This is part two of our search for a house, exactly twenty years ago. After the disappointment of having the offer for a house we weren't sure about turned down, I was anxious to get back on that horse.
April 9–12, 2006
The second trip happened while Susan was in Australia visiting her parents. She was at Ayers Rock, and I decided that it was time to test the waters again. I rang my mate, Bryan the Artist, and asked if he was interested in a trip. This time we were going to Loches in Indre et Loire.
Bryan lives in Cockermouth (oop north), so we arranged that he would drive to Stansted Airport, and we would fly to Paris together, driving from there. The flights, hotel and car were booked – then the French Air Traffic Controllers went on strike and all flights were cancelled.
This was a problem, because Bryan had a meeting the next week he couldn't miss. Luckily a window opened, and we arranged to fly out on the Sunday and back on the Wednesday. This would allow us time to visit the market in Loches on Wednesday. Bryan was flying from Durham with BMI, and I was flying from Heathrow with BA.
Amazingly, both flights were on time, and we even managed to meet up in the agreed place. Car hired, we hotfooted it around Paris in the rush hour, spending a lot of time following a circus van carrying an alligator. We found a hotel in Amboise (eventually) where one or two beers were partaken of before bedtime.
The next day it was, as on the previous trip, a parade of uninspiring properties, albeit with some amazing views and interesting signs in between, including Valencay and a threatening set of clouds. Although we were getting fairly hungry for lunch (Monday and all the shops and restaurants being closed), we weren't tempted to have burgers.
Storm clouds near Valencay
I was pretty dispirited by the houses I had seen so far. There were places being advertised on the internet that looked promising, but once again they had been sold the day before I arrived in France.
It appears that some people arrive in the country and simply make an offer without any kind of survey. Susan and I had always intended to have any house we were really interested in surveyed properly before making an offer. We weren't going to buy somewhere on a whim only to find later it was structurally unsound – or needed a new roof.
Luckily, a good dinner and a digestif restored my faith, and the views of the chateau and old town of Loches are enough to restore anyone's spirit.
The House at St Jean de Sauves
Loches and our hotel
Angel Food at the Gerbe d'Or
Lettuces in Loches
On the way home we visited the gardens (well – the car park) at Chenonceaux, then retraced our route to Charles de Gaulle airport. Once again it was rush hour and it felt like we were going to miss every turn while trying to find somewhere to fill the car with fuel.
Absolute bedlam, and I vowed never again to fly into Paris. Bryan didn't miss his flight, although I'm not sure how, and I was four hours early for mine.
Simon
A lot has changed since this trip. The Gerbe d'Or has changed hands a couple of times before becoming Abore et Sens. "Our hotel" has also changed hands and reopened as “Le George”, and is much improved.
What hasn't changed is the market, which has become a not quite regular part of our lives. Susan received an email in the Northern Territory with the lettuce photo saying “we must live here”. It amused her then, and it's a story she still tells.
You may find the photos slightly disappointing – digital cameras weren't all they are now.
Any minute now bizarre lumbering irridescent black beetles will be appearing in woods and grasslands in the Touraine Loire Valley. These are the ranunculus munching oil beetles. They like buttercups and wood anemones, which they eat so they can accumulate their toxins. It makes the beetles themselves toxic, and their larvae, which you might spot sitting on flowers, trying to hitch a lift on a bee. Once their ride has arrived they get transported into the bee's nest, and will feed on the pollen gathered by the bees for their own larvae.
Violet Oil Beetle. This one was photographed a few years ago at the Moulin de Malicorne in the Courtineau Valley.
Nine times out of ten they will be Violet Oil Beetle Meloe violaceus (Fr. Méloé violet). I know, I counted my records. But occasionally I will see a Black Oil Beetle Meloe proscarabeus (Fr. Méloé printanier). Their alternative name in French is 'enfle-boeuf' ('swollen beef'), because as ancient texts mention, if they are accidentally ingested by grazing animals the toxins in the beetle will cause the beast to swell up, possibly even to the point of death.
