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.