My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Eighteen

Friday, 23 December, 1988
Dijon to Pontarlier to Bern to Löhenthal*

Got up at 4:45 like a good child. Good thing I didn’t rely on the wakeup call the desk lady said she’d give me. It never materialized.

Dreamed again of doing backflips all night. Must be something about the bed. Too soft.

Down to the hotel lobby by 5:20. Nobody was there, there was no sign of any number to call for a cab, and there was no switch for the hall where the phone was. Wasn’t even sure what to do with the key. Decided just to hang it on the hook under my room number, and get down to the street.

No sign of cabs there. So, again, I carried the bags. At least they were lighter now. One cab I saw, passed me, going pretty fast. Everyone in Dijon drives fast, it seems.

Anyway, made it to the 5:58 train in decent time, thank God. First change in Dôle, about thirty-five minutes later. Had a bit of anxiety when the train stopped at another small town two minutes before due time in Dôle and I couldn’t see the station sign. But I decided Dôle had to be bigger. And it was.

Train to Pontarlier from there. Hour and a half ride. The conductor or whoever he was joined me in the 1st Class coach (I was the only one there) and wanted to talk all the way in. At least he was friendly and soldiered on despite my bad French, even though he kept me from working on my journal. He says they're planning to build a tunnel under the English Channel (La Manche). First I've heard of it-- I hope it won't mean the ferries will stop running. He also told me there was snow on the ground at Pontarlier. Oh! I hadn’t considered that possibility.

And as the sun began to rise I could see out the window that lo, he was right. First real snow I’ve seen all season.

Over two and a half hours to while away in Pontarlier, and that worked out all right. I left my bags in the ticket agent’s office (gratis) and headed for town. Found a patisserie open and went in and had fresh warm rolls and a pot of tea, sitting down like a civilized person.

While in the washroom there I noticed on a town map they had posted on the wall that this town sports a Rue Berlioz. This I had to see. So I hiked over across their bit of river, on sidewalks that had either been shovelled or else on which the snow was good and packed.

Rue Berlioz is residential one side and has the town swimming pool on the other. Not terribly relevant, but not so different from Rue G. Fauré or Rue Moliere a block or so over. I did admire the street sign, the very fact of it, though. If I were into kiping street signs that’s one that would disappear fast.

Yes, and I’d violate at least three of the Ten Commandments in the process, too.

Well, time for me to turn to more uplifting things. Back to the commercial part of town and searched for a place to sell me some ribbon for that bottle of champagne for Lukas’s* family. The fabric kind would look best, I decided. So I got a meter of red sateen and a meter of nice white cotton lace, which would do nicely.

Back towards the station then, but got rather turned around because the street where I’d gotten the ribbon diverged away from my goal. I was across the river again and over by the local Nestlé plant when I realized this was getting me nowhere. Backtracked, found the signs, and decided I had time to go to the last patisserie I’d passed and spend some of the last of my French coinage on a Jule log cake and one last meringue. Would’ve spent more but thought I might need some money for Customs.

Turned out I didn’t. The inspectors came by on the train. I told them about the champagne and they asked, only one? I said yes, they asked if I had any tobacco, I said no, and that was that. Bon voyage.

Takes no time at all to get into Switzerland from there. Very beautiful today with the snow on the mountains and fields and trees. And the black crows flying across added just the right touch to the monochromatic scene.

The people on the train were obviously Swiss and I could discern the difference from the French. More athletic-looking, less consciously fashionable.

As for marking my national origins, not one person in the last two weeks has nailed me for an American. English, Dutch, or German, but never American. Funny, especially after the Coverdale* pantomime.†

Snow disappeared by Neuchatel and Bern. Pity.

Bern train station is very big and very busy. Had a devil of a time finding the WC and then it was all pay toilets. Forget it.‡

But the currency exchange was easier and I got change for the phone from the Swiss money I’d brought. And I was able to exchange my French money, from the half-franc pieces on up. Didn’t think I’d be able to.

Swiss franc is about $1.47 these days. Bit different from France.

Called Lukas. I’d planned what I’d say in German if his mother had answered, but he did himself. I was speaking French and English and German all jumbled up together but he said from now on I was to drop the French (though he understands that language quite well, too).
He gave me directions on the best train to take and told me he’d meet me on the platform at Olten, especially since the exits lead two different directions.

All the places on the train that goes through there were reserved. But when I told the conductor I was getting off in Olten (told him in very bad German, I’m afraid) he let me stay where I was.

Did the bow for the champagne just before I got off. No time for it to get too squashed that way.

Lukas was not right there when I got down. I got the feeling he was probably down at the other end looking among the passengers from the second class cars. I looked a bit and thought I saw him, then he turned and saw me and came back down the platform.

And it hit me that I’d forgotten how damned good-looking he is. I admit that just now anyone familiar would seem good looking to me but I think a great deal of this perception was objective.

He hoisted my bag and carried it out to the car. But before he closed the trunk on it and my backpack I produced the bottle of champagne. He seemed well-pleased.

I did not give him a hug on the platform. I wanted to and felt somehow the decision was up to me. But I was too shy and the critical moment passed. What I did do is talk too much. I did not tell him that I’d gotten so depressed that being anywhere sometimes seems pointless or that occasionally I’ve taken out my surreptitious store of photographs of Nigel Richards* just to remind myself that there are such charming and intelligent people around to someday again enjoy. But since he asked I did tell him I was rather tired of travelling and wouldn’t mind going back to Oxford early.

As for him, he’s been seeing his friends since he’s gotten back. I told him to be sure and go anywhere he’d been invited in the next two-three days and never mind me.

I told him about various things that’ve happened to me in France and he pointed out salient features in the landscape. If I had to capture it with anything I’d say the country around Löhenthal is like central Missouri near the Ozarks, except that the hills are more rugged here. But the village itself is built on rolling hills.

The Renzberger* family house is a compact modern place with the main living spaces on the second level. The room I was given is off the entry hall, downstairs. Lukas’ mother keeps talking about how small it all is, though, but it doesn’t seem as crowded as my mother’s place in Houston.

Almost as soon as I arrived, Frau Renzberger said to me, "You must call your mother in America and tell her you are safe."

