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From Puy-en-Velay to Monastier-sur-Gazeille via GR®70 |
     
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From Puy-en-Velay to Monastier-sur-Gazeille via GR®70 |
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After many visits to Puy and quite some time spent leading a joyful life with my advisors, a sleeping bag was designed, manufactured, and triumphantly brought home to me. Stevenson
The songs are the first excuses when the legs start to move and the stomach rumbles. Cheap bawdy songs by the roadside that tickle your tongue. Undisciplined and ribald, that’s what I would write on my business card if I had one. I invent songs to entertain myself. Once in the convent of God, at La Belle Dieu, there were abbesses, there were no she-asses / They shat with their backsides in the air, backsides in the air... The conveniences were holes in planks / Under the guard towers flowed a small stream / The good young ladies made their needs there / They undressed on the toilet and offered their blessed backsides to passersby / At La Belle Dieu / There are no more abbesses /... Who shit with their backsides in the air, backsides in the air... Euphoria of a second day, calm and beautiful solitude before the sacred places and their pilgrims. In Velay country, volcanic memories blend with the monotony of the horizon. It doesn’t matter, any path is enough since it leads to the meal. A simple joy. Essential. Hush, there’s the city! One day, we will leave the cities...
In the misty basin, it is hard to distinguish Le Puy-en-Velay, the very holy. View of the lava peaks and faith. After a moment of ecstasy, I reconsider. The miraculous or purportedly miraculous towns have long deceived me. A few sugar loaves, memories of lace, bell towers "have you seen me" displayed against the low sky, laden with winds and rains to come, bring me once again to monastic, meditative moods. No sun like on postcards. The mind is at the reflection of the novice Carthusian hesitating to enter the Trappe. Yet, when the stomach mixes in, faith pales. Le Puy becomes a giant roasting sign. We are hungrier than pilgrims. We will smile at the city, we will restore ourselves, and we will leave it. Our poor bivouac from the night before - and its frugal meal - forces us to hastily visit the taverns, just as a hungry street vendor would have done before.
Cars honk loudly because our donkey slows down the time. They come close to us. We have to hurry around Noée, who, frightened, tries to untie the ropes. Amazement. The passersby remain indifferent to our procession. Worse, they smile at us occasionally. Le Puy-en-Velay is a city that loves donkeys, which is notable. Direction the old town. - Aren't you participating in the festivities?... Thus, every year, the town enjoys traveling back in time. A good gesture, it’s for history. You find papercraft battlements and soldiers in armor on every rampart. Improvised drawbridges rise at every street corner, plastic cannons threaten, under the watch of "stiff" halberdiers like the city’s bell towers. We amuse ourselves with the fake, forget our worries, and toast at the slightest occasion... In the past, they invented the festival of the king of the bird to prevent young people from frequenting taverns too ardently. While they lifted the crossbow, they lifted less of a drink. Today, it’s the opposite. Barely has the arrow been shot at the fake bird before rushing to the bar with its cold mugs. It’s a cheap Renaissance that imagines itself, good-hearted, far from the tensions and violence of the past. In the past, there was no fair without a knife stab. At the inn, one had to overflow the glass of the invited. When sitting down, one had secretly taken the Laguiole knife, the long pointed knife, under the table to grasp it easily. One had to be able to stick it in the ribs of the other if the conversation heated up. However, the drinkers in arms belonged to the brotherhood of the penitents! They bore the cross and, for a yes or a no, indulged in kneeling.
After a glass of hot wine accompanied by ginger and pepper tuna, saffron rice, and a rabbit stew, we diligently visited the Romanesque cathedral - Bishop Le Breton and the Black Virgin, pride of the city, rest there. A maze and remarkable building. A bas-relief depicts a donkey, capering like a rabbit. Around us, people are quietly active in prayer. Should we remind ourselves of the Byzantine, Eastern spirit of the cathedral? Should we remind ourselves that, along with Paris, Arles, and Vézelay, the cathedral is a starting point for the pilgrimage leading to Santiago de Compostela - six hundred kilometers to Roncesvalles and seven hundred fifty from the Spanish border to Santiago de Compostela?
