The plan for today (Wednesday 24^th August) was to get up and dash off from Bar sur Aube to Clairvaux – a mere matter of 15 kms or so and dump our bags at the hotel there so we could go on a guided tour of the Abbey. It was not until we were doing our final packing that Alison said we needed to have photo ID to get in to the Abbey and she was worried we might need our passports which were buried deep in the bottom of her rucksack.

It was necessary, she explained, as the Abbey was now a maximum security prison, which made me gulp. I had not noticed that little fact and, sure enough, when I checked out the map in more detail it revealed that the Abbey at Clairvaux, the Abbey founded by St Bernard of Clairvaux, was indeed a prison.

I tried looking at the aerial photo of it on the IGN mapping site and it was blotted out – can’t check out details of prisons in France. Even Google complies with that rule and street view also blots out the image, despite the fact that it is just a blank wall.

I had been very pleased to be visiting the Abbey and had both been positive, despite the short day, and also found the hotel we could stay at, conveniently located just down the road from the Abbey. And I had reason for being so enthusiastic.

St Bernard has strong links with Vezelay, which is not too far from here, and it is where he preached the 2^nd Crusade. That fact is not so high on my list of reasons to be cheerful about him, but the connection with Vezelay is good.

For those of you not familiar with Alison’s and my connection with Vezelay, here is a quick resume.

Since 1976, Alison has been involved with a cross-carrying pilgrimage in England that was, until last year called Student Cross and is now Pilgrim Cross. She introduced me to this in the early eighties. It involves groups of pilgrims walking from different locations to Walsingham in North Norfolk, England. The pilgrimage takes place during Holy Week and ends with all of the groups coming together to celebrate Easter in Walsingham.

The Pilgrimage began in 1948 and was inspired by a peace march/pilgrimage that happened two years earlier. It involved 14 groups of men who carried crosses from different parts of France and a few other countries, including Britain, to the tiny village of Vezelay in North Burgundy. The crosses (along with a 15^th that had been carried by German prisoners of war) still stand in the Basilica in Vezelay. The pilgrimage was the first peace action by the newly formed Pax Christi and was called Pilgrim Cross.

In 2010, Alison and I walked from Walsingham (after walking there on Student Cross) to Vezelay and then on to Santiago de Compostella. We wanted to join some dots…

And on August 25^th 2016 we organised a short pilgrimage that went from Auxerre to Vezelay with members of Pax Christi and then Student, now Pilgrim Cross to mark the 75^th anniversary and so, as we are not going to go through Vezelay this year, it made total sense to stop in Clairvaux.

I spent a fair bit of the walk today thinking about how I felt about visiting a prison. We have spent a week or so walking through a landscape dominated by huge agricultural fields, spread across hillsides and valleys blanketed in single crops, beet, then sun flowers then maize, and so on. When not in fields we have been in forests and the landscape has rolled on in amazing, but fairly restricted ways. We were walking in the Champagne region still, but we had left the land of the Cordon Rouge and the Massif de Champagne behind.

Then, yesterday, we saw vineyards again, on the slopes of hills across the river and tucked in between swathes of forests. And we passed through villages where every second door seemed to have someone behind it selling their own cuvee of the bubbly stuff, just like up north in the Epernay and Reims dominated areas. Bar sur Aube is known for its bubbly, we found, and everywhere sells it in its many local forms. New names to us, but very well established, so pardon our ignorance, we’re better on red wine, really….

So, today was much more of a chalk landscape with steeper slopes to climb, huge areas under vines and the river and forests to keep you on your toes. And, each village has had its fair share of doors with signs telling you which cuvee you can buy there. Champagne part deux is here.

The vine covered hills added to the sense of change that I had felt when I heard of the prison and I did speculate if it had become one during the Revolution and I was almost right. It was the Revolution that chucked the monks out basically because they were not the sort that Bernard had presided over many hundreds of years before. The men in the Abbey were now living in a fairly ridiculous amount of luxury and enjoyed a lot of power and wealth.

I know this because we have just come back from the Abbey and are still processing the information given on the tour.

Now, I am not going to give anyone history lessons about this place. You can easily look it up and find out more than I can tell you.

But here’s the thing: the place was established by Bernard in the twelfth century and, as with other of its ilk, it prospered and was supported by wealthy and influential people. Even when the reformation was happening, the drivers of that change still referred to Bernard as having contributed to the faith, but his Abbey was not as it used to be. When the revolution happened, the place was toast, and would have had St Bernard turning in his grave regarding the opulence of the 18^th century version of the establishment and its people.

