The Valley Of Heaven And Hell_Cycling In The Shadow Of Marie Antoinette

by Susie Kelly

  Hautvillers church is small and bright, with beautiful carved stonework and gleaming pews. In a secluded corner a stern old lady was lighting a candle to buy a blessing. I wondered who or what it was for. A couple of coach parties gazed reverently at the polished slab glistening in the sunshine pouring through the window, beneath which the Dom slept and dreamt of drinking the stars. The crowd listened intently while their guide described the work of the clever monk.

  The name of Dom Pérignon is synonymous with champagne, but how many people link the name of Christopher Merret to the drink? While it is DP who is generally credited with the “invention” of champagne, if you read about the history and development of the drink, you will find many references to the fact that it was Mr. Merret, an English wine merchant, who first created a sparkling white wine in 1672 by adding sugar to still wine, and it was in England that the first bottles were invented that were sufficiently robust to withstand any explosion of their contents. It was not until a couple of decades later that Dom Pérignon took his place in history by perfecting the process and introducing the cork stopper. Still, the Dom gets the kudos, while Christopher Merret’s name is known to few except amongst the champagne cognoscenti.

  In the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris another ‘Dom’ Pérignon is buried: Dominique-Catherine Pérignon, a soldier, politician and Marshal of France, and nothing to do with champagne. Odd name for a man, isn’t it?

  Outside the abbey a couple of coach drivers were studying my bike with a mixture of interest and suspicion, the way somebody might examine a strange insect. I explained how it worked and offered them a ride, but one shook his head and the other just grunted, and they both moved back to the coach as if seeking protection from mad Englishwomen.

  The killing slog up to the village was worth the exhilarating whoosh back down. Terry reached 30 miles an hour, only limited by the bends in the road, but I was more cautious, resisting the temptation to go flat out, conscious that if I flew off onto the tarmac, with no helmet and virtually no clothes on, it would certainly mean the end of our journey, so I followed more sedately, hitting 18 miles an hour, which was still quite fast enough to release the adrenaline.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A Small Epiphany in the Catalaunian Fields

  “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” Douglas Adams

  The still green waters of the Marne

  NEXT morning we set off towards Châlons-en-Champagne, site of a seminal event in the history of Western civilisation. In the 5th century, at the stirringly name Battle of the Catalaunian Fields, an alliance of Romans and Goths trounced the ferocious hordes of Attila’s Huns in a savage battle that led to vast loss of life but succeeded in putting an end to Attila’s conquest of Western Europe.

  The gardien of the campsite at Epernay recommended a pleasant route which took us through the top-notch, grand cru village of Aÿ – a tricky little name pronounced like a cry of anguish – famed for the quality of its wines long before champagne was invented. We stopped there for a late, light lunch and a glass of ratafia. I remembered this as a small biscuit, or an almond-flavoured liqueur favoured by old ladies in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, but the ratafia of the Champagne region is a blend of brandy and the champagne ‘must’, resulting in a rich and rather sweet drink, very similar to our local pineau de Charentes.

  We continued through Tours-sur-Marne, home of Laurent-Perrier, one of several great champagne houses developed and managed by a widow; in fact in the case of Laurent-Perrier, two widows, one having bought the enterprise from another. We debated what it might have been that killed off so many champagne husbands. Flying corks? Exploding bottles? Too much of their product? Surely not wifely ambition? I thought it rather odd. Being the male head of a champagne house seemed to be an inherently precarious occupation. But didn’t the widows do well? Bollinger, Clicquot, Roederer, Pommery, Perrier all flourished under female control, during the 19th century and through two World Wars. The widows’ might, one might say. And yet women wouldn’t have the right to vote until 1945!

  Laurent-Perrier was sold by the widowed Madame Perrier to the widowed Madame de Nonancourt, whose sons, Maurice and Bernard were an active members of the Résistance during WWII. Maurice helped to organise the escape from France of young men being sent to Germany for forced labour, but he was captured and deported to die in a concentration camp. Bernard survived the war, and in an interview in 2004 described some of his wartime adventures. In Paris he was recruited into the Résistance by one of my personal heroes, Henri Grouès, better known as l’Abbe Pierre. [Founder of the Emmaus movement, an iconic French figure in his black cassock, with huge ears, a scraggly beard, spectacles and black beret. A tireless campaigner for human rights, he is a story all of his own.] Then he travelled to Grenoble for commando training, before joining the Leclerc tank division of the French army.

