History in this part of France Part 10

At the edge of my village, I have frequently driven past a small stone monument. On it is a plaque dedicated to some French Resistance workers who were shot dead by the Germans during World War II in August 1943.

It is situated by the side of marshy fields, in a windswept and lonesome place… A few of those who were alive at the time are still here in the village, and remember it well.

For this blog in full and more please see http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/history-in-this-part-of-france-part-10/

History in this part of France, Part 11

The little fortified town of nearby Brouage has a claim to fame from several angles.  One of its famous historical figures is Samuel de Champlain (1574 – 1635), the founder of Quebec and “Father of New France”. He was a navigator, a cartographer (he drew out the first accurate map of Canada), a politician, a mathematician and an explorer.

For this blog in full and more please see http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/history-in-this-part-of-france-part-11/

Extract from my novel, 'A Call from France

Extract from "A Call from France" by Catherine Broughton

The local Rotary club held their annual écclade there, which was how we met Sergio and Saskia. The campsite was still very much in its nursery stages, but it was nonetheless a good choice of venue for all the local people were interested – including us – in finding out what was happening and, in turn, it created publicity for the campsite, not to mention general bonhomie for the village.

An écclade is a traditional cooking of muscles in the Charente Maritime. The entire coastline is renowned for its seafood – as indeed is any coastline, I guess – muscles and oysters being the staple diet of the local people. An entire culture has evolved around muscles and oysters, accompanied by a whole world of “knowledge” about the type of oyster or muscle, and an entire vocabulary to go with it. For this particular speciality, the muscles are arranged, tier by tier, in a circle on a fireproof – usually a large cast iron platter - dish or even just on the sand. They are carefully balanced, facing inwards (this is important) so that they eventually make a kind of rounded pyramid. All guests must stand in a circle and admire. Pine needles are then placed over them, about two inches thick, and everybody must again admire. Words like “ooh la-la” are uttered. At a given signal (a mystery to this day) the pine needles are set alight. They are allowed to burn (along with furtherooh la-la) for about three minutes and then are brushed away, hopefully onto sand or similar where they will die out. All guests then help themselves to the pine-scented cooked muscles.

This is altogether more complicated than it seems. The muscles are not only too hot to touch but also black with pine ashes, and the ones that were not facing inwards – or which fell to one side during the various ooh la-la-ings – are also filled with black pine ash. After we’d attended two or three of these functions we discovered that vast quantities of kitchen roll are essential for wiping blackened fingers, and vast quantities of chilled white wine for washing down the ash. Even so, we didn’t bother with them again

Marie de Mancini- Hisotry in France Part 7

History in this part of France. Marie de Mancini.

The ancient fortified town of Brouage is a few minutes’ drive from here, and well worth a visit.  It is a famous and interesting town in its own right, loaded with fascinating epochs of history and fine old architecture.  One of its many famous (or infamous!) residents was Marie de Mancini, one-time lover of the French king Louis XIV, nicknamed The Sun King.

Marie de Mancini was Italian, born in Rome in 1639 and died in Pisa 1715.  She was brought to France as a young girl, and was introduced to the French Court by her influential uncle, a French-Italian cardinal close to the King Louis.

Marie and Louis fell in love and, to all intents and purposes, Marie was the first of many of Louis’ passionate love affairs. It seems Marie was also the only one Louis ever truly loved – though this may be the result of French romanticism.  Certainly, the King, barely a year older than Marie, was just at that tender age when love seems to be forever.

We do know that they hoped to marry because these plans were fiercely opposed by the King’s mother, who was the Queen of Austria, and Cardinal Mazarin, as well as the French Court in general.

Louis was instructed to ban Marie from Court, and for a while she lived in La Rochelle, and then moved to Brouage, which was the last place the unhappy lovers ever met.  Convinced that Louis would one day return for her, Marie waited several years in Brouage before finally marrying an Italian prince.  She had three children by him but abandoned both him and the children (ostensibly because he was violent) and return to Italy, where she died.

Marie de Mancini is the subject of Racine’s tragedy “Berenice”, whence came the famous words:

“Vous etes Empereur, Seigneur, mais vous pleurez”.  (You are emperor, sire, yet you cry).

Catherine Broughton is a novelist, a poet and an artist. Her books are available on Amazon and Kindle, or can be ordered from most major book shops and libraries.  More of her work, to include entertaining blogs and short stories from around the world, on http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk

The Cuckoo

Ah, the first signs of The End of the Winter – today we heard the cuckoo !

