#Gascony

[postcard-from-the-past]

Shepherd spinning while pasturing sheep in the Gascony region of France

French vintage postcard

[napolka]

Lannes my Lannes...

[parafrazerofhistory]

The Mass of St. Sécaire

“...Gascon peasants believe that to revenge themselves on their enemies bad men will sometimes induce a priest to say a mass called the Mass of Saint Sécaire. Very few priests know this mass, and three-fourths of those who do know it would not say it for love or money. None but wicked priests dare to perform the gruesome ceremony, and you may be quite sure that they will have a very heavy account to render for it at the last day. No curate or bishop, not even the archbishop of Audi, can pardon them; that right belongs to the pope of Rome alone. The Mass of Saint Sécaire may be said only in a ruined or deserted church, where owls mope and hoot, where bats flit in the gloaming, where gypsies lodge of nights, and where toads squat under the desecrated altar. Thither the bad priest comes by night with his light o' love, and at the first stroke of eleven he begins to mumble the mass backwards, and ends just as the clocks are knelling the midnight hour. His leman [i.e., mistress] acts as clerk. The host he blesses is black and has three points; he consecrates no wine, but instead he drinks the water of a well into which the body of an unbaptized infant has been flung. He makes the sign of the cross, but it is on the ground and with his left foot. And many other things he does which no good Christian could look upon without being struck blind and deaf and dumb for the rest of his life. But the man for whom the mass is said withers away little by little, and nobody can say what is the matter with him; even the doctors can make nothing of it. They do not know that he is slowly dying of the Mass of Saint Sécaire” (232-233).

—J. G. Frazer, The Magic Art & the Evolution of Kings, part 1 (The Golden Bough, vol. I, 1911, pp. 232-233).

1895 illustration by Henry de Malvost depicting a Black Mass, here being performed in the 17th century by the infamous La Voisin (left) and the Abbé Étienne Guibourg (center) for Madame de Montespan (lying on table), who was the mistress of King Louis XIV.

[the-one-who-died-at-the-end]

Alexandre Dumas writing "The Three Musketeers" :

So, how many times do you want to say that D'Artagnan is from Gascony?

Alexandre:YES.

[ilovegers32]

Trop bon, la mer dans l’assiette

[septembergold]

A weekend of French pastry workshop by pastry chef Molly Wilkinson at Kate Hill's Gascony farmhouse Kitchen at Camont in the South West of France.

[cynthiabertelsen]

If on a Winter's Night, a Bowl of Garbure ...

Garbure Gasconne Nights spent huddled by fires snapping  and popping and providing respite from the howling winds and wolves, when you think of the dark and the cold and the danger, don’t you — all snuggled up in your down comforter or quilt passed down from your great-grandmother — feel a slight shiver? Of déjà vu? Not the cold. Maybe that’s why you long for a hearty pot of vegetable soup laced…

[bookloversofbath]

Culinaria France :: Andre Domine

[postcard-from-the-past]

100 years ago:

Nérac, Lot-et-Garonne, France.

[postcard-from-the-past]

Oyster farmer in Arcachon, Gascony region of France

French vintage postcard

[exgirlfiend]

genuine question would yall be interested if I made a master doc of all of the cultural references in wotww (or at least the ones I can recognize) complete with links to name origins and visual comparisons for locations and architecture. I <3 doing deep dives into the references behind the character names and the real world locations and time periods each area is inspired by

[postcard-from-the-past]

Another view:

Le château et la Tour de la Monnaie, Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques.

[roehenstart]

Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine (1124-1204). American school.

[ilovegers32]

Cueillette du jour

[liberty1776]

Seven Men of Gascony

Just finished reading again Seven Men From Gascony. Long ago I had the hard back edition pictured at top, with the more historically accurate cover art. The copy I just read was a battered paperback edition. It is the story of seven soldiers of Napoleons army and a cantiniere woman they travel with. The story takes them the battle of Aspern essling in 1809 through the Penisular War then into Russia finially ending at Waterloo in 1815. It is an epic tale with great battle discriptions that shows the comradery and loyalty of men at war. They all begin as voltigiers, light infantry, with one eventually transfering to the cavalry. In the story one a grizled old veteran sergant leads the others, and manages to keep them alive, over time two of them marry the cantiniere, as one by one the soldiers are taken by the war. This is a Great book for anyone interested in the Napoleonic wars. R. F. Delderfield is a great storyteller. The novel has action, romance, warmth and passion, a damn good read!

[postcard-from-the-past]

100 years ago:

Bédouès