Chapter 7
Pont-Aven
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net
that was thrown into the sea and gathered
fish of every kind.
- Matthew 13:47
“Allez, Bouchard! Step it up there. I have a schedule to keep.”
Antoine Bouchard strained under the heavy weight of the boxes filled with export wines from the valley of the Loire - the Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc demanded by a resurgent English economy. Spared the ravages of occupation and conquest, France’s allies in the Great War quickly became its most important trading partners.
Trade with England from the major ports of Brest, Lorient, and Saint-Nazaire created an increasing demand for fish, wine, and other agricultural products. Although the trade organizations dominated the official trade in imports and exports, the tiny port of Pont-Aven routinely shipped tons of wines and other agricultural products to merchants in Portsmouth across the English Channel eager to bypass more traditional channels.
For a small fishing boat owner, the opportunity to offload a cargo of high-priced goods was too good of a premium to pass up.
Gilles De Rosier owned the fishing vessel St. Justine, one of a small fleet of independent boats that fished the waters of Biscay Bay. The large fishing fleets were required to sell their catch to the association fish processors at Lorient, but small boats generally carried on a local fresh fish industry that bypassed government restrictions and taxes. Monsieur De Rosier was as much a smuggler as a ship’s captain. Regular payments to the Pont-Aven harbor master ensured his activities would go unnoticed by French authorities.
Life in the quiet coastal areas of Brittany escaped much of the chaos and economic hardships of France in the years following the Great War. Manpower was in short supply because of the war dead and influenza that killed as many or more young military-age men as the Germans. Work for the skilled was plentiful but wages were still low and conditions hard. Antoine Bouchard learned to be a master of many trades to survive.
There was work to do. While woodcutting at the chateau he had met Captain De Rosier. Bouchard signed on board for a three-day trip when his mate, a coarse drunk who valued his brandy more than his work, did not show up on the quay. He proved to be a quick study, worked hard, and on their return the captain offered Bouchard the mate’s position. As the mate of the St. Justine he often loaded the contraband delivered across the channel.
A local priest showed him a small cottage on the edge of the commune that belonged to a man who had yet to return from the war. The priest had made inquiries concerning his whereabouts, but without success. The local military attachŽ had simply dismissed his request with “Whereabouts Unknown” and filed it away. In case he did make it back, his file would be changed. There were so many who had been killed in action or died unknown in some temporary field hospital of wounds or the influenza that trying to find anyone was near to impossible. Bouchard could live in this cottage until the owner returned. If he did not, it became the property of the church. If Bouchard agreed to work one day each week for the church he could live there and work the small truck garden.
Bouchard eventually earned the confidence of his captain and although De Rosier always piloted the vessel for late night cargo runs, he often turned the St. Justine over to Bouchard who fished the bay alone, splitting the catch with the captain after expenses.
“Ah, Bouchard. You are going out on a day like this?” the harbor master questioned him. The weather this day was blustery, and the sea was churned into a miserable chop of competing waves as the wind blew incessantly against a strong out-flowing tidal current. It was a day only the most adventurous, or foolish, left port. The harbor master had grown accustomed to Bouchard venturing out at times when the rest of the fleet kept safely tied to the docks. He was often at sea for days at a time.
“The fish don’t mind the wind, so neither do I,” he called back as he untied the St. Justine from the pier.
He wrote every few months keeping a promise he had made to his only friend, in America.
18 May 1922
Mon ami, Andy
I have found regular work and a place to live. You would like this palace of mine, built of stone on fertile ground. At least the three square meters of ground behind the cottage seems fertile. I have not planted a garden, for I have no time to tend such an extravagance.
I work a few days a month for the commune priest for my rent. The rest of the time I am the mate on the fishing vessel St. Justine. The owner allows me to fish the bay alone most of the time. He is older, and bothered by aches and pains to where he prefers to spend the day before the fire with a bottle of brandy. He is tough, but has taught me much of the fishing trade.
He lost his two sons in the Great War. I suppose I have replaced them in his plans to quit the rigors of the sea.
I hope you are well.
