My grandfather's house in Planfoy was a treasure trove for a kid who loved books, history and good food. I remember one year, it must have been 1977, when my grandmother was away for a few days at Upaix, and it rained a lot (this was before global warming was invented, we still thought the Coming Ice Age would end civilisation). Also in those days the only Greens in France were "les Verts", the champion football team of St-Étienne.
I spent much of my day reading in the loft, which was a fantastic library, or in the cellar on the exercise bike. Charles Hubert would write in the morning (he was always up early), go for a walk if the weather permitted, usually down to the barrage behind the church. We would have lunch, siesta, then he would stay in his study before emerging around four o'clock for tea and then settling for television, which consisted of sports (rugby, cycling and tennis mostly it seemed), films, cops shows (!) and movies. There was one game show we would watch religiously: des chiffres et des lettres (the model for the British show Countdown.
During the afternoon I would often get an impromtu history lesson that would consist largely of a catalogue of ancestral grievances of the French against the English, starting with Éléanor d'Aquitaine, through the entire Plantagenet dynasty (the murder of St Thomas Beckett, "Jean sans terre", the burning of Jeanne d'Arc), the infamy of Henry VIII with the martyr of St Thomas More and the cunning but "jealous" Elizabeth I, the crapuleux but genius Oliver Cromwell, the French Revolution, where the family sided with the monarchy against all sides of the Revolution, except for Napoleon of course.
Then I would be reminded of Fashoda and the treacherous destruction by the British of the French fleet at Oran and Mers-el-Kebir.
But not the First World War. I can never really remember any discussion of that war, which I think was probably too unpleasant. My grandfather's own father had been wounded by gassing (it eventually killed him) and his older half brother died, apparently within the last hour of fighting in November 1918.
Only once do I recall my grandfather talking about the Second World War from personal experience, he recounted how he was put in the artillery and given some sort of rank because he had studied at medical school and had a degree. He couldn't read maps which was not helpful. He also told me that he first knew the German were advancing through the Ardennes when he called the command post and a German picked up the phone.
Only when I met my great-uncle Bob (Charles Hubert's younger brother) years later, did I learn that they had been together as spotters for the artillery in a fox hole in front of the French lines at Sedan, precisely where the armoured columns of Guderian, Manstein and Rommel would crash through. Neither of the Exbrayat brothers had been issued with a firearm, I believe they had one bayonette between them and a field telephone. The organisation of equipment and supplies was a total shambles (but then the High Command had decided that no German attack would come here). Communist sabotage was rife (that's before Stalin decided that he had always been at war with fascism). Bob (who was generally the more practical of the two) got them a truck and they pulled back to Lourdes.
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