Jarnac

Last week on our trip, we went to see the town of Jarnac, located about 30 minutes by car west of our gîte in Vindelle, outside Angoulême. I wanted to see Jarnac for two reasons: first, the French president François Mitterrand was born there. He was elected Président de la République in May 1981. I lived in Paris at the time. His election was a huge national event and he turned out to be a transformative figure in France. He made the country and the people more prosperous, and people starting traveling outside of France. They became more aware of the rest of the world. Mitterrand died in 1996, after leaving office in 1995. He was entombed in a cemetery at Jarnac.

I also wanted to see Jarnac because a man who frequently commented on this blog a while back, and who still does occasionally, lived there about a decade ago. He told me it was worth the trip to see Jarnac. I had never been there before last week, though Walt and I went to nearby Cognac back in 1989 when we took a road trip across southern France from Grenoble to Bordeaux and then back to Paris. Both Jarnac and Cognac are wine villages, specializing in the fortified apéritif wine called pineau des Charentes and, of course, the brandy called cognac. Both pineau and cognac are made from locally grown white wine grapes.

One of the prominent families in the history of Jarnac was named Chabot. Guy Chabot, baron of Jarnac, was involved in a duel in 1547. He was supposed to be the underdog, but he won the duel by striking a surprise blow and inflicting a deep cut on the leg of his adversary. To general surprise, he was declared the winner. A coup de Jarnac has come to mean an underhanded, even disqualifying blow in a fight. Read about it here.

After a good walk-around in Jarnac with Tasha, we weren't having any luck finding the cemetery where Mitterrand tomb is located. We wanted to see it. As we were walking around and admiring the big church in Jarnac, which is dedicated to saint Pierre (images here), I noticed a little van bearing the logo of the ville de Jarnac parked near a back door of the church.

Then I saw a man loading or unloading something into or out of the van. A municipal employee would surely know where the cemetery was located. I went and asked him. He said we needed to drive west of town along the Charente river and we'd see signs directing us to it. It was too far to walk. We found the cemetery and then the tomb. Walt took a couple of pictures. The dog was not allowed to enter the cemetery, so Walt and I had to go in one at a time, leaving the other to take care of Tasha. It was too hot to leave her alone in the car.

It was close to noon, and we decided not to continue into nearby Cognac as we had planned, but to return to the gîte and make lunch. Walt wanted to watch some tennis on TV, and I wanted to look up some of the places we'd seen over the past couple of days, as well as do some research and make plans for the next two days. Our plans for sight-seeing along the way as we drove back to Saint Aignan had to be canceled, however...