Lauragais Blog

The death of Simon de Montfort, 25 June 1218

25/6/2022

ON THIS DAY IN 1218, Simon de Montfort was killed at the siege of Toulouse. A rock fired from a catapult by the women of the town struck his steel helmet and he fell to the ground dead.

There are no memorials to the man who had served as military leader of the Albigensian Crusade since 1209, but this monument at Les Cassés near Saint-Félix-Lauragais was erected in memory of the Cathars who were persecuted by Simon de Montfort and his successors.

Plaques on simple stones record a series of events from the fall of Béziers in 1209 to the year 1321 when the last known Cathar parfait was burned in Villerouge-Termenes.

Meaningful Connections

16/6/2022

This lovely reader's letter in the May edition of French Property News recounts how writing can bring writers together. And we can be a lonely lot, working away in our respective garrets...thank you Gayle, for this tuching story, and for mentioning both my books.

If you are interested in the south of France and/or birdwatching, check out Gayle Padgett's books too.

Guarding the vines

12/4/2022

Being a Languedoc Vine Guardian means you have to keep an eye on your vines. Luckily for us, at Puy Vignoble there are professionals who do it most of the time on our behalf, led by Emmanuel Puy.

We just came along to check the bud break on our 75-year-old carignan vines and to taste the wine from last year’s crop. A great morning out, and thank you Wendy Gedney at Vin en Vacances for organising the visit.

And because Donna was wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with my ‘Menu from the Midi’ book cover, we got talking to one of my happy readers, Carol Bailey, who has the enviable job title of Chief Tasting Officer at Princess & Bear Wines.

Molière and the Contraceptive Dovecote

1/4/2022

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the birth of France’s greatest playwright. Born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, he is better known by his stage name of Molière. His career took off in 1650 when he staged a play in Pézenas for the governor of the Languedoc. Today, this modest town midway between Béziers and Montpellier celebrates its thespian connection by staging a Moliére festival every summer.

Pézenas, however, has a pigeon problem. Last year, as the 400th anniversary drew closer, the mayor began to worry about all the deposits these birds left on the town’s statue of the great playwright. Monsieur Colombier and his team came up with a novel solution, and when I visited Pézenas last week, he showed me his contraceptive dovecote, or pigeonnier, and explained the ingenuity of its operation.

The contraceptive pigeonnier is located in the Parc Sans Souci (Carefree Park), a short pigeon flight from the mairie. The birds come and go as they please, and they build their nests inside this odd-looking wooden structure mounted on a central pillar. Once a week or so, a worker goes inside the pigeonnier and shakes each egg for a few seconds before carefully replacing it. He wears a glove to avoid leaving a scent. This shake of the wrist mixes the yolk and the white and prevents the embryo from forming or developing. The female pigeon resumes sitting on her now-sterilised egg, the population declines and the risk of pigeons messing up Molière's stone wig is greatly reduced.

Fiendishly clever though this may be, my main reason for visiting Pézenas was to give a talk to an association called The Tuesday Club which, with the type of Anglo-Saxon reasoning that defies the cartesian logic of any Frenchman, meets on a Wednesday. Obviously my talk was about pigeonniers, and afterwards, a kind gentleman called Mark who belongs to The Tuesday Club took us to his home where he showed us a bijou-pigeonnier which he has restored in his own garden.

In the olden days, the dedicated pigeonnier owner would put scented oil on the openings, hang some aromatic herbs inside, and even offer his birds a goat’s head boiled in water with salt, cumin, hemp and urine. Mark, however, realised that the pigeons of a literary town such as Pézenas would have more cultured tastes, so he turned the ground floor of his pigeonnier into a book exchange.

What’s their favourite book? According to Mark, it is a work by the journalist Gordon Corera, called ‘Operation Columba – The Secret Pigeon Service’ which tells the story of how British intelligence used homing pigeons as part of an espionage operation during World War II.

And if any wise old birds want to go back even further into their history, they will now be able to read my own book, ‘Menu from the Midi’ which Mark kindly bought for them at the end of my talk.

NOTE TO THE READER The date of this post is 1 April, but all the facts are true except: (i) the mayor is called M. Rivière, not M. Colombier/Dovecote; (ii) the contraceptive pigeonnier was installed in 2014 to reduce pigeon mess in the town generally rather than specifically for the statue of Molière; (iii) pigeons are bright birds, but they cannot read.