Further on, Mr. and Mrs. Tourists, wearing shorts and a pilgrim's stick for her, a purple tracksuit and a camera for him, are bustling at the foot of the church of Saint-Michel-d'Aiguilhe. The camera is on its tripod. He sets off the automatic shutter and energetically joins his other half, who is taking up quite a bit of space in the photo. The timing operation is repeated three times. In the background and below, the chapel of Saint-Michel remains unchanged. At the top of the volcanic and tourist peak, a beggar, also dressed in a purple tracksuit - does the religious attraction lead individuals to adorn themselves in a cardinal color? - is asking for his share of the cake. We assess the climb at several hundred steps. Mendicancy and mountaineering, the brave man deserves his alms.
Henri-Pourrat Street descends to the cemetery. To our left, the old town and its tourist-religious trinkets, snow globes and Black Virgin, candles and posters of patron saints. To our right, upstream, the cemetery and the pious ones recalled by the Almighty. One only needs to step over an alley to go from worship – and its offerings – to eternity. Better than a place-name. In the middle of the cemetery, a young student unpacks mortuary anecdotes. She teaches the studious and bewildered tourists that the penitents of Saugues come to Puy on Good Friday. There, they invade the restaurants to feast on frog legs prepared for them. The connection to the holy water fonts? The tourists comment, but the guide reorders the ranks... When she declaims “The Gypsy and the Leukemic,” one might think it a new fable by La Fontaine. Everyone quickens their pace and lends an ear... With a proud forehead, pale and serious face, the guide becomes the voice before infusing her tall tales. The group tightens around her. Shh, it’s starting...
A few decades ago, a gypsy fell in love with a young girl from Puy-en-Velay. Alas, he learns that his beloved is afflicted with leukemia. Our man is not easily impressed. He knows that love is a matter of magic and keeps a grimoire from his grandmother - a pale copy of the Grand Albert - to awaken the dead. Visible only at solstices and on a stormy evening, the guide specifies. The young woman grows weaker, her veins turning bluer each day. She becomes as diaphanous as a shroud, preparing for her journey to the grave... Meanwhile, our good gypsy takes the opportunity to revise his tricks and spells. Alas, the beloved breathes her last! The gypsy follows the funeral, locates the tomb where the deceased is to rest, and patiently waits. On the evening specified by the book of magic - storm, solstice, and all the ingredients – he returns to the cemetery, picks the lock of the chapel door, and descends into the vault where four coffins are piled up. Armed with a lantern, he identifies the one he believes to be the bed of his beloved.
The skeptical tourists pull out their purses and toads without stinginess. Relieved or anxious, everyone pays the fee, quickly steps away from the sinister chapel, and silently leaves the cemetery after a last glance at the cursed vault. Henri Fourrât would have been flattered to learn that his name marked the alley near a cemetery and that horrible stories were told there, seemingly emerging from his own tales. Like in a magic book, the tourists have vanished. No more passersby, no inhabitants, no one. By the way, what do you call the inhabitants of Puy-en-Velay? Puy-satiers?
Upon leaving the city and the richest archbishopric in France - we were assured of this - one can glimpse the Corneille rock that answers to the Aiguilhe. Here again, the hypocrisy of History has cast its spell on the peak. A heavy Virgin with Child has been erected on its summit with the bronze from more than two hundred cannons recovered from Sebastopol. The sulpician ensemble reminds us that wars, whether of Empire or not, can serve to attract pilgrims. It is as tall as a lighthouse, only it is not a lighthouse and it is less beautiful. Discovering his first solid house, the late clown Achille Zavatta exclaimed: “This shack is nice, but it lacks wheels!” This gives me a bit of the impression that Le Puy gives off. Studious and pious, anchored and solid. Ordered. A large notary's house where, quite rare for notaries, they offer you hot wine.
***
All these luminous rocks, these streams that become currents, these calmed volcanoes, these high windy and desert plateaus, and the South that already shows the tip of its nose, an administrative geography - confusing regions and departments - gathers them under the name of Cévennes. Blurry and vast, as soothing as they are mysterious, the Cévennes are a thousand territories, a thousand states - of soul - like the lakes and islands, the volcanoes and the nights. One might be surprised by my naivety and my clumsy poetry... I am a kindergarten child: I do not revise, I learn my lessons about things.