A few cuckoo facts:

- there are many types of cuckoo

- most are beige/brown or blue-grey in colour

- they spend most of the year in Africa and from there travel all over Europe, Asia and Australasia

- the female lays 12-22 eggs, all in different nests, usually nests belonging to the pipit or the reed bunting

- although the cuckoo’s eggs look the same as hers, the mother reed bunting or pipit will chuck out about 20% of the cuckoo’s eggs

- the female cuckoo chooses a nest belonging to the same species of bird that she hatched in

- they get their name from their distinctive call (ie their name is onomatopoeic), though in fact not all cuckoos make the well-known distinctive sound, and also it is anyway only the males

- in the UK the tradition used to be that you phone The Times to tell them when you hear the first cuckoo!

- cuckoo spit has nothing to do with cuckoos – it is from insects

- cuckoo’s favourite food is hairy caterpillars

- there is no record of a cuckoo ever being seen in Iceland or being heard in Africa

Click here for hummingbirds

Catherine Broughton is a novelist, a poet and an artist. Her books are available on Amazon or Kindle, or can be ordered from most leading book stores or libraries.  Her titles, and more about her and her work, are on http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk

Holiday Rentals - The Chateau and Cottages of Rochebonne

www.holidaychateaufrance.com 

Situated near La Rochelle, magnificent beaches, ideal for families.

Places still available for this summer!!

History in France Part 5 - Joan of Arc

Goodness – how do I fit Joan of Arc in to one small blog ?  Well, I fitted Eleanor of Aquitaine in, which was sacrilege, so I suppose I can do the same for Joan.

Joan of Arc, or Jeanne d’Arc (sometimes Arques) would probably not interest me much, except that one of the many schools I went to was called Joan of Arc.  There was a dreadful school song : Joan of Arc !  For the love we bear thee!  which us girls, neat in our maroon gym slips and brettles, would shout out in to the great hall.

Joan of Arc was born in 1412 at the time of the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1437) between England and France, when England owned vast areas of France and demanded a dual monarchy with the throne of France *.  Her parents were land-owning farmers, a couple of notches up from peasants, but almost certainly totally illiterate and simple folk. She was born in the village of Doremy (re-named Doremy-la-Pucelle**) in what is now the Lorraine.  Her childhood home is a museum these days.  She was extremely religious, and one can safely suppose that she heard her father and his friends vehemently discussing the English occupation and control of such large areas of France, and the poor state of mental health of the French king, Charles VI.  Impressionable and heavily influenced by strong family feeling, undoubtedly fired-up with hormones and quite possibly a tomboy, Joan decided she heard voices telling her to help the French army oust the English and replace the mad king with the Dauphin (heir to the throne).

There has been a lot of discussion about whether or not Joan was in fact schizophrenic (as she heard voices) or suffered from some other mental illness.  But I don’t think so.  There were already other women in the French army – and, oddly, one of the first things Joan did once she was in a position of power, was to ban women from the army – and anyway there is no evidence, either then or now, that she was anything other than bright, asute, controlled, sharp and sincere.  If you read through the transcript of her trial (sure!) you will see her replies are not those of an insane girl.

In a nutshell, French France was largely divided in to two factions: the Burgundians, who supported the English, and the Armagnacs who supported the French.  There was a great deal of in-fighting, intrigue, devious plots and anger, not to mention battle.  French France was in a terrible state as all the fighting for many years had taken place on French soil, the land was massively burnt-out by English troops and France had furthermore been ravaged by the Black Death.

At the age of 16, Joan asked an influential uncle to help her meet one Count Baudricourt, who in turn helped her (after much sarcasm and several refusals) meet the Dauphin.  It may be that the French authorities saw Joan, unusual as she was, as some kind of “sign” that they latched on to in desperation as their regime was close to total collapse.  Joan dressed up in armour and demanded to be placed at the head of the army, a request that was granted, one can only assume, in complete hopelessness when everything else had failed.

Joan was successful in that she had the Dauphin crowned the new king*** and she won an outstanding battle. But within three years she had been captured by the Burgundians and sold for a vast sum to the English. She was put on trial by the French pro-English Bishop Cauchon, and eventually burnt at the stake in the town of Rouen in northern France.  She was only 19 years old.

* the French king, Charles VI, was insane and the heir to the throne, Charles VII, was a child

** Joan was affectionately nicknamed la Pucelle, meaning “the little flea”.  Odd to an English ear, but ma puce in French it is common to this day

*** pictures portray him as an adult, but he was in fact barely 14 years old

Catherine Broughton is a novelist, a poet and an artist. Her books are on Amazon and Kindle, or can be ordered from most big book stores and libraries.  More about her, to include her entertaining blogs and short stories are on http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk

 There are no surviving pictures of the real Joan, so all illustrations are artist impressions, even this medieval one – which seems to me to be the more realistic and less romanticised.

