Languedoc - syphilis, snakes, and beauty

I cannot explain why, after a long history of travel, I have never experienced an in-depth look at France’s Languedoc. Yet now I have, at least as in-depth as a short visit will permit. I now realise the region is exceptional. We have found a small valley with a house at its far end, a bubbling river alongside, and a French community that believes life should be slow, steady, and analysed only occasionally. There is no reason why one should do anything. One does things because...well...one just does.

As I write, I look around me and cannot see a single wind turbine. For our journey that must be a record. For that matter I cannot see any pylons, that blight on so many landscapes as mankind continues its headlong rush to destroy its allotted living space on the planet. The Languedoc is underpopulated compared with the rest of France, plant life is abundant, and wildlife too. Just now, literally moments ago, I encountered a snake, dead of course. I could not decide whether I should be sad or happy as snakes, too, are normally innocent. I am not a merry person when snakes appear, as so often I have no clue what they are. The one I have just seen is no exception. I have not the least idea what it is. A colleague in England has declared he does not know, but feels the beast is poisonous, and has advised me to be sure I wear long trousers and solid shoes.

When we talk about rewilding, or renaturing as I call it, look no further than France’s Languedoc. There is terracing, in addition to plenty of vineyards, but there is even more space that has been left to ramble. Nature has taken over, as has box blight and other pests as well. Yet Nature is doing what she does best. Out goes one, in comes another and I am seeing flowers that Nature wishes me to view, not those I feel are suitable. Nature has an eye for beauty. The flowers, trees, and meadows she has fashioned are magnificent, multi-coloured, and extend for miles.

It is raining as well. Real drops, grey clouds, the distant mountains appearing and then disappearing from view. The vegetation is soaking up the water so that in a few days’ times, likely when we are gone, it can burst into further flower and turn the mountainsides around me into a tapestry.

I found a remarkable town today. It is called Lamalou-les-Bains and was once the professional home of a much-respected doctor, Jean-Martin Charcot. His were the days when syphilis was common and the rich and famous needed somewhere discreet to hide, while also receiving treatment. Syphilis has been much researched and discussed. It is said it began because of the sexual relationship between a Spanish prostitute and a leper some time in the 15th Century. The disease has long been stigmatised as socially unacceptable. The Italians called it the French disease, the French called it the Neapolitan disease, the Russians blamed the Poles, the Danes blamed Spain, while the Turks coined it the Christian malady. In India, the Muslims blamed the Hindus for the affliction while the Hindus blamed Europe. It took a poet, Girolamo Fracastoro, to create the word syphilis, named after Syphilus, a Greek mythological shepherd. Thereafter the culture of national blame began to decline.

In the Languedoc, Lamalou-les-Bains was where they came. None of the treatments used then would be permitted today - for example, willow, mercury, and bismuth. Now it is penicillin, added to prevention programmes that control the affliction. Yet the Languedoc town of Lamalou-les-Bains, added to the work of Charcot, provided the care people sought. Sometimes their treatment was successful, but so often it failed. Today the town is dedicated to rehabilitation. It does this well, as it has been providing health and aftercare for longer than anyone can recall.

Most places are accessible by wheelchair, from one end of the town to the other. Rehabilitation patients glide freely in their wheelchairs from pavement to road and back again. A few hobble on crutches. The wheelchairs hurtle freely around the parks and gardens, dash into restaurants and shops, and lead a life of fair freedom. Of course, the existence of a wheelchair at all implies limited freedom but Lamalou-les-Bains does its best.

There is definite wheelchair envy in the town, with conversations like this:

“Mine is blue, yours is yellow, which makes me a better colour,” boasts one, as he proudly displays his chair to a group of fellow sufferers, sat around a coffee table.

“My chair is faster than yours,” says another, as I walk a further fifty metres. I watch as she pushes her control lever forward and hurtles down the street.

“Look at this wheelie,” declares a third and with a wrist-flick up go the front wheels. I watch the chair tilt perilously back and I wait for the scream as the occupant falls out, but it never happens. The control is masterful and would make an Olympian BMX biker look a beginner.

All the wheelchairs are powered. There is not one I see that is manually controlled. It is the way of things in Lamalou-les-Bains.

There is good walking in the modern Languedoc, on paths unencumbered by others. Thanks to my snake warning, I remained on the dry and pebbly footpaths and was taken by a good friend to climb the summit of a nearby hill. Some might call it a mountain. On its top was a chapel, dedicated to St Michel.

St Michael killing the serpent - good against evil

The chapel stood silently yet still had a presence that I could sense. It had been visited by many before me and will be visited by many to come. From one end of a largely bare interior hung a sculpture of St Michel killing a serpent, his spear poised to penetrate the writhing snake’s head. Snakes again. By rights there should have been seven snakes, one for each sin, not the single serpent portrayed in the tiny chapel. St Michel, whom English-speakers know as St Michael, was an archangel and a protection against the wickedness of the Devil. He is the spiritual warrior in the battle of good against evil. I looked at the wall behind the sculpture, a wall that was now pitted and cracked. Any trace of artwork had long gone. A shame, I thought, as St Michael was generally depicted as one of many. He may have been an archangel but would generally have plenty of angels behind him and in support. In the chapel on the mountain, there were no angels to be seen. Just St Michael and a serpent locked in battle.

St Michael was about to win.

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