Walking in France

In the Autobiography of Arthur Ransome (pp 125-126) I read this today and wanted very much to share it. I walked and travelled the length of France in 1983 and Ransome's words brought back memories of my time there. Ransome was there in 1907 and of course by 1983 it was a very different country and our experiences were very different, but the freedom and joy of meeting people has not, can never change unless it is taken completely away.

Ransome is a soulmate for me. I share his love of people and of stories. His autobiography keeps reminding me of the wonderful experiences I've had in my relatively limited travels. I hope you will like the fun, and the adventure of this little snippet of his story.

I was troubled at that time with violent headaches, for which I found walking the best though a painful cure. I used to set out from my studio half-blind with pain and, stumbling resolutely on, would find the pain lessening and at last gone altogether. One day with one of these headaches I set out from the Rue Campagne Première and walked out by the Lion de Belfort to the fortifications, when, though I found my headache slackening, the fine spring evening made me unwilling to turn back. I slept the night at Longjumeau, bought a toothbrush and, next day's weather being even more inviting, walked on and on, day after day, by Ètampes, Angerville, Artenay, and so to Orlèans, Blois and the country of the Loire, sleeping for the night in little roadside inns where a bush hung over the door advertised shelter and food 'for men and beasts' as in the distant past. On these roads I learned to drink wine straight from the goatskin. The roadmenders and others on their way to work, with a small handcart carrying their tools, were never in a hurry, and always wished to talk. They would stoop when they met anybody and would be much offended if he were unwilling to stop also. Then from the handcart they would lift the goatskin bloated with red wine of the country, and hold it, pinching the spout at the level of my nose. I had to open my mouth, when they would relax their grip and a powerful jet of whine would squirt to the back of my throat. The trick of this drinking is to swallow and keep on swallowing with open mouth. To close the mouth, if only for a second, is to invite disaster.

Two or three days out from Paris I sent a note to the concierge at Campagne Première, telling her to stop delivery of my milk and bread until I should return. I bought a knapsack of sorts in Orlèans, a clean shirt and a cheap six-holed whistle-pipe, as I had left my own behind. The whistle-pipe was presently useful. I caught up on the road with a party of travelling showmen, their wives, their children and three light-coloured bears. We got on very well together and slept that night, bears and all, in a barn. They sang, asked me to sing and hen I pulled out my whistle-pipe instead, proposed that we should continue our travels together. That did not last for long, for I could not dawdle at the pace that suited the bears and their owners. But I was with them long enough to enjoy methods of dealing with a by-law that forbade their staging a performance in a village. They seemed to know beforehand whether such a by-law was in force. If it was, they would call a halt some little way outside the village. They would refresh themselves, give the bears a loaf or two of bread, and take breath before action. Then they would enter the village at high speed and, immediately, begin their forbidden performance. Instantly, an indignant shirt-sleeved Frenchman, working in his garden, would shout to them to get out as quickly as possible. 'Who orders that?' 'I, the Commissaire!' 'That's a fine story. A beautiful illage like this and a little runt like you pretending to be its commissaire! You don't take us in that way. Where's your uniform?' Th commissaire would soon be screaming with rage, and the villagers delightedly listening to the bear-leader telling him things about himself that they would not have dared even to whisper. The bear-leader would flatly refuse to believe that the commissaire was anything but an imposter. Finally the commissaire would dash into his cottage, and, a moment later, spitting with rage, would continue the duel from his bedroom window, while hauling on his uniform trousers. Then he would come down. The bear-leader would appear dumbfounded at the sight of the uniform and would instantly march his troupe out of the village. The whole population of the village, delighted with what they had heard, would march out with them. And the bear-leaders, once outside the commissaire's jurisdiction, would begin their performance to a crowd of grateful spectators whose centimes rewarded the cheeking of the village cmmissaire rather than anything out of the way in the tricks of the bears.

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