  ‘I arrived at Maisons Lafitte announcing I wanted to fight and offered 100 bottles if I could be on a tank straight away. It’s true that 100 bottles to get your head blown off might not sound like much. But I wanted to avenge my brother who was killed by the Germans at Oranienburg in the concentration camp’s gas ovens.

  ‘By the time we reached Berchtesgaden I was a tank commander. In that mountain Eyrie there was an incredible network of tunnels. As for the Eagle’s Nest, the elevators had been blown up. We had to use ropes to get up there. My lieutenant then said to me that because I was from Champagne I was obviously the right man to take care of Hitler’s wine cellar.

  ‘We had trouble getting the underground doors open to enter the cellar. It was full of Rothschild. The Bordeaux were extraordinary, Lafite Rothschild, Mouton Rothschild. We had a binge. It was a soldier’s just desserts and just waiting to be drunk. There were also bottles of Mumm and Pommery 28 because Von Ribbentrop had been a wealthy champagne merchant who represented the house.

  ‘There was Cognac and Lanson Champagne from my own mother’s house including an unforgettable Salon 1928. What an experience! There was also a lot of unnamed champagne because at the time each producer had to provide the occupying forces with one third of its sales for the year. The Champagnes were category A, B or C. This famous “third” was billed to the Wehrmacht and used to maintain troop morale’ (International Sommelier Guild News, June 2004).

  Terry remarked that the Eagle’s Nest would have been more aptly named the Pillager’s Perch.

  We cycled beside the milky green Canal Laterale à la Marne, where ducks paddled and herons flapped backwards and forwards, and fishermen nodded over their lines. Sometimes a barge chugged past, disturbing the waters and sending them slapping petulantly against the banks, and a couple of men with a golden Labrador bobbed past in a dinghy, waving. In the shade of the trees overhanging the towpath it was deliciously cool, and a welcome respite to be cycling on level ground after the last few days of hills.

  The canal leads right into the heart of Châlons. As we left the towpath there we met a stout French gentleman with a face like a rosy apple, wearing tartan carpet slippers and the ubiquitous dark blue-bibbed trousers favoured by French country men, pushing an antiquated bicycle up the path beside us. Usually Terry designates me to find directions, but I forestalled him and suggested this time he tried his luck. “And remember, it’s pronounced ‘comping’, not ‘camping’,” I said.

  First the gentleman pointed straight ahead, then bent his arm around in different directions, firing a rapid succession of “à droit”, “à gauche” and “toute droite”. We looked at him blankly, and showed him our map. He traced a route which seemed to go through every street in Châlons, then traced a different route, shaking his head and muttering all the time “Pourtant, c’est très compliqué, très compliqué.” We suggested that if he indicated the general direction, we’d ask somebody when we were nearer, but he shook his head again. We had asked for his help, and he was determined that he would get us to our destination,
whatever and however long it took. When we still were no wiser despite all his efforts and gesticulations, he tapped Terry on the shoulder, climbed onto his bike, shouted “Suivez-moi!” and pedalled away straight across a line of brisk traffic. Terry managed to keep pace with him, but I had to cycle like a demon to keep them in sight.

  That old boy’s bike looked as if it might have come off the ark with Noah. It made a grating clunky noise as he pedalled, and had no gears, but it swooped around bends, flew along the roads, round the roundabouts, over the crossroads, past shopping centres and through housing estates, for ten long, fast minutes. I glued my gaze to the red panniers, disregarding all traffic in my fear of becoming lost forever, causing a few screeches of brakes and angry hoots as cars were brought to an unplanned halt by my passage. Finally our leader drew up beside a paddock where several horses were grazing. Ahead was the entrance to the campsite. “Voila!”