It was sold off early in the revolution, then Napoleon saw the value of it as an isolated stronghold with a lot of space and well surrounded with high walls….. so he made it into a prison. Over the next couple of centuries it housed many thousands within its walls at any one time. The prison authorities just partitioned off bits, built floors between the floors and generally made occupant’s lives a misery. Parts of the surviving medieval bits were kept alongside the renovated 18^th century extravaganzas, but the surviving Abbey Church, in all it’s medieval grandeur, was demolished by inmates over the years as a process of doing their labour. Stones went into other bits of the place, laying new floors on now mezzanine floors, and profits were made by selling stone off to people outside. The prisoners’ labour was sub-contracted to businesses and the inmates were subject to massive overcrowding and terrible conditions were all of those in power simply used to bleed inmates of their worth and abuse them, and generally extract any humanity that was left in them for profit or personal benefit in some other way. Men, women and children, old and young, etc, etc.

Victor Hugo was inspired to write Les Miserables after a man died here – the story is complicated but you can find it on line… the point is it was pretty rubbish and continued to be so up until, wait for it, the 1970’s. Yes, there were improvements but not much, and the overcrowding that was a special feature of places like this, were still being prcticed up until then.

OK, so there is a bit of a history lesson here, but there is such a big story here, you need to read up on this or come here.

We arrived at the reception and it looked like most historical places with a very nice little shop and so on. We bought our tickets, handed in our drivers’ licences and agreed to not take any photos during the visit. We were asked if we understood French and we asked for the English translation, but the woman who took us on the tour was great, and she was very careful to speak very clearly and at a sensible pace. A couple of times she translated things and checked that we understood what she was saying then went on. I got about 70 to 80 percent and glanced at the leaflets a couple of times, but they didn’t really cover much of what she was saying, to the centre so I looked at it as we were going back to reception to add even more background.

Yes, I am still processing things.

She counted us in, unlocked and locked doors as we went, she commented on the fact that the department responsible for prisons had done almost no repair work on the buildings and had added bits with no regard for the buildings or their history. The prison life was still clear in the fabric of the place and there were many places where the scenes were clearly appalling, and worse when we considered the conditions of those who had lived here.

But, of course, it was also beautiful and some of the buildings had real grace and presence. Such a wild contrast….

It is set in a landscape that cannot escape the past.

It is enclosed and from where you are, you can see where the high security prison still operates today. The harsh regime still emanates a force that has a bitterness that will not go away.

And I suspect that even now I am skirting the dark shadow that seems to have been following me all day.

Usually, I am physically and emotionally overwhelmed by these places. They leave me frightened to touch walls and keep me fully aware of the pain that still resides in such places.

Today I felt numb rather than overwhelmed – perhaps hearing it in French softens things? Perhaps what? I don’t care?

I can only think that the fuse is a bit longer today than I had expected. I am visiting things in my head that have taken me a few hours to really get to grips with. My discomfort in the place was still seeking reference points when we were walking through the place.

Dissonance is not linear.

Just waiting for the dreams tonight with a little apprehension…

But one thing rings true, and has been true when we have walked past other prisons of all sorts. The people who live here, and work here, are great. They are making their lives useful and productive, happy and fulfilling, despite being next to a prison.

But, despite this, I still have to work out what exactly has been making me so disturbed by our visit to an historical Abbey of some renown that has been a prison since 1808….

Footnote:

Needless to say, I did find sleep a mixed blessing last night. We have walked to a place called Chateauvillain today and my dreams have accompanied me through the forests and open landscapes that have challenged us today.

And here is a sketch-poem scribbled in my note book this morning as I was rushing to get ready to go. I typed it up and thought; nothing deep, but it came from the voice of someone I dreamed about as a result of our visit yesterday, and that will hopefully work as my excuse…

Nuages

I think of the clouds
and imagine the stars
only to think
that you might be seeing them
only to hope to share your view

I hear the wind
and think of you standing
with that wind in your hair
and I long for it
to pass over me
on its way

But I am invisible to the sky
and hardly know where the sun rises
or where it sets
and these hard walls
tell me nothing of where I am
or where you might be today

I hear a bird sing
as it moves along the top of the wall
and hear your voice
feel the delicate sounds
entice the edges of my vision
as I think of being with you

Another shadow falls
and the indirect shade dissolves
on cold blond stone

But even second hand light and shade
give me hope
as I ask you
be my cloud
be my stars
be my wind
as I stay ready
to see you again

Photos to follow!!!