Mother's Chronicles (Book 2)

9

The Valley of the Loire

Who has not heard of Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans? She liberated the town from British occupation in 1429. Orleans is situated on the banks of the Loire. If we follow the river downstream, some twenty-five kilometers to the south-west of Orleans, we reach the small town of Beaugency.

My brother Noren went there in December 1976 for a short visit. He discovered that Mother had stayed there in N°42 Rue du Pont. The street is thus called because it leads to a river spanned by a bridge (pont in French means bridge). The bridge is still there. And Noren sent a picture postcard of it to Andre Morisset, Mother's son. This brought back some very early memories to Andre. A month later he wrote back to Noren: "I have a vivid memory of the bridge which, according to your card, has not changed at

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all. Probably the house has not changed either." The house fronted the street. The street door opened onto a passage. The passage led to a stone-flagged courtyard, across which was a pocket-size kitchen garden. It had seemed very big to the little boy. There Andre was photographed with Mother.

Andre was living there with his grandfather, Edouard Morisset, and Edouard's daughters; and of course his nurse. His foster sister Genevieve completed the household. Quite naturally the boy would look forward to his parents' visits. They would drive down from Paris in their motor-car. Beaugency is some 140 kilometres to the south-west of Paris. Now, this car of

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the young Morissets did not require a number plate, because . . . why, because it could not do more than thirty kilometres per hour! It was a Richard-Brasier, so we heard. A friend of mine went to a lot of trouble and gleaned the following facts: This make of cars came into the market in 1902; ; the production stopped in 1905 when the partnership was dissolved; in between, for two years running —in 1904 and 1905 —the Richard-Brasier cars won the Gordon-Bennett Cup, thus winning the trophy for France and renown for the make. Obviously it was not a racing model that the Morissets had!

At any rate, whatever the model, we can reasonably suppose that Mirra, practical as she was, would be certain to take a precaution or two against some eventualities on their long drive from Paris. Right we are, for Henri and Mirra had a couple of bicycles stowed away in the car. "As a matter of fact," Andre recalled, "on the first trip to Beaugency from Paris, the steering gear broke after fifty kilometres, at Etampes, and the car stopped inside a bakery." The Morissets made use of their cycles to visit the locality. Of interest were the ancient houses, a twelfth-century

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dungeon and eleventh- to sixteenth-century churches. They passed the night at Etampes and left the next day, after their motor-car had been repaired by the local blacksmith.

The Loire is France's longest river. Taking birth at an altitude of 1,400 metres, it treks through 1,012 kilometres —covering almost a fifth of the country — before throwing itself into the wide embrace of the Atlantic in a tumultuous ecstasy. The valley of the Loire is probably best known for its historical buildings.

So, when in Beaugency, the artists would go visiting these historical sites. Among the many places they visited was Blois, which is a little over thirty kilometres south of Beaugency. Shall we too pay a short visit to Blois? It can boast a chateau whose oldest part was built in the twelfth century; the following centuries saw some additions: Louis XII rebuilt a wing in 1498, which now houses the town's Museum of Fine Arts. Frangois I built its famous staircase. Blois has some interesting twelfth- and thirteenth-century churches, as also some mansions from the Renaissance period. It is a flourishing town with various industries, plus a chocolate factory for

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chocolate lovers. As for the wine the Blesois make!

"They make Anjou wine at Blois," said Mother. But let us recall that by this time Mirra had chosen to become a vegetarian and had lost the habit of drinking wine or liquors as the French do. But she was in the company of artists, so: "I never drank anything other than water or herbal tea. But there was a lunch and we were served Anjou wine —so sparkling, and which looked so light!" Mirra drank. "Afterwards we visited the museum. I was sparkling with wit, it seems. I stopped suddenly before a painting of . . . now, who was it? Coue. . . . No, Clouet! The Princess by Clouet. One of the princesses." Was the portrait that of Princess Marguerite de Valois, by Francois Clouet, son of Jean Clouet? Both father and son were painters in the Court of Francois I (1494-1547), King of France. The younger Clouet had stayed on with the monarchs of the House of Valois-Angouleme. His many portraits of the Royalties of his time can be seen in various museums. That of Marguerite de Valois is now in Paris' National Library, in the section 'Cabinet des Estampes.'

The 'princesses' Mother mentions are Elisabeth de Valois and her younger sister Marguerite de Valois

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(1552-1615). They were the daughters of Catherine de Medici and Henri II, son of Frangois I and Claude of France.

A suppressed merriment lit up Mother's face. "And I started making remarks aloud (it took me a while to realize that people were listening). 'But look, look!' I was saying, 'Just look at this fellow, see what he has done to me! How he has portrayed me! It wasn't at all like this.' The picture in itself was beautiful, but I wasn't in the least happy about it. 'See how he has portrayed me!' I was saying. 'See, he has done this, but it wasn't like this, it was LIKE THAT!' Details," Mother said to Satprem with a ripple of laughter. "And then I noticed —physically I wasn't much too aware —I noticed people standing around me and listening. So I got a grip on myself, didn't utter a word more, and left. But I told them, 'Listen, it was positively me! That was MY portrait. That was ME.' "

And no wonder. For on several occasions when talking to Satprem about her past lives, Mother had said: "I have had many, many items of information about Joan of Arc, many. And then, of such striking accuracy! Perfectly, perfectly interesting. But I won't

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repeat them because now I don't remember accurately, and without accuracy they have no value." She had added, "For the Italian Renaissance as well: Leonardo da Vinci and Mona Lisa; and for the French Renaissance: François I and Marguerite.''

Significantly, Leonardo da Vinci had come to the Court of Frangois I as soon as the latter became King of France in 1515. This monarch was a great patron of art and literature, and gave his full support to the French Renaissance. Frangois I left his mark in other spheres also. In the field of economics, he created the port of Le Havre and developed the silk industry; he replaced Latin in all law-courts by French; founded the College de France, and established the National Press. Under the influence of his sister Marguerite de Navarre (1492-1549), his religious outlook had become very tolerant.

The queen of Navarre not only encouraged tolerance in her younger brother but in her own chateaux at Paul and Nerac received Humanists, suspected heretics. A mystic, she nevertheless published storybooks also.

Marguerite de Valois, otherwise known as Queen

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Margot, was her grand-niece. Margot's husband was the future Henri IV of the House of Navarre, the first Bourbon king. Margot, like her great-aunt, had literary gifts, and has left us her Memoirs and Poems.

Why all this history of bygone ladies? Well, while writing this chapter, some of the things that Mother had said seemed to fall into place. "At certain times there were four simultaneous emanations." She had specifically mentioned the time of the Italian and the French Renaissance, and she had named Marguerite de Navarre, Mona Lisa, Queen Elizabeth I of England. They were almost contemporaries. Between 1533 and 1549 three of them were alive; only Marguerite de Valois was born some three years after the death of her great-aunt.

All the four of them were no ordinary women. All the four have helped shape history.

Did not Mother write: "Since the beginning of the earth, wherever and whenever there was the possibility of manifesting a ray of the Consciousness, I was there"?

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