On a Tuesday evening in mid July 1991, a couple of days before we departed for our summer break, one of Jane’s friends of many years, Jao Chai, came to stay with us in North West London. Jao Chai who is a Singaporean, had long been talking about taking a year off work. During this sabbatical he aimed to spend several months in Spain, where he planned to learn to play flamenco guitar.
He had started his long vacation by travelling from Singapore to London, where he visited old friends and hung loose. After a couple of months, there was some concern expressed, by his friends, that he might not quite get it together enough to make it to flamenco land.
Since we would be travelling ninety five percent of the way to Spain, it had seemed a good idea for us to take Jao Chai with us and we had offered him a free ride, when we had met him at a mutual friend’s house, a couple of weeks earlier.
Jao Chai definitely does not conform to the stereotype of a Singaporean. Although of Chinese descent, his skin is slightly darker than many Chinese and when I had first met him some years earlier I had taken him to be Malay. I thought he could easily have been mistaken for a pirate, if he were to wear baggy black pantaloons, a red polka dot head scarf, an eye patch and were to brandish a cutlass.
As required by Singapore law, Jao Chai had done National service, but he seemed to have no particular desire to strive to possess the five Cs for which many Singaporeans are renowned for wanting. The five Cs are a car, a condominium, cash, credit cards and country club membership.
Not normally a slave to any clock or even calendar, it was only when he actually turned up on our doorstep, that we were reasonably sure that Jao Chai would in fact accompany us.
At this time holders of Singapore passports required a visa to enter France. Since Jao Chai was not heavily into forward planning, his passport did not yet contain the required entry permit, so early on Wednesday morning, we despatched him by underground train to central London and a visit to the French embassy. He returned a few hours later looking rather unhappy.
It turned out that he had forgotten to take one of his identification documents with him, and had queued up for a couple of hours before this fact was pointed out to him.
On Thursday morning he reluctantly headed off to the underground station again. Late in the afternoon he returned to our home, his mission successfully accomplished.
We set off on Friday, having got ourselves up at 2:30am. Sarah had her box of goodies to play with and Jao Chai had his guitar.
Ten minutes into our journey we were passing the famous art deco Hoover factory as we drove towards London on the A40. Sarah and Jane were already in a deep sleep on the back seat, while in the front passenger seat, Jao Chai was also beginning to nod off. At this stage of the journey he had still not decided whether he would accompany us to the Languedoc, or get us to drop him off in Paris, where he had some other friends he wanted to look up.
Since it had really only been at the eleventh hour and fifty ninth minute that we had been sure that Jao Chai would be with us, I had not booked him a ferry ticket. Given that mid July is the height of the holiday season, I had some misgivings as we drove toward the English South coast, that Jao Chai would be turned back. As soon as we arrived at Dover I headed straight for the ticket office and was relieved to find that adding one more person to the passenger list was not a problem.
By the time the ferry cast off at 6:00am, dawn had already broken on what promised to be a clear sunny day. We found some seats in an on-board cafeteria and started the day with some coffee and croissants, quickly getting into the holiday mood.
After disembarking at the Calais ferry terminal, Jao Chai was clearly very irritated when the French authorities manning the Immigration and Customs posts, waved through every vehicle without inspecting a single document. After his marathon efforts to obtain a visa he did not feel his time had been well spent. For my own part, as someone who had previously had my passport examined on many occasions when entering France, I was glad of the time we saved and gleefully floored the accelerator peddle as we left Calais behind us.
As we approached Paris, I gently nudged Jao Chai out of his slumber and asked him whether he wanted to be dropped off, or remain with us all the way to the Languedoc. I guess he must have been very comfortable where he was, because he chose the easy option and snoozed for most of the unusually painless tour around the Peyriphique.
A little after midday we stopped to stretch our legs and snack on hot dogs and cola at a motorway services station on the peage to Orleans. Despite it being the holiday season, the traffic was only moderately heavy and got progressively lighter the further South we went.
The peage had been extended a little since the previous year, but still did not go very far south of Montlucon. I guessed that most people heading South would be on the completed motorways passing through Lyon to the East and Bordeaux to the West.
Now that we had transferred from the A75 Auto Route to the N9 Route National, the road no longer stretched in a straight line as far as the eye could see, but began to twist and turn, so the kilometres were covered at a much lower rate. The compensation was that as we entered the Auvergne, we got a more leisurely view the lovely countryside.