It is partly at her request that the Scot will scribble, then write Treasure Island. Fanny is a woman of substance. Stevenson is twenty-six, she is ten years older. He becomes infatuated with her. Boating or forest walks, unacknowledged conversations and so little hope. But so many promises... Stevenson follows her to Paris, his parents find out and force him to return to Edinburgh, where he shuts himself away in writing. Fanny decides to return to America to get a divorce, leaving a distraught young man behind. Return to France, in August 1878. Stevenson takes the road to the Cevennes; since the outside heals, the young walker will attest to this... He undertook the journey to gain clarity. On one side, a family to please, a respectable life; on the other, the freedom and conquest of Fanny Osbourne, the incandescent adventurer. The outside heals Stevenson tests his theories as if they were poultices. Until late at night, I daydream while observing the clouds, re-reading the excerpts, anticipating and foreseeing my journey. The biography unfolds: after the Cevennes, Stevenson quarrels with his father. A year later, in 1879, he decides to go to California to find Fanny, who is preparing to get a divorce. A dreadful journey across the Atlantic awaits him. He nearly dies several times among the emigrants. The story is called The Road to Silverado. A mind-bending text – the word is right: it’s a reality worse than reality. The crossing of the continent to California, with Monterrey as the destination. The wedding in San Francisco and the honeymoon in an old abandoned mine in Silverado. England will not see him again. Americans read and celebrate him. The Scot is paid handsomely. Set course south! The journey of the vagabond began in his adolescence on the jagged shores of Scotland, followed its course – water – on the French rivers, took the paths mentioned here. And he had gone even further. In the chaos – like wandering – New York, San Francisco, and Point Lobos, names like the nuggets he will seek, even if it means losing his health and life there, names like launch pads. Cevennes, Atlantic, South Pacific. Other worlds. The trade winds and the sea air were kind to our man, while the land kept him from breathing – literally and metaphorically. His nonexistent health forced him to set sail and find refuge in Samoa, stones at the end of the world. Read it to understand. The storyteller... Third day of walking, September 17. Late afternoon, heading towards Monastier-sur-Gazeille. Although he stayed almost a month in Monastier, Stevenson does not find it necessary to include the few chapters dedicated to the pre-journey in his book. A question of balance, some will say. Too bad. Upon re-reading his travel journal, I discover vivid, instantaneous, almost photographic notes, straddling ethnography and indulgence. The Scot makes friends with everything that moves and drinks with all those who toast. The apprentice eater indulges in bacchanalia and ribaldry, striking his chest as a sign of repentance. The fellow on a spree knows how beneficial a meal is, not just for the body but also for the spirit... Today, because of the rain, we spent long hours in a village café observing the sky, discussing the Scot who frolics and recounts his meals. And to accompany him we treated ourselves to a hot dish. After the unpredictable winds and cold rains of the past days, each step counts double. I invent meals for myself and choose the most suitable wines to accompany them... Often the stage is in sight, and the walker still searches, in the vast cellar of his brain, for the bottle that can harmonize the duck breast or the river fish. As a hostage in Lebanon, Jean-Paul Kaufmann had, after his release, recounted how one can nourish hope. With his fellow inmates, they evoked great Bordeaux wines and thought of the Bible. Since then, the free man travels long distances, from Kerguelen to Longwood, on the island of Saint Helena. I, who know only freedom, keep Mr. Kaufmann's advice and his books, precious as gifts, and strive to pay him homage. I am free, and whether God exists or not, may we often be offered words and wine. by Eric Poindron. Excerpt from "Beautiful Stars" With Stevenson in the Cevennes, Gulliver collection, directed by Michel Le Bris, Flammarion. Former holiday hotel with a garden along the Allier, L'Etoile Guest House is located in La Bastide-Puylaurent between Lozere, Ardeche, and the Cevennes in the mountains of Southern France. At the crossroads of GR®7, GR®70 Stevenson Path, GR®72, GR®700 Regordane Way, GR®470 Allier River springs and gorges, GRP® Cevenol, Ardechoise Mountains, Margeride. Numerous loop trails for hiking and one-day biking excursions. Ideal for a relaxing and hiking getaway. Copyright©etoile.fr
- Hurry up, change, we are going to rehearse...
A "king’s fool" gesticulating like a hundred nervous devils addresses us. Multicolored, laden with bells and dressed in a strange patchwork cloak, he grabs Noée's bridle and ties it with his companions, several donkeys of different sizes and colors...
- Which group are you in?
Our astonishment and silence intrigue.
A priori, all festivities delight us, but neither the donkey nor its drivers have received an invitation. Behind the friendly "fool," a real circus camp is set up. Bonfires, long wooden tables, tinware and jugs in abundance... Young people, warriors, indulge in weaponry and crossbows. A short question from us is followed by a long answer from the intriguing braggart. The old town of Puy is preparing for the Renaissance festivities. All the inhabitants are there. You encounter bears – real and fake –, magicians – ditto –, bourgeois, gallant ladies, and rascals. Gendarmes regulate the traffic to allow the armed people to pass. It's fireworks and feasting for several days.
