La diagonale du vide
Martial Chabannes, guardian of ruins and memories
‘Trois mots, avec celui de passion, gouvernent mon existence: solitude, silence, sérénité (les ‘trois s’ qui constituent pour moi la base du bonheur).
Aujourd’hui, j’en ai de plus en plus conscience, la solitude (celle d’anciens ermites comme Hillaire le Silencieux) est un luxe ; j’en jouis sans regrets, sans remords, en toute quiétude’1.
Words of Martial Chabannes in a récite written by Michel Peyramaure in the ‘Mémoire vive’ series of publisher Seghers. A series that provided a platform for many of the later École de Brive writers; like Peyramaure. The book documents a life in a small village on the Plateau de Millevaches. And the death of a small village as well.
‘Today I am alone and I am keeping watch. I watch over memories, over ruins. Nothing and no one will be able to drive me out of this village because the house I live in is mine and I have invested most of my modest income in buying back those who were in danger of ruin and to whom I was attached by ties of sentiment’.2
The story told through Martial is repeated village after village over a low-density population area that stretches from the southwest to the northeast of France. As Bailly remarks as he travels through; ‘ … it's not that it lacks beauty or allure … it's that there is a sort of prostration or something resigned that has accepted retirement … deep down all these small towns seem to be condemned to a sort of perpetual autumn of vitality’.3
In Bailly’s analyses the disappearance of the market fairs the ‘first of all a great and real place of exchange’ was a result of the great rupture brought by the train; reduction of travel times and the permanence of the flow that was fatal to the old mechanism of the fair (bringing everything and everyone together and selling all at once).
Interestingly, Martial’s parents ran l’Hôtel des Voyageurs, on the metric railway (tramway) that had ‘opened the door to progress in the country’, ‘its smoke was the plume of new times’. He fondly remembers how half the boys and girls left the village school to take position along the track near the tower where the locomotive of the train des fromages would quench its thirst. A 15 minutes stop that was just too short for the occasional traveler to consume the dishes his mother offered.
‘An intense hubbub accompanied the arrival and departure of the tacot.
Peasants brought their cheeses, their milk, their vegetables and their poultry for the bourgeois of Peyrenoire and Payrelevade, or took their place in the mixed wagon when it was a market day in one or other of these localities. The postal employee came and went with packages and baskets, under the watchful eye of my mother who offered them, as well as the driver and the mechanic, a glass of wine.
When the sleeve of the fountain plunged its elephant's trunk into the tank of the locomotive, we received a few liquid sparks on our bench. All the time the convoy was parked, the air smelled of hot coals and burnt grease. La Pinguet gave us travel ideas, opened the doors to adventure. (…)
Revealing to us the vastness of the world with this image of progress that is steam locomotion... an essential element of our childhood mythology’. 4
Désenclavement
Désenclavement (or opening up) is the term given to removing something from its isolation. Generally, the term refers to a region or a city which is poorly served by roads or communication routes. Ironically, the arrival of the railways improved the direct access, and therefore limited the functions of small towns. Where in the past production moved towards the source of raw materials, as transport was difficult and expensive, it now moved towards the large cities and/or coastal zones with access to the colonies/world.
Martial remembers the last country grocery stores replaced by the bakery-van reminiscent of the ‘Caïffa’; the traveling merchants from Maison Planteur de Caïffa that received their supplies from the local branch which was supplied through the local train stations, thus creating a very dense distribution network throughout practically all of rural France.
In L’Hôtel de Kaolack, Tillinac5 documents local political battles surrounding the allocation of the ‘off-ramp’ to a new highway to keep a small town relevant and attractive. A highway or railway might look like a ‘connection’, but if you have no way to get on or off, it is just an obstacle. A locally produced comic book documents the struggle of the community of Cressensac surrounding the construction of the new auto-route. The title « Le ’pano’ »6 alludes to one of their struggles: Getting the name of their village ‘on the panel’, so people could find it. Terrasson got its name on two off-ramps in 2008, though neither one is directly serving it. There are many stories on the alignments of trains, canals and roads in the region that are worth exploring.
Diagonale du vide
This ‘empty diagonal’ (in French: La diagonale du vide), is largely the result of the rural exodus and urbanization of the 19th and 20th centuries. Some prefer to speak of a ‘low-density diagonal’ (diagonale des faibles densités) as they find the term pejorative and exaggerated (I live here, how can it be empty?). There is only one ‘large’ city on the diagonal; Clermont-Ferrand with 140 thousand inhabitants and home to the Michelin industries.
I first came across the term watching the movie ‘Sur les chemins noirs’ by Denis Imbert 7 (starring Jean Dujardin), in our local cinema. The film catches some of the beauty, emptiness, melancholy, problems, opportunities and alternative lifestyles, though it follows a different southeast to the northwest diagonal. I discovered a book La diagonale du vide, un voyage exotique en France by Mathieu Mouillet8. Documenting his 'road trip at 4km/h’ of 18 months through the ‘most secret places in France in a different way’. ‘ These territories on the margin are revealed in a new optimistic and energetic light. Throughout the pages, through the meetings, we discover a proud and enthusiastic France which faces problems without giving up. This positive energy carried me throughout my adventure and participated in my inner transformation’.
