered under the weight of her imperious touch and we all laughed heartily.
The first course was simple and neat – fresh greens with a light vinaigrette, Roquefort cheese, walnuts and foie gras. We rested and the chatter became livelier. We then feasted on rare steak, green beans sautéed in olive oil and garlic with creamy, rich, buttery, tomme Pyrénées-laden potatoes. Bud worked away on her vegetarian fare and seemed content. I could see through the kitchen the masterpieces that awaited our sated mouths – Cointreau soufflés that formed small, perfect clouds on top of large ceramic bowls. This was the life of a châtelain.
Large wooden boards of pungent and colourful cheeses were passed around before the dessert. Bud said no, thank you, there was animal product in the cheese, and she would pass. Fontaines looked up.
‘Brigid, why do you not eat cheese? You are not hurting the animals. The cheese does not have parents or eyes. You are not killing it.’
‘Because there is animal rennet in it. They use the lining of animal intestine to help solidify the cheese.’ Bud tended to stay away from the mouldy, strong cheeses which always contained this ingredient. She did enjoy lighter, white cheeses, like goats’ and some sheep’s milk that tended to be rennet-free.
This caused much consternation and chatter around the table, finally a hot debate. François had never heard of such of thing. He chastised Bud lightly.
‘This is crazy. How can you not eat cheese in France? It is hardly a life worth living without cheese, not to mention meat.’
As Fontaines launched into Bud, the others smiled and peered at one another behind large, full wine glasses.
‘And all these cats. I detest cats. When we were young, we would go out into the outbuildings and shoot wild cats. It was great fun.’ He roared.
Bud was not amused. The others looked on, aware, I presumed, of this ritual, this testing that might or might not have been François’ after-dinner game.
‘You are a big man to kill cats. That takes a lot of courage,’ Bud replied calmly, acidly.
He laughed. ‘You are a vegetarian but by the look of it, you do not suffer from your diet,’ François said, looking Bud up and down. Bud smiled uncomfortably. François, saw her becoming upset and backed off.
‘I respect your decision but I simply cannot understand it. More wine,’ he bellowed.
Soufflés went all around and we punctured our little treats with the tines of our forks with mouth-watering anticipation. Soon afterward, we retired to the main salon in the other wing of the house.
‘This is a lovely room. Just stunning,’ I observed.
‘Yes, indeed, do you see that painting there?’ Jake pointed out a small tableau of the Ascension of Christ surrounded by Mary and a few apostles on Calvary. ‘It is a Raphael. In the family for generations.’ I was astounded. We had furnished our house with pictures cut out from art books and glued to wood planks and varnished. We even had a few Raphael prints in the house. This was indeed a different world.
We lounged on fine embroidered sofas and drank cognac. François was feeling mischievous again.
‘So, how is the business? Difficult, no?’
‘Well, our summer was OK but we made nowhere near enough. And you?’
‘We had a bad summer,’ he confided. ‘Since the 9/11 attacks in America, people are travelling less, scared. We are down almost forty per cent since before the terrorism. But it’s not just Americans, it’s everyone. It is a hard time. And like I told you before, you will have almost no French guests.’ François became animated. He was on a roll now, and warming up to his favourite subject.
‘In any given year, France is the fifth largest economy in the world, just after the United States, Japan, Germany and now China. France is always richer than the UK with the same population.’ The old rivalry never dies. ‘And yes, France does produce some of the finest things on the planet in fashion, food, design, wine. We even produce aeroplanes, steel and an immense harvest each year. But, France is an impoverished nation. The entire country is without a sou.’
As François lectured, I thought of something I had recently read. George Bush had gibed that the word for ‘entrepreneur’ does not exist in France. I’m sure one of his dutiful lackeys wrote this cute quip, but it hit the mark. In our short time in France, we came to feel and see the innate conservativeness of the people. No one seemed to speculate, no one invested and home ownership was painfully low. In the UK, United States, Ireland and a handful of other Anglo-modern capitalist democracies, home ownership is tied intimately to what it means to truly make it. It is the sign that you have arrived.
For my money, there is no better way to build wealth than to buy property. There is no equal way for an average, working man or woman to get ahead, to change their lives, to better their lot. The vast majority of French are excluded from this ‘dream’, They either choose to exclude themselves or are forced to subsist on meagre salaries, burdened further by hefty taxes and a gargantuan bureaucracy.
François continued.
‘The banks are terrible here. Up until recently, bank loans were always fifteen years with twenty per cent down and no more than two times the lead wage-earner’s salary. Impossible. Can you imagine the weight that places on a new buyer? The French government in its grand paternalisme has declared, by law, you cannot have more than forty per cent debt, although this is changing gradually.’ It seemed things were changing a bit. We had a 25-year loan, though the bank had been reluctant.
