Le monde, comme on l'a vu sur échasses

An important component of "la vie landaise" comes from the intersection of history and legend. In my wandering on the outskirts of town, I have trod alongside the infinite silent forests that line the roadways, seen old women cycling from the city to their country homes with dead fowl and vegetables in paniers, and seen the lazy old men pass each afternoon over cigarettes, bocce, and dirty jokes. It would seem as if the area stands still as time passes, flashy shoes and cell phones just a small reminder of the time. But Landes has not always been as it is today, and over the past two and half centuries a dramatic change has occurred in the physical landscape, the livelihoods of the people living here, and the meaning of being from here, being Landaise (or Gascogne, French Basque, etc.)


In 1857, Napoleon III saw opportunity in Landes, a region of sand and swamp, of heather and gorse bushes, and herds of sheeps. He passed into law a decree that would forest the region turning the dunes and marais of Landes in to the premier wood-producing region in France. Endless rows of symmetrical forests took hold in the former herding areas and the land was transformed. I will write more about this transformation in a future post, as I have now gone on too long without bringing up the subject of this post.


Felix Arnaudin, born in Labouheyre (center of Landes, in the middle of what is now the Parc Nacional de Landes de Gascogne) in 1844 left home in 1858 to follow his studies in Mont-de-Marsan. When he returned to Labouheyre in 1861 he encountered a landscape that he could not recognize, what he thought to be a different universe. The change proved to be too much for him and abandoning social ambition he became hopeless recluse, quarreling with his family about his anger over the changes in the landscape he saw around him. He felt the forest represented the very spirit of banality. He wandered the new forests, often on bike, and lost himself in dreams, reading, and walking.

He eventually came to realize that to save the culture he loved, he must record it for the future. He set about interviewing the old men and women of Landes that could remember the time before the forest, photographing scenes that had yet to change, compiling stories and legends of the region, and saving the patois landaise (or gascogne) from historical obscurity. He was a musician, folklorist, linguistic archivist, translator, and artist and became known as the "Pec" (eccentric) of Labouheyre. He was the first to traverse the region on bicycle. He left us with "trois mille clichés d'une rare beauté" of his beloved country. Arnaudin translated the legends he was told in to French from Gascogne (Gasconha, as they write it) and created a record of the culture with photography, sheet music, and more. He merged myth and history in a grand narrative for Landes.

He felt without his work, the culture would be lost and he wanted to save "ce ciel béant, la terre inhabitée, vide à donner le vertige . . . les bordes aux toits gris et les parcs aux toits rouges, miroirant, dispersées de loin en loin . . . et se perdant, rapetissés, à l'extrême horizon." (This yawning sky, the uninhabited land that gives one empty vertigo. . . the borders [of the land] with grey roofs and parks with red roofs, mirrored, scattered here and there . . And that which is shrinking, the farthest horizon.)



I have been reading some of Arnaudin's compiled stories and have begun translating them. Tomorrow, I will put one of them in this blog. The above picture is of his house in Labouheyre.

[Quotes and information in this post come primarily from Contes des Landes de Gascogne, collected and translated works by Felix Arnaudin, edited by Éric Audinet. Pictures were taken from around the web and if you search for Arnaudin you can find appropriate credits.]