History in France Part 4 - Vercingetorix 82-46 BCE

When I was a child growing up on the French South Pacific island of New Caledonia (my book “French Sand” is set there), the ancient Gaul leader, Vercingetorix, was the subject of a history lesson one day at school.

I have never liked the Romans because of what they did to him – much to my mother’s distress, as she was a classicist, a scholar of Roman history and a professor of Latin. How can you not admire the Romans ?!she would exclaim in exasperation.

Because they were rotten to Vercingetorix.  Quite a logical answer if one is only eight years old.

Vercingetorix was a cheiftan in Gaul during the time of Julius Ceasar’s Gallic Wars.  At that time Gaul was divided in to many little areas, each with its own chief. Vercingetorix, who was from Arvenis (now the Auverge) united the chieftans in a fight against the Romans.  They in turn made him King.  He won an outstanding victory in 52 BC against the Romans at the Battle of Gergovia but, later the same year, lost at the Battle of Alesia  and was captured.

He was kept in a small wooden cage for five years and paraded through the streets of Rome before his execution.  What little information we have about him comes from Julius Ceasar’s account of the Gallic Wars, and what statues and illustrations we have of him are, of course, fictive.  But he stikes an enigmatic pose, doesn’t he ?  Looks good.  I think it was a picture of him, squatting like an animal in his little cage, that I saw in a history book, and quite possibly a figment of the illustrator’s imagination, that made me always dislike the Romans …

Catherine Broughton is a novelist. Her books are available on Amazon and Kindle, or can be ordered from book shops and libraries.  More about Catherine Broughton and her work on http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk

History in France Part 3 - Royan

Royan is a holiday resort sitting on the Gironde Estuary, about half way down the Atlantic coast of France.  When we first came here, over twenty years ago, Royan was very much “an old folks’ town”, with a few elderly people enjoying the sun in the summer months and utterly devoid of any signs of life in the winter.

Nowadays, although it most certainly not my favourite town in the area, it is a lively and charismatic place all year round, with a very good selection of shops and restaurants, wonderful markets and huge sandy beaches.  People quite often rent our Chateau early in December in order to benefit from the excellent French-shopping, the way only the French can do it,  in Royan.

Archeologists have found cut flints in the area, so we know that there was a pre-historic settlement.  During Roman occupation, oysters were bred here, and vineyards planted.  Charentais wine is a bit mediocre, actually, but the vines dates back many hundreds of years.  Royan then came under English control in the days of Eleanor of Aquitaine (when her husband became Henry II of England in 1154, her lands passed under English control) and to this day there are English surnames – Bell, Moore, Tyler – that are the legacy of English soldiers in the area.

In 1789, shortly before the Revolution, this area of France was named Charente Inferieur, and it retained this name till the 1980s when, quite rightly, it was decided that the name was not very encouraging and, as tourism was vital, it was re-named Charente Maritime.  Much better !

During World War II the Germans occupied Royan and the surrounding area.  Well after the liberation of France, the Germans held on grimly to the town.  Following information from the French General Larminat, who stated that there were only Germans and collaborators left, on 5th January 1945 the British RAF bombed heavily and all but flattened the whole place.  The job was finished in April by the Americans.  By this time Larminat realized his mistake and send an urgent message to the Americans – but in French.  The signalman, understandably, didn’t speak French.  Over 1500 French civilians were killed or wounded.

Most of the old buildings were destroyed, leaving today just a small selection of absolutely exquisite Napoleon III (Victorian in the British world) houses to one side of the sea front.  The neo-Gothic church was destroyed and when the town was re-built in the 1950s a new church was built.  Apparently it is a classified historical monument, the Notre Dame, but I’m afraid I can’t see it.  Looks more like a monstrosity to me.

Catherine Broughton is a novelist. Her books are available on Amazon and Kindle, or can be ordered from most leading book stores and libraries.  Catherine Broughton is also a published poet and an artist.  Go to http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk for more about her and her work, to include her entertaining blogs and short stories from around the world.

Frangi-Pangi

I have fond memories of playing, with my little sister, in a frangi-pangi tree in Nigeria when I was a little girl.  The tree was in the middle of the front lawn of our house in Ibadan, and my sister and I played – incredibly – “house” in the tree.

