The French Tour Fall 2007, Stop#1: Besançon

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The heart of the town of Besançon in the Franche-Comté is circled by the river Doubs. The Doubs only leaves a small neck of land as it goes around the town and this was corked for the fortification of the town by a citadel in the seventeenth century. I now forget if Český Krumlov in the Czech Republic (briefly home of Egon Schiele and now the site of the Egon Schiele Art Centrum) has a similar citadel that blocks off its neck of land but the Vltava and the Doubs form rather similar horseshoe shapes as you can see from the Google Earth maps below.


Besançon, France Český Krumlov, Czech Republic

I am in Besançon for the annual literary festival sponsored by the town and organized by Pierre Défendini who lives in the south of France and organizes such festivals all over the country. It is the first of four-five long weekends that will be spent discovering la France profonde as everyone has been telling me.

For a big time lifelong fan of stone like myself this city has much to offer. Most of it is built with pierre de Chailluz a stone quarried from nearby mines and made de rigeur in the sixteenth century to avoid the accident and larceny engendered by wooden constructions. The buildings therefore, despite their classic architecture, sometimes give the vibe of a modernist two-toned contrasting palette.

The book festival is packed with people and the weather is unexpectedly divine. The sun pours down on the tents at the Parc de la gare d’eau where the 3 day affair is organized. The salon is busy with visitors streaming in and stopping by authors, posing questions, asking for autographs. The stands are run by booksellers in the region who are warm and eager. But staying indoors all day with the constant hum of noise and the heat of hundreds of bodies can be fatiguing. So on Sunday morning I take off with my press-attaché Anne-Laure Clémént who grew up in Besançon. Her brother Max joins us. At fourteen he already knows he wants to be a chef. I tell him that he must create more gourmet French options for vegetarians but he’s already aware of the problem since one of his friends is off meat and fish. The previous evening at the end of the day’s festival I had already walked around through the pedestrian town center and gotten mildly lost. I had come back to the official author’s dinner through the park with its magnificent plane trees.

Today Anne-Laure and Max walk me through the Battant, a former communist neighborhood across from the Doubs river (or rather outside the circle) and show me some fine courtyards and spectacular views of the Jura.

The neighborhood has changed and there’s a lot of new development; the bousbots and bousbottes have been replaced by the more universal bobos (deriving from bourgeois-bohemian).

This literary festival (Les Mots Doubs) as most others, has its moments of discovery. I’m interviewed live over France Bleu Besançon the local radio that is covering the event and quizzing authors. Marie-Ange Pinelli breathlessly and enthusiastically poses one question after the other. I ask if I can hang out for a few minutes and catch the next author. Jeanne Labrune author of L’Obscur (her first novel) and a seasoned director answers questions on parallels between film and literature. Later I’m in a multiple author panel Génération…romans with more writers I don’t know: David Foenkinos, Jean Philippe Blondel, Dominique L. Pelegrin and Murielle Magellan. The panel is recorded and will be put online soon.

Besançon’s most literary call to fame is possibly its son Victor Hugo who was born there in 1802 and wrote the poem Ce siècle avait deux ans the first stanza of which reads:

Ce siècle avait deux ans ! Rome remplaçait Sparte,
Déjà Napoléon perçait sous Bonaparte,
Et du premier consul, déjà, par maint endroit,
Le front de l'empereur brisait le masque étroit.
Alors dans Besançon, vieille ville espagnole,
Jeté comme la graine au gré de l'air qui vole,
Naquit d'un sang breton et lorrain à la fois
Un enfant sans couleur, sans regard et sans voix ;
Si débile qu'il fut, ainsi qu'une chimère,
Abandonné de tous, excepté de sa mère,
Et que son cou ployé comme un frêle roseau
Fit faire en même temps sa bière et son berceau.
Cet enfant que la vie effaçait de son livre,
Et qui n'avait pas même un lendemain à vivre,
C'est moi. –

The century was two years old! Rome was replacing Sparta,
Napoléon was already drilling under Bonaparte,
Already in myriad locations from the first consultation,
The Emperor’s forehead was shattering under its mask.
So in Besançon, an old Spanish town,
Thrown like a seed in the blowing breeze,
Born from Breton and Lorraine blood alike
An infant without color, or eyes or voice
So frail he was almost a chimera,
Abandoned of everything but his mother,
His neck bent like a frail blade of grass
Had his coffin and his cradle made at the same time
This infant that life was wiping off its book
And who did not even have one tomorrow to live,
Is me.

(the quick and dirty translation is mine!)

Anne-Laure walks me by a bistro called 1802 in memory of Hugo’s poem but we don’t have time to stop. The bistro’s place settings apparently all carry his poem. The Bisontins and Bisontines have a sense of history that is no doubt accentuated by the fact that the city has been making watches since the late 1700s. Wikipedia puts the number of watchmakers at 1000 in 1795.

A year before I was born Besançon’s major watchmaker LIP threatened by globalization and sinking profits risked a shut down. Anne-Laure tells me that the workers at that point took matters in their own hand and decided to continue making watches and going around the world personally to sell them. The film Les Lip, imagination au pouvoir is a documentary about the events. It is now on my list of films to watch. There seem to be a series of books on the subject too but their academic tone has me hesitating. They include Lip des heures à conter, Comment j'ai sauvé LIP, andL’affaire Lip et les catholiques de Franche-Comté. I would welcome any suggestions on films or books that treat this in an engaging way. You can surf LIP designs from the historic to the modern and buy their watches online.

At the risk of having lost all but the most patient readers of this blog I will end here. The next stop is Nancy in Lorraine, the birth place of Edmond de Goncourt and Eric Rohmer.