Friday, January 19, 2018

When prosperity comes, do not use all of it.


High speed internet is coming to the village. From 1.5 MB's on a dry day ( less on a wet day when rain gets into the copper cables and slows everything down ) we are going to a projected 40 MB's. Six workmen are busy digging a narrow trench to hold the fibre optic cables. Concrete is poured for the foundations of a junction box. The PONs demonstrate a keen interest in the wet concrete. They are ' encouraged ' home.


On our morning walk the mayor stops his car to tell me the good news about the internet. Shortly afterwards his secretary ( who has bought a Citroen to replace her little Mercedes ) also stops to tell me the same thing. Dogs and owner listen politely.

The date when the installation will be finished and the village connected is vague. When asked when the new system will be up and running there is a Gallic shrug of the shoulders and a half smile.


In the evening the village historical society has its second meeting in the Salle des Fetes. The French don't seem to have that Anglo-Saxon interest in local history. For many of them history is about Versailles, Louis XIV and the grandeur that is France. '' The Font " has corralled some of the villagers into preparing a history of their families in readiness for the anniversary of the ending of the Great War in November. The war memorial is to be cleaned and renovated, standard roses have been planted and a commemoration in the church is being planned.

For the first meeting of the historical society Madame Bay found a letter sent by her grand uncle to his grandmother at the very start of the war. In it he wrote about the '' cows in Alsace being different from the ones at home ". The poor lad was finished off three weeks later in The Battle of the Frontiers.


Tonight it's the turn of the chronically late woman in the Ford who passes us on our morning walk. She's brought a letter of her great ( ? ) grandfather who was the mayor at the time. As she reads it out the minutiae of August 1st 1914 unfolds. At the end of a scorchingly hot day the message for mobilization came through. At five in the evening it was brought from the neighbouring village ( which had a telephone )  by a gendarme on horseback. The message was in a white envelope edged in black. The mayor climbed to the town halls first floor balcony and read out the summons to arms. Boys were sent to the outlying farms to have the men folk - who were busy bringing in the harvest - come to the church. The priest rang the tocsin bell. At eight, when everyone had gathered, the mayor explained the call up instructions. Two shirts,one set of underwear and two clean handkerchiefs, together with a days worth of food, were to be carried by all those heading off to join their regiments. They would march to the single track rail head at dawn the net morning to avoid the heat. The Marseillaise was sung. The old men of the village ( who had fought in the 1870 war ) told the youngsters they'd be back in no time . The women were quiet.

The reading of the letter takes two hours. There is much interruption and jogged memories. Sepia photos are produced. Young men with moustaches that somehow make them look old before their time. Madame Bay, true to form weeps and mutters ' les pauvres garcons'. The little lady in the purple hat, equally true to form, joins her. The man with the bulbous red nose and The Old Farmer hand round glasses of their home made 2017 vintage wine in plastic cups. Everyone talks at once.

The historical society meeting finishes at ten. ' The Font' returns at ten fifteen and has two glasses of Pomerol in uncharacteristically rapid succession.


So passes another day in deepest, deepest France profonde when it would appear 'nothing' has happened.

12 comments:

Coppa's girl said...

How else will Bob and Sophie make their mark for posterity, if not in wet concrete?
Interesting to hear the memories, and mementos, of the Great War handed down through the families.

WFT Nobby said...

Wonderful old letters like the one from the great grandfather mayor highlight the contrast in technology (and much else) between now and a century ago. One wonders what posterity will make of our communications in this world where fast broadband even penetrates deepest France profonde.

OJ said...

Real history as events affected real people - so poignant in its authenticity! When is the next meeting of the historical society?

Emm said...

It's remarkable how very recent the nearly universal access to communications devices is, and how much we take it for granted. Wall-to-wall telephones, as well as indoor plumbing and paved roads, were the exception in big chunks of the US and likely Europe until after World War Two.
That said, you may need to lay in a good supply of Pomerol, given the possible number of historical group meetings between now and November.

~Kim at Golden Pines~ said...

The letters are true treasures. Your village is truly steeped in its own history, and it's one to be proud of, and not to forget. I wonder how history will tell about us? Certainly not by our letters, since not many people write them any more - "Millenials" anyway. Our blogs perhaps?

Taste of France said...

Wow. I am going to ask our village to do the same. It would be so interesting to pull out those stories. They deserve to be told.
As for Internet, before Christmas some workmen brought the high-speed fiber-optic cable to a box in front of our house. It is to be connected to the gated retirement community across the street, and not the village. No change in speed to report. We rarely see the retirees; perhaps they are all at home, enjoying breakneck Internet speed as they play videogames.

Susan said...

The grandfather of one of my blog readers wrote a diary of his experiences in the trenches and I translated bits of it. You can read it at Life in the Trenches. Our local history society is planning to do a special issue of their journal focusing on the First World War. However, you are right that the 'petit patrimoine' is often disregarded and taken for granted in rural villages. We have struggled to raise the money to save an important funerary chapel in our village, and without the expat community, would have got nowhere. The commune, which owns the building, certainly weren't interested.

Angus said...

Interesting that it's usually, but not always the incomers, who pick these things up and run with them. The young villagers are too busy with diapers, bills and work to be interested. Perhaps that's the way it always was.

sillygirl said...

So sad to read this as we are watching "A French Village" series about the next war and thinking about what is going on now in the world. Someone is always up in arms it seems and regular people pay the price.

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari Om
The importance of writing - and archiving - for posterity. It is true that our blogs will become the equivalent. Yet their preservation will only depend on us leaving them behind, of which there is no guarantee. Not at all the same as those precious, poignant, delicate paper pages. YAM xx

Jake of Florida said...

Those letters are treasures. Hearing about the life of a single person is often more telling than hearing the collective story.

Bella Roxy & Macdui said...

The days of correspondence is over. Future generations will be trying to piece their ancestors' lives together with emojis.