Leontyne by Richard Goodwin

Author:Richard Goodwin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 1978-11-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Montbard to Mulhouse

Montbard is a pleasant old town of twisted roofs and moss-covered tiles, built on the side of a hill topped by a park which was once the site of a fortress. The Comte de Buffon is unquestionably Montbard’s most famous former citizen by a long chalk. In the eighteenth century he had been the biggest employer in the area, using hundreds of men to collect fuel from the forests to heat his furnaces. He had employed women to build the park, paying them practically no money until they protested so vigorously that he agreed to pay them a little more. This setback would appear to have been the only reverse Buffon ever had to suffer in his life.

The canal at Montbard runs round the bottom of the town through a large basin. Here there were a number of hotel barges which left every few days, taking groups of passengers for trips up and down the Canal de Bourgogne. There was also a small harbour where a boat-hire company operated, as well as a berth or two for itinerants. All this looked a bit too clubby for us, so I decided to go through the first lock after the basin and tie up on the other side.

The charming young lock-lady there, who was in her twenties and had two small boys, allowed us to tie up just the other side of the lock and even provided us with water. When I asked her how long she thought she was going to be doing this job she replied that she would surely do it for the rest of her days, which she seemed very happy about. In this lock we were moored next to Montbard’s main industry: a factory, still producing specialized steel, which it turned into tubes for nuclear reactors. The factory had just closed for the holiday and there was a feeling of excitement in the old streets as the children prepared for the torchlit procession that evening, and the older ones got themselves together for the Grand Bal Gratuit which Jacques Garcia, mayor for sixteen years, always laid on for the populace on the night before the glorious 14th of July.

Ray and I, feeling that we should enter into the spirit of the occasion, dressed the ship, which in our case meant getting all our signal flags out, joining them together in no particular order, and stretching them from the raised crane arm to the top of the stubby mast on the Leo. I have never been able to get the meaning of the signal flags straight, but I reasoned that, so far from the ocean, there would be very few seadogs about to correct the obvious mistakes that I am sure we must have made. We also festooned the boat with a garland of coloured lights and we were well pleased with the festive result. I went off to get some supplies from the local charcutier who said that in spite of it being a

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