Montauban, Ingres and his musée

18/3/2022

After three years of renovation, the Musée Ingres Bourdelle in Montauban had the misfortune to reopen in December 2019. After two years of Covid disruption, I managed to visit it last week. Housed in the former bishop’s palace, the new museum is one of Occitanie’s essential destinations for art lovers. And if you don’t know it already, while you there you will discover the meaning of the French idiom, ‘le violon d’Ingres’ (mine is the piano!)

While you are in town, don’t forget to visit the Place Nationale, surrounded on all four sides by a magnificent double row of arcades (the centre of the square is currently in the midst of building works which are due to be completed this summer). There is also a magnificent arcaded pigeonnier incongruously sited among the buildings of the hospital.

During the Wars of Religion, Montauban was staunchly Protestant: this link describes a short and excellent walk taking in some notable buildings from that period:

If you like vegetarian food, or are intrigued by the idea of vegan foie gras, call in at Namasthè for lunch.

In honour of Louisa Paulin, 1888-1944

12/3/2022

Sometimes, street names are signposts to history. I was reminded of this recently when my road was given a name and my house was allocated a number.

Our street is short, and most of its residents are buried in the graveyard beyond our garden hedge. Naturally my wife wanted to be number one (she always does), while I would have been happy to be number two (as usual). But honestly, number 17? Perhaps the naming committee had decided to give numbers to the larger monuments funéraires. Fortunately, the name of our street brought more consolation than the number of our house.

As the most famous – and only – living writer in my tiny commune, I had briefly enjoyed the fantasy of residing in a street named after myself. Unusual, but not impossible, although because I am both alive and foreign, article 1 of decree 48-665 published on 12 April 1948 would have obliged our mayor to seek approval from the ministry of the interior. It was far simpler to name our road after another writer who was well and truly dead. Mind you, when they unveiled the new map of our commune, I didn’t recognise her name, or even know she was a lady of letters.

Who on earth is Louisa Paulin, I wondered. It was time for some research.

Louisa was born in 1888 in a small town in the Tarn called Réalmont. She trained as a teacher in Albi, and went on to be la maitresse in several village schools in the Tarn including my own, Saint-Sernin-les-Lavaur.

In the early 1930s, she began writing in Occitan, the first language she had learned to speak, but a language which few people knew how to write. (Occitan was the ancient language of the troubadours, and if you want to know more about it, read my book, ‘Lauragais: Steeped in History, Soaked in Blood’.) Her work won several prizes, including an award from the oldest literary institution in the western world – the Acadèmia dels Jòcs Florals, or the Academy of the Floral Games, founded in 1323 by seven troubadour-citizens of Toulouse.

Louisa died in Réalmont in 1944. More recently, her friends have created an association and a website where you can find much of her work, and the photo portrait I have used in this article (click the button 'Louisa Paulin').

A few days ago, I was pruning the hydrangeas at the front of my house. A few lines from one of her poems kept going around inside my head.

‘Someone touched me lightly on the shoulder
I turned around but they had gone.
Perhaps you are the one I was no longer expecting
And of whom the confused memories
Sometimes disturb the mirror of my dreams.’

Louisa, I am honoured to live in a street named after you, and it is only fair that your old home should be No. 1, rue Louisa Paulin.

My review of ‘The Birdwatcher’s Wife’ by Gayle Smith Padgett

1/3/2022

Towards the end of 2018, the birdwatcher (Ralph) proposes a project to his wife (Gayle). He wants to spend the whole of 2019 trying to spot 200 of the roughly 400 species of birds usually present in France. Gayle is in no position to refuse logistical and administrative support because Ralph has just stood loyally by her side for two years while she was writing her first book, ‘A Passion for Provence’.

There are three main themes to the story that unfolds.

On one level, this is familiar territory, a year in the life of a couple of foreigners who have settled in Provence, although Gayle and Ralph are clearly better integrated into their community than many other incomers. This is amply demonstrated throughout the book by a series of anecdotes. Perhaps most memorable is the account of Gayle’s nerve-wracking experience of being filmed on location in Saint-Rémy for a French travel documentary, talking about her first book.

