Le Moulin du Jaudi (Thursday's Mill)

About a half mile down the country road from our house in France is an old farm that dates at least from the 16th century.  The name of the farm is Le Moulin du Jaudi and it means, using the old spelling, the Mill of Thursday.  Legend has it that young Prince Francois, future King Francis I of France, came here every Thursday from his castle fifteen miles away in Cognac for a tryst with a young woman of the farm.  Considering what a fine horseman Francois was said to be, and how easy it would be to cover the gentle terrain on horseback, and Francois' reputation as a passionate lover, I personally have never thought of this story as legend, but rather as true, undisputed, obvious fact.  Why the hell not??

When I was twenty-four years old and living in Paris, I invited my boyfriend to come down to the house for a visit at the end of the summer.  Things were going pretty badly between us and one afternoon we took a walk down the road to talk things over.  He took a picture of me, dressed in a gray sweater under a gray sky, standing by a lovely green vineyard in front of the farm.  It remains the saddest picture of me ever taken.

A few years ago in much happier circumstances I visited le Moulin du Jaudi with Bernard, Catherine and a few other friends.  We wanted to pay a call on Robert, the elderly farmer who had lived there all his life, first with his parents, then with his brother and finally, all alone.  When I was a child, local people avoided going to the farm because there were a large number of dogs, said to be vicious.  You could hear them barking when you walked along the road.  After his brother died, Robert gave all the dogs away and let it be known that anyone was welcome on his property to fish from the river Antenne, to hunt during the season or just to stroll under his cool, rustling poplar trees.  But Robert himself remained rather aloof and isolated.  I could see him sometimes on a hot summer evening sitting outside on a chair under a tree in front of the massive stone gateway that led to his house.

As my friends and I approached the courtyard, Robert came out of the house to greet us.  He seemed surprised but mildly pleased by our visit.  After exchanging the usual niceties, absolutely de rigeur in the French countryside, he asked if we would like him to show us around the farm.  This, of course, had been our secret desire.  The farm compound, seen from the road at the end of a long chalky lane, was impressive.  Connected by a high stone wall, the various buildings formed a rectangle that kept the family in and outsiders (marauding knights during the Renaissance?) out.  A broad square tower, the pigeon house, held down one corner.  The manor house, tall and stately in a region where houses were more usually close to the ground, was off limits (mais naturellement) but Robert seemed proud to show off the large stables and barns.  Empty of animals for several years, they were immaculately clean with enormous ceiling beams and old stone work.  The ancient copper still (this is cognac country) in its own structure was huge and gleaming.  Perhaps encouraged by our admiration for his beautifully maintained farm buildings, Robert asked us tentatively if we would like to see the old cognac cellar.  "It's kind of dark and smelly," he said worriedly, "You might not like it."

We entered the cognac cellar through a low, dilapidated door and I saw the two men in our party exchanging secret, knowing looks.  Clearly they anticipated with pleasure what was to happen next.  Robert waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the giant oak barrels that I was beginning to perceive as my eyes adjusted to the gloom.  "Vous voulez gouter?" he asked, "Would you like a taste?"  Mais bien sur!!  Robert dipped a long glass tasting spoon into several barrels of cognac and pineau, the local aperitif, some of it dating back to the 1930s.  We were thrilled to taste the smooth, strong brandies and we realized what a rare gesture of friendship Robert was bestowing on us.  A little while later we emerged from the cellar into the summer sunshine.  As we said our farewells, promising to return again soon, Bernard said to Robert how complete the farm was, how it had everything anyone could ever need or want.  "Yes," replied Robert, "Everything but a wife."

The House in Colombes

Before my grandparents retired to southwestern France in 1964, they lived in a three-story townhouse at 24, rue de Prague in Colombes, a western suburb of Paris.  My mother grew up in this house, commuting a short distance by train to her high school near the Gare Saint Lazare and later to the Sorbonne University.  It was in this house that my mother and grandparents, often cold and hungry, survived the German occupation of France and the terrifying Allied bombings of the industrial factories nearby.  And it was from this house that my mother left, in 1946 when she was twenty, for two years as a foreign student at Wesleyan College for Women in Macon, Georgia (!!).

When I was seven years old I spent the summer at the house with my grandparents, my mother and my brothers.  The house stood at the beginning of a cul-de-sac and we children were free to play unsupervised in the streets which had more trees than cars in those days.  I learned to ride a scooter that summer, and then a bicycle.  I remember being at the center of a large pack of children, tearing endlessly around the cul-de-sac on bikes and scooters, going so fast that we seemed to be lifted above the ground and were indeed riding along the walls of the houses and not the streets.  I remember my secret pride the first evening I was able to keep up with the older children without falling off my bike.  It was heaven.

Across the street from my grandparents house was a much smaller house owned by a man named Monsieur Demesy.  He was a good friend of my grandparents and we children were allowed to visit him whenever we wished.  We wished this often because M. Demesy had a special secret in his house.  He would lead us down to the basement and show us a metal safe.  Once unlocked, the safe would reveal a special treasure... chocolate!!  Not just any chocolate but rich, dark Belgian chocolate.  After giving us a few pieces, the chocolate would be locked away again.  We asked our mother why M. Demesy kept his chocolate in a safe and she explained that he had suffered terribly from hunger as a prisoner of war.  He was grateful to the American soldiers who had liberated France, sharing cigarettes and chocolate with the French.  We were Americans and thus privileged to share his treasure.  As I have said before, in France, food is often a symbol for the most important things in life.

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