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The Ellis Page French Sabbatical
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Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology ("MAC")
Continuing north, we again passed through the Loire Valley and saw more beautiful châteaux including the Château of Azay-le-Rideau. We loved the symmetry of the building, the way it was subtly trimmed in red, and the way it reflected in the river-moat which surrounded it. Since some of Merry's ancestors were from Angers, we stopped there for dinner and to see the fortress of Angers with its massive walls and thick, round towers every 50 feet or so. At its feet, in what would have been the moat and making somewhat of a startling contrast, was a beautiful path full of bright, well-designed flower-beds. One of the attractions of Brittany were the dolmens and menhirs - standing stones from the same era as Stonehenge in England. Very impressive was the 6,000-year-old burial chamber of Pierres Plates as was the Grand Menhir Brisé (Broken Stone) - a towering Neolithic, granite column some 65 feet high and weighing almost 350 tons. It was sobering to wonder how ancient man could have ever carved and lifted it. But the big thing was Carnac where ancient man had stood up 1,000 stones, 8-12 foot high, in 11 perfect rows aligned with sunrise or sunset leading scientists to suspect they worshipped the sun.
On the way home, we stopped to see La Petite Minou, a light-house on a little peninsula where I had baptized someone 24 years earlier and the scene I had painted and we had hanging in the dining room at home. (Here's a photo of it.) Braden's reaction? "Wow! It feels like I'm back in Lacey looking at our kitchen wall!"
We rushed back to Le Havre and then Paris to meet Jan, one of Merry's friends from childhood and to get David and Braden off to "Camp des Jeune Gens" with some French youth. We hit a monumental traffic jam and were so late that we could only drop the boys at a street-corner to catch the métro. It was quite a sight watching them descend down into the bowels of the métro with hiking back-packs, sleeping bags, and duffle bags. It looked like they wouldn't make it further than ten feet. But what could we do? We raced on to meet Jan at Charles de Gaulle airport and found her waiting patiently. She was really excited and it was all we could do to talk her out of shooting her budget of film on quite ordinary street corners in a quite ordinary neighborhood — ordinary for Paris. We drove on, pointing out the Eiffel Tower in the distance, the Ile de la Cité, the Conciergerie, Ste. Chapelle, the golden gates of the Palais de Justice, Notre Dame Cathedral, and so on. We parked under Notre Dame square and walked inside the Cathedral. Later that night at the Lechevallier's, Dominique took us on a ride down the Seine on a bateau mouche (Parisian tour boat) to see the sites from the water. The next day, we showed Jan Montmartre with the Sacré Coeur Basilica and
the Place des Tertres. We climbed the almost 300 steps to the dome to see
the magnificent view out over Paris, Back in Le Havre, Jan wanted to see the beach at Sainte Adresse. We tried to warn her about French beaches, but that only made her want to see it more. So we drove over to take a walk by the sea wall. Sure enough, one-third to one-half of all the women were topless. Jan was truly amazed, and even had Godfrey photograph one example to show the people back home. We also took her up to the cliffs of Etretat and to Honfleur where she again broke into song in the Eglise St. Léonard. Very difficult for us, and especially Merry, was missing her father's funeral back in Lacey. We tried to get back for it, but there was no way. According to reports we heard, there were over 500 in attendance. The mayor was there (Tom had been a mayor of Lacey) as was the fire chief in his dress uniform (Tom had also been a volunteer fireman for many years). The chief even presented Granna with an honorary veteran's flag. Apparently, there was police escort of at least five cars to the cemetery. We didn't think they did that any more. There was also a long obituary as well as a large article on the front-page of the local section of the Olympian. Shortly after that, we gave up our apartment in Le Havre. It was strangely sad. It had been "home" for seven months. It had been cold in the winter, hot in the spring, and crowded and noisy the whole time. But, it had been our place. We were leaving for the Alps and then La Rochelle.On to the next French
Sabbatical page |
| For email contact use either: gellis@stmartin.edu or godfreymerry@home.com |
After
lunch, Tommy pushed us all into going to the little town of l'Aber-Wrac'h
to go sailing.
which stretched for some 30 miles in every
direction. Jan, ever the singer,
burst into "How Great Thou Art" and we wondered if the people
down below could hear.