Joanne's long walks: Road to Home 2023 Day 23: Chamouille

Ni tenir vil l’estrang que ven d’autrui pays, Car en aquest mont nos sen tuit pellegrin.

(Nor despise the stranger which cometh from far. For in this world we are all pilgrims.)

La Nobla Leyçzon – The Noble Lesson, Waldesian text (1100)

This morning I was already at breakfast with my hostess at the chambres d'hotes in Chamouille when her Iranian husband came downstairs, and I was able to greet him with "Good morning, how are you today?" in Farsi. He said it was a long time since he had heard those words upon entering the kitchen in the morning! After a breakfast of coffee, toast and croissants I packed up and prepared to leave, well waterproofed against the mist. I bid my host goodbye, Khoda hafez, and walked down to the road then followed the Voie Verte d'Aillette cycling path along the shore of Lac d'Ailette, a manmade lake, past the Centre Parcs holiday resort and the village of Neuville-sur-Ailette. The cycling path continued through the forest, with boardwalks over the boggy bits, to the ruins of Vauclair Abbey.

Medicinal herb garden at Vauclair Abbey

A historical note: Vauclair Abbey

The abbey of Vauclair was founded in 1134 by a group of monks sent from Burgundy by St. Bernard of Clairvaux - the saint in whose footsteps I walked last year on St. Bernard's Way from Yorkshire to Canterbury and thence to Dover. Vauclair (from the Latin Valle Claris) is one of 163 Cistercian abbeys St. Bernard founded all over Europe, from the mother house of Clairvaux (Clara vallis); the similarity of their names is due to the fact that both abbeys were located in valleys running from east to west, and therefore enjoyed sunshine all day long.

The monastery was expanded around the year 1250 and flourished until the French Revolution, at which time it was confiscated as state property and auctioned off; the buildings were used as a stone quarry, and the rest as farmland. The monumental 17th century gateway and a large 13th century building survived until 1917, when they were destroyed by the French artillery due to the site's vicinity to the Chemin des Dames.

In 1965, a Cistercian monk, Father Anselme Dimier, with the support of the Department for Architecture and Archaeology, began working to bring the ruins back to life. In 1966 he met a young Belgian Jesuit, Père René Courtois, who led the archaeological excavations at the site, conducted with the aid of around 200 student volunteers from all over Europe, and lived in the abbey from 1966 until his death in 2005. It is thanks to these excavations that the ruins can now be recognised as forming all the elements of a Cistercian abbey.

Leaving the ruined abbey behind, I picked up a dirt/gravel road called the Chemin du Roi, running parallel to the famous Chemin des Dames atop the ridge a few kilometres to the south.

A historical note: the Chemin des Dames

The Chemin des Dames is a 30 kilometre long section of road that has been the scene of a number of important episodes in French history. The name comes from the fact that the road was, unusually for the time, widened and paved in 1780, to make it more comfortable to travel on for the two daughters of Louis XV, Adélaïde and Victoire, who travelled the road to visit the home of their friend the Duchess of Narbonne-Lara, their father's former mistress, lady of honour to Adélaïde. The Duchess requested and was able to obtain the favour of improving the road for the comfort of the royal mesdames.

Not long after this, in 1814, the plateau on which the road was built became the scene of Napoleon's final victory, in the March 7th Battle of Craonne against the Russian and Prussian armies, at a cost of approximately 6000 French and 5000 Russian casualties.

In 1914 the road again became a battleground, taken by the Germans and remaining a strategic objective throughout the First World War. The area saw its bitterest fighting in 1917, when General Neville set out to reconquer the plateau with an offensive beginning on April 16th. On that day alone, 16,896 French soldiers perished and 65,132 were wounded, in addition to uncounted thousands of German and Senegalese troops. But the bloody history of the ridge along which the Chemin des Dames road travels actually goes back much further, to Julius Caesar's battle pitting the Roman legionnaires against 100,000 Gauls in 57 B.C.

When I arrived in Corbeny, a small ceremony was getting under way before the village war memorial, commemorating the end of a more recent war. May 8th is Victory in Europe Day, a national holiday in France, celebrating the end of World War II.

Ceremony in Corbeny

I stopped for a moment to watch, and when the speeches began I moved on to the bar in the Hotel Chemin des Dames to take a break, have a drink and use the facilities. I bought another large tuna, egg and mayonnaise sandwich, just like yesterday's but round instead of baguette-shaped, from the bakery next door and then hit the road again.

From Corbeny to Juvincourt it was a bit of a slog along an asphalt road through the fields, with the occasional vehicle whizzing past.

In Juvincourt the Via Francigena left the paved road to follow a dirt track between the fields and the trees along a small stream. Here I found a spot to stop, eat my sandwich and finish off the tea I had made in the morning. Then I walked the rest of the way into the charmingly named village of Berry-au-Bac, which sounds like it ought to be inhabited by hobbits. In actual fact my destination was the Emmaus Centre, a community inhabited mainly by immigrants, but open to anyone in need of a place to stay, no matter what their legal status, no questions asked. It is one of 122 Emmaus communities in France, all of which support themselves through the collection and sale of used but reusable items - home furnishings and household goods, clothing, etc. - and all of whose members are asked to contribute to the life of the community as a way of supporting themselves, maintaining their dignity and reintegrating into society.

A historical note: the Emmaus movement

The Emmaus solidarity movement was founded in Paris in 1949 by Franciscan friar Abbé Pierre, a member of Parliament and former member of the French Resistance who fought to provide accommodation for the homeless people of Paris. Abbé Pierre enlisted the aid of Georges, the first Emmaus Companion, a former convict who had attempted suicide in the Seine. Georges helped to build temporary homes for those in need, initially in the priest's own garden, and then on any land they could obtain.

From Parliament in 1951, Abbé Pierre dedicated himself to the cause of the homeless. He struggled to pay Georges and the first 18 members of the Emmaus Community. The priest was rebuffed by his Church for begging at restaurants, and so he organised 'rag pickers' to collect unwanted items for resale. This formed the basis of Emmaus Communities: raising funds and using the profits of their work to help others.

The harsh winter of 1954 led to a number of homeless people's deaths, and Abbé Pierre appealed for donations in the newspapers and on the radio. The French people responded, and Emmaus grew from a national charity into an international one. Emmaus Communities began to appear across Europe, French West Africa, the Far East and South America; there are now about 400 Emmaus organisations in 44 countries.

When I arrived at the Emmaus Centre in Berry-au-Bac on this holiday Monday, it was rather complicated because the sales outlet was closed for the day and the person in charge was not around. I located the residence and spoke to a couple of companions, as they are called in the movement, who were sitting outside the building. They debated what to do with me; one of them went off to look for someone in a position of authority, while the other, a woman from Tunisia, kept me entertained by showing me pictures of her homeland and telling me how she had arrived by boat in Lampedusa and spent three months in Italy before managing to get into France. She didn't want to stay in Italy because she didn't understand the language, she said. She told me her husband is the cook here, and it smells like he is cooking up something good for our dinner at 7!

I did eventually get sorted out, when I asked a man who had been mowing the lawn and he telephoned someone called Albert, who seems to be in charge but is not here today. On Albert's instructions, two of the guys pulled out a folding cot for me and put it in a corner in an unused meeting room on the ground floor, next to the cafeteria. At least I won't have far to go for dinner! Toilets and sinks are just down the hall, and so I am camped out nicely here for the evening!