I was perplexed. Why should I call Mom? I’m over thirty; I don’t normally report in to her whenever I go from place to place. I said, "Uh, thank you, but my mom knows I’m travelling in Europe during the vacation."

"No, you must call. She might think you changed your mind and decided to come home for Christmas."

"No, I’d’ve told her if I was doing that."

"But you must call her. She might worry you were on that airplane that crashed on the 21st."

Now she had my attention. "What airplane?"

Hadn’t I heard? And she told me about a PanAm jet on its way to America that started out in Frankfurt and picked up passengers in London and then was blown out of the sky over Scotland. Terrorists, they think it was. Everyone killed, of course, and a lot of people on the ground. A terrible thing. I must call my mother.

"All right," I agreed. "I’ll call her collect."

"No, no, you just use our phone. Just call."

So I did. Mom had not been worrying that I might’ve changed my mind and planned to come to Houston for Christmas and she hadn’t even thought of me in connection with the airplane bombing. But she was very glad to talk to me and know I was well. I told her to expect the postcard and rang off. Didn’t want to run up charges on the Renzbergers’ dime.

Lukas’ mother fed me a nice lunch of eggs and ham and stollen. As she began to cook she said, "Don’t worry, these aren’t salmonella eggs!"

I was perplexed yet again. "What?"

"Salmonella," she explained patiently. "They have found salmonella in the eggs in Great Britain. It is a very big scandal. It is on all the news. Haven’t you heard about it?"

No, I had not. Something else I’d missed, wandering around the provinces of France!

After I ate Lukas and I talked a bit in the front room. He’s going back to Coverdale on the 6th.

We took a walk around the village as the sun was going down. We still managed to see quite a bit. His church (Reformed) and the Catholic church and the antique houses and the new modern-style apartment project that nobody likes. I was sorry to have to tell him it did have its good points architecturally and could be a lot worse.

Talked some more back at the house about Swiss environmental controls and so forth. Very strict, you have to turn off your engine at stoplights.

Then his father called and asked him to come fetch him, since it was nearly 7:00 and he’d missed the last train. So Lukas’ mother, Greti*, came and told me about her husband’s job at the surveying instruments plant. He’s a personnel manager and has a very stressful position.

Supper was boiled potatoes with all sorts of cheese. Quite good, and there were Christmas cookies after. Both of Lukas’s parents know English and they made an effort to speak in that language. I found myself conversing with them a great deal.

Nevertheless I feel a bit ambivalent about being here, especially as Frau Renzberger, Greti, is one of those people who insists she can and will do all the work, you run along and play, and you wonder if she really means it. And of course, I want to do everything right and be liked and don’t know if insisting or retiring gracefully is the better tack.

I tell you, I just can’t relax anywhere. Which maybe explains why I had to listen to Schubert on my headphones in order to relax enough to get to sleep tonight . . .
_________________________
†The parody lyrics to "Three Little Maids" that my two fellow-students and I had sung in our panto bit were all about the characters' being boastful, obnoxious Americans.
‡As far back as high school I'd developed an antipathy towards paying to use the restroom. Seemed immoral somehow. Like making people pay to breathe.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Fifteen

Tuesday, 20 December, 1988
Paris to Reims to Paris to Dijon

PARIS-- Was supposed to get the 8:30 for Reims from the Gare d’Est this morning. But due to not figuring in Paris rush hour on the Métro and having to figure out a strange railway station, I just missed it. First time I’ve missed a train so far. Funny, as I discovered later, I might’ve made it if I’d remembered to look for the train on the board for "Grands Lignes" instead of trying to find it on the one for "Banlieu." The difficulty was that there was an 8:30 to the suburbs, too.

Nothing to do at that point but use the time I had. So I reserved a place on the TGV for Dijon tonight.

Then I boarded the Métro and almost went out to see the abbey church of St. Denis. But the word was that the Métro there was running at 50% only and I had two more transfers to make. And if I was going to Reims today I needed to make the 11:05 train and it was heading towards 10:00 as it was.

So I stayed on the subway to the Invalides stop and walked over in the Paris sunshine to the chapel of St. Louis des Invalides.

This church witnessed the first performance of my Requiem. They were about to hold a funeral service so I couldn’t linger, but it was good to see the place and wonder exactly where Berlioz had placed his four brass choirs.

I could see the Eiffel Tower’s top over some buildings near there. Closest I’ll get this trip . . .

Shocking, isn’t it? But this trip to Paris has primarily been a Berlioz pilgrimage for me. And even though I couldn’t find the Conservatoire day before yesterday and didn’t get the chance to visit his old street in Montmartre to see where he lived or go and "eat bread and salt on the Pont Neuf" as he did in his poor student days, I found he was more present here than he was in La Côte St. Andre. It’s given me real perspective on why I felt so empty about things there.

Paris was the city he flew to, to do and dare and struggle and use the talent God had given him. Even when Paris put him down and refused to rightly estimate his brilliance and talent, it was still the crucible where his musical skill was refined, the fertile field where his mind was sown with the strong seed of Gluck and Spontini and Beethoven and von Weber, the arena where he fought his battles for his music and for the music of the great ones who rose with him.

Whereas La Côte was the place he had to escape from, the place he feared being stifled by.

You know what it reminds me of? La Côte, I mean? Especially seeing the substantial, upper middle class house where Hector was raised, it reminds me of Mission Hills, with all those respectable and prosperous doctors and lawyers and stockbrokers, all proudly expecting their firstborn sons to grow up and become doctors and lawyers and stockbrokers just like them. That’s what Dr. Berlioz wanted Hector to do. He wasn’t a hick country practitioner. Dr. Louis Berlioz was a scholar and a scientist of note. He published esteemed medical papers and had a name among his colleagues. He always thought his eldest would follow in his footsteps, that playing the flute and scribbling music for local string and wind ensembles as Hector did was just a civilized pastime for after hours. For his son to throw over medical school and tell his parents to hell with it, he was going to the Conservatory of Music and become an opera composer, was like a kid from Mission Hills informing his folks he was abandoning Harvard to play in a rock and roll band.

