The present: tense. The past, presently.

If there was a thread that ran through my reading last year, it was mediaeval history – specifically the transition from feudal life and the emergence of early Europe. It was sparked I think, by the chance finding of a big book in English, by an American, on the local French history shelves of the bookshop in Narbonne. It was ‘Ermengard. Countess of Narbonne’ by Frederic L. Cheyette. And it caught me, as well as the rest of the region, by surprise – the French had completely forgotten her (or utterly ignored her: she wasn’t a Count so she didn’t count. Ahem.No further play on words.) It was a super piece of detective-work, with masses of source material relating to everyday village life. Some of those 13th century family names are there in the local phonebook.

Intriguing as this unexpected treasure-trove of gossip might be, my over-arching curiosity concerned the interaction of the muslim world with the christian: the Saracen and the Crusader. The Believer and the Infidel. It was a search for some understanding of why the world is in this particular mess. However, one can only spend so long in that tangled web before succumbing to sadness, and ultimately, madness. So it was with some relief, late last year, that I found myself strolling through the Enlightenment of the 17th century. in the excellent company of Neil Stephenson and his Baroque Trilogy. These are also 1000-pagers (as is his wonderful Cryptonomicon) – so that kept me happy and sane for the rest of the year.

Now a 1300-pager has come into my life – a mid-winter present from our Jessica – and it’s back to those murdering Religionists: the Christianists and the Islamists. The book is The Great War for Civilisation, by Robert Fisk. It encompasses his writings for the Times and the Independent: thirty years in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Algeria, Palestine, Israel and other beauty-spots become hell-holes in the name of all that is Unholy. The title comes from the inscription on the reverse side of the World War 1 Victory Medal, and is not to be taken at face value: quite the reverse.

I gave up after the Algerian bloodbath. Half the book remains. I passed it with relief to Mary who has been eying it hungrily. She’ll regret it soon enough. For while she has a seemingly bottomless appetite for philosophy, science, peak oil, sudokus, and murder-mysteries – she may find Fisk’s account of our inhumanity too much to stomache.

And so – what have I found to keep me happy and sane? Well it would have to be history of course – but now it’s very much more personal. During the mid-winter holiday I came across a old box of ‘papers’ in the attic. Scraps of stuff that in some way were related to the family that built the house in 1860. I had already found and read some old letters and inconsequential everyday items, and had presumed these were more of the same: old bills, childen’s notes, invitations to mariages in the area etc.

But there was more in this box: a small envelope with photo negatives. A letter from a captain near the Western Front in 1917. I soon found myself plunged into the world of the village a hundred years in the past. And looking again at the aftermath of the War to End all Wars, when the Great Powers divided up the spoils: carving up Mesopotamia and creating Iraq and Iran, colonising Algeria, mandating Palestine. Slaying one vast old monster only to produce the smaller complex monsters we live with now.

And now the problem is finding a way to begin. I don’t want to make a history lecture of it – because at the heart of it all is a love-story. Not one of the happy-ever kind – one of the unrequited-passion sort, with bitterness and disillusionment, a dead lover and a dead brother, a false gentleman and an impoverished poet, fast cars and mistresses, private religion and public fame.

Village People

Mons = Moux on the hand-drawn Cassini map of France (1750-1820)

Earliest recorded mention of Moux (mooks, ok) also Mous, Mons.
1110. “villa de Murso”
1215 In an ownership arbitration the village known as “Mozie” was signed to the infamous count Simon de Monfort (he of the Cathar cult burnings.)
1246 In the reign of Louis IX, Mossio is assigned in favour of Raymond de Capendu .
1303 Guillelmus de Mossio is named on an inscription in Narbonne.
1309 P. de Mossio, a knight templar of the Diocèse de Narbonne was called for questioning, to Paris.
1377 Mossio is reduced to ‘10 feux d’imposition’ (feu = fire) that is, to be taxed on ten hearths, or houses (with 60 inhabitants i.e. av. 6 people per house)
1709 Mous imposé pour 46 feux (170 habitants, or av. 4 per household)
1818 Moux had 440 habitants
1830 435
1831 504
1851 676
1882 933
1900 1200
1906 1093
1910 1210
1928 1034
1962 771
1998 545

