Malestroit – The Siren's Song

From her waist down – like one of Eve’s daughters.

From her waist up – there is no beauty like hers.

I went out with theThe main Francophile To explore the roads and lanes of Brittany. As we passed a routine road sign, “MALESTROIT,” the Francophile eye caught a sub-rule: “Ville Médiévale.” We screeched to a halt. Granted, there is no city or village in France that does not have a handful of medieval cobblestone alleys, but Maltrois knows this too, and yet shamelessly advertises its wares. There is no seducer like a shameless woman. We were seduced. We parked. We wandered.

From step to step, the Francophile's face fell and dug in. There are many more like that, he muttered sadly. Not much, he sighed. Dragging people here? No way, he concluded. Even the nun at the church organ keys didn't soften his disappointment with her playing. Before he drowned his sorrow in a juicy Merde, I agreed with him even though I didn't agree, and we returned to the car.

When the general comes to visit and invites me to Maltrois

At night, General Audibert came to me and reminded me that Maltrois was the center of the resistance fighters in Brittany during the Second World War. He himself, he added modestly, commanded them until the Gestapo arrested him in the Augustinian monastery in the city. From this monastery, priests in black woolen robes suddenly emerged. We are paratroopers from the army France The free one!

They declared, and immediately they took off their clothes and I did indeed see their spotted uniforms and the Cross of Lorraine on their shoulders. Even the abbess, Yvonne Aimée Bouvier, pushed herself up to me, with a white enameled five-pointed star hanging from her neck. “The Legion of Honor,” she explained humbly. From General de Gaulle himself I received, although he personally did not like it that I also treated German wounded, the pious eyelid in her eyes.

The Francophile said there were many more like Maltrois, I muttered. The general faded away. The Francophile said it was nothing. The paratroopers evaporated. Drag people here? No way, I quoted. The abbess turned her ass on me. I fell asleep.

Don't worry, we'll return to the general, the parachuted priests, and Mother Yvonne Bouvia at the end of the article.

I woke up to the siren's song.

Because the sirens will enchant us with the magic of their ringing songs.

(The Odyssey, Poem 12, Line 44, translated by Shaul Tchernichovsky)

The Siren of Brittany

“Mademoiselle Maltrois. Sirena,” she introduced herself, and she didn’t have to say anything more. I got up in the morning, drove, and returned to Maltrois.

All 50 kilometers from Manoir de la Chausee The castle where I live (where you can live too if you want).

So like this: Sirens, as you know, have the shape of a fish from the waist down, and from the waist up – beautiful women. This one, the Siren of Troyes, is also divided into two. From her waist down, meaning the ground floor of Batya, she is like all the fish in the sea. That is: clothing stores, boulangerie, patisserie, butchery, charcuterie, pubs, restaurants. But from her waist up, meaning the upper floors of Batya… be careful! I fell twice.

A little taste of what we'll see below:

And now – let's go.

We enter Maltrois via a double bridge that crosses the connection of the Ouest River with the Canal. Nantes-Brest.

A little about the Nantes-Brest Canal

An artificial canal out of the Brittany Its length, from Nantes in the south to Brest in the north. The decision to build it was made by Napoleon, following the siege imposed by the English army on Brest. The idea was to create an internal waterway, which would not be subject to threats from a hostile fleet from the sea. Construction began in 1811, and Napoleon III inaugurated it in 1858.

The canal is about 360 km long. No less than 238 buoyancy chambers allow boats to be raised and lowered to overcome differences in elevation. Today, the canal has lost its military and commercial importance, as land and air transport have become more useful, but it is still beautiful and sparkling.

There is a tourist information station near the intermediate center, where, if you don't trust me, you can get a brochure with a map and check if the information I provide here is correct and accurate. The map marks the main sites and the brochure gives a brief explanation of them.

Stop No. 2: Maltrois Town Hall

Site No. 1 is, of course, the town hall. On its facade is the coat of arms, the sign of the heroes of Maltrois, and on it the inscription “He who counts his money is not a Trojan.“. I checked with the guy in the pub across the street. Not only did he count his money, even the coins I gave for my beer – he counted a book too. There he was, behind me, this unscrupulous impostor.

Station No. 2: City Square. A rectangular plaza lined with cafes and pubs.

The ancient houses combine stone construction with diagonal wooden beams.

Station No. 8 Pelican House

Why pelican? Because the pelican, or pelican in our language, is a common Christian symbol in churches and sacred objects, mainly Catholic. The origin of the sacredness is in ancient legends, which predate the appearance of Jesus. According to these legends, when a mother pelican cannot find food for her chicks, she pecks at her own breast and feeds her young with her flesh and blood. From this, the connection to Jesus is clear.

The main attractions are on the upper floors: strange statues.

Station No. 9 – House of the sow who is running.