There was so much inertia pulling Hector to accede to his father’s wishes! It was always expected that he'd get his medical degree and return to La Côte and join the family practice and become as respectable and prosperous as his father. It went without saying that he'd inherit that fine house and live out the rest of his days as the esteemed physician of the Isere region! The only thing that could break that inertia was the musical fire within him and his conviction that he had to let it blaze forth and Paris was the only place he could begin to do that.

And that is why I couldn’t find or feel mon cher Hector in La Côte St. Andre. He wasn’t there. He left. He came to Paris and got away.


REIMS-- Made the 11:05. Contrarily, the weather clouded up again as the train travelled east. Of course.

The sculpture on both the west front and the north transept portals of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Reims was being restored. Scaffolding everywhere. So for this one I spent the most time circling the flanks and the chevet. I do like the angels up in the buttress piers. And of course anyone who’s anybody is featured up on the west front.

They don’t have much of the medieval glass left at Reims. What they do have is the axial chapel windows by Marc Chagall (interesting place for a nice Jewish boy) and some very harmonious but quirky windows by Jacques Simon. The latter included one dedicated to the making of champagne.

It’s a pity so much of the cathedral sculpture has been destroyed. It’s very effective the way it continues around to the screen on the interior of the west wall. One of my favorite scenes there was of Abraham offering a tithe of the spoils to the priest-king Melchizedek after the battle of Sodom. Abraham is dressed in full chain mail like a medieval knight!

It looked as if the weather might-- just might-- break enough for me to get some sunlight on the west front sculpture this afternoon. So I decided to go get something to eat while I waited for it to do it. As I wandered through the streets of the town, I found a shop that actually had little busts of mon cher Hector, in alabaster on a marble base. The one on display had the sculpture and the base a little out of kilter . . . In a good cause I can be pretty bold, so I asked the clerk in my best fractured French if they had any more to choose from. He got a ladder and reached down a couple more from high off the shelf above. Examined them . . . ah, yes, one of these was definitely better.

This set me back 72F but I’ve done so little souvenir acquiring so far (books don’t count). Had the store pack it in a box so it won’t get hurt in transit.

The skies did clear up so I returned to the cathedral and took some more photos of the statuary, with the west front all golden. It was a fun getting angles where the scaffolding was least in the way. Thanks to the telephoto lens on the Olympus I think I was able to get some good shots of the kings on the archivolts. Then I popped back inside and admired the sunlight streaming through the medieval glass, especially the west end rose window. What a blessing the sunlight can be!

I thought I’d read that the tomb of Hughes Libergier, a medieval architect, was in Reims Cathedral. But I couldn’t find it. And I didn’t ask the man at the bookstall. This is dumb, because on the train back to Paris I read in the guidebook I bought that it is there somewhere . . . and now it’s too late to see it.

Before I left Reims, since I was in one of the major cities of the genuine Champagne region, I decided to do something gracious for a change. I bought a bottle of champagne for a hostess gift for Lukas’s* family. I think I can carry that bit more . . . Have no idea if the vintner is any good. It’s just what they had on Christmas special at the Monoprix. Really wanted one of those pretty Art Nouveau bottles from Perrier but at upwards of 220F there was no way.


PARIS AGAIN-- After the return from Reims got off the subway at the Bastille stop to admire Duc’s column and see the place where the Funeral and Triumphal Symphony was first performed. There were a lot of other places here I wished I had time to see but there was no way-- I had to find something to eat and pick up my bags from the hotel and make that train for Dijon.

Around that area, though, I found something else I was interested in-- one of the famous Art Nouveau Métro stops, by another Hector, M. Guimard. Glad I caught that.


DIJON, THE HÔTEL MONGE-- Not a good time getting here. First of all, I cut it a little short on time in Paris. Second, with the bust and the bottle and the books and all, and with me being in general fatigued, the bags were miserably heavy to carry. And then the lady at the hotel, who’s known nothing about it so far, so why did I take her advice now? told me (in English, since she had no patience with my French), oh, the slowdown strike is still on, don’t take the Métro, take the #63 bus to the gare de Lyon.

So instead of schlepping one and a half blocks to the Métro stop I lugged everything, feeling like the Ride to the Abyss, four long blocks to the corner where, according to the concierge’s sage advice, I could get the right bus. But when sweating and panting I arrived there, I found that no one on that corner had any idea where any such #63 bus stopped.

So I took the Métro anyway. And yes, it was a bit slow, not being full service, but at least I did get to the station and onto the train with ten or so minutes to spare.

I feel like I spent most of the short time on the TGV catching my breath. I pulled into Dijon, feeling about half-past dead. Blessedly, a man, a fellow-passenger from the train, carried my blue and heavy bag for me from the platform to the outside of the station.

Well, it seemed that since I had to use my Visa, being short of cash, and not liking to check into hotels sight unseen anymore, I thought I could just walk into town and check a couple of possibilities. The distance didn’t seem far on the Michelin Guide map.

It was excruciatingly far. It was 10:00 PM and Dijon isn’t as well populated at night as Paris or Toulouse. The streets were dark and empty and I thought, wonderful, someone could come right now and bang me over the head and steal me blind. But I was so close to the end of my rope, only able to stagger a few more steps before I had to set the bag down and rest, that I didn’t care. I couldn’t hurt worse than I already did. I almost wished someone would come along and run off with my luggage. I’d be free of it then.

Fortunately, one of the Let’s Go hotels , the Hôtel Monge, did take Visa. And they did have a room. And it’s actually not decorated too badly. Usual chenille bedspread but the wall paper is good. And it overlooks a charming courtyard and has a view of the steeples of two churches.

Also has a view of the apartment opposite, whose occupants were engaging in something I’m sure was its own absorbing reason for their forgetting to pull the shades or extinguish the lights. That’s all right, we’ll assume they’re married and leave our own curtains closed. MYOB.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Eight

Tuesday, 13 December, 1988
Toulouse

HÔTEL GRANDS BOULEVARDS, 11:30 PM-- When I woke up at the Hôtel St. Antoine around 8:00 this morning and it was still almost totally dark in my room, with only a sickly glow filtering in from the dirty rippled plastic over the inner courtyard, I decided I definitely had to change hotels.

Spent a good part of the morning doing that. Looking for another hotel, I mean. And had one or two interesting experiences in the process.