I suppose the tree must have been a good size, for we were aged something around 7 and 8, and we found areas of the tree that were the bedroom, or the kitchen and so on.  We wore just knickers – my mother had made them, blue and white stiped knickers with little roses in the stripes.  They had a wide frill of the same fabric around the edge of the leg. There were several pairs of them.  Looking back on it, I suppose my mother made them as something easy to replace, easy to wash and, although they weren’t shorts, they were not quite knickers either.  We were always barefoot.  We used to arrange the frangi-pangi in our hair and around the waist-band of our knickers.

We went to school, of course, driven there in a Landrover by a Nigerian called “driver”.  We thought that was his name.  I don’t remember anything about him except that he took us to school, along with my big brother, and then fetched us again when, as soon as we were home, we stripped off our school clothes and climbed in to the frangi-pangi tree.

The house was big with a wide shadey terrace running all around it.  We had a houseboy called Difon and a cook and a “gardener” – I use inverted commas because the garden was really just a dust bowl with a frangi-pangi tree.  The cook’s children often used to play with us.  We also had an English nanny called Valerie, who we all loved very much, even though we got spanked for using her make up.

At some stage another little sister appeared.  It seemed she was bright red.   She was seven years younger, and quite an oddity, bundled in a huge white nappy, and lying either in my mother’s arms or in a cot that seemed much too big for her.

One day there was a snake weaving its way through the upright slats of the cot.  The baby lay silently.  My mother read.  My brother, sister and I watched the snake for a while and then one of us felt it a good idea to mention it to our mother.

“Mummy, there is a snake in the cot…”

My poor mother!  It was only many years later she mentioned to me how she hated Nigeria, and that after the snake incident she begged my father (who was a doctor of tropical disease) to return to South Africa.  Four years in Nigeria is enough for any white woman even in those days when it was “British”.

From there we went to Switzerland for a few years, and then to the South Pacific – that was wonderful, and forms the happiest part of my childhood memories.  Along with the frangi-pangi tree.

Catherine Broughton is a novelist. Her books are available on Amazon and Kindle or can be ordered from major book stores and libraries.  Catherine Broughton is also an artist and a poet. More about her, to include her entertaining blogs and short stories from around the world, on http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk

Tonnay Boutonne-historical places in this part of France

We used to live just outside Tonnay Boutonne, so I know it well.  It is (with the best will in the world) just a stoney French village with a main road blasting through the middle of it.  I haven’t been for several years now and I have heard that it has been spruced-up and modernized, which is great.  Some of these villages have had by-passes built, which makes the place quieter but takes all the trade away.  Tonnay Boutonne boasts a pretty river, the Boutonne, an interesting old church and some pretty surrounding countryside.

Tonnay Boutonne’s main claim to fame (if it can be called fame) is that one Ganes de Ganelon ( 8th Century) was once Lord of it.  Never heard of him of course.  He was the chap who betrayed Roland, as in Roland and Charlemagne.  He was married to Isabelle de Taillefer, widow of the King Jean-sans-Terre, and her ghost is said to haunt the one remaining tower in the centre of the village.  She in turn was Countess of Taillebourg, another local village.

Tonnay Boutonne has two stories as to the origin of its name.  The first is that the ancient Celtic word for tower was tom, and the ancient Celtic word for river was bou.  The second story dates to the days of Eleanor of Aquitaine (12th Century), when there was a large population of English in the area and they referred to the town as the town on the Boutonne, which over the years became Tonnay Boutonne.  The truth is undoubtedly a mixture of the two.

There are the remains of a chateau, mostly within the grounds of a private house.  It seems there were three towers with drawbridges and a moat, and that the place was more of a fortification than a village.  The remains of the Chateau have been dated to the 8th Century, but the one remaining tower, in perfect order, seems to be several hundred years later.  Perhaps it was re-built.

Now, Roland is a vastly more interesting subject, even though he never went (as far as I know) to Tonnay Boutonne.   During medeival years there was a great culture for highly romanticized and embellished “true stories”, and La Chanson de Roland appears in a 12th Century Oxford manuscript, telling the story of Roland, nephew of Charlemagne and Defender of the Frontiers.  He and his army were betrayed by Ganelon in Iberia at the battle of Roncevaux, where they were ambushed and every last man slaughtered.  According to the legend, Roland had a horn ( called an olifant, which was a special message-horn) to blow if he needed back-up, which, with his dying breath he managed to blow, and Charlemagne and army came dashing to the rescue, arriving too late.

