France, Part 19 - Chateau Bouceel

I called this journal of my trip to France “A French Connection” and with good reason.  After we left Mont Saint Michel we left behind fairytale castles and gaudy tourist destinations for places that served to turn the tide against one of history’s darkest periods.  France for me was always Normandy, over Paris, Mona Lisa and even the gardens of Versailles.  Everywhere we had gone, everything we had seen, it is here because of events that happened almost seventy years ago.  To those who have read my previous travelogues, the following few will be very story driven as much as they will include pictures of places and people.

Vacations can be many things, but they are stories we share with our family, with others, and some experiences cannot be told with pictures alone.  

I’m a student of history, of culture, and like many people I have family that fought and served during World War II.  My grandfather worked in the Air Force (Air Corps) yards and my great uncle was in the Pacific Theatre.  My grandmother worked in the USO, and other family members served or fought in other areas on both sides of my family.  Growing up, one of my favorite hobbies was to stare longingly at a wooden propeller my grandfather got from his time in the military.   When I took courses in Japanese study, the war was always a sobering subject in reflection of the atrocities and actions of the Japanese.  My only connection to the European Theatre was my Great Uncle Ralph but I don’t know much about him.

Normandy was and is a sacred place.  While the coastline has changed, and the razor’s edge of that war has long since rusted from the battering of the sea, it is no less a hallowed ground than when the plan known as Operation Overlord stormed the beaches in 1942.   Simply going there is not enough, however.  You cannot visit here without context, without someone who has had a personal connection to the war.   I would dare to say that anyone who lacks one or both of these things really can’t learn or experience all Normandy has to offer.  Our connection came in the family Roquefeuil and the Chateau Bouceel.

The Chateau Bouceel is not what you picture at first when you think of a French manor, but it has a beautiful and subdued, stately charm.  Approaching from the road, the house rises on the top of the hill, made of hewn stone with huge windows that look out over a pond and pastures in front and farmlands in the back.  The grounds are extensive, including these things but also including a private chapel and other structures used for housing people.

The Family Chapel

Much the same as the house, I wasn't sure what to expect of our hosts.  I knew they were a count and countess, the only "royalty" I have ever met.  Allow me to give some background. The Roquefeuil’s come from the French aristocracy, with lines dating back to the Knights Templar and the crusades.  They have another "castle" up north, which is supposedly what you think of when you consider a castle, and this house originally was the same.  

Looking at the house from the Pond

Arriving in the yard, we were met by our host, Count Reggi Roquefeuil, an unassuming man, reminiscent in appearance of a young Albert Einstein, yet he carries himself with that weight and stature of one descended from such wonderful history whenever he speaks of it.  He invited us indoors, and from that point on, history was our guide.

Main Stairs

Living Room

Main hall

Inside, from the moment you step through the door you step into history.  I didn’t know the breadth and scope of what I was getting into when I came here.  Portraits hang on every wall, and every one of them was related to our host.  He smiled as we went up the stair and pointed to a few portraits on the wall.  “My grandmother, great grandmother, great grandfather…” he said before pausing before one particular portrait.  It showed a young man in colonial dress standing before a four masted wooden ship.  “My great ancestor who fought in your revolutionary war.”

Ancestor from the Revolution of America

I stared at it astounded.  Here was a face and a portrait of a man so distant and yet now related to myself.  This man was a part of our own history as Americans.   There were many other portraits all throughout the house, and the rooms were all named after immediate relations.  

He went on about the house, how it was built just before the Revolution, burnt down, and then the insides rebuilt after.  "The floors were saved when Napoleon decided he wished to make his great street, the Champes Elysses.  He tore apart all the old buildings, but these floors are from some of them."  

Marie Antoinette is prominent among the other portraits of actual family.

Reggi graciously allows guests to use his study and other rooms on the first floor.  It was here, among books older than America that I found other books on the war and local history.  Here too, upon one wall, was a portrait of Marie Antoinette just beside ones of his other ancestors.  I had to wonder just who this man was in context to everything else I’d thought about Versailles, Paris and France in general.

Remember these three items, we will come back to these later.

As we were sitting in the study, I noticed what looked to be an innocuous plate just next to me.  On it was an old bike lamp, a stone, and a small metal cup.  Without even thinking of it, I picked up the stone and looked it over.  It didn’t have anything special about it to me, so I put it back.   We’ll come back to that later.