At one place they were letting little rooms for 100F with little windows high in the wall, up under the roof. I was trying to decide if I could deal with that and asking questions about whether the front door is locked at night to see if that would tip my decision one way or the other, when suddenly the previously amicable patronne changed her countenance, began to go on about how it was all "trop complique" for her, and summarily showed me the door! I wondered what God thinks of such behavior. I know that if I behaved in such a fashion I wouldn’t expect His compliments . . .

Anyway, I ended up in the first place I’d inquired into, the Hôtel Grands Boulevards in the rue de Austerlitz on the other side of Place President Wilson from where I was last night.

Unfortunately, I have to change rooms again tomorrow. Where they're moving me I'll be paying 135F for a chambre avec douche. Very nice, that will be, but the room I have now, with only a sink and bidet, is quite sufficient and has a (nonoperating) fireplace besides. But it’s booked for tomorrow night, it seems . . .

This room is 90F a night, only 3F more than what I paid at the St. Antoine last night, and it has a large window, on the street. That other place was too quiet.

All that settled, I headed for la gare and got my couchette reservation for Friday night’s run to Paris taken care of.

Then I found there’s no bus to Conques so I checked into rental cars. Hertz has the best one-day deal. 490F. If I do that I go to Aurillac the same day. Depends on if I’m up to wrestling with French road signs.

Saw the basilica of St.-Sernin . . . too bad the sun didn’t stay out. But it was still a lot brighter inside than was Chartres. All a very pretty delicate pink. They laid the brick with a tinted mortar, then flattened the excess over the brick, then raked out a V-groove horizontally.

I hadn’t realized how much of the old polychromy is left. Most of that is in the transepts.

Visited the ambulatory and the crypt. They have quite a fine treasury. And it’s impressive to see the plaque commemorating the fact that Charlemagne helped the church obtain many of its apostolic relics.

The choir is pretty well Baroque. Woodwork, mainly. And it’s true-- the piers for the crossing tower do rather interrupt the flow of vision. But the tower is wonderful from the outside.

The west front is obstinately homely, especially compared with the liveliness of the east end chevet. The odd thing is why it’s so much higher than the nave itself. Were they planning on western towers?

Bought a copy of the book that Dr. Gendle† gave me to study from, and a number of postcards. I seem to have lost all but one of these, having held the bag upside down while consulting my map on the street. I noticed I was doing that, stuffed the one card back in, and figured the rest were all inside. Wrong!

At that point I was wandering around trying to find the laundromat. Finally did, and went and fetched the dirty clothes. Did the wash, so, but sitting in laundries in strange cities is, well, strange.

Blew 91F on dinner, around the corner from the hotel on the rue de Strasbourg. Oysters and other mussels on the half-shell for starters and then a compendium of salmon, carrots, potatoes, and mushrooms in a sauce. Had a carafe of Sauvignon blanc which I didn’t finish.

I dined at one of a line of two-person tables, ranged close together along one wall with a long banquette on one side and chairs on the other. The man seated at the table next to me engaged me in conversation. He looked to be in his late 40's or early 50's and reminded me of the guy who played Manolito in High Chapparal. Seems he was born in northern Italy but moved to France at an early age and has been here ever since. Lives in Rodez but comes to Toulouse on business. A certain amount of chitchat ensued, allowing for my downhill French, but I did not take him up on his offer to go somewhere else for a drink (I’d had enough, anyway) or to a discotheque. There’s probably a difference between being company and being a pickup, but until I learn the dividing line I’d better avoid any semblance of either.

Gave the patron of the hotel a good laugh when I returned. Was thinking so intently about what had just happened at the restaurant that I didn’t process the fact that I had an open door and not a sidelight there in front of me. Kept trying to operate the inoperable leaf and wondering why the man, sitting in the lobby watching the tube, didn’t come and let me in . . .
________________________
†My Medieval architecture history tutor in Oxford

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Six

Sunday, 11 December, 1988
La Côte St. André

HÔTEL FRANCE-- Hector’s birthday dawned cloudy and gray, which has become typical . . . The sun peeked out only once: oddly, when I was reading in the Mémoires about what a sunny spring day it was when he had his first Communion.

That was after church, when I was waiting for the hotel dining room to open for Sunday dinner.

The salle à manger was filled with jolly family parties this afternoon. Interestingly, at a nearby table there was a young man who had a look of la famille Berlioz about him, especially about the nose and mouth and in his abundant mop of curling light brown hair. But he lacked Hector’s poetry and gravity of countenance. I wonder if there are collateral lines extant around here . . .

I also noticed what I think was the cause of that squeaking noise I heard last night. They have a set of Western-salon swinging louvre doors between the kitchen and dining room, and they give out a creech every time a waiter or waitress passes through.

I shall say something about dinner, since I can’t afford many such, at 125F plus wine. It began with an amuse-guele in an egg cup. Layered, with aspic glaze. First bit tasted of chicken stock then as you ate lower with the tiny spoon there was a kind of vegetable puree mixed in. Carrot and tomato, I think.

Then came a nice bit of pâté chaud en croûte.

The fish course was a cold lobster pâté with a dollop of creme dressing with chives. The slice of pâté was very prettily decorated with chives and red and black caviar. On the side was a decorative lattice of haricots verts with tiny carrot balls inside the squares. A garnish more than anything, but it was cute. This was all quite delicious.

The only real disappointment was the main course. It was bits of duck that came drowned in a brown sauce, served in a copper skillet. The meat was rather overdone and the sauce reminded me too much of the omnipresent stuff the cooks at Coverdale* make from a mix. There were scalloped potatoes on the side and they did come off, however.

I’d pretty well eaten myself into a coma by then but still sampled four kinds of fromage off the cheese board.

And then there were little bonbon affairs and then the dessert I chose, a passion fruit mousse. Thought that was appropriate for celebrating Hector’s birthday . . .

Couldn’t finish any of these, and the waitress asked if I wanted to take it with me. With my bad French I gave her the impression I didn’t and as ungodly stuffed as I was I didn’t make any effort to correct that. Rather wish I had, now.

Chose a white Savoie for the wine. Fine with the lobster pâté but I think a red would have worked better with the duck.

