Of Rivers, Baguettes and Billabongs. Reg Egan
or if you prefer a Gaul, for that is what these tribes were called by the invading armies lead by Julius Caesar in the middle of the first century BC. You may, or you may not, admire the famous crosser of the Rubicon, but what he did at least do was leave written records of his travels and deeds, his “commentaries”. And, to an extent, we rely on those records to trace the movements and history of the Celts who, for some centuries, occupied a swathe right across central France before the Romans came to disturb them.
I’m impressed by the Celts and their enterprise and their artistry, especially in all forms of metallurgy, and by their predilection for moving ever westward in a broad band: not too far to the south and not too far to the north. So many Australians could conceivably trace their ancestry right back to France, the Auvergne and the headwaters of the Dordogne itself. They might have to go via Wales, Scotland, Ireland and parts of England, particularly Cornwall, but the line would be there.
Julius Caesar was stopped by the Celtic people at the famous battle of Gergovie, on the plateau just south of Clermont Ferrand, but the war was not over. Caesar re-grouped and at the subsequent battle at Alesia (near Dijon) the redoubtable Vercingetorix was finally defeated. It is thought that there were some six million Gauls in France at the time of the Roman occupation. It is estimated that perhaps one million of those were killed in the wars with Rome or subsequently executed (apart from those who had their right hands cut off for daring to oppose the invaders).
Alesia does not exist on most maps of France for it is the old Roman name for the town. The French name is actually Alise-Sainte-Reine, and yet when you read about that second and decisive battle, it is always referred to as the battle of Alesia, without any reference to the modern name. Napoleon the Third, the second Napoleon Emperor of France, located the exact spot in 1865 or thereabouts. Before he got the boot over the Franco-Prussian war and other things, he had excavations done on and around Mount Auxois, and as the experts had prophesied there they found the remains of a Gallic oppidum (Celtic hill fort) and, of course, a Roman town hard by-as Julius Caesar would have written, I have no doubt, in those famous chronicles of his.
Napoleon commissioned a copper statue of Vercingetorix to mark the historic spot, and it stands no less than seven metres in height and is visible, as you might imagine, from very considerable distances. Napoleon, with perhaps a whiff of his imminent downfall had the scuptor Bartholdi, who also created the Statue of Liberty, give the statue a face in his own likeness. Ah, these great men.
Should you be in the Cote-d’Or, this very, very beautiful part of France, I strongly urge you to go to the village and then drive just a few kilometres to the exquisite and historical neighboring village of Flavigny-sur-Ozerain. According to Ulrike Laule, author of the wonderful hardback called simply Burgundy, it is “one of the most picturesque small cities of Burgundy whose historical centre has been almost completely preserved”. Its situation in the soft countryside and its wonderful stone and even the production of anis pastilles in the monastic buildings, will enthral you. But back to Caesar and the Celtic warrior.
It is hard to imagine the Roman soldiers mixing too readily with the Celtic women and even harder to think that they stayed on after the occupation or that they colonised the Auvergne and the Dordogne Valley in any significant way. You could say, therefore, that this then remote area of France remained largely Celtic, except, of course, that there were subsequent invasions by the Alemanni (Germanic people), the Franks, the Vikings and no doubt one or two others; and not forgetting the Greeks, Italians, Arabs and others who came as traders in the south and stayed on. A mixed bag; and yet as you wander through the Auvergne and down the Dordogne you often look twice at the villagers, the shopkeepers and the hoteliers and you think, “They are not the olive skinned, brown eyed dark haired French. They are Australians.”
And what happened to the brave Vercingetorix, the Celtic warrior who united some of the native tribes and who even had his likeness minted on some gold coins? Sadly he did not die in battle but was captured by Caesar, kept imprisoned and then taken to Rome where in 46 BC he was paraded through the streets as a war trophy and then executed, some say strangled, at Caesar’s behest. The only consolation is that Julius Caesar himself was executed a year or two later by Brutus and his mates.
The Celts have left their mark on the Auvergne and the Dordogne and indeed, on France itself, especially in relation to the preservation of trees, streams and the countryside. There is evidence to suggest that the Celts were earth worshippers and that groves, wells, streams, rocks and the like were revered by them. As you travel from the Auvergne south-west down the Dordogne to Bordeaux you marvel at the rich mosaic of the forests of beech, oak, linden and fir trees. There is hardly a hill in France which has been cleared right up to its top, the grazing and the cultivation are confined to the lower hillsides and the valleys. This tradition has stood the countryside well in terms of erosion, climate, winds and rain. The beech forests in the spring in the Auvergne generally, and the Cantal and the Haut Loire in particular, are just as beautiful as the startlingly burnished copper beeches of the autumn. In fact, the shimmering gold of the spring beeches is quite amazing, contrasting as it does with the dark green of the pines and the grey blue of the firs, the deep green of the lush spring grass and the shapes of the puys (volcanoes) against a sky which seems always to have white and silver-grey clouds floating past. It is all rather lovely.
There is not that much evidence of the Roman occupation in the Auvergne for the Romans, it seemed, liked the softer countryside in the Berry and around Bourges and indeed made their headquarters in Bourges. But there is some: the simple but exquisite little bridge at Saurier, the temple of Mercury (and perhaps remains of a Celtic temple also) and of course the statue of Vercingetorix in Clermont Ferrand. The Romans came from a warm climate and perhaps that was a factor in their rather brief and transient occupation of the mountains and valleys of the beautiful Auvergne, an area with a climate utterly unlike that of the Imperial city.
The Auvergne can boast of the birth and/or occupation of many famous people. The first French pope, for example, Pope Sylvester 11, (also known as Pope Gerbert) was born in Aurillac (the capital of the Cantal department) in AD 945 and was educated at the St. Géraud Abbey. He became the pope in 999 at the relatively young age of fifty-four, young anyhow in the terms of 20th and 21st century popes, and he died only four years later in 1003. It is written of him that he “had a reputation for exceptional learning”. His statue stands in the Place Gerbert.
Blaise Pascal the mathematician, physicist and philosopher was born in Clermont Ferrand in 1623 (Louis X111) and regrettably died a year before his fortieth birthday. Although he was a mathematician and scientist extraordinaire, at the early age of thirty-one he turned to philosophy and theology — a sort of Faustian about-turn. Pascal was a man who reflected deeply and has left us his Pensées or thoughts; and just diverging a little, I remember being in a market in St. Julien when I realised for the first time that the French called pansies “thoughts” or pensées. So I bought a few pots in full bloom and gave them to our hosts of that evening. But back to Pascal the thinker. Here are a couple of his thoughts:
“Not to care for philosophy is to be a true philosopher”, and “If you want people to think well of you, do not speak well of yourself.”
Pascal was once beloved by the “systems” men of the gambling fraternity but perhaps is more familiar today for the honour of having the S1 units of pressure named after him. It is said that the famous twentieth century Existentialists drew on some of his thoughts on religion.
A contemporary of Pascal’s who lived for a time at Naddes and Espinarre in chateaux in the north of the Auvergne owned by her husband the Comte, was Madame de la Fayette, born Marie-Madelaine Pioche de la Verne. It is claimed that her novel La Princesse de Clèves published in 1678 when she was aged forty-four, was “the first true French novel”.
Although she was born in Paris in 1634, after her marriage to the Comte she divided her time between his estates in the Auvergne and Bourbonnais before settling permanently in Paris in 1659.
And then there was the birth in 1885 in St. Julien Chapteuil (on the east of the Massif Centrale) of Jules Romain. Romain was drawn to Paris (of course) and did brilliantly in philosophy. Subsequently he turned to writing and in his books expounds his