Mort Pour Le France

Every village has a monument to Les Enfants who died between 1914 and 1918, defending their country against an invasion from Germany.

These tiny villages must have suffered greatly with the loss of a generation of young men. Another pelerin, a Québécois whose primary language is French, told me that often all these young men were in the same unit and died on the same day. He read that the population of the area has not recovered after a hundred years. In one day 27,000 French soldiers were killed – August 22nd 1914 at the Battle of Charleroi.

Here some men outside of Faycelles have crushed grapes the old fashioned way and are taking the remainder out of the press. My friend said this used to be a big wine production area, but that a disease from the United States killed all their vines. I assume this was Pierce’s Disease.

I have seen only one vineyard so far, but this grapevine by a nice home makes me want to plant some vines to cover my back deck.

This is a typical trail- it looks to be centuries old, both containing livestock in the fields and giving a path to drive the livestock to another pasture. This may not be the original Camino path used by the Bishop of Le Puy whose pilgrimage to Santiago in 951 AD started the tradition, but the villages enroute certainly are.

I’ve seen many of these old cisterns along the trail, and they include a trench to collect water flowing down the trail. This one has been restored, I think.

It is cold today. I have walked 343 kilometers so far.

The area has sheep, cattle, and goats, and small cheese factories for the area. The French are very picky about their cheese.