It’s the festival of the king of the bird that will designate the best archer of the city. One must kill the papegaai, the parrot in old French. For a week, the entertainers joust and feast. Even the mayor dresses up! To avoid disappointing our interlocutor, we admit our humble status as wandering travelers... A good sport, he offers to look after Noée – and the backpacks – and to give her some old bread while we refresh ourselves. In the process, he offers us a glass of hypocras, a warm wine flavored with cinnamon and spices. "Served in winter and often for dessert." Cheers...
When Saint François Régis, patron of lace-makers, tried to evangelize them, it was often under a rain of blows that he had to accomplish his holy duty. In the same spirit, as an attentive observer, the beautiful Auvergnat storyteller Henri Fourrât was able to stir his pen. The following anecdote is reminiscent of one told by Lucifugus Merklen about a cuckold and a defective gutter: “It tells of a peasant hiding in the bush, rifle in hand, on a Sunday morning. He waits for a neighbor he has a complaint against. However, time passes. And suddenly, hearing the three strokes of the bell from the village's steeple, he bursts out: 'Ah, the pig! He’s going to make me miss mass!'”
The populations of yore, with their wild and delightful customs, possessed a sense of the divine and precision. The peasantry and the rustic folk have the appearance of old wood engravings still fresh with ink. When noon rings from the bell tower, we discover the tavern of the “described” time, taking care to look under the table to see if a rapier or dagger is hiding there.
In the soul of poets, the café where we took refuge: “You know, we only make nonsense on earth, what else?” And then: “This city is a mixture of priests, stuffy bourgeois, peasants who have come to the city, and madmen.” Henri Fourrât saw it almost the same way: “Le Velay, that’s the very kingdom of brigand lords and passing pilgrims, of good-natured simpletons, hunched over their lace pillows, and of old savages returning from the fair, singing, shouting, taking up the whole road, with tiny green lentils and jewels enriched with garnet, with the drudgery of the ravine and the splendor of the mountains.”
In the upper town, the lace-makers are at their posts, methodically arranged in the winding streets and picturesque alleys. They are, along with the famous green lentil, another outdated pride of Puy-en-Velay. Almost a controlled designation of origin. They are most often encountered on postcards, sometimes on the doorstep of shops, finishing the doily that will add to the pile like a stack of crepes.
Above the lace-makers, the ritual sign seems to force the hand or the wallet: “No imported lace here.” Even if the lace were imported or mechanized, one can always pretend. The old shops of yesteryear are closed for good.
Despite its architectural qualities, its alleys and its ochre or rosy walls of fine workmanship, the city leading to Spain fails to reveal its identity. Religious and rainy, the city mixes piety and mystery, the sacred and the sorcerous. Faith and tourism as well, which are in no way incompatible. The streets and historical facades retain a freshness that the Bastille opera could envy. Yet, the inhabitants feel compelled to add to the plaster and stucco. Beware of decorum. This city that believes in miracles, or believes it believes, is it the lava from the volcanic plateaus that has thus Pompeii-fied it?
In the silence of the crypt, he forces the wood - a horrible creaking from the guide. At the moment of slipping his forearm into the coffin, a decomposed and grinning body appears to him... In terror, he lets go of the lid. His hand, crushed by the weight, breaks several ribs of the deceased in the process. Here is our gypsy with one hand trapped in the chest of the one whose heart he coveted. The lantern falls. Terrified and blind, the coward cannot extricate his arm from the macabre box. This time, he understands... The great reaper nudges him. He struggles, screams at the top of his lungs, cursing at once his grandmother and love... The guide falls silent... After her effect has passed, she continues in a confidential tone. A gravedigger, finding the tomb door open in the morning, discovered the gypsy on the ground. Almost lifeless...
At that moment, it must be admitted, the guide has won the game. The group is shaken. The narrator catches her breath and declares, grave and solemn, that the unfortunate man has been speaking incoherently for thirty years in the psychiatric hospital where he is interned. It is even said that on certain foggy evenings at the cemetery...