At around 4:00pm we started to keep our eyes open for accommodation, but two hours later had still not found anything suitable with vacancies. According to our map we would soon be in Marvejols, so we decided to stop there and hunt for a hotel.
I mentioned to Jao Chai that we had driven past Marvejols on a previous journey south, and it had looked like an interesting place to stop.
As we approached the town from the North, the first thing we saw was the large fortified gate tower straight ahead of us. I recalled that since the last occasion we had passed, I had recognised the scene now in front of us, as a location shot in the 1984 Jean-Jacques Beineix film, Betty Blue. Betty Blue had also featured locations in Narbonne and Gruissan.
I pulled over to the right and parked the car in one of the few spaces available on the northern approach road, to what looked like a bustling Marvejols.
In front of the gateway stood a rather strange bronze statue. Further investigation revealed that it represented King Henri IV of France and was created in the 1950s by the local sculptor Emmanuel Auriscote. I hazarded a guess that Henri might not be flattered by his bronze self, were he to stumble across it during a ghostly visitation.
King Henri IV of France, who had been merely King Henri III of Navarre, before his promotion in 1589, was the first of the Bourbon Kings to rule France. He came to the throne after the three sons of King Henri II and Catherine de Medici, Francois II, Charles IX and Henri III died or were murdered without producing heirs, thus ending the Valois dynasty.
There were a lot of Henris around in France during this era and it takes some level of concentration to unravel who was who. Accounts of the war of the three Henris can be particularly perplexing.
Henri of Navarre had married Marguerite, a sister of the three previous Valois Kings and who was of course therefore daughter of Henri II and Catherine de Medici.
Henri IV Bronze Plaque
Henri was a Huguenot or French protestant. This nearly cost him his life on many occasions as well as the throne. He once converted to Catholicism to avoid becoming an additional victim of the St. Bartholomew’s day massacre, which may have been instigated by his mother in law. This massacre accompanied the festivities of his wedding to Marguerite in Paris. As soon as he got out of Paris he reverted to Protestantism. Eventually though he, again converted to Catholicism to reduce resistance to his Kingship and to help unite France.
However, when after many years of marriage they had not produced any children, Henri divorced Margeurite and married Mairie de Medici. It seems the Medicis were determined to keep their blood on the French throne.
Henri was a man for the ladies and had many mistresses as well as illegitimate children. Despite this Henri and Marie produced several children including three legitimate sons, the eldest of who, went on to become King Louis XIII, father of the Sun King, Louis XIV.
In 1586, before Henri had become King of France, Marvejols had been destroyed by the Duke of Joyeuse, who was marching south, busily wiping out Huguenots as he went. Henri had the town rebuilt in 1601, showing his gratitude to it’s protestant population, many of who had been massacred for supporting him.
Now I know that King Henri IV is not the most fascinating subject in the world for everyone, so I will move on, but suggest looking at www.henri-iv.com for those who are interested.
Jao Chai modestly informed us that his own name meant “Prince” in Thai language, and perhaps he should one day aspire to be a King.
We took our leave of Henri’s statue and walked under the archway of the Northern fortified gate, along the shop lined main street to the Southern fortified gate tower, which opened back onto the N9 road which skirted the East side of the town. We then walked back along the side of the N9 and came across the Hotel de L’Europe. They had vacancies and we checked in.
Having been shown to our rooms, I walked back to the car and drove it round to the car park behind the hotel. After a much needed shower and shave, we retired to the bar for a beer and then took a table in the restaurant for dinner.
During the meal we amused ourselves by speculating how the locals pronounced “Marvejols”. An enquiry to the waitress left us little the wiser other than to confirm that we had got it wrong.
Towards the end of the meal my request for ‘fromage de Roquefort’ was met with much shaking of heads and I was informed that only the superior ‘fromage Blue D’Auvergne’ was available.
To my uneducated palate the differences were subtle, but on most occasions I would plump for the Roquefort. This may be because while both are blue cheeses, the Blue D’Avergne is made from cow’s milk, while the Roquefort is made from ewe’s milk. The Blue D’Auvergne is certainly creamier and less salty tasting, but as a follow on to several other courses, it feels heavier on the stomach. I particularly like the concentration of flavour caused by the greater density of greenish blue streaks near the center of the Roquefort, which seems to be lacking in the Blue D’Auvergne.
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