What a weekend that was! Our latest residential French course took place in beautiful Madingley Hall near Cambridge and the experience is still lingering in our memory. We gathered in the spacious Board Room on Friday night after a superb candlelit dinner. Surrounded by some fifty portraits of French celebrities looking down on us with mysterious smiles on their faces! Armed with maps, brochures, books and encyclopedias, we embarked on a very special journey. The aim of the course was to place in time and in space some of the famous writers, artists, musicians, scientists, historical figures or politicians whose names are attached to the streets and avenues of France as well as to schools and buildings of all sorts. A wealth of history and culture is bound up in those street names.
Very often the celebrity comes from that town or region and there will be a museum and places to visit, festivals, exhibitions and lectures to attend throughout the year, centennials and bicentennials to take part in. This is the case in England too where Thomas Hardy, D.H. Lawrence or Beatrix Potter amongst others are remembered in that fashion. However in France this phenomenon takes a much greater dimension. We explored France region by region from north to south and west to east.
We even had the pleasure of welcoming
Thirza Vallois on Saturday afternoon who delighted the audience with a powerpoint presentation of the region of l'Aveyron. Thirza, better known for her historical guides of Paris has recently written a book about the place and the people of that part of France: "Aveyron, A bridge to French Arcadia".
We met of course the great figures of
Victor Hugo,
Maupassant,
Colette,
Pasteur or
Monet but many more names equally important. Equally interesting to discover: someone like
Paul Riquet whose masterpiece the "Canal du Midi" is now part of Unesco World Heritage along side the great pyramids of Egypt. We also learned about
Jean Jaurès the great political figure assassinated on the eve of the First World War and whose name has been given to 414 schools and lycées.
Flora Tristan was the first French feminist and grandmother of
Paul Gauguin, and
Parmentier the promoter of the potato to the French. We also remembered beloved comic actor
Bourvil and the unforgattable entertainer
Josephine Baker, the latter whose name hs been given to a square in the XIVth arrondissement in Paris. Many other celebrities and historical figures popped in throughout the weekend and by the end there was quite a crowd around the seventeen initial people who took part in the course! Now they will no longer be travelling through France without trying to find out the story behind the street signs.