I’m afraid I let my gourmandizing laissez-faire run away with me, however. I know the French take their eating seriously, especially Sunday dinner, and I can spend three hours over a multi-course meal with the best of them, which this afternoon I did. However, my sitting there patiently between courses letting the waiting folk assume I had nothing to do here in La Côte except pack in their cooking really reamed me for time. I barely was able to see the Musée Berlioz and then get back to the church for the concert. And I was late at that, making it for only the last two Faurés. They were the pieces I wanted to hear, but still I had no time to wander around the town and take pictures, at all. And the bus leaves at 9:13 AM tomorrow, which in this land of eternal daylight savings time means it will be just barely light.

As Mr. Chenley† said in his letter, the director of the Musée was most friendly and courteous. He even came downstairs (after I had explained that I was a member of the London Berlioz Society) to where I was looking at the chronology to give me a keyring and medal made for the 1969 centenary of Hector’s death.

What he did not give me was his name, nor I mine. For that matter, I am not even signed in here at the hotel. Madame says last night, oh, it can wait till morning. Very nice and trusting, but I don’t really care for the idea that if I croaked up here this evening they’d only know who I was by rummaging through my baggage.

Anyway, at the Musée it’s hard to tell what room is what, as there’s no way of knowing if the furniture is arranged as it was in Berlioz’s time or if it was just put in to look pretty.‡ I did ask which one was where Dr. Berlioz taught his son Latin. It’s the room opposite the kitchen.

There’s a chair in there that was Hector’s. Forgive me, mon bien-aime, but I’m afraid I was so far within myself that it was only my intellect that moved itself to realize, "He actually sat there."

It’s a charming house, however. Very nice marble fireplaces. And a stone sink in the kitchen. And plaster walls with painted designs.

The music isn’t piped anywhere but into the reception room, to the left of the entry, but you can hear it dimly upstairs. Bits of Harold, the Hamlet Funeral March, the Waverly and Le Corsair overtures . . . Nothing vocal or they might’ve gotten something live.

I had Volume I of my 1878 edition of the Mémoires with me, and showed it to the people on the desk. I didn’t understand all their comments but I gathered it was a reasonably good find.

They gave me a copy of the Bulletin of the French Society. And I bought a monograph on Hector’s childhood and adolescence (plus a few postcards). Tout en française, à bien sûr, meaning I’m in for the long haul with this language . . . but I would dearly love to have a companion with me to whom I could speak English and who could maybe supplement my French . . .

Got back to the hotel (where I dropped off my camera) then over to the church just before they were to do the Cantique de Jean Racine. The director of the Musée was there and very kindly made sure I got in on a student ticket and found me a seat closer to the front. The choir, who I think are called "À Coeur Joie," and the orchestra, the Orchestre de Chambre du Dauphine, did a positively luminous job on the prayer. The Fauré Requiem was lovely, too, but the men were just a tad harsh in places and the baritone soloist was choppy in his phrasing. Still, they did lots better than we did in Hector’s Te Deum last Saturday. And the audience liked it. Set up a rhythmic clapping afterwards . . . but there were to be no encores ce soir.

The acoustics in the eglise St.-André are pretty good. Apparently the nave used to have a wooden roof but it’s rough plaster now. The aisles are ribbed groin vaulted. The nave piers are great fat round Romanesque ones but the arches are all pointed. The architecture is in general rather klutzy and uncoordinated (nothing aligns or matches), but it’s solid and substantial nonetheless.

In spite of or because of what I experienced this afternoon and evening, I’m afraid I feel a bit depressed. The weather has a lot to do with it and so does the language. I can get my physical needs met in it but none of my emotional ones. I hope I pop out of this before the 23rd or else I’m going to make a pest of myself when I see Lukas*. He’s liable to get a hug whether he wants one or not.

Perhaps I would feel differently if I’d been more inspired by what I’ve seen today. But perhaps the voice and presence of men of vision speak more loudly in their works than in the sites and artifacts that knew them in their physical presence. Meaning I wasn’t as moved as I’d expected to be seeing the house where Berlioz grew up and learned Virgil and the first elements of music.

But I just had a rather alarming thought. Over the last fourteen and a half years since I learned and sang the Requiem, Hector's music has become internalized for me. It's become part of my personality as much as of his, and to a degree that’s also happened with the places and things he described in the Mémoires. So when I see them in person and their reality doesn’t fit the concept I had of them in my head, they seem somewhat irrelevant. Worse, they seem to take this person to whom my soul feels so close and remove him from me, to make him a stranger like all the strangers here.

Fortunately, I brought the music along. Oh God, let it not abandon me!

I think I should take advantage of the bathtub again this evening. Heaven knows when I shall have another chance . . .

A silly note here. My missing glove you know about. But here’s the further tally of items lost so far: My luggage keys and their neck chain, pulled off somewhere between Caen and Chartres (nothing was locked, fortunately). My Youth Hostel pass which I left at the desk at Chartres (they’re supposed to be sending it to the PO at Toulouse, poste restante). And I appear to have left my slip at the Auberge in Chartres as well. Now this is really too bad. It was good enough for me to wear but with its shot elastic and safety pins, it’s really no good to anyone else. I shall have to buy another, too. Pestiferous.

I can't hear that squeaky door below me tonight, so I guess the restaurant isn't open Sunday evenings. That's a blessing, at least.
__________________________
†The then-secretary of the London Berlioz Society
‡The Musée was renovated in 2002-03 for the Berlioz birth bicentennial, so this state of affairs may well have changed.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Two

Wednesday, 7 December, 1988
Caen to Mont-St.-Michel to Chartres

ON THE TRAIN-- Unbelievable, but I actually made it onto the 6:48 AM train to Pontorson (final destination, Rennes). No line at the guichet at this hour so it didn’t take any time at all to get my EurailPass validated. The guidebooks all tell you to write on a piece of paper what you think the correct usage limitation dates are, but I couldn’t find anything to tell me exactly how long a one-month pass is to go, thirty or thirty-one days. So I went for broke and put down the 7th of January as the end date, and ticket agent accepted it and wrote it in. Hope to gracious that’s acceptable. Some of the literature said something about a special stamp . . . but maybe that’s just the validation seal.


