Afternoon lecture series

When we were at the tourist bureau in Carpentras about a month ago, the young woman working there gave us a flyer of tours and lectures in and around the city. So, yesterday, on a beautiful day that was about 30 degrees warmer than on our last trip (now up to about 55 degrees F.), we caught the 1:00 bus in to town.

On tap for Thursday the 26th was a tour of the synagogue—la syna, as the guide Anne-Sophie referred to it—and a lecture on l’histoire et symbolique des rites alimentaires juifs (“the history and symbolism of Jewish food rituals”). But first, since at least two of us were not natives of the area, our guide told us a bit about the city itself. Its name comes from the word char (as in “cart”) because in the past Carpentras was a gathering place for farmers who transported their products there for sale. Anne-Sophie also pointed out that the locale has been inhabited since the Neolithic period and that Greeks from Marseille and Romans also occupied the area. There is, in fact, an arc de triomphe romain dating from the 1st century still standing in the city center. We also walked by la cathédrale Saint-Siffrein which, like many French churches, has elements of construction from several different centuries.

The church was also the starting point for the lecture about Jewish history in Carpentras. In the thirteenth century, a large region extending roughly from the Rhone to Mont Ventoux was sold to the papacy and became known then (as well as today) as le Comtat Venaissin, named after the town of Venasque. This independent state, protected by the Pope, became, to a certain extent, a haven for Jews expelled from other places like France. However, Jews in the area suffered various forms of censure. They were required to pay special taxes not demanded of others, to identify themselves by wearing red, and later on yellow (the latter being a color long associated with the marking of people like prostitutes as infâmes, “despicable”), and to attend Catholic services, entering through la porte juive (“the Jewish door”). At first they were forced to live outside the city ramparts and later they were confined to a dark, crowded place inside the walls called la carrière, from the Provençal word for “street.”

The synagogue, built in 1367, is the oldest Jewish place of worship in France. At the time of its construction, there were only about 90 Jewish families living in Carpentras. In the early eighteenth century the community had grown quite large, and authorization was given by Bishop d’Inguimbert to increase the size of the synagogue; the bishop, however, became incensed and demanded a change of plans when it appeared that the new edifice would be taller than the nearby cathedral. Today the interior is much as it was in the 1700s: there are chandeliers all around to symbolize the fact that Dieu, c’est la lumière (“God is light”); all of the walls are made of wood, though some of them look exactly like they are lined with marble; there is a small red chair in a niche on the wall which represents the coming of Eli during rites of circumcision.









Anne-Sophie, who was quite knowledgeable, told us that a synagogue is a place of prière, étude et réunion (“prayer, study, and gathering”). She spent a lot of time, of course, describing food in the Jewish tradition: the various restrictions, preparations, and the need for multiple dishware, etc. It was interesting to hear about the importance of hygiene in food preparation and ritual washing, which many believe protected Jews from falling ill to the plague in the Middle Ages and their animals from being affected by la vache folle (“mad cow disease”) in the 1990s. All in all, it was a very pleasant and informative afternoon.

Fred Vargas 101

A couple of years ago our daughter-in-law Lorène started telling us about a writer of crime fiction she really enjoyed, Fred Vargas. While I once read a reference to “him” in a book review, Fred is indeed a woman, born Frédérique Audouin-Rouzeau in Paris 1957. Trained as a medieval historian and archeozoologist, she has a lengthy opus on the plague, Les Chemins de la peste. But just over twenty years ago, she took up the pseudonym Vargas and began writing polars or rompols, as she refers to them. When applying for a sabbatical last year, I decided to research this highly popular, award-winning author and I have not been disappointed. Although her books are filled with the multiple murders, investigations, and red herrings typical of detective novels, the imagined world she creates is unique in many ways.

Here, it is not the solving of the mystery that is all important; in fact, on a few occasions I have had the ending figured out well ahead of time. Hands down, her idiosyncratic characters are the most enjoyable part of her work. Coming from all walks of life—politicians, professors, artists, prostitutes, café owners, students—they form a very human and believable world. No one’s life is perfect; no one has all the answers, not even the most clever detective; on the other hand, no one is a complete imbecile. Vargas is a keen observer of human nature: how we tend to repeat the same things, our recurring gestures, the way our minds jump around from one subject to the next. Particularly appealing are some of her returning characters like the intuitive and slow-moving commissaire Adamsberg and three young men, Mathias, Marc, and Lucien, known as les trois evangélistes.


