Stinging Nettles and French Diplomacy

Myles ran down a hillside in France last week and tumbled into a bed of nettles which stung him all over his face and hands. Luckily, it was cold and he needs a haircut, so his ears, neck and the rest of his body were covered with his shaggy mane and clothes. But his cheeks and hands smarted and swelled for two days, despite soothing applications of some sort of Chinese salve my friend Wing smeared all over him. We were visiting the remotest part of France there is – a tiny hamlet inhabited by three families in the Massif Central region of the country. This place is not on the map. When I had emailed Wing’s husband before our trip for directions to his family’s place, he directed me to a French government website, told me to open a particular geoportal, then zoom in. “Our house is at 02 degrees, 02'46''E, and 45 degrees 51' 16''N, with a grey roof top,” he wrote in his email, “See you soon, Philippe.” Oh my. I felt like Alice going down the rabbit hole. Our GPS was useless. But, armed with little more than longitude, latitude and a strong espresso, we found the place: Le Villard, population 12. Philippe’s father, Marcel Barbe, grew up here, and inherited his family’s land. Marcel left Le Villard as a young man, joined the French army, rose to the level of General, settled in Paris, then retired from service. He and his wife, Marie-Therese, now divide their time between Paris and Le Villard. Monsieur Barbe, 83, is the only Frenchman I’ve ever met who complains that the official 35 hour French work week is too short. During the 4 days we were visiting, he logged at least 50 hours of hard physical labor around his vast property. John, Philippe and I helped out some, but just couldn’t keep up with the man. He cleared a field by chain-sawing down trees, axing up brush and building a dozen giant bonfires to get rid of the growth. He taught us how to drain a flooded field by shoveling trenches in marshland. Imagine sinking knee-deep into thick muddy vegetation, while trying to scoop up the heavy, sodden soil you’re standing in. Now, imagine doing this while your friend’s octogenarian father is doing it twice as fast alongside you. Total shame, I tell you. He used a handmade tool that looks like an executioner’s sickle to hack away at the roots of the swamp weed before he’d shovel it away. I couldn’t lift the tool; he’d heave it up over his head to get a great leveraged whack. His land includes pastures and commercial pine forests, but it’s parceled up and spread out all over the place. Often, an acre of his land might abut a slice of his neighbor’s property. Over the years, neighbors have negotiated trades to consolidate their lands. This perpetual land swapping has bred attitudes of suspicion and greed among the villagers of Le Villard, so it’s not a terribly friendly place. Unlike in Ireland, where a stranger like me will get a friendly wave walking down the road, in Le Villard a smile is met with a swarthy glare. Philippe’s aunt lived in the family home until she died two years ago at the age of 89. Marcel, her brother, offered to install indoor plumbing decades ago, but she refused, preferring to do her business outside and bathe in the stream a half mile away. Indeed, you’d have to be self sufficient living here, because you’re isolated, the climate is harsh, the woods are full of wild animals, and your neighbors suspect you’re out for their land. Compared to his childhood, a career in the French army must have been a cake walk for Marcel Barbe. Still, the army taught him nuanced diplomatic skills. Wing, a fantastic forager, stewed a big pot of nettles for us after Myles’ accident. (The toxic hairs on nettles are neutralized when cooked. The Vikings, in fact, brought nettles with them during their conquests throughout Europe so they could have a green vegetable year round.) Myles loved this idea of eating his attackers. Monsieur Barbe, however, hates nettles. He nevertheless politely served himself some, thanked his daughter-in-law for her cooking, and made her feel good about preparing a dish he disdains. I later tell Philippe how impressively his dad handled the nettles without hurting Wing’s feelings. “My father was a general in the French Army,” Philippe explains to me. “When he was imprisoned for his role in the Algerian uprising, he learned how to make people feel good while refusing their demands.” Fiona and Myles thought it was remarkable that Monsieur Barbe doesn’t like nettles, because, to their American sensibilities, the French eat just about everything – pigeons, rabbits, frogs, snails, horses. But during our stay, Madame Barbe and Wing collaborated on lovely three-course meals happily devoid of storybook animals. Monsieur and Madame Barbe weren’t comfortable speaking English, but they kindly suffered through my college French, so we were able to carry on enough conversation to last throughout the long meals. Monsieur Barbe was particularly conversational, which I loved, because it helped me improve my French and stroked my ego. Until Philippe set me straight. “My father was a general in the French Army,” he reminds me. “When he served in Indochina, he became accustomed to communicating with people he really didn’t understand.” Monsieur Barbe had discreetly gauged our level of French the first hour we spent with him, over tea, as he described how an injured sanglier (wild boar) caused some havoc up the road that morning. While he and I discussed animal behavior, John sat quietly and listened. Monsieur Barbe eventually turned to John, and tactfully drew him into the conversation using his best French 101. “What sorts of wild animals cause problems in Ireland?” he asked John. John rolled his first semester French vocabulary list over in his head, scrolling for animal names. “Uh, les rats,” John said. Good, I thought, a cognate. I nod to John, trying to encourage him to carry on a bit and show willing with our kind host. “Er, uh, rat,” John says. “It’s the same word, in Irish, as Frenchman.” Oh dear, is he really going there? I wonder in panic. As Monsieur Barbe furrows his brow, trying to sort out what John is saying, I search for a way to get John off track. “Un rat,” John repeats. Shut up now! Abort, abort! I try to tell John with my evil eye. Yet he persists, “The word in Irish for rat and Frenchman is the same. It’s francach.” I sink back into the couch, the embarrassment seizing my ability to rescue the conversation gracefully. Monsieur Barbe nods and stares in front him. As our afternoon chat thus dies its abrupt, awkward death, I console myself thinking that perhaps Monsieur Barbe is familiar with total social ineptitude, since both Philippe and Wing are mathematicians.