Antoine
It was a precarious life. Profits were hard to earn, the work dangerous. Only by fishing when others chose the comforts of the hearth and wine bottle could he carve out a life working another’s boat.
He preferred the solitude.
At night, when he was ashore, he stayed close to the fire inside the small stone cottage. He feared the night above all else. The unsettled weather of spring in Brittany would bring frequent thunderstorms as the winter reluctantly released its tenacious grip. The thunder rolled in, crackling and snapping, as he sought shelter in the cottage. His pulse was already pounding as he closed the shutters tight against the gusting winds. He knew the dreams would return tonight.
The small cottage at night was illuminated only by the faint glow of the embers of the dying fire. The walls closed in around him, and he slept fitfully. Faces appeared, faces of comrades lost, of times past. His brother’s face appeared - at first soft and boyish, morphing into a mutilated apparition - silhouetted by the glow of the fires of the bombardments that just as suddenly dissolved into the reddish glow of the hearth. He woke dripping in a cold sweat, screaming out a warning of the impending bombardment.
“Down!” he screamed, and buried into the mean ticking to shield himself from the fragments. There was no use trying to run; there was no place to run to. The trenches were his life, his protection. To leave meant certain death. So he burrowed ever further into his nightmares, deep into the mud and gore, seeking refuge.
On the sea he felt at peace. The openness of the bay and the rolling of the waves calmed him. Even in the confined space in the ship’s forward where he slept, far more closed in than his cottage trenches, the smell of the sea air and the constantly rolling waves eased his fears and calmed his dreams. When his brother spoke to him, it was of gentler times in the hills and rivers of the Alsace, not the battered plains of Poland or the trenches of Flanders. Tonight the terrors returned, and he wept and prayed for dawn to come.
The following day, he wrote to Andy,
14 Dec 1923
Dear Andy,
The terrors return most every night. You have asked me to pray, but I find myself praying not for peace, but for death and release. I finally fell asleep when the thunder passed, but when I awoke my left arm and hand were again numb.
I feel God is mocking me.
The sea is the only place I can feel at peace.
Antoine
Bouchard routinely fished the Brittany Cape. Occasionally he would venture further east, toward the Channel Islands, those bits of rock just off the French coast that were a part of the British Commonwealth. Over time Bouchard discovered the small ports along the northern coast where he could put in to offload his catch, make repairs, or just tie up for a needed night of rest before heading back to the Breton coast.
It was in the tiny port of Pont-Aven on the Biscay Bay that he met Marianne Laroque.
R
Present Day
I began the process of deciphering and cross referencing the letters on the train from Tours back to Caen. The letters read easily enough, and I had a general sense of their perspective, but there were subtle references, responses, and secrets hidden between the lines. They were a puzzle without directions.
I began by creating a table and identifying each letter by date order. In the next column I gave a brief description of the context as I understood it. The third column contained key words or phrases that needed some contextual focus. The last column was reserved for my own comments. I hoped by breaking these down in this manner it would be easier to manage the hidden meanings and agendas.
One of the tasks I had completed before arriving in France was to make a timeline of the places Grandpa Andy had lived throughout this period. As a young divinity student it was difficult to balance schooling and work. Andy held a number of student pastorates between 1922 and 1930, and had to move often. By 1935, when my mother was seven years old, he had joined the Civilian Conservation Corps as a chaplain and was stationed in the Medford District of Oregon. My mother often fondly told stories of living in Roseburg, in southern Oregon’s Rogue River region - one of the finest fishing rivers in the west. Fishing was my grandfather’s passion.
I was surprised to learn Andy had been recalled to Army service in June 1941, nearly six months before Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into the war. He quickly found himself stationed in New Guinea and then the Philippines.
As for Antoine, the few letters I had led me to the Brittany coast. The only actual address was for the chateau where Antoine chopped wood:
Chateau Domaine de Kerbastic
56520 Guidel - Morbihan
Bretagne Sud, France
A quick check online showed the chateau was still there, and operating as a hotel. Many of the chateaus and shops of the region had stood for centuries. I located the chateau on the mapping program and noted the possible ports nearby. The main district center near the chateau was Lorient - I decided to concentrate my search through the records there. Lorient was a mere 10 minute drive from the chateau according to their e-brochure, so I decided to make a reservation there for my stay in Lorient.
