Three things are too wondrous for me... Proverbs 30:18
Thursday 26/04/2018
Distance 40.1km Total Distance from Canterbury 656.8km
Langres is a sizeable town and it was very encouraging to arrive yesterday. It has shops, something which yet again I had not seen for several days. It’s always reassuring to have just a little bit of food in the bag, just in case. It also has a fine cathedral which I was able to inspect fully on my early arrival. There were many interesting things to see and a nice and welcoming lady giving information.
I was staying in the Cathedral presbytery (priests’ residence) which was in sight of the main door. This was perfectly adequate accommodation in an old building, a sort of annexe of the main house with beds for about eight and a shower, toilet and kitchen. This kind of generosity is still to be found quite often along the way and has a long history, although it is probably slowly dying out.
I didn’t meet any of the priests. All the priests I have met in parishes have been extremely busy with very many Parish communities to attend to. I did meet a very old lady who was seated in the kitchen doing a bit of ecclesiastical needlework re-attaching a lace trim. She was interested in where I had come from and told me her life history, not all of which I picked up but which included her parents emigrating from Italy when she was a baby. She made some tea and shared a little cake with me. She had had quite a hard life, one way and another, but she was stoical. She was having a bit of a hard afternoon also, as she spent about 25 minutes trying to thread a very tiny needle. I would have offered to help, but I didn’t think I would be any better than her. (Surgical needles come with the thread attached. Surgical training certainly involves learning how to tie a variety of different knots, but not how to thread needles.) But she wasn’t in a hurry and I imagine she got the needle threaded the next day. Or the day after.
I got up very early and went to the boulangerie for a feast of patisserie. The boulangerie opened at 0530 – I had checked the night before. What woke me in time to be one of the first customers was something very lovely and unexpected. Not birds singing, which can be overrated in my opinion. Nor yet dogs barking, to which I am slowly and steadily habituating. Most of the time. No it was something I hadn’t heard before in France – the sound of the bin lorry. I find the noises of a city very comforting, so yes the bins, a wailing siren, traffic generally all very welcome. i jumped up to get a picture and you might just make the lorry out in the corner of the picture. That is the Cathedral with its traditional mosaic tiled roof in the background.
On the way to the boulangerie I took a picture of Denis Diderot. He was born in Langres and is clearly highly regarded there. He is fairly highly regarded generally. He was a writer, with a complicated private life, which meant he remained rather poor. He began as a translator, and translated an English work, important in its time, the Medicinal Dictionary of Robert James. Robert James was a contemporary and friend of Samuel Johnson. He also patented a “patent medicine” which was not only worthless but also dangerous and may have contributed to the death of Oliver Goldsmith. Oliver Goldsmith was an 18th century Irish poet. Probably his most well-known, and well-loved work is The Deserted Village, a long poem. It includes some lines about schooldays which many people will remember from their own schooldays:
Having risen early to the music of machinery, and having feasted, I took off early on what was to be a very long day, because of a total lack of anywhere to break the journey. Just occasionally on a day like this I wonder if I should have brought a tent, but I am secure in my decision not to.
The second pleasant surprise came in the small town of Chalindrey. I thought it was time for coffee – which is scarce and it is never wise to pass somewhere where there is coffee to be had. But first I went into the church which was open and which had a nice feel and certainly felt like it had a lively community, judging from the signs. I had seen as I passed a notice on the gate next door giving the office hours of the priest. And as fate would have it, Abbé Grégoire was actually having office hours there and then. I wondered if I should disturb him, or move on for coffee. I decided, as I was never going to be in Chalindrey again, to risk saying hello. ‘Ring and enter’ said a sign on the door. I did and was met by a lady who was the parish secretary. I explained who I was and what I was doing. Oh, she said, that is interesting. She had good English and she had been to Ireland on holiday, and had visited both Knock and Glendalough. She then said that the Abbé was here and would I like to say hello. I had the image in my mind, not very rationally, of an aged, bent, balding grey-haired man, dressed in black and I waited for him to come. In came a young man of about thirty, dressed in T shirt and shorts – the Abbé Grégoire in person. I found it very encouraging that there was at least one very young priest in France! He opened the shutters in the dining room and the three of us had coffee. He had just been to Rome himself he said, adding rather sheepishly, ‘on an aeroplane.’ He told me about the large number of communities he had to care for, but he was cheerful and enthusiastic. A very nice interlude.
The day wore on and it was hot and I began to feel tired. I had rung the Tourist Office in Champlitte while I was walking and a young lady with good English told me that there would be no problem finding me some pilgrim accommodation. As I came close to Champlitte I saw on the side of the road Le Camping a campsite. And again for fleeting moment thought how convenient a tent could be.
I got to the Tourist Office and found a note in the window saying “Back in a few minutes” which I thought a nice touch. The lady I had spoken to earlier was indeed back in a few minutes. She rang a man of whom I had heard. A correspondent had describe him to me as having a profile picture that conjured images of a mad axe-man, but that in fact he was a wine producer who liked to offer his wine to people who stayed, and he enjoyed having pilgrims to stay. This sounded very encouraging. There was no reply from his phone and the tourist office lady looked a bit concerned. “There is another place”, she said. “There is a campsite. You will have passed it on the way.” She rang them and they had a place. The campsite was back in the direction of Canterbury. This was not an appealing idea. I was really tired and hot and hungry. I gave here a brief glimpse of my “unimaginable-suffering-bravely-borne-but-you-are-pushing-me-close-to-the-brink” face, but I said nothing. “I have an idea”, she said, “I could ring my boss and she could come and give you a lift in her car.” I felt she was intuitively in tune with what Oliver Goldsmith had said: Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace The day’s disasters in his morning [my evening] face. This was immensely cheering and as the lift was back in the direction I had already come from I did not see how it in anyway interfered with my commitment to walking. Walking TO Rome. And that is what happened. It wasn’t as far back in reality as it was in my overheated brain.
And Le Camping was a great place, run by a charming couple called Pascal and Didier. There is something very nice about French names I think. They keep an old caravan for pilgrim use at a very modest charge. I don’t think I had set foot in a caravan for more than fifty years, and I enjoyed exploring the manifold drawers and cupboards. It had electricity and so heating and lighting and it had a coffee filter machine and plenty of coffee. Perfect. And the proprietors donned aprons and a chef’s hat and produced fine food in the evening. I slept very well.
So on a long day three very nice and unexpected things happened. I was awoken by the bin lorry, I met a young and enthusiastic priest and the place that put the camp in camping gave me a berth for the night (after the head or tourism gave me a lift!) Three wondrous things!
And so we return to Denis Diderot. Here is a minuscule sample of the things he said:
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.
The best doctor is the one you run to and can’t find.
I think that is quite enough about him!