7:05 AM-- M. le Conducteur was just in. He didn’t even look that closely at the thing.

There was an older couple in the car when I got on. I'd looked around and discovered the only place to put my luggage was on the overhead rack. When it came the turn of the heavy blue suitcase, I grabbed hold and tried hoisting it over my head. Impossible. I simply could not manage it. But the gentleman saw my plight and came to the rescue. As he deposited my bag on the rack, he and his wife gave me greeting, in French.

Um, I know what they just said-- the polite response is, um, um . . .

And the gentleman said, "Mademoiselle ne pas française."

"Oui, Monsieur."

"Vous êtes l'anglaise?"

"Non."

"Hollandaise?"

"Non, Monsieur. Je suis une Americaine."

Funny! But I guess I have a lot of both English and Dutch in me, with the Zickefooses and the Lewises and the Hendrickses and so on . . .


MONT-ST.-MICHEL, 1:40 PM-- O mon âme, pour toi que reste-t’il á faire, mais brise ton orgeuil, devant si grande mystere?

Comment á dire? The coach travels the winding road from Pontorson, passes through another little village or suburb, winds through nondescript wintry fields and hedgerows, and all of a sudden, out from behind a stand of trees or a screening cottage, there it is. You think it’s a mirage but no-- "Domine! non confundar in aeternum!" You sit back stunned and say to yourself, "So, it does exist!"

You look again, and drawing ever closer and ever more distinct it rises against the horizon like a vision of the New Jerusalem come down from God-- Mont-St.-Michel, the Mount of the Holy Archangel. And you weep. C’est tout.

The bus driver drove over the causeway and pulled up on the beach, under the walls and next to the portal. Having confirmed the hour of departure-- tout en française-- I got down, one of only four passengers on this trip.

The calm and silence spread like a benediction. I looked up through the portail de la ville and saw how the sunlight, radiant in a clear blue sky, glistened on the buttresses and spires high above, striking a high resounding note off the gilded effigy of St. Michael on the peak of the fleché of the crossing of the church at the island’s summit. It was so beautiful I was overcome again.

But practical matters came to the rescue: I was out of film in the Minolta and by the time I’d put a new roll in I’d recovered my equilibrium.

Mostly.

It would be impossible to describe all the little winding streets with their stairs and bypaths leading up, down, around, but predominently up, up, magnetically drawing you to the Abbey itself. But every step brought new vistas, new compositions in stone and sky, new marvels of unself-conscious beauty, all with that blessed sunlight illuminating and highlighting the textures, the details, and the warm yellow-orange of the stone. The only sound was the slapping of the waves in the canal estuary and, as I climbed higher, the cooing and flutter of pigeons in the tower above.

I seldom saw another soul and I did have to wonder if anyone lives here at all or if the whole town has been made into a museum. I did see one young man cleaning the windows of a restaurant just inside the inner gate, but not much of anyone else. Perhaps the village missed a little of the medieval clamour and bustle but it was blessed peace for me.

I wish I had a better voice: l’ambiance, le lumiere du soliel, le jour, le Mont lui-même-- all demanded Berlioz’s "Te Decet Hymnus," and sung better than I could in my breathless way.

Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion,
Et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.
Exaudi, exaudi orationem meam:
Ad te caro omnis veniet!

The whole atmosphere of the place led me to worship, to a desire to kneel down and pray, right there on the pavement stones of the little ascending street. That impulse I would save for the church. But first I explored and photographed (and photographed! and photographed!) all the little lanes and ramifications, with their continually-surprising compositions of walls and steps. I would let the greatest thing come towards the end.

To reach the abbey one enters a kind of porch with leaded glass windows and more staircases leading upwards. There sits une jeune femme behind a guichet and she sells you a ticket for 23F. Then you go up the steps and through an archway out into the sunlight again. The echo of the pigeons in the tower is omnipresent, like a great whirring machine. As you proceed up the way, you can see low arched doors set into the wall to your left. These were, or are, the cells of the monks. To the right, en haut, is the crossing tower and the pinnacles of the Gothic choir. The southern portal to the church was ravished in sunlight, the beauty of the whole an aweful thing to behold. Oh my God and Father!

Tibi omnes angeli,
Tibi coeli et potestates,
Tibi cherubim et seraphim
Incessabili voce proclamant:
Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus,
Deus Sabaoth!
Pleni sunt coeli et terra majestatis gloriae tuae!

Mon cher Hector has been in a similar state, and I have the advantage of him-- I am a Christian. But at last I began to understand what he meant by "Les grands transports."

The south door is the Mass entry only. To visit the church one goes through the little bookstore and out into the wide court before the western face. There are abbots buried under its pavement, but of course that used to be inside the nave-- I think-- until three bays of it collapsed in the 18th Century. And you can see mason’s marks-- or are they positioning codes? on the pavers.

From here you can see far out to the west, south, and to the north, where then, at 11:00 am, the signature shadow of the Mont spread across the tidal flats.

The west front is handsome in an honest, homely way; they must’ve done it to match the old Romanesque one after the disaster. I learned later that the spire that now surmounts it all is a 19th Century contribution. In that case, it’s an instance of when the Neo-Gothic improvers actually accomplished their goal. There was sort of an anti-climactic onion dome before. The new spire gathers all the energy from the rocks and buildings below and sends it straight up to God in a transformation from material to spiritual that is more than metaphor. And suspended between heaven and earth sanctus Michael signifer acts as God’s agent for the final defeat of Satan, our accuser, and oh, Lord, may that actually happen soon.

One of my fellow-passengers from the bus came out of the church just as I was about to go in. And so I had it all to myself.

The light, filtered by the cames of the glass, was playing in softly-formed arches on the stonework of the choir ambulatory and reflecting gently off the plastered groin vault of the side aisle. Mon Dieu! qu’est-ce tu as fait!

The Romanesque nave has a wooden barrel-vault shaped ceiling but the choir is loftier and has a ribbed vault with bosses. There is an oculus, about four feet wide, in the center of the crossing. It has a trap door, through a hole in which passes the bell rope, to the tower above.

I could describe all the architectural features; heaven knows I’m used to writing such essays by now. But I will, God willing, let the slides speak for me on that.