In 1906 the village had six épiceries (general grocer) one selling Spanish produce, and once a week two épiciers ambulants came to the village: Antoine of Lézignan and Caiffa from Carcassonne.There were three bakeries who delivered bread to your door,and two butchers. The charcutier (cooked/prepared meats) of Capendu came once a week.
The village needed many skilled artisans: two bourreliers (harness-makers), three maréchaux-ferrants (blacksmiths, who were also horse-vets by necessity.) One charron(cart or wagon-maker). Two cordonniers (cordwainers’ or boot/shoemakers). One shoe shop. Three barrel-makers and one foudrier, a big barrel-maker, plus one serrurier, a locksmith. For kitchenware there were two ferblantiers - tinsmiths capable of making and re-tinning copper pans, and working with zinc (fer = iron/metal + blanc.)
There were four cafés : le Grand café which was also the state-controlled tobacconist ‘bureau de Tabac’, the Café du Commerce which for a time was a small dancehall and a cinema, before becoming a cabinet-maker’s workshop,ébéniste, and now an artist’s studio. The one on the place St Régis is gone leaving no trace; and lastly the Café du Midi: it’s the only one remaining and is now run by a Harley Davidson fan and decorated with Cowboy & Injun gear, his other passion. He decided last week to hang out a load of American flags – but managed inadvertently to get the stars and the stripes upside down (no disrespect …)
There were three cammionneurs, lorry-men or truckers – quite a modern breed of driver in a rural scene where horses were still in use fifty years on.Two négociants de vin, wine wholesalers: one of whom, Marcaillou, had his own branch-line or siding and a loading-bay at the station. The other, Hippolyte Clément, left behind one of his barrels in our cellar. It’s still sound after a century, and I rolled it out today for use as a rain-butt this summer.

Then there were two animal-feed merchants. And two doctors and a dispensing chemist. Two mason-builders and three plasterers. Gastaud, the carpenter, Balestre the horloger, clockmaker. One sage-femme, mid-wife, Catherine Médus. But the four coiffeurs hairdressers were all men! And one shop selling cloth, ribbon, and fancy items – confections.
Two postmen and one priest l’abbé Sénégre. There were hundreds of children – so: four lay schools – two for boys and two for girls – and a small school run by an order of nuns. These kind souls owned a piece of land, a large walled garden just next to our house, where the children were set to work growing vegetables and fruit for the order. An elderly neighbour recalls them having to whistle while they worked – so the nuns could be sure they were not eating any of the produce.
Opposite the station was a tuilerie, tile-factory – which would have been a large building with a tall chimney: but not a trace remains. There was also a four à chaux, lime-kiln for hydrating chalk into lime suitable for plaster, built near a small quarry on the slopes of Mont Alaric behind the village. Still standing at the edge of the village on a rise, is the base of one of two windmills, for flour and other grains. In mediaeval times, the miller would also have baked the bread for the village – and also produced ‘Fuller’s Earth’ for removing the grease from wool and other hides.
The slopes of Alaric and the plain below were home to numerous flocks of sheep and goats – there were two creameries. The staging-post of former times had become a simple Post Office La Poste, its inn becoming a private house. The horse-drawn mail-coach was replaced in 1857 by the chemin de fer, and new hotels were needed, one at the station, and another, the Hôtel Montagne, at the edge of the village. This has been pulled down and is now a small park. The station was very busy in the first decades of the new century, full of passengers and merchandise – there was even a refreshments stall, and a library – but few of these buildings remain.
Not mentioned in the above list, are the ‘grandes familles’ – the landowners and wine barons. And among these dozen are the two names that interest me: the Escourrou family who in 1863 built this Maison de Maitre – and the De Longueval family who married into it, and from whom we bought it.
There is another list of names, much shorter, on the monument erected to the memory of those who lost their lives in the Great War. There were 37 who did not return to the village alive. One of the humblest was Sylvain Roquefort, one of the four coiffeurs. And one of the grandest was Jacques Escourrou – the son of the house. He was 37 when he died in 1917 – and the war was soon to bring another tragedy into the life of Claire, his sister. She had met, and fallen in love with one of two brothers, a young nobleman from the North – Francois de Longueval.

The bells of Moux

The bells sound three times a day: at 7am to signal the start of the working day – at noon to tell the vineyard workers that it was time for lunch – and again at pm to let us all know the working day is over, and that quiet should reign.

The concept is simple and effective – I no longer wear a watch – but is unique among the villages around. The carillon however is quite complex – try it yourself.

Next are the same three church bells, ringing the carillon known in French as ‘le glas’ The knell rang out this week for Huguette Durand, ‘vieille-fille’ or spinster of 86 on an extaordinarily dark, still evening. Or the lens cap was left on.

‘Ask not for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.’

Click to hear Le Glas

Alcohol and History

Since I started on this research into the families of those who lived in the Big House, I’ve unearthed a great deal – often stuff I wasn’t even looking for. And I’ve discovered one underlying principle: alcohol and research go together most effectively. Particularly in France. Especially in this village. Specifically with me.
I visit la Mairie quite frequently these days : the secretary – subject to the approval of Monsieur Le Maire who somewhat resembles a benign Joe Stalin with a reputation for being un animal for ‘pastis’ (no surer way to curry favour than to offer him some unusual bottle of aniseed-flavoured booze) – has given me the run of the archives: boxes of photos and yet more postcards from before WW1 plus dozens of leather-bound registers of Births, Marriages & Deaths, known collectively as Etat Civil : the civil status of each citizen.
So when I am not here …

