BUYING A HOUSE IN FRANCE - BUY FRENCH PROPERTY - TALES FROM FRANCE 6

Above: Hasparren, Pyrénées Atlantique, France.

Above: Festival of the bulls, Hasparren.

THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGIONNAIRE

One summer's evening in France, on entering one of the local bars for an early evening drink we found it unusually crowded, probably because the market had been on that day. There was one table available where the bench seat went round a corner so we both slid ourselves behind the table and sat sipping our drinks and contemplating the other occupants of the bar. Sitting on the bench seat that formed the short arm of the L immediately adjacent to us was a pasty-faced, thin French couple so nondescript in their individual appearance that they remain in my memory as a unit rather than two distinct people. Facing them, and seeming to be doing most of the talking, was an overalled man with ruddy cheeks and one of those large curly moustaches that would have made him instantly recognised as a Frenchman, or at least as a caricature of a Frenchman about thirty or forty years ago.

By this time I had formed the impression, from his animated gestures and the one way nature of his conversation with the almost silent couple, that he had probably been in the bar for most of the day and was a little worse for wear. From the jolly nature of his expression and the twinkle in his eye however, it was apparent that he was thoroughly happy with this situation.
 His position sitting opposite this couple meant that, because of the L shape, he was also sitting directly opposite me albeit sideways on, and I was making a conscious effort to avoid eye contact as he occasionally glanced round. This, as it turned out, was to no avail. Perhaps becoming bored with the lack of response he was getting from the thin couple, he suddenly swivelled his chair round and looked directly at us. "Vous êtes Alamaigne?, Anglais?" Having started the conversation off he then offered his hand to shake. I shook hands with him but to my consternation he then kept hold of my hand as the conversation progressed. Despite my embarrassment at sitting holding hands over the table with a Frenchman I was, as ever, pleased at the opportunity to practice my French, and still mildly amused enough to wait and see what progressed rather than downing my beer and leaving.

DON'T MENTION THE WAR

After a bit of chat, as sometimes happens with older people in Normandy, he got onto the subject of the war.
"No, I was too young to have fought in the war," I told him.
"I was a soldier in the French Foreign Legion," he proudly proclaimed and then stood up and stripped to the waste to show off his Legion tattoos. By this time I could sense my wife shifting uneasily in her seat besides me and was conscious of the attention we were attracting from the other customers as he sat down again and demanded,” Can you sing me an English song from the war?"
To humour him, I gave him a rendition of, 'Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag.' Wrong war I know, but it was all I could think of at the time. In return he launched into a stirring and patriotic sounding anthem which he sang with huge gusto. At this point, a French local who had been standing at the bar and observing the proceedings, took pity on us and came and sat at the table. He made a gesture as if drinking from a glass several times to indicate that our uninvited friend was one over the eight, and then added, "Mais il est trés gentil." By now we had finished our drinks and got up to take our leave, but didn't manage to escape without monsieur, as a parting gesture, planting an exaggerated kiss on both of my wife's cheeks.
Through a couple of later encounters of a similar nature, we have since discovered that, in France, anyone the worse for wear through drink almost invariably has a friend with them who says, "He has had too much to drink, but he is very kind."