A note on the photos: I didn't even take a camera on this trip, and if I relied on the pictures Diane took these posts would have nothing but pictures of bones and beetles. The world is well-documented, so I've been using freely-available pictures rather than our own snapshots. Welcome to the new millennium.
On July 2 we drove along sycamore-lined roads to the town of Nerac, northeast of Cazaubon, where they were holding a big Saturday morning outdoor market. It was a combination farmers' market, flea market, and yard sale, sprawling through several blocks in the town center.
I did see one odd item at a used bookseller's stall: a 1920 French edition of Wilde's Salome. What was interesting was that the book didn't have the famously decadent Aubrey Beardsley illustrations; instead it had pictures by someone signing himself "Alastair" in what could only be described as a pseudo-Beardsley style. I didn't quite understand it: if you don't want to use the iconic Beardsley illustrations, why go for a style which is almost exactly like them?
We assembled a lunch out of ingredients from the farmers' market: fruit, bread, cheese, and duck rillettes. We ate beneath the statue of Henri IV (him again), which had the inscription "Nostre Henri" (our Henry) on it. Gascons are apparently very proud of having given France one of its few non-incompetent, non-psychopath kings.
From Nerac we drove to the microscopic village of Larressingle, a fortified town so small the town hall and World War I memorial had to be built outside the walls because there wasn't room. We had a crepe and drinks inside the town, then strolled down to a meadow nearby to see a demonstration of medieval siege engines.
The demonstration was hosted by a young Frenchman named Giraud, or something like that, who wore a medieval steel helmet and kept up a rapid-fire stream of French puns as he showed us his collection of working siege engines: a couple of trebuchets, a mangonel, a ballista, a crane powered by a giant human hamster wheel, and an ornery goat who had to be rounded up a couple of times during the demonstration.
The best thing about the demonstration was Giraud's complete lack of concern for his own or anyone else's safety. He let kids ride in the sling of the trebuchet, he gave halberds to drunk middle-aged French tourists, and when four men (including me) worked the big mangonel he took the time to warn us that usually the projectiles go downrange, but sometimes they just go straight up and come back down onto the operators. (In a rare concession to sanity, the projectiles were soccer balls reinforced with duct tape.)
Slightly sunburnt and tired, we refreshed at the Chateau Bellevue and then had dinner at what can only be described as "the local joint" in Eauze, not far away. Best day to the trip, so far . . .
Next time: The worst day of the trip.
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