Before I took more than one or two pictures I did sit and pray-- there were no kneelers in the nave-- I can’t say I told God this in so many words but I was most grateful for the opportunity to be private in that place. I prayed for my vocation, that God would show me what He wants me to do in Architecture once I return to America, or if He still wants me to be an Architect at all, and if not, Lord, what do You want me to do? I sang the old 15th Century [Johannes Ciconia] Gloria, and though it was done softly the acoustics are sensitive enough that it still set up echoes. I know it sounds overweening to say so, but somehow, when I went over by one of the crossing piers and aimed my camera up at the north nave elevation, something told me the Gloria was in order. I kept raising my camera as I sang it, thinking Oh, I could shoot and sing both, but each time I knew it wasn’t right. There is a marked difference between an act of worship, however inadequate, and merely testing the acoustics.

I’m afraid I tripped over the French language at one point, and it was on a word I should know. No, I do know it; I was just reading in meanings. I do the same in English . . . At the boundary of the choir and of the choir ambulatory there were signs in French notifying visitors that the consecrated Host was in the sanctuary, so kindly do not enter the choir, except for-- and there was a word I thought meant "priest." But I’ve known for ages that "priere" means "prayer"! But I saw what I expected to see and that was that. And so I did not enter at all.

Visits to the church are supposed to be limited to one hour so I pulled myself away and walked out into the cloister and into the refectory. I was soon joined by a couple as I was making a circuit of the cloister garden. One of the Mont wardens came in and told us-- en française, á bien sûr!-- that the church was closing for the morning. But he showed the three of us through the Salle des Hôtes [Guest House] and the Chapter House/Scriptorium, into the crypt with its great pillars, past the treadwheel, and through various other chambers, though far from all there are, until we were ushered through another long room, at one end of which was another bookstore, and thence into the foyer with the ticket booth.

But I had already made up my mind to go to Mass, even if I haven’t been for several years, and when I was halfway down the stairs I remembered that the south door to the church was the other way. So I climbed back up and remet the warden chap, who was talking with the priest. The latter told me, in English, Yes, go back on up, but keep in mind there’s no leaving in mid-service.

I wouldn’t dream of it, especially not today.

There were seven laypeople in the congregation for Mass, along with the priest, two co-celebrants and three deacons. Their deacons are deaconnesses, nuns, probably, making me wonder how the little community here is set up. (I saw some of them coming out of the little cells in the wall about the time I turned around to go back up to the church.)

I was able to understand the French well enough to recall where we were in the service. I could tell the priest’s homily was on an Advent text from Isaiah. But it would have been much better had I been able to participate in the chanted responses more confidently. The overtones made our little group sound like a picked choir. It was glorious.

And it was good to sit there in the choir pew and think of all the saints who have gone before and those who are now yet struggling, to pray for the Coverdale* silent retreat that starts today and the college’s ordinands’ vocations and to thank God for Nigel* and how he models the grace and light of Christ for me.

When it came time to stand, I found I was shaking on my feet. But it was from tiredness or nervous excitement. Not from cold, not at all from cold-- even though I’d laid my car coat aside and was wearing only my blue velvet jacket over my sweater and shirt, even though I could see everyone’s breath. Amazingly, my perpetually-cold hands and the rest of me felt warm!

I think there could be something to physical self-denial, if it were offset by a high level of spiritual excitement. Maybe that’s always the way it’s been. You’re so caught up in God you forget yourself and mundane things like what would be nice to have for lunch.

I did receive Communion, RC or no. You know my feelings on that. It was right.

Afterwards, I wended my way out and around where I hadn’t been before, along the tops of the outer towers. The sky was starting to sport some clouds but it was still quite warm out for this time of year.

Pretty soon, I passed on to one of the restaurants, La Terrasse Poulard (everything is "Poulard" something here) and decided I’d go in and have one of the famous Mont-St.-Michel omelets. So I did, with cuttlefish in sauce. And that is where 1:40 found me.

I wish I could say my exalted mood survived lunch. There’s nothing like surfeit to knock the poetry out of one. The omelet was huge and, true to French custom, left warm but undone inside so the whipped egg made a kind of sauce. Then I had almost two large bottles of mineral water and a piece of tart aux pommes. (The second bottle of water was on the house, because after drinking two-thirds of the first one I poured out the last glassful and discovered a small spider had committed suicide in it. One does not think of the implications . . . )

Oddly, after I left the restaurant the streets I visited were ones that were being repaired. Or that led to houses or areas of the abbey that were under reconstruction. Or those from which I could see TV antennas on a hotel or two, or the plastic bubble skylights somebody had stuck on the roof of one of the houses . . . More tourists were arriving by now, mostly French but still bringing an atmosphere contrary to the sensations of the morning. I was rapidly falling prey to prose.

But I had thought about this in the church, during Mass! No matter what sort of spiritual experience we may have, the realities of daily life will intrude and must be dealt with. Roofs need to be repaired and other people, including ourselves, can be difficult. But let us, let me, take the strength and the awe and the sense of God’s presence gained in worship and in that deal with the world, instead of working on the world’s terms. You let yourself get tied up in a worldly point of view, and all is lost.

[Here ends the entry for the day. But at 4:00 PM I caught the return bus to the mainland and the station at Pontorson. I collected my checked luggage and took the train on to Chartres, where I checked in at the Youth Hostel, aka L'Auberge de Jeunesse.]

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day One, Part 2

Tuesday, 6 December, 1988
Oxford to Caen

LA MANCHE, 5:05 PM-- I did get a cab right quick out front. I was in good time for the station and the train to Portsmouth Harbor. Changed at Reading. I regret to say the luggage is beastly heavy, especially with me trying to get a cold and having had no sleep and no food to speak of. Providentially, I keep finding people who volunteer to carry my bag for me, for which I am grateful.

The countryside between Oxford and Portsmouth was lovely, the sun shining and the fields an intense but mellowed shade of yellow green. There was an old man in the train from Reading, where I had to change, who lives near Portsmouth and was telling me about how he used to go camping with the Boy Scouts on the Isle of Wight. He pointed out the castle at Portchester, I think it was, and said it dated from the 1000s.