Black Oil Beetle. They are so similar to M. violaceus I usually have to ask for expert help to confirm the species.
Because they are parasites I sometimes get asked if we should kill oil beetles if we see them, to help the bees. My response is NO!! The presence of parasites is a good sign for the host. It means the population is sufficient to support parasites -- who are not out to kill the entire population, because that would be depriving them of their own food. Monitoring parasites can be a good way of extrapolating information about hosts. If both are in decline then that's a problem -- and that is the case with this pairing. In addition, you don't want to kill a native species going about its business. The higher the biodiversity ie the higher the number of species, the more stable the ecology is. Everything is linked, and specialist species like the oil beetles are the keys to a well functioning natural system.
The other day we had lunch at Restaurant l'Image, just around the corner from where we live. Sections of the wall in the bar are covered with old nicotine stained wallpaper. It features couples in military uniforms dating from at least a decade earlier than I estimate the wallpaper was printed. Mathieu, the owner, reckons the wallpaper is original to when the building first became a bar, hotel and restaurant in the 1880s. But apart from that he didn't know anything else about it.
'Infantry Regiment of the Line
Valor and Discipline
23rd Brigade'
So I decided to do a bit of research. A rummage through the online archive of the Musée du Papier Peint in Rixheim didn't reveal an exact match, but it was clear that stylistically the wallpaper dates from the 1880s or 90s.
'Regiment of the Imperial Guard
Cavalry
3rd Squadron quartered at Nevers
Company ?? the Emperor'
Members of this regiment are Elite Gendarmes, sarcastically nicknamed The Immortals by the rest of the army, because they rarely saw active combat. Their role is security for high-ranking officials and major towns (and today their equivalent is most visible internationally as the police* motor bike escort for the Tour de France cycle race and the Guard at the Elysée Palace, the official residence in Paris of the President of the Republic).
Then I discovered the Images d'Epinal, an enormous range of popular illustrations produced by a 19th century printing firm in Epinal. I'd never heard of them before, but they are iconic, collectible and easy to recognise. I've certainly seen them before without knowing they had a name. Their main output was postcards (and I assume, cigarette cards), but they did posters, illustrated stories and paper dolls too. They also spawned several imitators, so the wallpaper is 'in the style of' the original Images d'Epinal.
'The Emperor of the French Advance 27th Dragoon Regiment
Colonel the Duke of F?
Shining, youth, ?? '
One of their best known themes was military scenes and uniforms, particularly of the Napoleonic era. They helped spark a wave of patriotism and pride in the French military at several points during the 19th century. The soldiers in their illustrations were always depicted in immaculate and scrupulously correct uniforms, looking dashing and often performing heroic acts. The illustrations on this late 19th century wallpaper are deliberate nostalgia. But rather than being from the time of Napoleon I, they show military uniforms from the time of his nephew, Napoleon III, who reigned from 1852 to 1870. Romantically, the wallpaper shows couples - a male soldier, and a female cantinière, in their respective uniforms. In real life army regulations required that a cantinière was married to a soldier in the regiment that she served in.
You can see the nicotine staining very clearly in this photo.
Cantinières are combat auxiliaries associated with the French army for centuries up to the First World War. Mostly their role was unofficial, but their heyday was during the Second Empire, right at the time this wallpaper depicts. During that period they were an acknowleged part of a regiment, with a uniform and the right to march with the troops in parades. Their job was to provide sustenance, to make sure the soldiers were kept supplied with sufficient nutritious food to stay fighting fit. Unofficially they also provided nursing and first aid. They set up their tents (canteens) anywhere that their regiment was, including at the front line. As well as meals and drinks they might also provide other essentials such as stationery for writing home, tobacco, and just a nice warm friendly place to take a break, especially in the days when the regiment advanced rapidly and soldiers were forced to leave their personal tents behind.
Cantinières carried a tonnelet (small barrel) of brandy on a strap over their shoulder. This was their trademark and made them easily identifiable. They were business women, independent of their soldier husband, and undertook to buy and sell provisions as the regiment performed their military duties, either from barracks or on campaign. Some cantinieres carried muskets and were perfectly prepared to fight as well as cook.
