A Gentle, Prevailing Anarchy
by William Roderick Richardson
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This must be the best cycling territory in the world.
You alight from the train at Brive after a speedy trip from Paris and you are only a brief pedal away from perfect. You are in France, but this isn't Provence or the Loire Valley where tourism is an industry .
No, the Dordogne beckons the bicycler. It invites you. It reveals its charms slowly as you propel yourself along the magnificent valley past chateaux and picturesque ancient towns.
A beautiful valley lies about 250 kilometers southeast of Paris in some of the most remarkable countryside in Europe. It is a land of farms and hills and particularly wonderful food with one of France's greatest arteries, the Dordogne River, running though it. It is a land steeped in history and full of promise. I first fell in loved with the Dordogne before I ever went there after reading about it in Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi.
The Dordogne is not the best place for tourists. There are better castles elsewhere. However the Dordogne valley offers a special flavor for the curious traveler, who wants to discover something of the real France, far from the arrogance of the Riviera or Paris. The best way to get to the Dordogne is to drive. From Paris you pass through the chateau region of the Loire, and then head south toward Limoges, where the make the celebrated china of the same name. You skirt the edge of the Auvergne here, one of the best hiking places in France. The smooth rounded hills rise high, but not treacherously so, making a days walk a vitalizing experience.
The Dordogne Valley does not greet you majestically, it rather envelops and charms.
Tradition dies hard here. This is good farming country supporting hardy survivors, many of whose descendants have worked the same land for generation upon generation.
I stayed for two weeks in an old mill in the tiny Dordogne hamlet of Lacoste about 25 km from Brive-la-Gaillarde in the upper Dordogne valley. Several families live there. These are peasant farmers, who, for generations, have lived in the area, for longer than any of them can remember. This sense of continuity and permanence is fitting, as this part of France is a mysterious land. The unchanging landscape of the Dordogne is as old to the eyes of humanity as the river itself.
But throughout the region also you will notice the constant presence of the British and the Dutch. They began colonizing the area in the 1960s, when many of the roads were still made of dirt and a trip to the Dordogne was a true step back in time. Now things are a bit different, though still largely unspoiled.
Two kilometres down the road from Lacoste, pleasantly framed by abundant fields and wide meadows, lies the crossroads village of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, where remains of Cro-Magnon man were discovered in the early 20th century in a tiny cave.
The identification of an early type of modern man, Homo Sapiens, who lived in Europe during the late Paleolithic age, was a discovery that lent weight to the shared feeling here that this is indeed a rare and wonderful country.
The Cepiers, one of the farming families of Lacoste, have had a hard life in this beautiful land. Madame Cepier, gap-toothed, nearly 80, resilient as a crabapple tree, has survived a series of personal catastrophes, which have the bitter-sweet quality of farce.
Her hugely overweight husband drowned while attempting to rescue one of the family's cows from the risibly shallow Sourdoire river, which dribbles through Lacoste. Madame Cepier's son was killed instantly when his tractor overturned and crushed him. Her daughter died several years ago from a massive stroke.
Tragedy after tragedy fell from the blood-red summer skies, always in summer, with the inexorability of a Zola plot. Should one laugh or cry?
Madame Cepier chooses to laugh. She endures. She carries on as normal, living with her two grandchildren and her son-in-law, whom she hopes will soon remarry. Home-made brandy is produced from an ancient cupboard for visitors, whatever he time of day, and tongues soon begin to wag. She presents fresh eggs for take-away. Her dog, surely the largest Alsatian in captivity, tries to scale his prison fence so that he can have the visitor for lunch. It's all in good fun. His appetite seems exempt of xenophobia.
The closeness to nature in this valley approaches the sinister. In winter fierce gales can level age-old groves of walnut trees. Like the wind, though, man has also cut his swath though the valley. During the Middle Ages, this region was the battleground of French princes warring amongst themselves and with the English, whose long rule of Aquitaine is still remembered in the names of dogs and in the square grid lay-out of towns like Puybrun and Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne.
The Cepier Alsatian is called Dick. And surprisingly the English remain much more popular with the locals than those as foreign as Parisians.
A gentle anarchy prevails. There is a long tradition of giving invaders a hard time. Tax collectors bold enough to venture here alone may get thrown in the river when the peasants do not feel inclined to dip into their pockets.
The people of Correze have always been a law unto themselves. The ancient walled town of Turrenne, which can be seen from the ridge of low hills above Lacoste, was the site of a feudal fortress dating from the 11th century. It became so powerful by the next century that it enjoyed virtual independence from the French crown. The region acquired a mint and developed separate administrative and judicial practices from the rest of the country.
The humble village of Carrenac overlooks a bend in the Dordogne six kilometres from Lacoste. It was here that the Maquis resistance fighters Andre and Roland Malraux maintained their base of operations during WWII. As Andre Malraux said: ȁIf a man is not ready to risk his life, where is his dignity?";
Dignity is a principle of life in Correze – as straight and true as the roads the Romans built here 2000 years ago, travelled ever since by the valley's inhabitants, and those lucky enough to have strayed onto those thoroughfares.
After a long hot day, the Hotel Fenelon in Carrenac is a fine place to have a meal. The restaurant lies beside the abbey with its windows offering a comfortable view of a tributary of the Dordogne. The impressive red-colored Chateau de Castelnau, onced the base of English power in the region, is visible in the distance, looking like a stage set. In fact its last private owner was an actor from the Comedie Francaise.
There are other more popular tourist destinations. The largest town in the region, Sarlat, lies in the Central region of the Dordogne, just downriver from Domme, an impressive walled town perched on bluffs above the river. The pleasant town of Rocamadour, built on a promontory grew up around the site of a medieval abbey and is a traditional place of Christian pilgrimage.
Writing on the brink of WWII, Henry Miller described the Dordogne as a refuge from the cares of the world. It is still a peaceful place. The days end well here in summer. The night is quiet, punctuated only with the humming of my cycle's generator, the bike's headlight the only source of light. I remember the words of the unsinkable, Madame Cepier, saying, God gave us a good life.
It is a good thing to remember. The food and the wine and the countryside also are good things to remember. It seems like a dream to me now. The old mill, monk-built in the 18C with the grove of tall poplars, which were cut in the early nineties and must have grown back by now. Turenne, Collonges La Rouge, La Chapelle aux Saints and Curemonte with its three castles on the ridge. These are places, too, with which to conjure.
The good thing you know is that if you have been there once, you will always go back. It was there before you were and it will remain when you are gone.
Bcause above all, Aquitaine endures.
