Archive for the ‘Chapter 7’ Category
Outside the Monastery – St Martin du Canigou
Chapter 7. p66
” The view from the foot of the church wall was enormous – not dizzying like the views we’d caught in those Italian towns….but vast:plains and hills gathering themselves into foothills,and foothills rearing up into dark peaks that blocked out whole portions of the distant world”
A lovely description but the reality is that the hills and mountains around here are more intimate. When we visited we didn’t get any long views across the plains as the monastery is some way up the main valley and away from the coastal plains.
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Background to the Monastery St Martin du Canigou
Chapter 7 . page 64
“our monastery was founded in the year 1000,you know already.Actually .the year 999, as the monks were preparing for the apocalypse , you know, in the millennium”
“They were climbing in these mountains looking for a place for their church.Then one of them had a vision in his sleep that Saint Matthieu stepped down from heaven to place a white rose on the peak above them”.
Lets see what Wiikipedia says
“The original Romanesque style monastery was built from 1005 to 1009 by Guifred, Count of Cerdanya (Fr. Cerdagne), in atonement for the murder of his son and was populated by Benedictine monks.”
Not quite the same dates, close but not exact.But how much nicer is the story of the white rose than the reality of atonement of a man after murdering his son.
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To the Monastery – first visit – Chapter 7.
” I think that we can reach the town by it’s foot and walk up there tomorrow” Ch 7 P 62.
Vernet-les-Bains is actually a good walk from the road up to the monastery but it is still possible.
“It’s about halfway up the mountains which protected it from all sorts of invaders. It was built just after the year 1000.Incredible – this little place carved into a rock.”
“but you will like the town below it just as much.It’s an old spa town.It’s really charming”
” I did like Les Bains, when we drove into it that afternoon.It was a large sand coloured rock village spread over one small peak.The great Pyrenees hung above it, shadowing all but its broadest lower streets,which stretched toward river valleys and the dry flat farms below.Dusty plane trees, cropped square around a series of dusty piazzas. provided no shade..”
“the predictable stone church ,haunted by swallows, at the towns summit, and see the the church tower floating in an enormous shadow of mountains”
Well this is Vernet Les Bains beyond any doubt. The dusty streets and piazzas, the church on the hill but not quite the described view looking down on farms.
Anyway lets have a first look at the monastery.
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Into the Pyrenees Orientales
Continuing on from Cevennes in chapter 7.
” That road led us through the south east and then, a blurred day or two later, up into the cooler mountains”.
What she is saying here is that they came down from the hills of Cevennes and travelled along the mediterranean shore line. This area is indeed baking hot and as spring moved into summer it would have been dry and clingy weather.
“I’ve been wanting to come back down here for year”.
“We were surprisingly close to Spain. This thought and the beautiful word Orientales – jolted me”
Yes indeed. The region here is Catalan France. A shared history with Barcelona and the people are different from those further north. In the hills you will see mimosa and to these hills came the refugees from the Spanish civil war. Altogether an exotic and tropical feel to the country.
This picture courtesy of wikicommons helps to set the scene
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Cevennes
“My father was longing more than ever, he said, for the south in spring;he wanted me to see its beauties too.”
“We took the train to Paris and later a car south into the Cevennes”
P 61 Chapter 7.
The Cevennes is a region in south-central France.
This map courtesy of wikipedia shows the exact location.
This is a dry and empty land which has historically been associated with the Huegenots.
This picture below is courtesy of alexandre30 of Vallée du Galeizon – Réserve de la Biosphère des Cévennes (MAB UNESCO)
Parc National des Cévennes.
“At farms along the road we stopped to buy picnics better than any restaurant could have made for us:boxes of new strawberries that gave off a red glow in the sun and seemed to need no washing,”
“My father drank dark red wine,unlabeled and costing only centimes”…these were the days of francs and centimes before the Eurozone was created.
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Amsterdam
From Chapter 7 the novel moves to Amsterdam which is where the family home is.
This picture of the canals courtesy of wikicommons is quite good at showing the city which comes to mind as you read the novel.
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Sultan Mehmed II
We first come across the Sultan Mehmed II in Chapter 7 when Paul was reading from Lord Gelling’s History of Central Europe. He refers to the night attack when Vlad attacked the Sultan’s camp at night in an attempt to kill him.
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Picture book for "The Historian" 