Humor plays a big role in Vargas’s fiction. The youth of the three evangelists, for example, provides her with the occasion to use familiar and sometimes crude language which can be quite amusing. The French expression être dans la merde, whose connotation is more like “to be in big trouble,” is frequently repeated with interesting variations throughout Debout les morts (translated as The Three Evangelists in English) to describe the down-on-their-luck young men. Their diverse scholarly backgrounds also allow opportunities to enrich the book in a comical way. Marc, the medievalist, needs to find roommates to share la baraque pourrie (“the rotten shack”) he’s found to rent. He immediately thinks of Mathias, the “hunter-gatherer” prehistorian, but can’t imagine living with someone whose research separates them by 30,000 years! When Mathias then suggests Lucien, a contemporanéiste specializing in World War I, as a possible third person to share the rent, Marc is at first outraged: Il y a des limites à tout! (“Everything has limits!”), but eventually acquiesces upon learning that Lucien is dans la merde as well.

For those of you whose knowledge of French is nil or limited, there is good news: at least six of Vargas’s novels have been translated into English. Her works can, in fact, be found in over forty foreign countries. For people wishing to perfectionner la langue ("improve your language skills), I would suggest perhaps getting both the French and English copies of the same book, Debout les morts and The Three Evangelists, for example. That way, you could read, say, the English version first and follow it by the French. Bonne lecture! Happy reading!

A Day in the Life

Normally, church bells are the only sound one hears at night in Bédoin. While we have spent time in other small towns of le Midi (southern France), where the awful clanging wakes you up all night long, these bells have a daintiness about them. Good thing, too, since we live just down the hill from the church! The bells continue the age-old tradition of telling people what time it is. Twenty-four hours a day, they sound once for each hour and then, curiously enough around here, repeat a few minutes later in case you missed it! The bells also sound one time on the half hour. But at seven a.m. (as well as at noon and seven p.m.—I imagine indicating matins, angelus, and vespers), the bells ring many times, so that is usually when I begin my day.

Ray generally goes out for a walk first thing, even though until lately it’s been quite dark at that hour of the morning. He’s gotten to know the people at the tabac (more like a convenience store than just a place to get tobacco products), where he buys the paper. While he’s out, he sometimes stops at one of the four town boulangeries to pick up viennoiseries, such as croissants, pains au chocolat, or my personal favorite triangles aux amandes (a version of almond croissants).

During the week, I usually start my day by blogging or reading the newspaper. In fact, one day in Libération, I saw an ad from a Parisian professor who was in urgent need of a bilingual philosopher to translate his communication on Rousseau to be given in Denmark in March...right up Ray's alley. So, we’ve spent a lot of time the past few weeks working on that.

Some mornings we catch part of Télématin, France’s answer to The Today Show. Their host of twenty something years, William Leymergie, and his crew report on a wide variety of subjects—the news, weather, book and film reviews, recipes, and the like, plus a standard feature about history. There are always many references to the U.S.—our politics and culture, of course—with several English words (like “yes,” “very French”…) thrown in. It’s still cool knowing English, I guess.

Both Ray and I devote most of our day to our research, spending a lot of time reading—Camus for him and Fred Vargas for me. We have to watch the clock, or listen to the bells, though, to be sure to get to Shopi before 12:30, if we need food for lunch. Otherwise we fall victim to yet another tradition: the practice of businesses closing for several hours starting around noontime for lunch and la sieste. (This is true, by the way, for most stores—from banks and the post office to bakeries, etc.) We’re in Shopi a lot. Not having a car is a great stress reliever in so many ways: it really slows you down, since you have to walk everywhere; you don’t have to worry about where to park or the fluctuations in the price of gas; no agitation fighting traffic. But you also have to carry everything home that you purchase at the supermarket. And you have to remember to bring your bags because none are provided and there are usually not even any cardboard boxes available.

If we have time, we like to go out for a walk mid-afternoon. Saturday, for example, we spent about an hour walking past vineyards and old farmhouses (des mas) at the foot of Mont Ventoux. We feel the sun getting stronger and seeing wildflowers starting to bloom gives us hope that spring is just around the corner.

