Days 17 & 18: Coole To Brienne-Le-Château Via Corbeil

We say goodbye to our delightful hosts: from left to right: Jean-Pierre, Peter, Mathilde, Monique, Ernst and Daniel.

In Humbauville we'd stopped for a rest and a bite to eat (a sandwich Monique had kindly made for us) when Siméon (right) invited us into his family's renovated farmhouse for drinking chocolate and biscuits. His father, Marc (left), arrived soon afterwards. It wasn't long before we were eating mirabelle plums and bread and some deliciously creamy Chaource cheese, a local delicacy! Marc was an agriculturalist and owned a truffle plantation. He also had a truffle hound in the yard. We asked him lots of questions and he cleared up many mysteries: such as what was the purple-flowering crop we'd seen along the Roman road? It was lucerne (known as alfalfa in the US), a member of the pea family, and cultivated as feed for dairy cows because it's very high in protein and easily digestible. We spent a very enjoyable hour or so with this father and son — yet two more 'trail angels' — before continuing our journey . . .

The Roman road goes on forever . . . We just managed to reach the shelter of a grain silo before the storm really hit with a vengeance.

We slept the night in a room (la Salle des Pèlerins) opposite the church in the tiny village of Corbeil. Michel from the village brought us food, including some microwave meals . . . The photo shows a deathbed scene from a tomb in the churchyard.

Inside the church was a representation in stained glass of St Roch, one of the patron saints of pilgrimage. His effigy appears in many places along the Camino. You can see his staff, the plague sore on his knee, and his faithful dog, which licked the wound clean.

Statue of a youthful Napoleon Bonaparte at Brienne-le-Château. Napoleon attended military school here from 1779 until 1784. The school still stands — part of it now contains the tourist office and a small, rather fusty and dusty museum, la Musée Napoléon. Napoleon was to fight some of his last battles against the Prussian military commander Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher in this area: the Battle of Brienne (January 1814), in which Napoleon was victorious, and the Battles of La Rothière (February 1814) and Laon (March 1814), in which Napoleon was defeated. La Rothière was the first battle Napoleon had ever lost on French soil.  

Go on, admit it — you'd love to spend the night in this sweet little hunting lodge at Brienne-le-Château, wouldn't you? Well, I stayed two nights here — for only €10 a night!

A Wild Domain

During the next few days I crossed the plateau of the Margeride and part of the ancient province of Gévaudan: a remote, hilly area of pine trees, green valleys, rough grazing land and sandy, stony tracks. The weather turned wet and windy for a while as I approached the Domaine du Sauvage, a former hôpital (pilgrim lodging) run by the Templars in the 13th century. It's still a gîte d'étape today, catering for weary walkers and pilgrims. I asked for a bed, but they were all booked; however I did order a coffee, and they had no objection to me eating my packed lunch at one of the restaurant tables. They're good like that, in the bars and restaurants of the Chemin...  

The Domaine du Sauvage.

Countryside near the Domaine du Sauvage (plus wild daffodils).

Soon after the Domaine I passed from the department of Haute-Loire into the department of Lozère and came across another Chapelle Saint-Roch. This present chapel was rebuilt in 1901 after being destroyed by a storm in 1897. I stepped inside and found a statue of St Roch above the altar. You can clearly see his trademark staff, thigh wound (a plague sore) and dog (who licked his wound and saved his life). You can read more about St Roch here — it's a fascinating story. (There are some similarities between St Roch and my favourite saint, St Francis of Assisi.) On these pilgrim routes the distinction between St Roch and St James can become intentionally blurred: note the scallop shells on hat and clothing...  

St Roch.

Fountain with scallop shell near the Chapelle Saint-Roch.

The green fields of Gévaudan.

Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole.

Around that time I spent the nights mostly in isolated gîtes and chambres d'hôtes. The ones at Les Faux, Bigose and Fineyrols come immediately to mind. All were very good, and all offered cheap, nutritious evening meals. At Les Gentianes in Fineyrols forty of us sat down at two long tables. We ate aligot, the local speciality: a dish made from mashed potatoes, butter, cream, garlic and melted cheese, accompanied by Toulouse sausage, and washed down with gorgeous, red Auvergne wine. The texture of aligot is extraordinary — it's smooth and elastic — and the serving of it a well-practised piece of culinary theatre...

Aligot and accordion. (Image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Silence And Tears

I remember that first day on the Chemin very clearly. 17 October. Blue skies. Warm and sunny. The hills and valleys of the Auvergne. Wooded slopes and the golden leaves of autumn. Peaceful, deserted villages basking in the noonday sun. Romanesque churches with rounded stone vaulting. I kept bumping into pilgrims all day. Some shared their lunch with me as we picnicked on the grass in front of the Chapelle Saint-Roch (see photo).

By late afternoon I'd reached the village of Saint-Privat-d'Allier. It's stunningly situated on a volcanic cliff above a gorge of the Allier river. A Christian family took me in free for the night. "While you are here treat this house as your home," they said.

At twilight I climbed up to the 14th century church and went inside. The silence was profound. You could hear absolutely nothing at all. Except for the slight whirring in my head of my own automatic, pointless thoughts. And with an effort of will even these were stilled. As the darkness closed in, shapes lost their solidity, and my sense of time and place became blurred. My mind emptied itself.

Later at dinner my hosts, Jean-Marc and Marie, told me how they had met on the Camino, fallen in love, married, and then decided to open their house to pilgrims. Another pilgrim arrived. Food kept appearing. The wine flowed. Their young son chased an enormous dog round and round the room. The conversation was animated and far-ranging. I couldn't understand the half of it. I realised how rusty my French had become.

Then a strange thing happened. I don't know if it was the effect of the wine after 2 nights' lack of sleep, or whether I was touched by the kindness of strangers, or whether I was charged by the many emotions I'd felt on this, my 1st day of pilgrimage. But tears welled up inside me and I wept like a child. Jean-Marc patted me on the arm reassuringly, a wise and benign expression on his face. "Don't worry. It's quite normal," he said. "We experience this time and time again. It's necessary..."

That night I rolled out my sleeping bag in their attic-dormitory and slept long and deeply for the first time since leaving home.