The Chateau Kerbastic is a magnificent 17th century mansion set in stone-walled grounds and beautiful gardens about 10k from Lorient. It was the home of Breton royalty. The grandson of Comte Maxence Melchior Edouard Marie Louis de Polignac, the owner of the estate in the latter 19th century, was the father of Prince Rainier III of Monaco, who married Grace Kelly. Over the centuries it has been host to some of France’s most notable writers and artists, such as Jean Cocteau, Marcel Proust, and Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette.
I checked into one of the smaller rooms and took some time to walk the grounds. Antoine lived here, according to his letters, and cut wood during the postwar period. I asked the manager, but there was no such record.
“Casual laborers would not be recorded,” was his answer. However, he confirmed such an activity would have been likely. He also confirmed the estate manager of the chateau in 1922 was Amaury Garant, the name mentioned in the letter.
I drove a rented car into Lorient the following morning, and sought help at the hall of records. I was expecting to locate records relating to the birth of the child AriŽle or the marriage between Antoine and Marianne. I was guessing these relationships, but was fairly certain this was the case.
Armed with a research outline I downloaded from the Family History Library of the Mormon church, I began to search the civil records of births, deaths, marriages, and occupations contained in Lorient. It was a short search.
“Do you know the birth date of the father?” - No.
“Do you know his place of birth?” - No
“What about the mother - her maiden name?” - No
“Where did they live?” - Sorry. I don’t know that either.
“Do you know what church they were married in?” - No.
“Je suis dŽsolŽ, monsieur.” That was that.
I drove around Lorient and enjoyed the sites of the city, but came away with not much in the way of concrete information. When I got back to my room at the chateau, I went back online and dug deeper into the sources - of records and methodologies that might help unlock the information I sought.
The server at breakfast the following morning gave me the best advice I had since arriving.
“The church was the center of all activity. My grandparents lived in this region, and their parents before them. There are almost no civil records of my family, but we could trace them through the records of the church. You might start there.”
Great. Which church? I learned records of activities during and after the war years could be frustratingly erratic and incomplete. Marriages and births were often held at small churches in the rural areas, and often the records were kept locally. That made them particularly susceptible to being destroyed or lost in the chaos of the war years.
Most of the residents of the Breton Peninsula are Catholic, so it made sense to begin by checking the diocese in the region. I went back to my room and buried myself on the Internet.
I found the Archdiocese of FinistŽre was the largest organizational unit of the region, and the Diocese Quimper included the region to the west of Lorient. The area to the east is the Diocese of Vannes. Between these two there are hundreds of individual churches, and the number in small ports while less was still intimidating.
I placed a call to the headquarters of the Archdiocese of FinistŽre and learned, through my increasingly better French, that the records do not include all the churches in the archdiocese; neither did the records at the diocese level, especially during the early war years. I would have to check records at each church if I could not find my information in the civil records.
The task seemed overwhelming, again. I spent hours searching the web for a clue that may lead me to an electronic archive, but eventually gave up.
I turned back to the letters to see if I could find something to help narrow my search.
R
Pont-Aven, 1924
Pierre Villar walked through the quiet early morning streets of Pont-Aven. Dawn would not come for several hours, but soon the villagers would begin to arrive for their daily breads and cakes. He would only bake what would be sold today, ensuring the bread was always fresh. The local priest would pick up what did not sell - his tithe to the church that kept this little commune church supplied with bread even in the hardest of winters.
The bakery was already warm from the ovens when he opened the door and walked in.
“Bonjour, ma minette,” he smiled warmly at the young woman stoking the fires of the bakery. Her long, auburn hair was tied up to keep it away from the fires. Her apron was already covered with white flour, her brow sweating from the hard morning work and the heat of the stoves. Pierre could not help but marvel at her beauty, a face that comforted him in his old age.