On the road
Crossing the Loire before Coubon, I take stock of all these waterways that I know so little about. We have bought maps, many maps. The Blue ones 28360, 2736 E, 2737 E, 2738 E... For fear of getting lost, we also bought the Michelin maps 76 and 80. And an IGN 904... Daniel now plays the archivist and is well-versed in the Massif Central, the Haute-Loire where we walk, Lozère, Ardèche, and Gard, which we will soon tread upon. At the forced stops, I take a glance at the Loire, the Allier, and all the tributaries. The rivers and streams meet, marry, and abandon each other, the tributaries swell the rivers.
Night has settled over Velay, somewhere in Haute-Loire, between North and South. Silent walk. At the exit of the hamlet of L'Holme, around a thicket, the persistent darkness compels a stop. A few twigs gathered and an old newspaper are enough to make a makeshift fire. Tomatoes, Auvergne ham, apples, and coffee serve as a starry table. Eyes lost on the meager flames... Crouched in sleeping bags. There it is, the beautiful star. Silence and quiet reading of the Journey...
Stevenson thinks of Fanny, the forthcoming woman. The adventurous American. Fanny Osbourne, a gold seeker, married to a Texan and unhappy. Fanny is a painter. She is a heroine. They meet in September 1876 in Grez-sur-Loing, where a colony of artists has settled, another Barbizon. English, Americans. Fanny is accompanied by her daughter Isobel, a teenager who will turn more than one portraitist's head, and her son Lloyd, who will not be a stranger to Stevenson’s literary career.
It is while sleeping under the beautiful stars at the foot of Mont Lozère, rejoicing in the spectacle of the world, that he decides to find the woman he loves. Literature serves as his signature. He ponders and he signs. It is enough to read the excerpt, to guess between the lines. Let us call the blessed moment the excerpt "under the beautiful star with the woman one loves." Chapter titled "A Night in the Pine Grove..." Stevenson reveals himself, projecting himself under the beautiful stars with the woman he loves. The confession is concise; however, one can imagine that during his long night, the obsession lasted longer than a short phrase. These are the only pages of this light narrative where Stevenson discovers his romantic side, the color of the night surrounding him. To those who wish to listen to him or read, Stevenson will confide that Fanny hides behind each line. Only it is invisible...
While putting "to rights" sacred travel impressions, Stevenson does not realize that he is opening a wild breach that his friends and other ingrates will try to close with fervor. After the Atlantic, Robert Lewis Balfour becomes the writer Stevenson and accumulates masterpieces, the books we know and others. The historical Scottish novels – written far from Scotland – The Coast of Falesa, a modern tale worthy of Conrad, before Conrad! Stevenson writes, wiping the slate clean of England and its measured literature. Henry James cannot stop praising him and corresponds with the brilliant writer. And each presents his theory of the novel. The English novel and the modern novel will surely benefit. Later, Borges will pay tribute to the Scottish novelist, something like: "What I love most in life is the taste of coffee and the prose of Stevenson..." The corseted England that used to be so picky takes pride. Too late. The adventurer has packed his bags for health reasons. And for other reasons. The journey to the South Seas can begin... Greetings!
In the September sky, the schooners and bold crews have replaced the stars. The constellations look like multicolored reefs. Stevenson, his mother who is traveling, his American and the tribe leave Europe; they set sail for the oceans. A cloud atlas above me. The strands of stars taste like islands... Samoa, the Marquesas where Gauguin has yet to take his bow. I talk in my sleep, dreaming of ships, of loose moorings, counting the archipelagos instead of the sheep in the sky. I often tell myself the same story, without an audience. The continuation another evening, in front of another fire and under other stars. I imagine departures...
A few days before departure, Stevenson sits down to eat and recounts it to his friend Henley. It is September 1878. I am not feeling well today; I am unable to work or even write letters. A colossal lunch yesterday in Puy-en-Velay has definitively settled my account, I believe; I am sure I have never eaten so much – a large slice of melon, jelly ham, a fillet, a plate of goujons, a breast and a thigh of partridge, peas, eight crayfish, cheese from Mont Dore, a peach, a handful of biscuits, macarons, and other things. It reminds me of Gargantua; it costs three francs per person. It wasn't heavy for the wallet, but I fear it may prove unwise for the fleshly tabernacle.
To walk is to eat, to dream of eating. Every stop can lead to a terrine, every stage is an opportunity for a simple feast. Food makes the man. It also makes the walker. On these windy, humid plateaus, famished walkers with torn pockets, stomachs in their heels, demand sorrel soups and local cheeses. Food is the mantra.