‘And home equity loans are unheard of in France. Can you imagine an America or Ireland or England without home-equity loans?’ It was true. This is arguably the lifeblood of a consumerist economy.
I nudged into his soliloquy. ‘The capitalist dream you find in the US and Britain is almost certainly a myth. The person who comes from nothing, pulls him- or herself up by the bootstraps and builds an empire does exist. Statistically, though, where you are born is most likely where you’ll end up when you die. But, and this is very important, not necessarily. In France, almost without exception, it seems to me, where you are born is exactly where you will die, socially and economically.’
‘That is why it is good to be born at the top, non?’ He smiled.
The full weight of these realis
ations had been crashing down on us in the past months. The tiny resources and cheapness of the French kept coming up like a bad rash. French people would call us and insist on paying 30 or 40 euros (£20–£28) for a night. I never failed to point out that there was a camping site not far from the chateau.
One cannot run a business in a country where the local people do not or cannot support you. Thus the chateau had sat, unloved and unbought for years, as fear, conservative natures and lack of resources crushed the possibility of big dreams.
I was warming up too. ‘Well, your criticisms may be true but part of the reason we appreciate France and enjoy your markets, the country life and the non-consumerism is the very thing that keeps the people impoverished. It is a simpler life, a life found in Britain or the US possibly forty or fifty years ago. Effort and risk are not appreciated but if you have to work, why not work thirty-five hours a week and take five or ten weeks’ holiday? There are no iPods, no one drives a Hummer and no one has two hundred channels of television with nothing to watch. Everyone takes two-hour lunches, a universal ritual observed by every human in France. These are good things, non?’
‘Yes, yes,’ he said impatiently. ‘But for us this is bad. Holidays here are simple with more than eighty per cent of French families staying with family on holiday. The rest go camping. Unfortunately for us, none of them stay in country chateaux at a hundred euros a night. France is a very good place to retire but not to run a business like ours.’
I could see that we were ignoring the rest of our lively party. We edged closer to the larger group. Bud was engaged with Helene talking about fabrics and hiring good help to clean our large houses.
I sat quietly and ruminated on the count’s ruminations. The constraints and barriers to self-improvement in a more traditional, paternalistic culture are burdensome. Some days, over the summer, usually after some tussle with the infamous French bureaucracy, I had longed for the capitalist dream, the freedom to earn and spend and advance economically. Some days I felt like a committed, card-carrying libertarian. Life is not always black and white, as I would want it to be. Clearly, ‘freedom’ is not all about escape.
The night wore on and people began to leave. We didn’t want to be the last out so we said our au revoirs.
As I was leaving, François pulled me aside.
‘You should think of doing weddings and renting out the whole chateau. To foreigners. It could be good for you instead of continuing the chambres d’hôtes.’
I wasn’t sure if François was trying to get rid of the competition or simply offering sound advice, but I feared he was right. This might be a good route.
‘You should go talk to the La Fayes. They have a chateau near here and they have been doing weddings.’
We spoke excitedly and tiredly of our vigorous evening as I drove slowly down winding roads. I shared our conversation with Bud and brought up the idea of weddings.
‘What do you think? Do you think he is right?’ Bud ventured.
‘I’m afraid so. Plus, you know, we’re almost out of money again. I think I’m going to have to go and work in New York.’ This was a bomb. Bud blanched.
‘I’ve been thinking that. You know how hard it is here alone. I don’t know how much longer I can take this. But I know you have to go. I just can’t talk about it now. Can we talk about it tomorrow? In any case, let’s go visit the La Fayes and see what they are like.’
We returned home to our own behemoth, tucked in the babies and kissed them goodnight. We snuck into the other bedroom and made love, ever so briefly forgetting the worries and fears of our new life as the lingerings of a delightful evening faded away.
The next day I did a quick search on the Internet and found out a little about the La Fayes. They were actually the de Coutures, Régis and Nicole. But it made sense to call them by their house name. By all appearances, they seemed embarked on a similar project to our own: three rooms to let and weddings made to measure.
We piled into the car and drove for 15 minutes in the direction of Fontaines until we came to a large brown sign, ‘Château de la Faye’. We manoeuvred our way onto their entrance road and passed dozens of towering sycamores lining the way. In the distance we could see a handsome house, in the sixteenth-century chateau style with machiolations and towers and a small, older chapel sitting in front amidst well-maintained French hedges and flowers speckled everywhere in an explosion of colour.
We came to what appeared to be a side entrance. There were cars parked willy-nilly and a large catering van out the back. We got out and knocked on an open door. We waited briefly and decided to enter and climb a small wooden staircase capped with a heavily carved wood ceiling with coats of arms painted every few inches. I saw a door to the left slightly open and knocked again.
