A la recherche du Grand Meaulnes

We drove to La Chappelle d'Angillon on a Sunday afternoon in early August, past fields of ripening sunflowers. There was little traffic on the roads; hardly a soul about. We had arrived in the Sologne the day before; the weather was warm and sunny. The deserted woodland roads were lined with tall firs, ferns and purple heather. So this was the Berry countryside: a place of wild flowers, lost ponds and ripening walnuts. It was not unlike Epping Forest or parts of Derbyshire: unfrequented, off the tourist trail. A nature walk the next morning confirmed my thoughts. We saw tracks of deer and wild boar; heard woodpeckers calling through lichen-covered trees and a buzzard far away. The hedgerows were abundant with white campion, vetch, wild basil, burdock, speedwell, scabious. Purple loosestrife edged the forest ponds but strangely, there was no meadowsweet. And all around us sparrows, more common than in England, twittered and criss-crossed our path.
When we arrived in La Chapelle d'Angillon we decided to visit the Chateau of Bethune, a solitary, mysterious place on the outskirts of the village. Alain-Fournier often came here; there was an exhibition in the attic about Le Grand Meaulnes. Alas, the chateau did not open till later that afternoon; a priest was leaving after celebrating Mass in the chapel; the Count and his family were taking lunch on the terrace. So we picnicked in the grounds: butterflies flitted through cow parsley; no one was about; we had the place to ourselves. There was time to observe the chateau: a turreted, Gothic/ Renaissance structure. The brickwork was crumbling in parts; there was a large lake to the rear; a dried-up moat; little decoration save some scarlet geraniums in stone urns, a bay tree by the entrance.
Eventually, the huge doors opened and we were escorted round, the only English visitors in a small group of enthusiasts. Doors were unlocked; we crossed the courtyard and climbed turreted towers. Despite its outward appearance of austerity the chateau was welcoming; lived-in. Vases of tall, white gladioli stood on the altar in the Chapel; wine and sables were served in the huge kitchens at the end of the visit. And upstairs, through a secret passage lined with faded prints of Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI, were attics lined with memorabilia about the life and works of Alain- Fournier. There were wooden models of the schoolhouse at Epineuil, texts, photographs; and stills from the film by Albicocco which continued to line the walls on our descent down the spiral staircase. A little shop in the grounds sold postcards, books; some second-hand; and I bought a copy of Alain-Fournier's poems: Miracles and an out-of-print Promenades d'Alain-Fournier en Berry, filled with old photographs. The young gentleman behind the counter spoke little English but I was able to enquire about the museum at Epineuil-le-Fleuriel and when it might be open.
We spoke at length of the location of the 'lost domain' itself: the whereabouts of the Chateau de Loroy. This was the place Alain-Fournier had in mind in his novel when Meaulnes stumbled across a fete etrange and met Mademoiselle de Galais for the first time. The young writer remembered it as an empty, mysterious place; now it was abandoned again, though privately owned and barred to visitors. It stood next to a farm on the road to Mery-en-Bois. The young man showed me an aerial photograph of the chateau with its ruined Cistercian abbey close by. Without our detailed Michelin maps we could not have found it; there were no signs, no clues. But there it stood, back from the road, with its distinctive mansard roof identified from a sepia photograph I had seen reproduced in a book thirty years ago. Water mint and agrimony grew on the overgrown grass verges; a pool, covered in water lilies, glistened in the sunlight. A cockerel crowed from the nearby farm. And all was still. Further along the lane was a makeshift sign on a farm gate: Loroy. We found a gap in the tall hedge, could just make out the chateau and abbey ruins. Its inaccessibility made it all the more mysterious; its abandoned state, poignant, peaceful. I sensed Alain-Fournier would have approved, having stumbled across the place with his sister, Isabelle, so many years before, derelict and hidden, deep in the Foret-de-Palais.
And so back to La Chapelle to its quiet, empty streets to find the house where Alain-Fournier was born; where his grandparents lived. A main road has since spoilt its rural charm but the house remains as in a time-warp. Stone urns filled with extravagant purple flowers frame the green wooden gate where the writer and his sister were photographed as children more than a century ago.
A couple of days later we set off for Epineuil-le-Fleuriel, ninety miles south. By now the weather was blisteringly hot; the journey took longer than it had seemed on the map.
''It's just past Bourges,'' I told my husband, which was not strictly true.We reached Bourges by 10:30, it was mid-day before we arrived in Epineuil.
