Toujours Provence(22)

I said that this was not the kind of event that one normally associated with the truffle business. It was too open, too public, not at all like the shady dealings that were rumored to take place in the back streets and markets.

“Ah, those,” said Alain. “It is true there are some people who are a little …” he made a wriggling motion with his hand “… serpentin.” He looked at me and grinned. “Next time, I’ll tell you some stories.”

He waved me off, and I drove home wondering if I could persuade Frank to come over from London to witness the attempt on the omelet world record. It was the kind of gastronomic oddity he would enjoy, and of course Vaughan the General-Domo must come too. I could see him, impeccably turned out in his truffling outfit, directing operations as the concrete mixers swallowed the ingredients: “Another bucket of pepper in there, mon bonhomme, if you please.” Maybe we could find a chef’s hat for him, in his clan tartan, with matching trews. I came to the conclusion that I shouldn’t drink marc in the afternoon. It does funny things to the brain.





Napoléons

at the Bottom

of the Garden


At one end of the swimming pool, arranged in a long, low pile, our builders had left an assortment of souvenirs of their work on the house. Rubble and cracked flagstones, old light switches and chewed wiring, beer bottles and broken tiles. It was understood that one day Didier and Claude would come back with an empty truck and take the debris away. The strip of land would be impeccable, and we could plant the alley of rosebushes we had planned.

But somehow the truck was never empty, or Claude had broken a toe, or Didier was busy knocking down some distant ruin in the Basses-Alpes, and the souvenir pile remained at the end of the pool. In time it began to look quite pretty, an informal rockery softened by a healthy covering of weeds and splashed with poppies. I told my wife that it had a certain unplanned charm. She wasn’t convinced. Roses, she said, were generally considered more attractive than rubble and beer bottles. I started to clear the pile.

In fact, I enjoy manual labor, the rhythm of it and the satisfaction of seeing order emerge from a neglected mess. After a couple of weeks, I reached bare earth and retired in triumph with my blisters. My wife was very pleased. Now, she said, all we need are two deep trenches and 50 kilos of manure, and then we can plant. She got to work with the rose catalogues, and I patched up my blisters and bought a new pickax.

I had loosened about three yards of hard-packed earth when I saw a gleam of dirty yellow among the weed roots. Some long-dead farmer had obviously thrown away a pastis bottle one hot afternoon many years ago. But when I cleared away the earth, it wasn’t a vintage bottle cap; it was a coin. I rinsed it under the hose, and it shone gold in the sun, the drops of water sliding down a bearded profile.

It was a 20-franc piece, dated 1857. On one side was the head of Napoléon III with his neat goatee and his position in society—Empereur—stamped in heroic type opposite his name. On the reverse, a laurel wreath, crowned with more heroic type proclaiming the Empire Français. Around the rim of the coin was the comforting statement that every Frenchman knows is true: Dieu protège la France.

My wife was as excited as I was. “There might be more of them,” she said. “Keep digging.”

Ten minutes later, I found a second coin, another 20-franc piece. This one was dated 1869, and the passing years had left no mark on Napoléon’s profile except that he had sprouted a wreath on his head. I stood in the hole that I’d made and did some rough calculations. There were twenty more yards of trench to dig. At the current rate of one gold coin every yard, we could end up with a pocketful of napoléons and might even be able to afford lunch at the Beaumanière at Les Baux. I swung the pickax until my hands were raw, going deeper and deeper into the ground, watching through the beads of sweat for another wink from Napoléon.

I ended the day no richer, but with a hole deep enough to plant a fully grown tree, and the conviction that tomorrow would produce more treasure. Nobody would bury two miserable coins; these had obviously spilled out of the bulging sack that was still lying within pickax range, a fortune for the reluctant gardener.

To help us estimate the size of the fortune, we consulted the financial section of Le Provençal. In a country that traditionally keeps its savings in gold and under the mattress, there was bound to be a listing of current values. And there it was, in between the one-kilo gold ingot and the Mexican 50-peso piece: Napoléon’s 20 francs were now worth 396 francs, and maybe more if the old boy’s profile was in mint condition.