The second theme is Ralph’s quest, and this enables the book to spread its wings far wider than the usual south-of-France memoir. Even if you have no interest in birds, it is a fascinating study of why humans like to set themselves needless, arbitrary and often pointless goals.

Half way through the year, Ralph and Gayle review the score: 150 out of 200 birds looks good on paper, but naturally they have seen all the common creatures, and new ones are becoming increasingly difficult to spot. They remind themselves that their second objective is to have fun, and indeed, quests like Ralph’s are rarely pointless. In this case, it provides a framework around which they can discover much more of France than Provence, try out the menu in countless good restaurants, and visit a wide range of ornithological habitats including sea, ocean, marsh, mountain, landfill site and sewage works.

The third strand is more unexpected. Gayle and Ralph have been together for 30 years, but the birdwatcher has never managed to transmit his lifelong passion to his wife – until now.

For much of the story, Ralph is out in all weathers with his telescope and guide book while Gayle is usually to be found in the comfort of a market, a café or a restaurant. When she does join him in the field, she frequently forgets her binoculars. But as Ralph’s excitement grows in proportion to the increasing rarity of the birds he is seeing, his enthusiasm becomes infectious.

To find out if the birdwatcher’s wife is transformed into the birdwatcher’s birdwatching wife, you will have to read this fascinating book about France and its feathered residents.

Available from Amazon in print and electronic book formats.

If men are involved it’s more complicated

15/2/2022

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of interviewing Alix David in her home at the Château de Terride. Alix is one of Gaillac’s female winemakers, and at the end of our chat she apologised for forgetting to offer me anything to drink.
‘Are you ‘en couple’?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I’m married.’
‘Do you like braucol.’
I confirmed that I did indeed like wine made from this ancient variety of grape.
‘Take a bottle of this, then, and drink it with your wife on Saint Valentine’s Day.’

Alix proceeded to explain why this is wine for lovers. As you will see from the bottle, the label shows two faces in silhouette, Alix on the right, and her non-winemaking husband, Romain, on the left.

On the other side of the label is a poem, ‘Ta main sur mon chemin,’ written by the artist Elizabeth Freund-Cazaubon in honour of Alix, Romain and the wine.

Last night, after pink champagne and strawberries, my wife and I enjoyed this romantic bottle with our Saint Valentine’s dinner chez nous.

Why was I interviewing Alix, and why have I placed two model dovecotes next to her wine?

I visited Château de Terride as part of my research for a project with internationally-acclaimed photographer Jon Davison. Our objective is to tell and show the complete story of France’s pigeonniers, inside out.

Alix is passionate about restoring these buildings which once provided pigeon meat for the table and pigeon manure to fertilise the vines. In 2016, she founded Les Z'elles Gaillacoises, a group of around 30 female winemakers. Each year, the ladies select a pigeonnier in urgent need of restoration and they auction some of their wine to raise money for the repair works.

This year’s auction and associated festivities takes place on the weekend of 11 and 12 June around a pigeonnier in the hamlet of Teulié near Gaillac.

At the end of our interview, I asked Alix why her association is for ladies only. I reflected on her answer while I was drinking her wine with my wife on Saint Valentine’s Day.

‘If men are involved it’s more complicated.’

The best food books for thinking, not cooking

7/2/2022

Have you discovered the Shepherd website? It’s like wandering around your favourite bookstore but reimagined for the online world. All book recommendations are made by authors, experts, and creators through themed lists like this one compiled by me!

Last year, I contributed a list of the best books about France through foreign eyes, and I was delighted to be invited to submit another set of book recommendations.

A fishy tale

4/12/2021

Albi yesterday, viewed from the gardens beside the magnificent Toulouse-Lautrec Museum. It reminded me of a paragraph from my book, Menu from the Midi:

‘In the shallows around the islets and sandbanks of the Tarn, ravenous catfish lie in wait, and any pigeon that strays too far into the river for a drink risks a sudden death. This unlikely behaviour has been filmed for French television and the BBC’s Planet Earth, but it has had little appreciable effect on the pigeon population.’

These thoughts were particularly appropriate as I was in Albi to meet photographer Jon Davison to discuss our collaborative project about pigeonniers (pigeon towers) in the south of France.