LAND OF MYSTERY, LEGENDS, CURSES, PHANTOMS

"Do you have a translation of Rimbaud?” my French friend, Ginette, asked the bookseller. The smartly dressed lady behind the counter drew herself up, looked her straight in the eye, then sadly shook her head.

“Quelle dommage!” she whispered. That would be such a shame.

Charleville- Mézières is accepted as the natural gateway to the Ardennes. The shop-keeper’s response had nothing to do with traditional Franco-Anglo animosity, either. To his devotees Rimbaud's desperate wild-child 19th-century poetry is simply untranslatable. It would be such a waste to attempt to bundle it into English – so much would be lost. That is what she meant.

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This article continues with details of Charleville, a world-renowned puppetry centre, and the dark forests, stark legends and wartime battlegrounds that define this beautiful area in north-east France.

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(finishes…)

This part of Champagne-Ardenne seemed so unlike Reims and Epernay to us. Here the vineyards of the south were replaced by dark and mysterious forests brooding in a damp sinister gloom. Even the local people seemed less urbane than their southern cousins.

Could this land have seen too much evil, suffered too many atrocities? Drawn by its dark allure, I knew I would have to return. 

©Sally Hammond 2006

(Sally and Gordon Hammond travelled as guests of  French tourism)

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