Day 20 – Corbeil to Brienne Le Chateau

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. Napoleon

20/4/2018

Distance 26.7km Total Distance from Canterbury 507.3km

A dual milestone passed today.

I woke early and refreshed in my school room. Unshowered, though I did take the advice of the mayor and rest my feet in ice cold water. The coffee was welcome. Just as the filter machine gurgled its last there was a loud clicking sound outside the door in the lobby and a trip switch tripped and all power went out of the sockets. The electrical fuse board looked brand new. They can be supersensitive. I didn’t need any more  (electrical) power so I just enjoyed my coffee.

Nothing exciting to say about the route today. No diversions or confusions. A little local signage kept you on the right road.

But wait. There was something a little worrying here. I had passed a similar sign yesterday before I got to Corbeil. It is hard to read but it says ‘Rome 1270 on foot’.

But at this stage….what is the odd 300 km?  Though slightly concerning that Rome seems to have moved away during the night. I should say that I do  not know the distance to Rome from Canterbury. Yet. The books give widely varying estimates from about 1,800km (on an official looking signpost in Canterbury) to add much as 2,200km. YMMV as the Americans say  – your mileage may vary. This is another difference between this route and the various Camino routes. The Camino routes are really very well defined  (now) and closely waymarked. So the distances are relatively fixed. The road to Rome at least through France is a quite individual choice.

The road much the same as the last few days.

Oil seed rape may not sound nice. That I presume why in USA it is called canola. But it looks wonderful. It has a pronounced characteristic smell.

We are coming into potato country and the  fields look almost surrealy geometrical.

There is a very interesting style of traditional house building in this area.

So after about 17km I came to the metaphorical milestone. I turned a corner into Rosnay l’Hôpital. It is on a Junction as you cross a noisy main road  the D398. A bit of a shock to the system after the quiet tracks of the past few days. But. Look. Unbelievably a bar and restaurant which is open and busy. It functions as a truck stop so there were 8 or 10 big strong men enjoying the buffet and mixed grill. I did too. And the milestone was this. Apart from the night in Chalons-en-Champagne (where I spent €6 on a 1 litre bottle of sparkling water in a bar. Do you see what I mean by ‘artisanal’?) there had been no bar, or cafe or shop open on the walking route during the day since Verzey which I think was 71km ago. All I might have bought were free range eggs. This is  a long way from the café con leche Camino. And note I use that term with great affection.

The other milestone was that somewhere  very soon after this must encouraging lunch I passed my 500km mark, without mishap, with legs and feet in good nick and without spending the night camping in a toilet which friends of mine did a couple of years ago!

I hesitate to quote The Da Vinci Code, though I read it a few days after it came out and it is a thumping good read, though essentially froth. Angels and Demons I thoroughly enjoyed too.

History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books-books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, ‘What is history, but a fable agreed upon?  Dan Brown

History as written by Björn and Benny has taught us, in Waterloo,if we didn’t already know, that Napoleon was a loser.  But not in Brienne Le Chateau, my destination. He was at school here. Not big school, but sort of military academy pre-school. It was made up of half posh lads and half scholarship lads. Napoleon was a scholarship lad. The posh lads  made fun of him because of his Corsican accent. There you go – see what bullying can lead to. I was about shocked to find that this military pre-school was run by Benedictines. I love Benedictines, but they have just gone down 1% in my estimation. But it was a long time ago.

 

I would like to find out more about Napoleon now. And I would like to know how he is presented to school children in  France today. Anyway he is good for tourism in Brienne and I guess you world not want to say anything uncomplimentary here. But I would make a small complaint. The town has a small simple pilgrim gîte. I couldn’t use it because it had been commandeered just at the moment  – by the army, on manoeuvres! Waterloo to you too!