‘Oui?’ came a fatigued voice. We entered a large room lined with large shelves and filled with tattered, ancient books of all shapes and sizes. The furniture was worn but elegant. The walls were filled with old photographs and an old tea service sat on a lovely oak table in the middle of the room. There in the corner sat a figure hunched over a small table folding napkins.
‘Bonjour, we are the Juneaus. We bought the chateau in Juvardeil, Château du Bonchamps. We were nearby and wanted to stop and say hello. But I see you are very busy.’
A sixty-something woman dressed fastidiously and with a kind, open face approached us and offered her hand. I recognised her as Nicole, the lady of the manor, from her website picture.
‘It is so nice to meet you. Please come in. Yes, we are busy, we have a wedding today. There’s so much to do but we wanted to meet you. We heard some Americans bought Bonchamps.’
Just then, her husband slipped into the room wearing thick rubber boots, a Barbour-type jacket and a torn, plaid shirt. His hair was sticking straight up as if he’d been recently shocked.
‘Régis, these are the owners of Bonchamps. They came to say hello.’
He smiled briefly and flashed us a wild-eyed look.
‘Yes, yes, I know this house. My parents used to eat there and I spent much time at the house as a child. It is so nice to meet you. My, you have a lot of work to do there! It was a mess.’
Nicole offered us coffee; we declined in light of their current engagement. But she insisted so we settled in for a short stay and told them about our various renovations. Régis gave us a tour of the salons. Tables and china and flowers were set magically in three adjoining rooms with massive Renaissance-style sculpted fireplaces, fine parquet floors and slightly tattered, handsome toile de Jouy on the walls.
‘This is our last wedding. We hate them because we have to live in a small room for two days, there are people everywhere, the smell of the caterers’ food, hysterical brides. It is too much,’ Régis told us.
‘We are too old for this,’ Nicole explained. ‘It is so little money for so much effort. And we have to do all the cleaning afterwards, or it’s not worth the money.’
‘How many weddings did you have this year?’
‘This is our fifteenth.’
‘How much do you charge?’
Nicole spoke evenly. ‘About 1,500 euros for the day. The people will not pay any more than this. Plus they take some rooms sometimes, and pay extra. Your chateau would be perfect for weddings with the great big hall and the salons. You should take our business. We do not want to do this any more, at our age. We will send you our enquiries.’
‘We were thinking about it but we did not want to hurt what you were doing.’
‘Please, please do it. We are definitely finished. It is no life, really.’
Bud and I looked at one another, not sure whether to be happy about this new business idea or frightened to death.
Régis looked at me. ‘How is the tannery by your chateau? It is a beautiful house, but the smell sometimes. I remember it from the 1950s, as a child.’
‘It’s not so bad. Some days we smell it, most days it’s nothing.’
He smiled, not really believing me. ‘Lis
ten, you should go walk around the gardens with the children before you leave. Everything is almost ready for the autumn. And you must come back for the pumpkin fete we have every year.’
We said goodbye and made a tour of the grounds as the guests arrived outside. We peeked in the chapel with its hull-shaped wooden roof and colourful frescos clinging just barely to the thick stone walls. We walked past a large pond, just like our own, and entered their walled garden after passing by loads of brick and stone outbuildings. The garden was a little paradise, even now in September. Orange pumpkins and a hundred varieties of squash with a dozen colours, blues and whites and reds and yellows, sprouted and hung and dangled every which way. Standing guard to the side was a massive sequoia tree like our own. There was a little plaque nailed hastily to the trunk: ‘This is the largest measured tree in Anjou. Measuring nine metres in girth.’ I would have to see about that. I made a mental note to measure ours.
So that was it. We had the La Fayes’ imprimatur to take over the weddings. No fear of hurting their struggling business. This opened up all new avenues for us. Sure, it would be hard, but we could survive for a day or two as people took over the house. We made all sorts of plans about inserting a little kitchen on the second floor for the times when the caterers took over our kitchen. And if we did 15 weddings a year, that would come to an extra 20,000 euros (£13,800) annually (minus lost B&B revenue during those times, of course). This could help and we were excited. We would expand our business, diversify, just like real people with a real business. Bed and breakfast, self-catering and weddings. There was hope at last after a meagre and sometimes dispiriting first summer.
But first, I would have to leave home, again. Abandoning my family. Whatever we had embarked on, this was not what we had hoped for. The whole point of the damned idea was to spend more time together, not less. Here I was, like some migrant worker caught in the vagaries of an impoverished country, forced to leave, to scrape together a living, drifting in and out of family life based on economic need. Come to think of it, this is what my French and Bud’s Irish forebears had done for centuries.