No one was about. It was a sleepy, 'Adlestrop' type of place; resembled John Clare's Helpston, slumbering in the afternoon sunshine. Even the hollyhocks looked familiar. Fortunately, the museum shop was open although everywhere else was closed for lunch. There were no other visitors but we bought our tickets, were given audio headsets (in English!) and directed along the dusty road to the iron gates of the schoolhouse for our tour to begin. It was a truly wonderful experience: one of the best museums I have visited, a nostalgic recreation 'a la recherche du temps perdu'. The audio-guide explained everything in great detail and included extracts from the semi-autobiographical novel set in the schoolhouse where Alain-Fournier had spent his boyhood. Le Grand Meaulnes came to life before our eyes as we stood in Monsieur Seurel's and Millie's classrooms, entered the shadowy Red Room with its velvet drapes, climbed the steep kitchen staircase to the attics where Seurel and Meaulnes slept, had first spoken in secret of the lost domain.
I would go back there again to observe its authentic details: a nightshirt laid out on an iron bedstead, a cupboard ajar filled with old bottles, the cooking range decorated with floral tiles, trunks of old-fashioned toys abandoned in the attic, washing draped on a wooden clothes horse, hand-written schoolbooks, blackboards chalked up in copper-plate handwriting. Virginia creeper edged the schoolroom window, a pile of fire-wood twigs was neatly stacked behind the benches in the schoolyard, the schoolboys' cloaks were still hanging there.
I had ''been there'' before of course; the school was used extensively for filming the story but now I could linger there alone; but not for too long, as we were a long way from Pierrefitte where we were staying.
After a picnic by the River Cher we returned to the sleepy village, entered the unlocked church where Alain-Fournier attended Mass as a child. It could have been a country church in England with its tiny interior, creaking door and faintly musty smell but here were the familiar vases of gladioli, pictures of Saints and rush-seated chairs that made it so distinctly French.
I had read that Alain-Fournier had attended a children's fancy-dress party at a local chateau, Conancay, which had inspired him to write about La Fete Etrange years later but it was hidden in the woods, prive, out of sight. But we did manage to locate the tiny, deserted chapel dedicated to Saint-Agathe, the name Alain-Fournier gave to Epineuil in his novel. The bumpy ride and over-grown track were more than compensated by the view from the hillside overlooking the Auvergne. A gentle breeze fanned the afternoon heat; butterflies fluttered around us: blue, yellow, copper-coloured.
Reluctantly we set off on our journey home. We broke the journey at Bourges; wandered past the Cathedral, through narrow streets reminiscent of Canterbury. We found a salon de the for much-needed refreshment; feasted on little pastries and cakes filled with cherries and raspberries.
And then home via Nancay in the evening sunlight. We had visited the village the day before: a quiet, self-contained place on the edge of the Sologne; had bought bread and provisions. I had asked in the boulangerie and the epicerie if they knew which shop in the village had belonged to Alain-Fournier's uncle. Again, fact merged with fiction: it was here that the writer had spent childhood holidays, had enjoyed fishing and shooting in meres and forests nearby. Later he was to write about it in his novel: it was in this very place that Seurel first encountered Yvonne De Galais.
I asked four people but no one knew. We were directed up the lane towards the local chateau where a modern art gallery housed a musee imaginaire inspired by Alain-Fournier's novel. It was closed. We rang the bell and a man came to the gate but was unable to help us. He did not know the location of the shop either.We walked back slowly trying to identify it by a copy of a 19th century photograph and there it was, standing opposite the church, with a little plaque on the wall, that evidently no one else had noticed! It was a gift shop, refurbished with carpet where there had once been bare earth. It had been an 'open all hours' type of place in Alain-Fournier's day: now it was closed. I peered through the casement windows imagining the friendly chatter by the light of oil lamps in days gone by.
And now, after another week spent further south in the Dordogne, we are home again: the washing machine hums and the garden needs weeding. The buddleia is spent; Michaelmas daisies take its place. But the same butterflies we saw in the Sologne dance in the late-summer sunshine: Speckled Wood, Meadow Brown, Cabbage White. And in the holly trees one or two sparrows twitter and fly free as they did in France.
A bag of postcards and books is still to be unpacked; there are photographs to be developed. So this has all been written down quickly before it fades, evaporates from memory like the land without a name: a hazy, distant dream that is never quite forgotten. The spirits of places we encountered are hauntingly memorable, have enhanced my understanding of Alain-Fournier, his life and work. Perhaps I am glad, though wistful, that we only saw the Chateau de Loroy from a distance; Uncle Florentin's shop was closed and no one seemed to know its whereabouts; Conancay was inaccessible; little English was spoken and my French was far from fluent. It all seemed elusive, just out of reach. I long to go back but realise perhaps I never shall.
''Have you read Le Grand Meaulnes?'' I ask friends at church, in the street. They look at me blankly.
''You should,'' I reply, hardly daring to reveal the treasures found there and my quest for the lost domain.

Originally published in Books and Company