This land has bred a hardy and insular people. The Creusois are tough, self-sufficient and long-lived. They consider themselves Creusois first and French second. Indeed, there are still certain aged folk in the deep countryside who do not even speak French, but only the ancient "langue d'oc", which was spoken here before modern France was formed.
Creuse has never been awash with natural resources, but it does have extensive supplies of granite. The traditional trade of the men here was stonemasonry and associated building skills. Having learned their trade on the unforgiving local granite, the Creusois masons could handle other stone with ease. From the 17th Century onwards, reaching a peak during Napoleon's ambitious rebuilding of France, almost the entire male population of Creuse would leave in Spring to trek the 400 or so kilometres to Paris and other cities. They would spend the Summer working on those great building projects and then return to their families in the Autumn, when the shorter days and freezing weather closed down the building sites. It is often said that Paris was built by the Creusois.
Creusois workers set off on their Spring migration |
They travelled on foot, and had to watch out not only for gangs of thieves on the roads but also for the gendarmes, who could arrest any man who could not produce the correct papers. Only the most basic, if any, accommodation and food were available, and they arrived to arduous working conditions, even poorer accommodation and the scorn of the city-dwellers, to whom they were ignorant paysans. The Creusois mason was famed for being able to work longer, harder and on less food than any other and for this and his skill was much sought after. In this way, the men earned just enough to see their families through the winter without starving.
This annual migration was, of course, also hard on the families left behind; the women, children and seniors left to manage the family smallholdings. With that sort of history to live up to, no surprise my elderly couple is out there bashing in fence-posts!
Those seasonal migrations were a feature of life in areas where land was unproductive.
ReplyDeleteHave you come across the 'sciers du long'....the men who sawed trees into planks?
They wielded immense saws...and the men underneath,in the sawpit and receiving all the dust, died young.
They returned home once the seaon was over...and such was the rate of death in childbirth among the half starved women that a woman who did not become pregnant during her husband's sejour at home would rejoice that she had 'saved her year'.
I note Graham Robb missed them in his survey of France!
What a fascinating post! I haven't heard of a similar migration from our part of Normandy even though it too is a granite area. Here the small-holdings were so impoverished that the men worked long hours in the many local water-powered mills, making paper, textiles and cutlery, leaving their wives to do almost all the work on the land and with the animals.
ReplyDeleteHere too the old people are fit and active, as witness our almost 80yr-old bachelor neighbour who wielded a sledgehammer with great skill to help DH sink a post to hold our postbox!
I hadn't heard of the scieurs ... thanks for that, I shall now go and research!
ReplyDeleteI guess life was pretty grim for all poor folk in those times; we have to remind ourselves how lucky we all are.
What a hard life...although it seems not much has changed in France for the "sans papiers"!
ReplyDeleteVery true
ReplyDelete