“Bonjour, Papa!” she cheerfully replied. His daughter Marianne was his pride, so strong and independent, yet as lovely and slight as her mother who he lost to the influenza these seven years past. She would arrive an hour before her father to light the fires and prepare the dough for the morning baking. By noon they will have sold the day’s bakings and closed the shop. In the afternoon she tended the garden plot just outside of town where she grew vegetables and a small crop of grapes to make the annual set of wine.
Pierre Villar was known across the peninsula for his fine brandy, but he refused to make any more than he could drink and share with his family, friends, and his priest.
“One does not sell a gift from God,” he would always say when asked why he would not sell his fine brandy.
Villar’s bakery shop was a short walk from the quay where the fishing boats unloaded their catch, and from where on this blustery day Antoine Bouchard was preparing for another day at sea. The tide would be turning by early afternoon and the St. Justine was scheduled to clear the harbor by 2:00. Marianne arrived after noon, her hair now falling loosely past her shoulders, blowing in the harbor wind and glistening in the afternoon sun.
Antoine saw her as she rounded the corner and stepped onto the dock. He had watched her from a distance for many months, occasionally stalling leaving the quay just for the oft chance she would come by and deliver packages of breads to one of the boats in the harbor. The ship’s owner, Monsieur De Rosier, would often scold him for being so shy.
“You are not fit to be a Frenchman!” he would cry out, waving his arms in disgust. “A beautiful woman walks by every day, and you hide like a schoolboy! Mon Dieu, I am ashamed to share my boat with you.”
They were out on the bay hauling in a load of fish one day when he cried out, “Antoine! She is a woman! A woman wants amour, wants to be shown a man has his heart just for her!”
“I cannot. I simply do not know anything to say,” he replied.
“Vraiment? Ah, it is easy! You simply look her straight in the eyes, smooth out your voice, and speak slowly and softly, ‘tes yeux, j’en rve jour et nuit’ - I dream about your eyes day and night. She will fall over dead for you - I guarantee it!”
His bullying did little to boost Bouchard’s confidence. On the days Marianne would walk down the quay, and the older boat captains would politely doff their hats and acknowledge her with an “Allo” or “Bonjour, Marianne” and the deck boys would be gawking or whistling, he would step behind the wheelhouse or go below decks. His heart would be pounding, nonetheless. He was miserable.
“Bonjour, St. Justine!” she called, approaching the boat. “J’ai votre Žpicerie - I have your groceries,” and she stopped alongside the fishing boat, awaiting a response. “Allo! Capitaine?”
Antoine panicked. Why was she here? That rascal, De Rosier. He ordered up some groceries for her to deliver! It is a set up! What shall I do? He was trying to think, when Marianne stepped on board. He was trapped! “Ah, bonjour. I am looking for Capitaine De Rosier,” she smiled. She had seen this handsome young man before, but they had never met. That was a little odd, she thought, for the commune was so small. They should have met, if not on the streets or the bakery, at least in church.
“Uhmm, I did not order these,” Antoine stammered, afraid to look into her green eyes.
“Oh, really. And just who are you? I have an order here from the captain of the St. Justine, M. De Rosier. It is already paid for, and my instructions are to deliver it before 1:00 this afternoon.” She looked at him with amusement, now fully aware he was desperately looking for a way out of this meeting.
“Just put them down,” he stumbled, “I will put them away later.”
“I will not! I do not know who you are, or why you are on M. De Rosier’s boat. Perhaps you are here to steal his provisions,” she declared, in a mock serious, teasing voice. “I will wait for le capitaine, if you don’t mind. In the meantime, I will put these below decks in the galley,” she declared matter-of-factly, and stepped past him to go below. A breeze caught her long, auburn hair and it blew in his face as she moved. He though he was going to faint.
As she stepped back on deck Captain De Rosier appeared on the dock.
“Ah, bonjour Madame. Welcome aboard. I see you have met my mate, Antoine Bouchard.”
“Actually, M. De Rosier, he has not so much as bothered to introduce himself. I should be insulted,” she teased with a smile aimed in the captain’s direction.