It's worth taking a closer look:

According to the brochure, this stone relief shows a pig running on a ball, a hunter blowing a horn, a man hitting his wife, a threatening dog, a rabbit playing with her cubs. Some I saw, maybe, some I believe are there.

And perhaps it's clearer from this direction:

We will continue to search, especially on the upper floors:

Station No. 14 – Food

The Guard House. Formerly a barracks where 400 soldiers lived and 80 horses with them. Today it is a restaurant.

On the ground floor, two huge stone fireplaces remain, inside one of which the man-at-the-grill is now preparing my steak:

While he adds lard to the casserole, I get the starter: Rabbit terrine:

And here comes the steak, or to be precise: Coeur de basse-côte de boeuf black angus

There's no more room, but we won't give up dessert:

Karen ordered this mountain of chocolate, whipped cream, ice cream, and cookies. I settled for a modest crème brûlée:

It was delicious, but I can't move. And that's a problem, because it's 2:30, and the restaurant owner is obligated, by tradition, to close immediately.

All that remains is to pray:

Heavens, have mercy on me!

If there is a God among you, and a way for God in you –

And I did not find him –

Pray for me!

(Bialik, not me)

So if you pray, from here to the church.

Station 35: The Church of Maltrois.

Saint Gilles Church. Saint Gilles. Gilles (in French) is actually Aegidius, one of the 14 “helping saints,” who are considered by Catholics to be particularly effective against various diseases.

You can read about their areas of expertise. HERE.

As you can read, headaches were handled by Agathius, family disputes belonged to Eustathius, intestinal diseases were handled by Erasmus, sore throats were treated by Blasius, sudden death (curable? It seems so) – Saint Barbara, mental illnesses – Georgius, epilepsy went to Levitus, physicians (a type of illness, a fact) – Panteleimon, Tiriacus took up “Temptations on the Dying Bed” (?).

What is left for our Gilles? Plague!!!

As I was leaving the church, I met two nuns. For a moment, I thought about checking to see if they were paratroopers from the Free French Army, dressed as nuns. On second thought, I gave up.

In a religious atmosphere, following the leaflet, I go out to look for station 38, on rue hurberdière.

On the lintel of what now appears to be an ordinary residential building, I find the inscription:

The address is in three languages.

The first is supposed to be in Hebrew, and according to the leaflet it says “In your grace I have believed, O Lord.”

I see “by your grace,” I don’t see “I believed,” and the third word is “God.”

The second language is Greek, and if we are to believe the newspaper, which I no longer believe, it says “know yourself” (a kind of clean language for masturbation?).

The third language is Latin, and it says, “Earth is only a short stopover, heaven is the homeland that God has reserved for us.” Well, if the stopover is short, it’s worth taking advantage of every moment.

The wonders of faith.

I know, I haven't forgotten the general, the parachuted priests, and the abbess.

Station No. 30. Augustinian Monastery.

The place served as the Breton regional headquarters of the Resistance, the French resistance movement against the Germans during World War II. The commander was General Louis-Alexandre Audibert. He initially operated from Nantes, but after following in his footsteps he moved to the Augustinian monastery in Maltrois.

It didn't help him, and he was arrested by the Gestapo. He was severely tortured, which left him deaf in one ear, but he didn't speak. He was deported to Buchenwald, where he was finally liberated by General Patton's armies. His wife Claire was less fortunate. She was imprisoned in Ravensbrück, where she was killed in a gas chamber, "by taking the place of an 18-year-old girl" (that's what Google says).

I greeted them both.

The parachuted priests. According to the leaflet, they also arrived at the Augustinian monastery. These were Free French soldiers who had parachuted the night before D-Day, along with 24,000 Americans and British, in order to secure the flanks of the Normandy landing beaches. On August 18, some of them arrived in the village of Saint-Marcel, near Maltrois, where they were surrounded by the Germans, fled and found refuge in our monastery, disguised as priests. Of course, under their robes they were in uniform, in the hope that this would give them protection in case they were captured.

Before we get to the abbess, I must correct a mistake that I too once made, until I discovered the truth.

It is commonly believed that France surrendered to the Germans almost without a fight. This is not true. In the two weeks that the fighting was still going on, 92,000 French were killed. So it is true that the strategy was poor from the start (the Mazino Line, “the Ardennes are impenetrable to armor,” etc.). But the Hafshim fought, and even better.

Yvonne Aimée, also known as Yvonne Bouvier, Mother of the Abbey. She worked there from 1927 until her death in 1951. She established a modern clinic, where she treated the wounded of the Resistance, whom she hid, but also the wounded Germans. She was arrested by the Gestapo, tortured, and miraculously escaped, of course. After the war she received the Legion of Honor, the highest French decoration, equivalent to the British “Victoria Cross” and our “Badge of Valor.”

I think we're done.

We will leave Maltrois via the “New Bridge”, from which we have a nice view of the Notre-Dame Bridge through which we entered the city:

Goodbye, Francophiles.

דני

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