Journalist and fine and tongue-in-cheek writer, Matthias Debureaux has the elegance not to clutter bookstores. He publishes little, always wisely. He is the author of a book that all globetrotters should read urgently: On the art of boring by telling his travels. Contrary to these bullies, Debureaux prefers to stay in France and take an interest in others.
This is how, four years ago, he had the revelation while cycling in the Limousin: “I went through the village of Châlus where, in August 1908, the future Lawrence of Arabia celebrated his 20th birthday – then a student at Oxford, he was cycling around France to study the architecture of fortified castles. The following evening, while having dinner alone in a hotel-restaurant in Brantôme, I read with curiosity a set of paper table presenting some great characters from Périgord. This is how I learned the extraordinary story of Antoine de Tounens, this son of a Périgord butcher who became sovereign of an immense kingdom in South America under the name of ‘Orélie-Antoine I in 1860. When he got back on the road the next day, the idea arose of bringing together all the villages of France that have accompanied or engendered the greatest destinies, because very often these ignored non-places turn out to be high places of contemporary history…” Here he is on a wacky project that today gives today Worldly guide to the villages of Francea marvel of dandy erudition to offer to Stendhal cyclists (there are some).
Jimi Hendrix, Jacques Mesrine… Lots of them are happening in France!
On nearly 700 pages, Debureaux travels through 500 French villages to bring back forgotten stories and hilarious anecdotes about Orson Welles or Coco Chanel, Mobutu or Tocqueville, Ravel or the Rolling Stones, Chirac or Yourcenar, Henry Miller or Yvette Horner… you, for example, that Jimi Hendrix, still unknown, performed one evening in Loison-sous-Lens, in Nord-Pas-de-Calais? For lack of a dressing room in the hall, he had had to change in a miner’s kitchen. There are beautiful things happening in France.
Rejecting the “charming”, the “bucolic”, the “picturesque” and the “croquignolet”, Debureaux avoids “postcard villages worthy of appearing on puzzles and boxes of chocolates” – we are not here at Stéphane’s Berne. Combining “the rigor of a Benedictine monk” and “the dilettantism of a gyrovague monk”, the half-bookworm, half-country rat author has searched biographies and archives of the regional daily press and the INA and crisscrossed the territory to go directly to the source.
What was his most amazing discovery? “Perhaps the Auberge du Mont Saint-Mard in Vieux-Moulin, answers Debureaux. It is in the forest of Compiègne, in the Oise. This restaurant was run in the 1960s by Jacques Mesrine before he became public enemy No. 1. He had made it an excellent gastronomic address but also a kind of gambling den and brothel. Following complaints from the inhabitants, some of whom were squandering their household savings there, and fire fired in the middle of the night, the place will close.”
For a solo weekend, Romilly-sur-Aigre!
If spring makes you want to get some fresh air, here are some ideas for trips suggested by the enlightened cyclist… As a couple, go to Bagnoles-de-l’Orne, a very chic former spa resort specializing in the treatment of varicose veins and nicknamed ” the capital of veins” – an operetta setting dear to David Hockney where you will admire an artificial lake and fallen palaces. If you are taking your family, Thaon-les-Vosges will do the trick, with its heritage museum which brings together an astonishing collection of objects that belonged to the most famous bearded woman of the Belle Epoque, Clémentine Delait.
For a solo weekend, finally, Debureaux is formal: “You have to go to Romilly-sur-Aigre, one of the towns of Beauce Pouilleuse which inspired Zola to write his cruel novel Earth. These intimidating fortified farms in the middle of immense wheat fields exude a metaphysical power ideal for taking stock at any stage of one’s life.” Follow the guide…
Worldly guide to the villages of France
By Matthias Debureaux.
Allary editions, 687 pages, €20.