Of Rivers, Baguettes and Billabongs. Reg Egan
the difference. The south doorway was carved in 1125 and is one of the most famous in the whole area, with its depiction of a forgiving Christ, a second coming flamboyant Christ surrounded by apostles and angels with trumpets. For once, thank God, there is no grave warning, or perhaps an ominous threat, to any backsliders or sinners. Inside there was a kind and indulgent angel, which I photographed. I like those jackdaws and I liked the angel.
Beaulieu is the start of the Dordogne proper if you are going down river. You can now go north, south or east and you’ll be amongst stone villages, churches, gardens, forests, hills…anything that the eye desires. We went south and parked in the village beneath Castelnau-Bretenoux overlooking the Céré River. This château can be seen from afar built as it is on a spur above the two rivers. I say a spur and yet it is a fertile and cultivable spur — a sort of a small plateau. The château is one of the most appealing you will ever see: an almost unique mixture of fortifications, and ramparts on the outside, with an elegant house on the inside. It is surrounded by extensive lawns and forests and even some tilled land.
The French writer Pierre Loti said of Castelnau, “(It’s)…the thing you cannot help looking at all the time wherever you are…a cock’s comb of blood-red stone rising from a tangle of trees…poised like a crown on a pedestal dressed with a beautiful greenery of chestnut and oak trees.”
Now, you may wonder what this naval man and writer of sea tales and sensuous adventures was doing so far inland. You may indeed, and as to that I cannot help you, nor can he, as he died at Rochefort, a maritime town on the west coast of France, in 1923. Rochefort even has a street named after him — Rue Pierre Loti as I need hardly write.
CHAPTER EIGHT
St. Céré adjoins the Bave River and has a population of some three and a half thousand only, and yet it seemed very busy when we were there. Our destination was, naturally, the old part going back to the fourteen hundreds and the re-built seventeenth century church of St. Spérie. We walked along the Rue de la Republic festooned from end to end with shrubs and trees and stopped in front of yet another plaque to the Resistance. These maquisards died in May 1944 (before the Allied landing) and their executioners were once again the Das Reich Division. The town has its old Tudor style quarter around the Place du Mercardial but like Salers, it has a life of its own beyond the tourists.
Nearby Château Montal is most assuredly worth a visit, although the château itself had closed just as we got there. The grounds are simple and the château is, somehow, perfectly situated. The story is that in 1523 the owner of the land had a mansion built for her eldest son Robert, who was in Italy fighting a rather pointless war for François Premier. Robert was killed and the mother in her distress had a motto chiselled underneath the window which had acted as her lookout: “Hope is No More (plus d’espoir).” Luckily she had a second son Dordé, but he was a “church dignitary”, a priest presumably. Anyhow, he came out, as it were, and had nine children and I assume that one or some of them were boys. The château went through rather turbulent times in the intervening years but was completely restored by a rich Frenchman late in the nineteenth century who then gave it to the State in 1913. Its situation, its park and the building itself are all lovely. I particularly liked a rustic latticed gate beautifully constructed in a diamond pattern.
A village which is off the main road on the little D118 and very much worth the short detour is Loubressac. It’s on a hill or perhaps a small mountain, but you could easily pass it by. Well, please don’t. Allow Loubressac to draw you off the main road.
There’s a small parking area under the trees (chestnut from memory) by the World Wars monument. Having read the announcement and glanced down the list of names, in case I should see an Egan, I went, quite naturally to the little but old cemetery. There’s a wonderful view from its gates which takes in part of the valley of the Bave and the Castelnau fortress. To my mind, the peace and quiet of a well-kept cemetery is similar to the peace and quiet of an old, but empty, church.
I left the cemetery with reluctance, and walked on. Outside the church, I stopped and tried to decipher the beautifully lettered acrylic sign. My French had deserted me and the church was closed. The thing about Loubressac is firstly its authenticity and secondly its compactness. The roads are narrow, laneways almost, and every house and tower, every turret and roof is genuine, even if some have been restored. The gardens are alive, the flowers are blooming and the place is occupied. In the space of a half hour you have had a feast. We journeyed on.
Suddenly you are in Carennac and underneath the massive walls of the château. There are places to park and a low stone wall to sit on and watch the river. When you feel like it you walk thirty or forty metres, turn left up the hill and there in a cul-de-sac, or a narrow courtyard is the church of St. Pierre, Romanesque, of course, and with another one of those side doors. Above and around the door are joyful carvings of Christ and his followers but the frieze is mainly of animals. It is a church of great charm and peace. Do not neglect to see the cloisters while you are there.
Perhaps the most famous man of Carennac was François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fênelon — a long name for a man who appeared to be a lover of simple things. His family owned the elegant fifteenth century château some distance down the Dordogne towards Carsac. François Fénelon was born in the château in 1651 and is described in my encyclopaedia as “archbishop, mystical theologian and a man of letters.”
Here is a little quote from Francois: “Nothing is more despicable than a professional talker who uses his words as a quack uses his remedies.” Now, you almost know the man.
He finished his studies in Paris and was involved for a time in a college where he instructed women who were converting from Protestantism to Catholicism. In 1685 Louis X1V revoked the Edit of Nantes that had granted a measure of religious freedom to Protestants, and persecution of them was heightened. François had the courage to speak out against that persecution.
His next appointment, despite his outspokenness on religious matters, was as tutor to the future Louis XV. During his tutorship, or rather because of it, he began Les Aventures de Télémaque (the adventures of Telemachus in search of his father Ulysses), which he completed in 1699.
François continued his searches for spiritual truths and ran foul of the powerful cleric Bossuet, his one-time friend. It was clear that François Fénélon could not be silenced and so he was exiled to his diocese at Cambrai, in northern France on the Escaut River.
There’s a Iovely and partly ruined tower in the valley below the bridge in the equally lovely village of Carennac and some writers maintain that this was the tower in which Fénélon wrote. The lady at the information office in Carennac said that this was not so. She pointed instead to a tower near the wall of the château. “That was the tower,” she said most emphatically. If you walk back down to your car by the river or even to the bridge over the valley you can see the top of this square tower. I think she was right. Before you get into your car, have a careful look at the wall of the château where you will see a striking bust of François. Carennac is a village of great beauty.
You can linger in Carennac.
But going back to Fénélon’s fame as a writer — I must say I’ve not read the Adventures of Telemachus and it is a while since I’ve read The Odyssey. Oddly enough one of the most vivid recollections I have of Homer’s story is how the enchantress Circe turned some of Ulysses’ (Odysseus’) companions into swine. I wish that the same lady would re-visit the Western world and turn the occasional CEO and company director into swine, she would be most welcome. But perhaps, come to think of it, there is really nothing further to do.
On the flight over to Paris I kept a resolve that I had made and I read Homer’s other book, The Iliad. What a task! I don’t often use an exclamation mark, but it is deservedly appropriate after that short sentence. The argument between Achilles and Agamemnon gives promise of something worthwhile but thereafter it descends into a description of the manner in which man butchers his fellow man. And all the while Achilles