Roland also had a horse by the name of Veillantif and a sword that no other man could weild, by the name of Durandel.  These stories, and various versions of them, appear in medeival writings in Norway, Italy and Spain, as well as in England and France.  However, the one and only historic and accurate mention of Roland is in Charlemagne’s 8th Century “biography” (Einhart), where it is stated that Roland, nephew to the kind and prefect of all frontiers, was killed at Roncevaux in the year 778 AD.

What happened to Ganelon ?  Oh, I think Charlemagne killed him, which is why his wife’s ghost forever haunts the tower ….

Catherine Broughton is a novelist.  Her books are available on Amazon and Kindle, or can be ordered from most leading book stores and libraries.  Catherine Broughton is also a publsihed poet and an artist.  Her web site, for her entertaining stories and blogs from all over the world, is http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk

Holiday Rentals: The Chateau and Cottages of Rochebonne

The Chateau  is available for short breaks (as well as weekly breaks) of 4 nights from early October through to the end of March.  Full central heating and two open fireplaces, all inclusive £700 for up to 8 people.  Another 4 people can be accomodated @ £40 each for the 4 nights.

Situated half way down the west coast of France, this lovely property offers the perfect getaway.  Comprising a small Chateau and six cottages (totally separate, so the Chateau is not over looked), and huge grounds barely 4kms from the beach, this is a delightful and unique place for a short break or your main holiday.

Closest airport: La Rochelle

Closest port: St Malo

Closest big towns: La Rochelle, Royan, Saintes

web site:  http://www.holidaychateaufrance.com

Contact: hit the contact button on this site or on the above site

AVAILABILITY:-

Availability in the Chateau and in the cottages below.

The Chateau is also available for weekly stays:-

8 June – 13 July @ £2430 pw  SPECIAL OFFER £1999 pw

31 Aug – 7 Sept @ £2430 pw    SPECIAL OFFER £1999 pw

21-28 Sept @ £1885 pw             SPECIAL OFFER £1500 pw

“8 Sept through to the end of March @ £1885 pw  SPECIAL OFFER £1110 pw

Prices do not include travel.

Prices include all bedding but not towels – which can be hired – please ask.

Wifi available @ £20 for the duration of your stay

Cook available – please enquire.  Also English-speaking baby-sitter.

Cottage availability:-

The cottages are closed from mid-September to the end of April.

La Charrue, 4 bedrooms, available 1-22 June @ £785 pw  SPECIAL OFFER £685 pw

13-20 July @ £905 pw  SPECIAL OFFER £850 pw  

31 Aug – 7 Sept @ £750 pw SPECIAL OFFER £600 pw 

Le Chai, 2 bedrooms, available 1-15 June @ £455 pw  SPECIAL OFFER £400 pw

13-27 July @ £665 pw  SPECIAL OFFER £590 pw 

31 Aug – 14 Sept @ £650 pw  SPECIAL OFFER £500 pw 

Please note that there are three 2-bedroom cottages and that availability for the others differs slightly, so it is worth your while enquiring.

Le Pressoir, 3 bedrooms, available 1-22 June @ £495 pw   SPECIAL OFFER £425 pw

20-27 July @ £955 pw (sorry no specials)

31 Aug – 14 Sept @ £700 pw  SPECIAL OFFER £550 pw

Please note that there are two 3-bedroom cottages and that availability varies slightly, so it is worth your asking.

Big shared pool, private parking, games room, individual gardens with BBQ andf big shared grounds.

Prices do not include travel, utilities of bed linen & towels.  Wifi, cot, high chair available.

Full details are on http:// www.holidaychateaufrance.com or click the contact button on this site

www.turquoisemoon.co.uk

The Man with Green Fingers

I have received a fair few messages recently, asking me what made me think of “The Man with Green Fingers” and how in the world I came up with the plot.

To see full blog and more please visit www.turquoisemoon.co.uk

Such Friendly People- USA

Well, we all know that in all countries there are plenty of people that are decidedly un-friendly, but from the point of view of a tourist, I can confirm that – along with Australia – Amercians are friendly, cheerful and polite.
I suppose because we live in Europe – and thence spend most of the year in Europe – it particularly strikes us when we come to America.  The Bulgarians are very grumpy and rude people, I suppose because of their pre-Cold War heritage.  The Swedish can be dour people.  The English are generally pleasant and fairly easy to get talking to but there is nothing quite as dreadful as the British drunk when he is abroad. Italians are also friendly and cheerful but what mad and noisy drivers!  The French know nothing – but nothing! – about good customer service, so I do appreciate it when we come to the USA.

For full blog and more please see www.turquoisemoon.co.uk