  When we thanked this very kind gentleman for taking so much trouble, he shrugged. “It’s normal to help visitors,” he said. Off he pedalled on his clanking machine. The site was packed with caravans and camping cars, but there were only a couple of tents, leaving a large area for ourselves, and once we had pitched the tent we lay outside on the soft green grass speckled with daisies, pleasantly sandwiched between the coolness of the ground and the warmth of the sun.

  During the early hours of the following morning we woke to find that for the first time on our trip, the tent was warm, and our jumble of covers could at last be cast off. I cannot remember another year when summer was so late arriving.

  In the morning we went to explore the town. Standing in isolated magnificence on its outskirts is the stone archway known as the Porte Sainte Croix, originally built in honour of the young Austrian Archduchess on her way to marry the Dauphin. At that time it was named La Porte Dauphine. The Latin inscription over the arch read: “May it stand for ever like our love.” Marie Antoinette would see it three times during her life: on her way to her wedding, during her attempted escape, and on her return to her death.

  Known as Chaalons-en-Champaigne until the 16th century, then Châlons-en-Champagne with the arrival of the circumflex accent, the more plebeian Châlons-sur-Marne during the French Revolution, the town reverted to prestigious Châlons-en-Champagne once more in 1998. It is the regional capital of the Champagne-Ardennes and departmental capital of the Marne, although nearby Reims is a more imposing city, four times larger, with a much greater population. But Reims is also the city where traditionally the French monarchy were blessed, and the revolutionaries wanted to downgrade its importance, which they did by demoting it in favour of Châlons-en-Champagne, and so it has remained.

  We thought Châlons a most attractive town, with generous, wide streets laced by rivers and canals, bright, clean buildings, sparkling fountains, imposing gothic and classical buildings. There are some wonderfully-preserved and restored medieval timbered houses – at least two of which had been removed, stone by stone, timber by timber, to new locations to conserve them during modernisation of the town. Strangers nodded and smiled, motorists stopped to allow us to cross the roads; the sun shone. It seemed like a township of which its residents are proud and where they are pleased to live, and we felt that, had circumstances forced us to stay permanently, we could have settled there quite happily.

  Sitting in the sun, at a café, with a cup of hot chocolate and a croissant, watching the cheerful Châlonnais shopping and chatting could have been a pleasant way to pass the morning, but my eyes streamed constantly and my blotchy crimson face looked as though it was covered with first degree burns. I wondered how the human body manufactured tears, and what from. I must have leaked several pints over the last couple of weeks. “What does ‘Maladies des yeux’ mean?” Terry asked, pointing to a polished brass plate on the wall next to where we sat. I looked at the plate. It belonged to an ophthalmologist. Surely this was a sign from the gods.

  In the doorway stood a young woman in a white uniform. I asked her if she thought there was any chance I’d be able to have an appointment. She replied that she was only an ambulance driver, waiting to drive a patient home, but she would show me where I could find the doctor’s secretary. She pushed a bell, and led the way into a gloomy waiting room, where the only occupant was a very old lady wrapped in a number of woolly jumpers and wearing a pair of thick, wrinkled stockings. She answered my “Bonjour, Madame,” with a weary nod of her head. The ambulance driver signalled me to sit down, while she leant against the wall flicking through a magazine.

  After a short while a door opened and out came a dark-haired woman in an angry striped dress. Taking three firm strides, with one hand she banged on another door, which opened instantly. In that doorway stood a lady in a pink suit, and a man in a white jacket. Behind them the room was in darkness. The striped woman bent sideways and with her right hand snatched a handful of the seated old woman’s jumper and jerked her to her feet. With her left hand she grabbed the outgoing patient by a sleeve, and with a practised flicking motion, she crossed her arms and spun the old woman tottering into the doctor’s waiting arms, past the outgoing patient who was sent reeling into the centre of the room, where she was saved from falling over the coffee table by the swift action of the ambulance driver. I’d never seen anything like it.

  Slamming the door behind the doctor and his patient, she snapped at the pink-suited lady to follow her. Then she noticed me sitting in the corner, and froze in mid-stride. “Who are you? What are you doing in here?” she shouted indignantly. “You must leave.” She waved her hand towards the door. While my mouth opened and closed silently like a goldfish as I tried to reply, the ambulance driver explained why I was there.