… I am out visiting some elder of the village who has tales to tell.
Now if the arrangement is for, say, 11am I arrive with a notebook and an expectation of un p’tit café. Three hours later I’ve just about managed to keep pace with his ‘petit peu plus de whiskee’ and have covered several pages with illegible scrawl that will take hours to decypher.
But the thing is – or are – the tangents. The way one is led down them. The way the way back becomes harder and harder to find. The way one stops caring about french grammar or pronunciation or vocabulary – or where we had got to in the reminiscence.
Meeting an old fellow who loves his history and his ‘aperitifs‘ is wonderful – we are both gambolling wildly down the byeways of time and memory: he, delighted to be given an opportunity to revisit – me enthralled at the immediacy of all this new information.
The trick is to keep writing – as you drink, as you ramble. And never mind the spelling. There’s time enough to be sober.

And as I heard one neighbour say of another – with such utter absence of sentimentality I mistook it for malice – as her coffin was being slid into the family vault : ‘Elle ne parle plus.’

A big old house in a little old village

When we first came to the village, almost the first people we got to know were Charles & Isabelle Simpere.

They are small, independent vignerons who make the Corbières Rouge that flows freely during our summer courses. A few days ago Mary & I called up to pay them a visit and pick up our weekly 5 litres (gallon) of wine (six euros/ 9 dollars?). These visits start off as ‘juste un petit moment’ – and can end up way past midnight. This time we were being sensible: I brought up an old bottle of Tokay from la cave as a curiosity – not thinking it would be anything more than vinegar. We’ve done nothing with la cave since we came eight years ago, and the place has been uninhabited since 1969. The corks in most of the bottles have perished – though a few were sealed with hard wax.

So – first surprise: it was delicious! Then we started speculating about the label: Domaine des Lys, Arquettes-en-Val and why the De Longueval family would have kept bottles of it. And that led to me and my researches into the history of the house and the Escourrou family – and how I had found the old negatives of Claire Escourrou. The atmosphere got slightly electric at this point with Isabelle and Charles looking at each other in a strange way. She revealed that she too has been fascinated by Claire Escourrou for many years – and that she was in possession of a box of documents relating to her and her brother Jacques and other people in the household.
But it was getting late, and we had vowed to be sensible that evening. So we left, fairly sober, but immensely intrigued – and planned ‘une soirée Escourrou’ as soon as possible.

They came round yesterday evening at six with more litres of rose and red and it didn’t wind up ’til gone 12. Isabelle had brought a shoe-box full of postcards and letters. Many years ago, when the house had been closed up and had become the Haunted Mansion to the children of the village, it was a game of Dare for the bravest boys & girls to climb into the walled garden and find a way in to the house. And when their own children came home with a box of WW11 ammunition, Charles thought he had better investigate. So one night, twenty years ago, he too climbed the tree that gave access to the Cook’s house (where we live) and thence through passageways in to the Big House. It was still full of antique furniture then; huge dark wardrobes, gilded chairs and enormous paintings – and a library decorated ‘à la japonnaise’ with red flock panels in gilt bamboo frames. His bag of swag included the box of correspondence – the bag itself was a German army jute sack, stamped with the two-winged emblem of the Third Reich.

The letters and cards were to Claire, to and from Jacques, and to Paul Escourrou, their father. Then there were dozens to other people whose role in their lives is only gradually becoming clear: cards from cousins and nieces & nephews, and uncles & aunts, new year greetings from girl friends, and the occasional suitor. There nowhere appeared the name of her mother, nor any reference to her. There was however one person that seemed to play a central role in her life: Maria Oulieu, the cook or housekeeper – and everyone who wrote to either Claire or Jacques included Maria in their affectionate greetings. And it must have been here, in this little house attached to the side of the mansion, that she lived.
How or when Claire’s mother died (or left) is unknown. There are just one or two people in the village, in their eighties, who might know – then there is Thérèse de Longueval, Claire’s daughter. But she is a formidable personnage, well over 80 and living in Paris.
The correspondence begins in the years leading up to the Great War – mostly the trivialities of ‘highdays & holidays’ – the life of a teenage girl attending a weekly boarding-school in nearby Carcassonne, spending long stretches of the summer with her maternal grandparents, at Serviès-en-Val where she was born.

This is – we think – Claire, Grandmother Hospitalot, Maria the Housekeeper

When the war started she was 21. Henceforth the cards she receives become more sombre: there is anxiety about Jacques (born three years before her, but in Moux) who had joined up in 1910 – and many cards from cousins thanking her for the money and food she sends to them all: to the men in the trenches and to the women & children left behind. The handwriting is faint and small and dense, the spelling and grammar often appalling and I need good light and a magnifying-glass to decypher it all.
Mary and I are heading off now to Serviès-en-Val, for a bright cold sunday afternoon in the graveyard.