The "Armond" Cherry tree branch.  As a reference, that umbrella is about half as tall as my leg.

Reggi went on about the time of the revolution, when General Armond of France was given several cherry trees by George Washington.  Armond was a friend of the family and gifted them some of the trees, which survived on the property until a storm blew some down.   Reggi had foreseen this, and made cuttings which quickly grew into new trees, but he showed us the “branch” of one, which was about as thick as a normal tree trunk.  

Sitting with Reggi, France finally clicked for me.  Until then, it was about "seeing things" and the experience of seeing them.   Talking to a local, who could speak and recount all the little details of his history and the stories of the land around him, I got a whole new perspective. The Count is a wealth of historical, philosophical and genteel conversation, and he loves to engage and be engaged by his guests.  

It was fascinating for me just to hear the man talk, recount these stories as if they were yesterday.  As it was though, we were hungry from our journey.  Reggi gave us a suggestion on the local food.   We ate at a lovely restaurant called, "La Ferme Saint Michele."  This part of France is legendary for its lamb, highly recommended with any trip to France.   Apparently the farmers let the lambs feast on the salt marshes, and this imbues a unique flavor to the animals.   True to promise, the food was superb.  

Saltgrass Lamb

Carrot Soup

Orange Creme Brulee

We ate well, secure in the knowledge that our host had more to say when we returned. Little did I know that I was to learn far more more about our host, his family and the house in which we lived than even I anticipated.  It is a tale I share with you all in my next post, a story of love, life, danger and the courage of Reggi's father acting in the French Resistance against the Nazis.

France, Part 18 - Normandy Introduction and Operation Overlord

It seems fitting that I have reached this part of my journey to France on June 6, 2015, almost 71 years after what was and still is one of the greatest amphibious assaults in the history of warfare.  Before I do, readers need to know facts, figures and history of  what was Codenamed "Operation Overlord."

Operation Overlord was a tremendous push of  British, American and Canadian forces along a 50 mile stretch of coast.  This was no simple landing on a beach though, and no ordinary invasion.  The men and forces of Operation Overlord were undertaking the most dangerous stretch of Atlantic coast and the most ruthless and evil army of the 20th century.

Much can be said about the Nazi's and their atrocities, but they weren't stupid.  They knew retribution would come, but not where.  Hitler ordered none other than Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, to see to the enhanced fortifications of what he called, "The Atlantic Wall"  At 1670 miles it bristled with pillboxes, artillery turrets, bunkers, flack guns and countless amounts of barbed wire and cement.  Rommel enhanced these defenses with anti-tank and anti-vehicle obstacles.  I remind you again, the allies were pushing into 50 miles of the most fortified of Rommel's defenses.

In preparing for assault, the Nazi's knew an attack was coming, just not where and the allies used many tricks and traps of their own to spread disinformation. Among these was the now infamous Operation Mincemeat which put false information in the hands of the Germans specifically regarding invasion plans.

Few know it today, but Normandy was not the first assault on this coast.  In 1066 William the Conqueror began his conquest of England, an invasion depicted in the Bayux Tapestry which is the oldest in the world and still on display.

Indeed, Normandy had a long history of war and peace before the Nazis.  Nonetheless, the marks of that fateful day 71 years ago still linger in the land, the buildings and in the hearts of the people who live there if you know where to look.  The allies who tread there were walking into a hornet's nest of traps, hedgerows and flooded fields.  The operation almost automatically went wrong when bombs missed their targets, and the men on the beaches were almost overwhelmed except when a particular group assaulting Utah beach landed in the wrong spot.   Mistakes and miracles marked that day and began a forwards push to Berlin.

The invasion of Normandy left the Atlantic wall a battered remnant of tyranny that lingers like a slain dragon along the coasts of Europe, but here in France at the tip of the spear one can see it most severe.  I treat this place and the journals there to follow with the deepest relevance.

In all 425,000 people died in Operation Overloard.  The blood they spilled for freedom sprouted the beauty and peace that lingers there now. No one knows it better than the Normans who live there and the stories I heard and will share should be remembered for all time

(All pictures are courtesy Wikipedia and the World War II Museum, used for historical significance to this post)