Heading South—part two

To get from Marseille to Ajaccio, in Corsica, there are two options: take a 12–hour boat ride or a 35-minute flight. Since ferries in February only have one sailing per day which leaves at night and arrives in the morning, thus missing nice views of the Mediterranean, we decided to take Air France. Flying over Corsica and its chain of mountains was, indeed, a beautiful and impressive sight. The ancient Greeks who first settled the island called it kallisté, or “the most beautiful”—a name adopted by our hotel.

Ajaccio, the capital city of 53,000, seemed smaller than we had imagined. There is a pretty nice downtown, but there are not many big stores—except for Monoprix and two grandes surfaces, supercenters, Carrefour and Leclerc, on the outskirts of town. As usual, one of our first stops was the tourist bureau where we found a female worker who loves her region and was eager to help us learn about l'Île de Beauté. We explained that we were there for three days, but didn’t have a car. Not discouraged, she gave us three good suggestions that included a bus ride, a train ride, what to do in the city, as well as advice on where to eat.

Having walked a lot in Marseille the day before, we liked the idea of taking a city bus for 1 euro 20 that would take us along the coast past all of the beaches. Very lovely and, of course, free of the 100,000+ tourists who flock there in summer. For us, even though it was warm (no heavy jackets needed here!), the problem was showers and by the time we arrived at the end of the bus line, it was really pouring. So, instead of walking around near the lighthouse and on the beaches and rocks as we had planned, we stayed on the bus and came back downtown for a little shopping and getting the lay of the land. That night right next to us at a table at L’Estaminet, was a friendly man, originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who is now the general director of an école hôtelière (“hotel management school”) in the Pyrenees. We might have to plan a trip there to check it out.

On day two, still following ideas from the lady at the tourist office, we got up early to take a very small train of only one car to the heart of Corsica, Corté. The little train passes through the mountains of le Parc Naturel et Régional, offering dizzying views of the gorges below. Corsicans feel much affection for Corté, a town of 6700 in la Haute-Corse, nestled high in the mountains. In the eighteenth century Pascal (initially Pasquale) Paoli used Corté as his capital in his successful attempt to wrest the island from the control of the Republic of Genoa. One finds his name today on the University of Corté. Although Corsican independence was short-lived (just over ten years), pride in their region and their language is evident. Walking around Corté, one hears le corse spoken quite often on the streets. We enjoyed the town: the beautiful panoramas, a nice lunch, and le Musée de la Corse.

Because it was a Friday, our train back to Ajaccio now had two cars and was filled with a lively bunch of guitar-playing and Corsican-singing students from the university. That night we enjoyed out best meal since we had arrived at Auberge Colomba, whose character of an owner serves, among other things, a variety of traditional cured meats and sheep’s milk cheeses.

Saturday morning we devoted to seeing Napoléon’s birthplace and learning more about the history of Ajaccio. It was, of course, a quirk of fate that Napoléon was born French; just the year prior to his birth France announced its acquisition of the island in a secret treaty from the Genovese. The museum, the actual property of the Buonoparte (as they were then called) family but without original furnishings, is nicely documented. We had a tasty lunch at the Trou dans le Mur, but the rainy weather drove us back to the hotel early.

Heading South—part one

Earlier this month, in keeping with our travel plans and hoping to find warmer, sunnier weather, we took off for the Mediterranean. Marseille was our first stop. Sometimes referred to as la cité phocéenne, having been settled by Greeks from the city of Phonecea around 600 BC, it is France’s oldest city. It is also one of the country’s most populous and diverse cities and gets my vote as “most improved,” in terms of its actual appearance, tourist services, and race relations.

Our hotel le Saint Ferréol was pleasant and conveniently situated. Since we got in around 11:30 in the morning, we immediately thought about going to have lunch. The friendly clerk at the hotel told us to avoid les pièges à touristes (literally “the tourist traps”) located along the Vieux Port and to opt instead for any one of the places on the nearby rue Sainte. Many restaurants are still closed this early in the year, but we finally found a little family-owned North African place. Although the owner seemed surprised to see us walk in at 11:55 and the wait was rather long for his wife’s couscous, we found this a true comfort food on a chilly day.

