A Year in Provence(19)

I found him on the track beyond his house, contemplating a five-foot stake that he had planted at the edge of a clearing. A rusty piece of tin had been nailed to the top of the stake, with a single angry word daubed in white paint: PRIVÉ! Three more stakes and notices were lying on the track, together with a pile of boulders. Massot was obviously intending to barricade the clearing. He grunted good morning and picked up another stake, hammering it into the ground as if it had just insulted his mother.

I asked him what he was doing.

“Keeping out the Germans,” he said, and started to roll boulders into a rough cordon between the stakes.

The piece of land that he was sealing off was some distance from his house, and on the forest side of the track. It couldn’t possibly belong to him, and I said I thought it was part of the national park.

“That’s right,” he said, “but I’m French. So it’s more mine than the Germans’.” He moved another boulder. “Every summer they come here and put up their tents and make merde all over the forest.”

He straightened up and lit a cigarette, tossing the empty packet into the bushes. I asked him if he had thought that maybe one of the Germans might buy his house.

“Germans with tents don’t buy anything except bread,” he said with a sniff of disdain. “You should see their cars—stuffed with German sausage, German beer, tins of sauerkraut. They bring it all with them. Mean? They’re real pisse-vinaigres.”

Massot, in his new role as protector of the countryside and authority on the economics of tourism, went on to explain the problem of the peasant in Provence. He admitted that tourists—even German tourists—brought money to the area, and that people who bought houses provided work for local builders. But look what they had done to property prices! It was a scandal. No farmer could afford to pay them. We tactfully avoided any discussion of Massot’s own attempts at property speculation, and he sighed at the injustice of it all. Then he cheered up, and told me a house-buying story that had ended to his complete satisfaction.

There was a peasant who for years had coveted his neighbor’s house; not for the house itself, which was almost a ruin, but for the land that was attached to it. He offered to buy the property, but his neighbor, taking advantage of the sharp rise in house prices, accepted a higher offer from a Parisian.

During the winter, the Parisian spent millions of francs renovating the house and installing a swimming pool. Finally, the work is finished, and the Parisian and his chic friends come down for the long First of May weekend. They are charmed by the house and amused by the quaint old peasant who lives next door, particularly by his habit of going to bed at eight o’clock.

The Parisian household is awakened at four in the morning by Charlemagne, the peasant’s large and noisy cockerel, who crows nonstop for two hours. The Parisian complains to the peasant. The peasant shrugs. It is the country. Cocks must crow. That is normal.

The next morning, and the morning after that, Charlemagne is up and crowing at four o’clock. Tempers are getting frayed, and the guests return to Paris early, to catch up on their sleep. The Parisian complains again to the peasant, and again the peasant shrugs. They part on hostile terms.

In August, the Parisian returns with a houseful of guests. Charlemagne wakes them punctually every morning at four. Attempts at afternoon naps are foiled by the peasant, who is doing some work on his house with a jackhammer and a loud concrete mixer. The Parisian insists that the peasant silence his cockerel. The peasant refuses. After several heated exchanges, the Parisian takes the peasant to court, seeking an injunction to restrain Charlemagne. The verdict is in favor of the peasant, and the cockerel continues his early morning serenades.

Visits to the house eventually become so intolerable that the Parisian puts it up for sale. The peasant, acting through a friend, manages to buy most of the land.

The Sunday after the purchase goes through, the peasant and his friend celebrate with a huge lunch, the main course of which is Charlemagne, turned into a delicious coq au vin.

Massot thought that this was a fine story—defeat for the Parisian, victory and more land for the peasant, a good lunch—it had everything. I asked him if it was true, and he looked at me sideways, sucking on the ragged end of his moustache. “It doesn’t do to cross a peasant” was all he would say, and I thought that if I were a German camper I’d try Spain this summer.


EVERY DAY, as the weather stayed mild, there was fresh evidence of growth and greenery, and one of the most verdant patches of all was the swimming pool, which had turned a bilious emerald in the sunshine. It was time to call Bernard the pisciniste with his algae-fighting equipment before the plant life started crawling out of the deep end and through the front door.