‘Proud and enthusiastic’, stubborn for sure. The way Martial sounds the church bell twice a day for the laudes at 8h00 in the morning and vépres at 18h00. Summer and winter ‘I stick to the old time. Changing it to summer time would constitute a betrayal of this old friend: the sun’. Atheist by conviction he looks after the church, the signs of decrepitude upset him: ‘harbingers of a second death of the village which, in any case, is inevitable. This roof needs to be renewed, the centuries-old tiles replaced, ... I have neither the courage nor the strength: it's been years since I climbed a ladder to repair a roof’. In some way the sound of the bell lays a claim to the space (keeps it occupied) and if one day it stops, someone in surrounding villages might notice and come to find him.
He recounts a time the roof of beautiful Travassac slate (the local mine still producing the best quality ‘french slate’), was removed from the castle by local peasants to cover their barns. It let the rain through and the water rotted the floors. Itself a memory, as modern farmers do not have the time to recover and use slate. I received a news letter last year from ‘Les amis de Villac’9 with the request for volunteers to recover the slate from a roof that would be re-done somewhere, a great opportunity to gather local slate for repair works in the village. All hands were welcome, ‘sorting sizes does not require much strength nor knowledge’, bring your own lunch.
Martial used the ‘poule noire’ (black hen), a giant, mysterious bird, invisible to ordinary mortals, and made it the symbol of death in the village. Every time the ‘black hen’ had passed, and another house in the village had closed its doors, never to reopen again. Most of them he did not buy because they has no character or no personal memory attached to them.
He remained, as guardian of ruins and memories. Recounting how there was a time you got fifty centimes for a viper-head at the town halls. And the wonderful surprise, when between snow and rain, the birds begin to sing, and on the slopes of yellow grass the touratons, little steam elves, climb the embankments.
‘Three words, along with that of passion, govern my existence: solitude, silence, serenity (the ‘three s’ which constitute the basis of happiness for me).
Today, I am more and more aware, solitude (that of former hermits like Hillaire the Silent) is a luxury; I enjoy it without regrets, without remorse, in complete peace’.
Peyramaure M., 1995. Martial Chabannes, gardien des ruines. Éditions Seghers, Mémoire vive. ISBN 2-7441-0021-8
‘Aujourd’hui je suis seul et je veille. Je veille sur des souvenirs, sur des ruines. Rien ni personne ne pourra me chasser de ce village car la demeure que j’habite est mienne et j’ai place l’essentiel dès mes modestes revenus dans le rachat de celles qui menaçaient ruine et auxquelles j’etais attache par des liens de sentiment’.
Peyramaure M., 1995. Martial Chabannes, gardien des ruines. Éditions Seghers, Mémoire vive. ISBN 2-7441-0021-8
Bailly J-C., 2011. Le dépaysement, Voyages en France. Éditions du Seuil, Points. ISBN 978-2-7578-2808-3
‘Un brouhaha intense accompagnait l’arrivée et le départ du tacot.
Des paysans apportaient leurs fromages, leur lait, leurs légumes et leurs volailles pour les bourgeois de Peyrenoire et de Payrelevade, ou prenaient place dans le wagon mixte lorsque c’était jour de marche dans l’une ou l’autre de ces localités. L’employe charge des messageries allaient et venait avec des paquets et des paniers, sous l’oeil attentif de ma mere qui leur offrait, ainsi qu’au chauffeur et au mécanicien, un verre de vin. Lorsque le manchon de la fontaine plongeait sa trompe d’éléphant dans le réservoir de la loco, nous en recevions de notre banc quelques étincelles liquides.
Tout le temps que le convoi stationnait, l’air sentait le charbon chaud et la graisse brûlée. La Pinguet nous donnait des idées de voyage, nous ouvrait les portes de l’aventure (…)
Nous reveler la vastitude du monde avec cette image de progrès qu’est la locomotion a vapeur … element essentiel de notre mythologie enfantine’.
Peyramaure M., 1995. Martial Chabannes, gardien des ruines. Éditions Seghers, Mémoire vive. ISBN 2-7441-0021-8
Tillinac D., 1991. L’Hôtel de Kaolack. Éditions Robert Laffont. ISBN 2-221-07218-9
Mamita et Boni-D, 2000. Le pano, Les histoires de Cromignon. Édition de l'Auberge de Cressensac ISBN 97829512800-3-3.
Imbert D., 2023. Sur les chemins noirs. French langage film. Radar Films. Loosely based on a récit with the same title published in 2016 by de Sylvain Tesson.
Mouillet M., 2019. La diagonale du vide, un voyage exotique en France. Les éditions du Mat. ISBN 978-2956316404.
More information can be found on the associations website: http://www.lesamisdevillac.org/