“Je suis dŽsolŽ, madame. Permettez moi de vous prŽsentez Monsieur Antoine Bouchard. Antoine, Madame Marianne Laroque.” De Rosier bowed slightly in an almost mockingly formal introduction, reveling in Bouchard’s sheer panicked expression.
“EnchantŽ, Monsieur Bouchard,” she replied, and extended her hand in greeting.
A lump rose in his throat, but he managed to croak a garbled, “EnchantŽ,” himself and reached out to take her hand. It was slight but firm, surprisingly soft for a woman of the working class. His was rough, hardened, and sweaty, but she did not flinch or draw back. She warmly shook his hand, lingering just a little longer than he dared believe she would.
“Monsieur De Rosier, I have put your supplies in the galley. I must be away. I have a delivery to make to the church this afternoon. Antoine, it was a pleasure to meet you,” she smiled. With the captain taking her hand, she stepped back onto the quay, and turned back. “Au revoire, Antoine. Good luck on the bay this afternoon. Captain,” and she turned away, walking down the quay. Antoine’s eyes followed her until at last she reached the side of the net shed where she turned and waved before disappearing down the street.
Antoine sat back on a pile of nets, and was sure he would vomit. De Rosier simply cried, “So! Now you have met!” He laughed heartily as the boat’s engine roared to life.
R
Present Day
The letters were personal, and as such contained customary period pleasantries - what one of Professor Tauscher’s students called “real-life-boring.” Andy was from a passionately evangelistic family whose father wrote letters almost entirely in the language of the faithful. This style tended to permeate Andy’s letters as well.
I browsed the letters looking for keywords. There was a thread that appeared early and seemed to dissipate, then return. The words and phrases kept recurring, “dreams that trouble you”, “despair”, “the terrors”, and so forth. One letter in particular was unusually direct.
5 Feb 1924
My dear Antoine,
I have been blessed with a pastorate in Lafayette, Oregon. This is called the Willamette Valley - the destination of the wagon trains of the old west stories, the Oregon Trail.
This part of Oregon is beautiful, and reminds me of Tours. Some of the farmers here are growing grapes for making wine - which made me think of you. Perhaps they will equal the French grapes one day.
St. Justine be praised! The patron will watch over your labors I am certain. Even a Baptist can appreciate such guidance!
There are two members of the congregation here who fought in France in the Great Offensive of 1918. I have sat with them many times helping them find God’s forgiveness. The terror you speak of afflicts them as well. The doctors refuse to help, for there is no medicine that can alleviate such pain.
I think of you when I listen to their fears. One cannot walk, but is confined to a wheel chair even though the doctors cannot find anything wrong. His daughter tells me he walks through the house in his sleep. There is a connection between your arm pain and his inability to walk during the day. I hope I can find out how to help him, God willing.
You are never alone, my friend.
Trusting in Him,
Andy
I became distracted by the information about the man who could not walk. Professor Douglas had spoken of the “whispers in the winds” - these were the counterpoint to Antoine’s “point,” and often seemed to be answers to something contained in a previous letter. Since only a precious few of the letters were found from Antoine to Grandpa Andy, I was forced to infer much from these counterpoint comments.
Antoine had some kind of infirmary. Perhaps he had been wounded in battle, but the implication was his issues were psychosomatic, at least as far as a lay interpretation was concerned. I retuned to the Internet and began to research the term to make certain I was not propagating some discredited snake-oil problem.
I came to the conclusion this subject was far too complex to reduce to a simple set of answers. However, the overwhelming body of information diverted my attention to the subject of severe trauma and its effects on the human condition. Even if it did not directly answer any of my questions, I knew it would be important in helping unravel my great mystery.
R
Pont-Aven
“You called her ‘Madame Laroque.’ Not ‘Mademoiselle,’” Antoine ventured as they headed out into the stiffening breeze off the bay.
“So, you think you are going to find some virgin schoolgirl to fall in love with you, eh, Antoine?” The captain chided him. “You’re not exactly a prime catch yourself! She’s a grown woman, Antoine. And a woman does not need some fresh-faced school boy to dote after her. She wants a man who will provide for his family, who is not afraid to work, and work hard.”