  “She has no right to be in the waiting room! She cannot sit in here. She should not be in here without an appointment. Go into my office,” she barked at me. She glared at the pink-suited patient. “And you, Madame.”

  In her office she slammed down into her chair and shoved a heap of papers around her desk, not bothering to look up when she asked what I wanted. I took off my sunglasses, and showed her my eyes, saying that I had hoped the doctor would be able to spare just five minutes to prescribe some sort of treatment to stop the flow.

  “Just wash them with water. They’ll be fine. You don’t need to see him. Doctor is far too busy.”

  “I’d be very happy to wait until he’s seen his last patient,” I offered. “I don’t expect a lengthy consultation, but he may be able to give me a prescription that would help temporarily.”

  “Impossible! Quite impossible. You must have an appointment. There are no appointments free for the next two weeks.”

  “What about going to the hospital?” the pink-suited patient suggested. “Her eyes do look terribly sore. Perhaps she should go to the Emergency department?”

  “Waste of time. Far too busy there. She’ll just have to keep putting water in her eyes.”

  I knew when I was defeated. Giving her the most withering look I could manage, I said “Au revoir” to the other lady, who followed me out into the passage. She said: “Madame, you could try the pharmacy. Maybe they can help you,” and gave me an encouraging little pat on the hand.

  After the rudeness of the stripey-dressed woman, and her assertion that the local hospital didn’t have any time for people like myself, my confidence in the medical profession in this town was low. I was quite reluctant to ask for any help from the pharmacy. Terry pushed me through the door. With no expectations I went in and showed my eyes to a petite lady behind the counter, who drew in her breath and said that I should see a doctor immediately. Two women next to me at the counter and the pharmacist all agreed that somebody must do something without any more delay. There was, said one of the customers, an eye specialist nearby.

  “I know,” I replied. “But he’s guarded by a dragon, and I can’t get past it.”

  “Yes,” agreed the other customer, chuckling. “We know all about her.”

  After making a number of phone calls, the
petite lady directed us to a surgery one hundred yards down the road. She brushed aside my thanks, and refused take any payment for the calls.

  The doctor, a kindly man in a knitted waistcoat, diagnosed a severe case of conjunctivitis, and prescribed two different types of eye-drops. I wondered why fate had felt it necessary to send me conjunctivitis at this particular time in my life when I had never had it before.

  Châlons-en-Champagne has several beautiful parks, and for our picnic lunch we chose the pretty Parc du Jard, with its magnificent mature trees and elegant statues of nearly naked ladies representing the four seasons. Sitting opposite us on a wooden bench, a stylish lady was nonchalantly tweezing hairs out of her legs. Although I love doing that, I hadn’t ever considered doing it in a public place.

  I had a brief but very intense love affair with an English bulldog who was sitting with his owner, avidly watching people eating their lunch. It was love at first sight – un coup de foudre. He writhed about on his fat back and offered me his tummy to scratch (the dog, not the owner), then he rolled over and put his front legs on my shoulders, whispering and snuffling asthmatically in my ear that he loved me. I could have very happily spent the rest of the day sitting on the grass with him, but Terry, who never stays in one place more than a few minutes if he can help it, was fidgeting and wanting to move on. We went for a glass of wine in the square in front of the rather splendid Town Hall, and then to visit the gothic church of Notre Dame en Vaux. Terry stayed outside with the bikes – we were still concerned about leaving them unattended.

  I pushed open the old door. Several years imprisoned in a Roman Catholic boarding school had left me with an enduring aversion to churches. It had taken decades for me to be able to walk into one without associating it with pain, punishment, sin and everlasting damnation, and even after all these years I still found it an uncomfortable experience. From the long hours of enforced daily worship, knee bones pressed painfully against cold stones, shivering at 6.00 am Mass on freezing winter mornings, or the torture of keepings arms raised in protracted prayer for the Stations of the Cross, I felt that I had earned not only eternal redemption and a place in the front row in Paradise, but also a dispensation from having to endure any more religious activities in dark, damp, musty old buildings. Still, as the church is so much a focal point of French towns, it seemed a shame not to at least have a quick peek.