The ferry was late coming in, due to choppy seas. We didn’t get underway till way after 4:00 (3:00 PM is proper sailing time) and shan’t be in to harbour till very late. I do hope the bus into Caen is still running.

This is a French ship, the Tregastel. It’s like Montréal on board, in that the staff all speak French primarily but since their English has to be good, too, I feel a little foolish practicing my rudimentary French. Thus far I have been mixing it, and not adding in any Russian. We will see how I handle it when it comes time to buy dinner.

It’s a pity we got started so late. It’s quite dark now and I won’t be able to get a view of the open sea. There is a bit of a swell, producing a feeling as if the ship were making a continual righthand veer and rather as if one had gotten pleasantly tiddly. It’s making me quite sleepy . . . .


10:20 PM, FRENCH TIME-- Did you know the French are an hour ahead of the Brits? Whether it’s got to do with the country’s longitude east or if they just never go off Daylight Savings Time, I don’t know. Well, that’ll give me longer to see things in the afternoons, though an hour less sleep tonight. If I’d known we’d be this late I’d’ve hired a cabin and stretched out. As it was, I nearly fell asleep sitting at a cafeteria table before dinner.

Turned out I had no option about using French when trying to get something to eat. The chef-cum-server didn’t have any English. English food though: fried fish and chips, all luxuriously greasy. Poisson et frites, s’il-vous-plait!†

When I was finished and started to unwrap the chocolate angel Friedhelm* gave me the other day (I remembered to take it with me at the very last minute and ate it this evening so it wouldn’t get squished in my new satchel), the man who carried my suitcase onboard for me this afternoon came by my table and asked me, in French, if I were French and returning home.

No, I told him, je suis une Americaine.

He eventually sat down and we had a nice long chat. He had no English at all and you know about my French. We did communicate after a fashion and I think I got the gist of most of it, if not the details. It was hard to tell if, when I couldn’t follow him, it was due to my lack of vocabulary or to his digressive style.

I think the latter, in the case of his telling me about his friend who has a fishing boat in Brittany and then getting off on the tale of all the American tankers that’ve broken up and left oil slicks all over the Bretagne beaches. Maybe I missed something about how the fishing wasn’t as good as it used to be.

He lives in a suburb of Caen, had just been over to England for the day, and was now coming back. Likes boats. He says there’re about seventy hotels around Caen. I just hope I can find one whose proprietor won’t be angry at being rousted out at midnight.

It shouldn’t be much longer now. I’ve been seeing lights on the horizon for over a half hour and we appear to be drawing even, as I write.

(It’s 11:10 PM.)


CAEN, 1:10 AM-- My Norman helper continued to keep me company off the ferry and into Caen, until he’d seen me into a hotel pres de la gare ["close to the train station"]. I never got his name. Though I suppose I could’ve, if I’d been quicker on the uptake. For some reason on the bus from the ferry port he was trying to tell me his birthday and ask me mine, and when I didn’t understand he showed me his entry permit, which certainly had his name on it. The interesting thing is that his permit said he was born in 1948. My apologies, but I would’ve said he was nearly ten years older than that. That’s a year younger than Eric* [a former (single) architectural employer]. But then, Eric’s always been a handsome cuss. That’s why I put up with him for so long.

Continued fun with the French language. I have to work on my numbers and stop adding them up in the air in front of me.

He asked me if I’d been speaking French in the US. No . . . (only to myself and in writing, which I want to express untoward thoughts towards ineligible objects . . . ).

Passed the château on the way here. Lit up at night. It was William the Conqueror’s. Of course! Survived the bombing in WWII, apparently.

Settled on a hotel near the station. Whole string of them here. This one is called L’Hôtel du Depart. Up the street a ways is L’Hôtel du Arrive. Humorous people, these Normans.

This place strikes me as odd, but I think I’ve discovered why it doesn’t seem quite as nice as it could be. It’s because this whole street (or place) is totally packed with hotels and brasseries, and I think subconsciously I was affected by thoughts of Honolulu’s Hotel Street, famous from Magnum and Hawaii 5-O. And it is not a nice place.

This is setting me back 100F [about $20 at the time], with a sink and a bidet in the room and WC down the hall, just like at Coverdale*-- except for the bidet. I can’t find the light for the washroom, but that’s like Coverdale, too, where according to time-honored Oxford tradition, the mirror is small and in the darkest corner of the room.‡ I can see how God has used this past fall to get me used to such major trials and tribulations as these.††

Speaking of WCs, I’d read of how casual the French are about bathrooms and I witnessed that one on the boat.

Actually, I made the first faux pas. Just after I’d gotten on board I saw a sign saying Toilet and so I went and used it. On the way out I noticed the urinals and wondered if it were a coed john, again like Coverdale-- until I got to the door and noticed it had a pictograph for "Men" on it. I was glad no one else was around to see.

But then just before dinner, I was in a bona fide ladies' room, getting ready to wash my hands, when a man came in and quite matter-of-factly headed for one of the stalls to use the stool. (Stall door closed, of course.) I quickly stepped out into the passage to verify that I hadn’t made the same mistake twice--no . . . So I (mentally) said ok! and went back to the sink to do what I was doing. My nonchalance may’ve had something to do with yesterday evening, when I was the casual witness to the scene of several future vicars stripping to their briefs and changing into their pantomime costumes in front of God and all the rest of the cast. Nic Chistlethwaite* had some really brief black ones on but he’s no good for a cheap thrill-- he’s too skinny.

The decor here is basic Motel-6 in a blue version (chenille bedspread exactly like the ones at Covers) but the plumbing fixtures are new and nicely-designed. And I am greatly enlivened to see that the closet door is fitted with one of those plastic and metal foil recessed pulls, from Häfele or Ironmonger, such as we found to be useless at the Griffons’ [a residential project I'd been working on in the States]. Here they solved the problem by fastening a screw straight through the middle and into the wood. Tacky-- but effective.
_______________________
†NB-- I'll translate the French, German, etc., only if I think the meaning may not be obvious. But unsupplied translations cheerfully made upon request!
‡Dorothy L. Sayers allusion, from Chapter 1 of Gaudy Night
††Warning! Major self-deprecatory sarcasm alert!!