Now fortified and energized we headed for tourist bureau on the boulevard de la Canebière. (The street’s name, by the way, has nothing to do with beer, but with hemp rope that used to be made in a factory near there). The three young women working at the tourist office were memorable for their enthusiasm; they gave us enough ideas for at least three days even though we only had an afternoon to spend sightseeing. My husband remarked later that the woman in Bédoin’s maison du tourisme could learn a thing or two from them! In the end we decided just to walk around and enjoy the day, exploring the lively square Cours d’Estienne d’Orves, parts of le Panier (Marseille’s old city), and small shops along the rue piétonne (or “pedestrian area”)—which interestingly enough had cars driving on it—and the big department store Galeries Lafayette.
Finally we settled into a café facing the Vieux Port for people watching and to rest awhile.

Since it’s “all about food” with us, on our stroll through the city we’d kept our eyes open for where to have supper that night. Bouillabaisse is, of course, the spécialité marseillaise par excellence, but the prices at fifty euros plus seemed excessive to us. Back at the hotel we were advised not to choose any of the twenty-euro offerings unless we didn’t mind frozen fish. We had noticed a small restaurant which had at least one of our favorite “seals of approval”—a current sticker in the window from either Le Guide du Routard or Petit Futé guidebooks. The clerk at the hotel assured us that Chez Madie, Les Galinettes was une valeur sûre (“a sure bet”) and so our minds were made up.

We thought we knew a thing or two about dinner timetables at French restaurants but seeing the chef and his équipe (“team”) still eating at seven thirty was our clue to keep walking around and come back later. Finally at about five till eight, we went in. The wait was worth it. The meal started with an amuse-bouche, an anchoïade—an anchovy- and garlic-based spread that hit just the right balance; we were so delighted with it, in fact, that the waiter brought us another small bowl! For appetizers, Ray had carpaccio de saumon (a smoked salmon dish) and I chose un tartare de saumon. We both had fish as well for the main dish and, although I’m still not sure what the galinette I had actually is, it was perfectly cooked and the sauce was most delicious and delicate. Yum! A very good day and a good start to our Mediterranean get-away!

It's all in the game

Americans often complain about the deplorable state of television programming in the United States; in France, the paucity of interesting and informative shows is enough to make you want to swear off TV for good. For fans of Jeopardy, as well as lovers of crosswords, Scrabble, and Trivial Pursuit, though, there are a couple of television game shows that are, at least in my opinion, worthwhile: Des Chiffres et des lettres and Questions pour un champion. Shown back-to-back during the work week from “around” 5:30 to 6:30 (French time being approximate even on the small screen), both programs have been televised for quite awhile and have loyal followings. In fact, Chiffres et lettres (as we call it in our family) is the longest running show on TV here (37 years) and has clubs in towns and cities throughout the country. Questions pour un champion recently had an inter-campus competition between universities with a prime time multi-hour final Monday night.




As its name indicates, Des Chiffres et des lettres (or "Numbers and Letters") tests candidates’ abilities in both mathematical operations and word knowledge. In sections of le compte est bon (“the total is right”), 6 numbers are chosen at random and a total is given; for instance, 75 25 6 2 9 8 and 462. Using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, the candidates must manipulate the 6 numbers to arrive at the total. Not always so easy for us language people! And, in fact, sometimes arriving at the sum is impossible. Le mot le plus long (“the longest word”) segments are like playing Scrabble, only there are 9 letters, instead of 7. All in all, a very good workout for the brain.

Questions pour un champion (whose name needs no translation) is a twenty plus year old trivia-based show--along the lines of Jeopardy--which is on TV seven days a week. Four candidates start out dans la première manche (“in the first round”) and the three who reply correctly and more quickly than the others advance to round two. Now they must choose a category that they think they’re strong in and the two with the highest number of points go on to the final; in case of a tie at this stage, there is a jeu déciscif (“deciding game”) to determine who will compete in the ultimate face-à-face. Like in Jeopardy, the questions are based on a wide variety of subjects, but the real challenge is to decipher what Julien Lepers, the extremely fast-talking animateur (“game show host”), is saying.


For an outsider, probably the most surprising thing about these programs is how the hosts treat the candidates when they are not doing well. I know that Alex Trebek has been criticized in the past for being a kind of know-it-all, but these remarks seem much more personal. Like to an older woman Marie-Claude the other day on Chiffres et lettres, Bertrand, one of the hosts said: “It was right in front of you!” and “I have to scold you again….” On Questions, the host said to Pierre: “You have to fight!” and “You know this!” I suppose “tough love” is the name of the game here.