These women became icons of popular culture, and from the mid-19th century, when brands and advertising in the modern sense were being invented, idealised cantinières were frequently deliberately associated with comestible products. This indicates that the public view of the cantinières was positive, the idea being that these women were experts in nutritious, wholesome victuals. Even so they were sometimes inauthentically depicted in advertising wearing long skirts and riding side saddle, in order to avoid any accusations of unladylike behaviour.
In modern times, if people have heard of cantinières, there is almost always the assumption that they were camp following prostitutes. However, there is no evidence that this was the case, and if they had been it is the sort of thing that would have been commented on at the time.
Further reading: The great expert on French cantinières is the American historian Thomas Cardoza, so if you are interested in the subject then seek out his book Intrepid Women.
Note that in English these women are generally referred to by the old French term for them which is vivandières. For practical purposes in French the two words are interchangeable, but the term vivandière may have been dropped because it was seen as being associated with the Ancien Regime (Bourbon rule) and the term cantinière is associated with the Napoleonic Empires.
*Yes, I know that the Police and the Gendarmes are two different organisations in France, but for practical purposes the Gendarmes act as the Police in anglophone countries would in this situation.
There is Camembert and there is Camembert. Or more precisely there is Camembert and Camembert de Normandie. The poet and gourmet Léon-Paul Fargue, writing in the first half of the 20th century referred to 'Camembert, the cheese that smells like God's feet'. He was doubtless referring to good artisanal farmhouse Camembert, as industrial Camembert often smells of nothing at all.
Farmhouse Camembert that adheres to all the rules has to be 50% milk from Normande cows pastured in Normandy, unpasturised, made in Normandy (the départements of Orne, Manche, Calvados, Eure and Seine-Maritime), and created by carefully hand ladling the curd into the moulds to drain in four separate stages. To distinguish it from the ubiquitous industrial stuff, the artisanal cheese is called Camembert de Normandie and has an AOP. Some of the industrial producers where allowed to 'cheat' and label their product 'Fabriqué en Normandie' to fool consumers not paying attention, but this is no longer allowed.
Around 170 000 tonnes of Camembert is made in France, of which 100 000 tonnes comes from Normandy, and 10 000 tonnes is made from raw milk. It takes two litres of milk to make one Camembert cheese.
The cheese is named after a village in Orne, which is said to be where it was first made. The story goes that a priest from the Ile de France fleeing the Revolution was sheltered by a young dairymaid. To reward her he gave her the recipe for the Brie that his abbey made. In this new location, with different milk and different local fungi, Camembert was created. Camembert is made in much smaller rounds than Brie too. Brie is a cheese you buy triangles of, Camembert you buy whole. The downy white rind is a penicillin mutation, and has been favoured for commercial and aesthetic reasons. Customers are less attracted to the blotchy cheese that a standard penicillin would give.
To make the cheese the milk is semi-skimmed then innoculated. The gentle ladle by ladle filling of the moulds means that small air holes are present between the layers. This is a sign of quality. The moulds are allowed to drain for twenty hours then the cheeses are tipped out and coated with fungal spores and salt. They are left to mature for a minimum of 21 days.
The finished cheese will be a thick disk weighing 250 grams and with just 4% fat. The downy crust is lightly marked by the straw lined racks the cheese has been sitting on to ripen. The cheese should give a bit when pressed but should not run when cut (unlike Brie). Inside it should be pale yellow, sometimes with a white streak through the middle. Camembert is often sold too young, and as a consequence can have an unappealing flouriness.
It is sold in wooden boxes, an idea the producers adopted from Mont d'Or, which enabled the cheese to be shipped to the big city markets, especially Paris, on the train and arrive in perfect condition in the 19th century. As a consequence, Camembert has become ubiquitous in France.
It's good to eat all year round, although apparently real gourmets spurn Camembert made in the spring. Traditionally it is eaten with the famous reds of Bordeaux and Burgundy.
