The beginning of a hot summer day in the Lubéron, sitting on the terrace with a bowl of café crème, the bees rummaging in the lavender, and the light turning the forest to a dark burnished green, is better than waking up suddenly rich. Warmth gives me a sense of physical well-being and optimism; I didn’t feel a day older than 49, and looking down at ten brown toes I hoped I’d be doing exactly the same thing on my 60th birthday.
A little later, as warmth was turning into heat, the hum-buzz of the bees was blotted out by the clatter of a diesel engine, and I watched as a venerable open-top Land Rover, painted camouflage green, panted up the drive and stopped in a cloud of dust. It was Bennett, looking like the reconnaissance scout from a Long Range Desert Group—shorts and shirt of military cut, tank commander sunglasses, vehicle festooned with jerricans and kitbags, face deeply tanned. Only the headgear, a Louis Vuitton baseball cap, would have been out of place at El Alamein. He had crossed enemy lines on the main N100 road, successfully invaded Ménerbes, and was now ready for the final push into the mountains.
“My God, you’re looking old,” he said. “Do you mind if I make a quick call? I left my swimming trunks at the house where I was staying last night. They’re khaki, like General Noriega’s underpants. Very unusual. I’d hate to lose them.”
While Bennett was on the phone, we rounded up our two houseguests and three dogs and packed them in the car for the drive up to Buoux, where we were meeting the others. Bennett came out of the house and adjusted his baseball cap against the glare, and we set off in convoy, the Land Rover and its chauffeur attracting considerable interest from the peasants, waist-deep in the vines on either side of the road.
After Bonnieux, the scenery became wilder and harsher, vines giving way to rock and scrub oak and purple-striped lavender fields. There were no cars and no houses. We could have been a hundred miles away from the chic villages of the Lubéron, and it pleased me to think that so much savage, empty country still existed. It would be a long time before there was a boutique or a real estate agent’s office up here.
We turned down into the deep valley. Buoux dozed. The dog who lives on the woodpile just past the Mairie opened one eye and barked perfunctorily, and a child holding a kitten looked up, small white saucers in a round brown face, at the unusual sight of traffic.
The area around the Auberge resembled a casting session for a film that had not quite decided on plot, characters, wardrobe, or period. There was a white suit and a wide-brimmed Panama; there were shorts and espadrilles, a silk dress, a Mexican peon’s outfit, scarves and bright shawls, hats of various colors and ages, one immaculately turned out baby, and, leaping from his Land Rover to supervise kit inspection, our man from the desert.
Maurice appeared from the horses’ parking area, smiling at us and the glorious weather. He was dressed in his Provençal Sunday best—white shirt and trousers, black bootlace tie, plum red waistcoat, and an old flat straw hat. His friend, who was to drive the second carriage, was also in white, set off by thick crimson braces and a magnificent salt-and-pepper moustache, a dead ringer for Yves Montand in Jean de Florette.
“Venez!” said Maurice. “Come and see the horses.” He led us through the garden, asking about the state of our appetites. The advance party had just left by van to set up the picnic, and there was a feast on board, enough to feed the whole of Buoux.
The horses were tethered in the shade, coats glossy, manes and tails coiffed. One of them whinnied and nosed at Maurice’s waistcoat, looking for a sugar lump. The youngest guest, perched on her father’s shoulders, gurgled at the sight of such a monster and leaned forward to poke one tentative pink finger into its shining chestnut flank. The horse mistook her for a fly and whisked a long tail.
We watched as Maurice and Yves Montand hitched up the horses to the open calèche, black trimmed with red, and the seven-seater diligence, red trimmed with black—both of them oiled and waxed and buffed to a state of showroom finish. Maurice had spent all winter working on them and they were, as he said, “impecc.” The only modern addition was a vintage car horn the size and shape of a bugle, for use when overtaking less highly tuned carriages, and to éclater any chickens who were thinking of crossing the road. “Allez! Montez!”
We climbed in and moved off, observing the speed limit through the village. The dog on the woodpile barked goodbye, and we headed out into open country.
To travel in this way is to make you regret the invention of the car. There is a different view of everything, more commanding and somehow more interesting. There is a comfortable, swaying rhythm as the suspension adjusts to the gait of the horse and the changes of camber and surface. There is a pleasant background of old-fashioned noises as the harness creaks and the hooves clop and the steel rims of the wheels crunch the grit on the road. There is the parfum—a blend of warm horse, saddle soap, wood varnish, and the smells of the fields that come to the nose unobstructed by windows. And there is the speed, or lack of it, which allows you time to look. In a car you’re in a fast room. You see a blur, an impression; you’re insulated from the countryside. In a carriage, you’re part of it.