“But how could she love someone like me? My clothes are dirty. My hands are rough and calloused. I smell like fish!”
“She does not already know this? Believe me, the entire commune knows you smell like fish! Mon Dieu, you are impossible. I give up. Enough teasing. It is no contest anyway.
“Marianne is the daughter of Pierre Villar, the baker. This you know. What you do not know is while she was a girl in school, at the beginning of the Great War, she met a young Parisian - Robert Laroque - and they fell in love. They were married in Paris without the knowledge of her father and not in the church. As you can imagine, her father refused to acknowledge the marriage, and it created a rift with his daughter.
“Within the year, her husband was conscripted into the army, and was killed after a few months in the northern offensive of 1917. Marianne was devastated, and hid in Paris, afraid to return home. Her father went to Paris and found his daughter. Together they healed the wounds that had separated them, and he brought her, and the body of her husband, back to Pont-Aven.
“To honor her father, the priest gave a blessing in the church to the marriage of Marianne and Robert. On the same day, they blessed his soul to God, and buried him in the church cemetery. It was the saddest day anyone can remember in Pont-Aven.
“Since then she has worked with her father in the bakery. It has been 8 years now, and she has healed her heart of that painful day.”
R
The Procession was interrupted by the noise of the door opening, spilling the hymn momentarily out into the street. Pierre Villar turned to see who would be so rude as to interrupt the beginning of mass, and saw the mate who works one of the boats in the harbor try to slip unnoticed into church.
“Completement deb’le!” he spat, annoyed anyone would be so late to the mass.
“Papa, sssh,” Marianne whispered, and tried to see who had so irritated her father. What she saw made her smile discretely, watching the young man in his recently scrubbed but rumpled clothing, black hair combed back, and ill-fitting coat slip into the pew. She turned back and laughed to herself.
So, she thought, the quiet fisherman decided to follow me to mass. At the end of the Procession, she quickly turned to glance back at him, and their eyes met momentarily. Antoine immediately glanced down, pretending to be preoccupied with a rosary he clumsily removed from his coat pocket.
Monsieur Villar looked over quickly at her, annoyed she would bother to turn to look at such a creature. As he watched her face brighten, the little smile turning the corners of her mouth ever so slightly, he frowned deeply. Not with my daughter, he told himself. I will keep my eye on this one, he vowed.
After the priest blessed the congregation at the conclusion of mass, Marianne stood and turned around to watch Antoine. He had risen early and all she saw was the door closing behind him. She shook her head, amused.
“Come, Papa. I have work to do.”
“On Sunday? We do not work on Sunday, daughter,” he scolded her.
“Oh, really? And just who prepares your supper, and cleans the dishes, and picks up after the mess you leave on your ‘day of rest’ - hmmm? It is easy for you to rest, you have a slave to do your housework for you!”
He growled at her impudence. No daughter should speak to her father in such a tone. It made him smile, however. She is so much like her mother, he thought. God has blessed me with two such beautiful women in my miserable life.
R
The quay was quiet as she walked by the next several days. The fishing fleet emptied the harbor early, even before Marianne arrived to tend the stoves, as the winds and the seas quieted. By evening the holds of the boats were filled to capacity. The crews, exhausted from the hard work, stayed on board with just enough sleep to start yet again the following day. The processing house and markets were full but the streets were quiet with the boats out all the time.
As all fishermen have known since boats first plied the Biscay Bay, days of nonstop fishing took their toll on boats, gear, and crew. Even the heartiest of captains would eventually have to put back to port for an extended stay to make repairs, provision, and rest.
On this day, the St. Justine remained in port.
“Bonjour, madame.” She was surprised to turn and see him standing in the bakery, without Captain De Rosier egging him on. The good Captain had told her of his mate, the hard working but shy Antoine Bouchard, and how he had watched him follow her every move like a smitten schoolboy. So they concocted the “chance” meeting on the boat to break the ice. He had fled church in a panic, she laughed, but at last, here he is. What now?
“Bonjour, comment allez-vous, Monsieur Bouchard?” she smiled, deliberately using the more formal gr