Letter from the Loire Valley - New English Review

by James Como (October 2019)

Valley of the River Loire, Jules Dupré

The mainspring of time unwinds capriciously. No matter the fluency of clock and calendar, we know—and this from a very early age—that not all segments of time that our devices register as equal are.

Later, back in Paris during a downpour, we ducked into an old restaurant on the Left Bank. The only available table was two flights up a narrow, winding, creaking staircase. Seated near the window we could see and hear the rain but only dimly make out Notre Dame cathedral (to the top of which we would eventually climb). The fish, which Alexandra eats like Sylvester the Cat, leaving behind only the skeleton, was the second-most delicious we’d ever had (the first being during our honeymoon in a shed on Koukounaris Beach).

Now, that one hour later, we would return, in the company of our daughter, her husband, and their two children, Luke (an eyebrow taller than I) thirteen years old, and Scarlett (as tall as her grand-mere) eleven. (But we will certainly miss our son, who had been with us to Paris but now had a different agenda, romantic, in Montana.) The plan is to fly into de Gaulle and pick up the car. Peter would drive us to our Loire Valley chateau-hotel where we would spend three days excursioning (pre-arranged, of course: the whole my wife’s conception), luxuriating. I would drive us back into Paris, returning the car a few blocks from our hotel.

There we would sightsee, painlessly, wife and daughter being Francophonic. Scarlett has already declared that she would not enter the Eiffel Tower but would cruise the Seine and approach the cathedral as closely as possible. As for me, I am resolved not to discuss politics or any themes even remotely thereunto appertaining. So off we went, wondering if we’d get lucky with weather, what with the recent Parisian heat storm.

One of my interests is in seeing how my grandchildren take to this sort of travel. They’ve been abroad (Peru, Italy, Lebanon) and we’ve cruised together. But road tripping and sightseeing with two grandparents eager to assure their cultural and historical appreciation—well, fingers crossed. (I recall, with no little shame, how I unconsciously marginalized my grandparents, especially my two devoted and saintly grandmothers). That is one interest. The more important interest is to see for myself if one can go home again, I mean re-visit an intersection of time and place that nourishes a precinct of our conjugal identity.

Two of the most delightful people I’ve ever met while traveling were farmers from Normandy who joined us on our tour of some chateaux. He spoke some English, she more, and my daughter got us over any hurdles. I asked about farming, they about teaching. I wondered if they trusted Germany, the wife said she did but that her grandmother simply could not. They allowed that the EU is woefully imperfect but has brought peace, which matters above all. (This contrasts with what I found in Berlin, where belonging, being accepted—not least if you can call most of the shots – matters above all.) Before parting, the husband, Jocelyn, inquired into any relatives who might have fought in WWII. I told him of five, my father and four uncles, one terribly wounded. He looked me in the eye and said, “every year we visit the cemetery. We, our children, their children, will never forget. Merci.” Terrifically, indelibly moving.

At Tortiniere (where the owners were superbly hospitable, the staff not as well-trained as they should be) we enjoyed the setting, the trails, the pool and, far from least, the breakfasts. The chateaux of Chambord and Chenonceau were as we remembered, resplendent, though not as transcendent. No matter: the family, including the children, loved them.

With Allie navigating by phone we found gas, lunched decently at a highway A11 mega-mall (a far cry from roadside chacuterie), then (after a seating quibble between the siblings and four hours) we found our way to Citadines-Saint-Germain-de-Pres, part of a convent converted into an apartment hotel: on the Left Bank, one block from the Pont Neuf. We disembarked, then Peter, Allie and I returned the car. When we got back to the hotel all were ensconced, one room for us, a suite for them. Soon we realized that a second segment of our vacation would become, in effect, a second vacation: for the most part they went about their business, we ours, and all were happy, though differently.

The children, especially, surprised me. They were energetic, curious, attentive, uncomplaining about the absence of this or another hand-held screen. Luke rented an electric scooter and zipped through pedestrian traffic for several kilometers. Here was their happiness: a family together, discovering and marveling, improvising (e.g. with a picnic near the Tower), and that made us very happy. The dinner cruise on the Seine satisfied more deeply and thoroughly than I had expected: on the upper deck in the twilight with a glass of wine, the lights of Paris beginning to glimmer—we were all variously enchanted, excited and touched.

A different sort of delight, though, came through our own excursions, one to the Vaux-le-Vicomte, a grand chateau some thirty miles southeast of Paris, the other to the Grand Hotel above the Café de la Paix (across from the Place de l’Opera) with lunch there.

The ecstasy visited upon us by the chateau was worth the agony of the trip there. That began at the hellish Gare de l’Este and a train thirty minutes late, which lateness caused us to miss the chateau shuttle, and thus a thirty-minute wait at a desolate bus stop. The chateau, which became Louis XIV’s model for Versailles, is as impactful as the wedding cake palace that is Chambord: a dazzling architectural wonder but more stately, its gardens even more resplendent. Its mover and shaker, Louis’ minister of finance Nicolas Fouquet, so annoyed the king that an embezzlement (not untypical) caused the minister’s downfall, and a rumor sprouted: Fouquet was the man in the iron mask. The tale is too good to completely debunk, but what we do know is that one week after the inaugural ball he was arrested—by Charles de Batz de Castelmore, better known to us as D’Artagnan. This was Alexandra’s second visit there, and she made me promise to one day take her back, a visit I would happily repeat (though not by train and shuttle bus).

The Café de la Paix is a quite different story. I had eaten there before and never forgot the place, a Fin de Siècle splendor that exceeds its grand reputation. But in this case the visit was something of a pilgrimage. Alexandra’s maternal grandfather—vexing to me that I never met that extraordinary gentleman—was a European born probably in Moyobamba, in the Peruvian jungle. (In certain sections the boundary between Peru and Brazil was not fixed until, as magistrate, he fixed it.)

While still a very young man he had become rich by way of rubber and had sailed to France three times before ever visiting Lima, the Grand Hotel being his Parisian headquarters. He was an occasional companion of La Belle Otero (famous actress, dancer and . . . companion), knew the opera-lover Fitzcarraldo, and lost his money when a Liverpool shipyard building his ship went bankrupt before WWI. He would make some of it back.

Alexandra speaks lovingly of him, of his tales and his manners and eccentricites, and of his consideration for all with whom he came in contact: a man who did good and made others happy. When in her decline, my mother-in-law remembered him with great devotion above all others. So you see, the Hotel and the Café de la Paix are together a single sort of time machine, and with its polished oak, brass, beveled glass and chandeliers it is as effective as any madeleine.

And the weather, that looming threat of a French August mimicking its July from Hell? . . . in fact, Heaven-sent.

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James Como is the author, most recently, of The Tongue is Also a Fire: Essays on Conversation, Rhetoric and the Transmission of Culture . . . and on C. S. Lewis (New English Review Press, 2015). His new book, from the Oxford University Press, is C.S. Lewis: A Very Short Introduction.