DISPLACED IN MULLINGAR:LAST WEEKEND I stayed in a chateau in France, which was built hundreds of years ago and is still in the hands of the same family, though the interior needs some re-plastering and a complete overhaul of the electrical system writes Michael Harding.
I was there for a wedding. The groom, and heir to the estate, works in Paris, but he made his vows in the local village church and carried his bride away on the back of a bike. Later in the afternoon, we drank champagne on the lawn, served by waiters in tuxedos.
A little boy directed traffic on the avenue. He wore an armband, and blew into an ancient bugle as he marched up and down. I asked him why he made so much noise. He told me he was calling the deer.
The banquet, by candlelight, was in the main hall. Baroque plasterwork adorned the ceilings and the walls were covered with canvas tapestries, painted more than a century ago by the groom's great-grandfather, an eccentric artist who had a passionate interest in Joan of Arc.
We supped at long tables, warmed by a huge log fire, above which was a mantelpiece of stone, hand-carved to depict a hunter with his hunting hounds, all in a state of shock as they confronted a stag with a Christian cross sticking out of its forehead.
The dinner was a stew of 50 chickens, served in crocks, followed by trays of cheese. Everyone poked each cheese and discussed its merit. The bride put three varieties on my plate and suggested I eat the mild one first, so that I would not blunt my palate with the stronger cheese.
I did her bidding, to the letter.
Then some guests began to sniff and poke at a lump of Irish Cheddar, as if they were surprised that Ireland did cheese. I felt a bit uneasy, socially, for a moment, until the boss man at the top table took a few nibbles and declared that indeed the Irish cheese was excellent. After that I relaxed and took to the drink, while the other Irish guests produced their fiddles, flutes and concertinas and let loose a fury of jigs and reels.
I suppose there is only so much refinement human beings can endure, and there is nothing like a few jigs to rip asunder the affectations of a highly mannered society. Men with delicately perfumed wrists and manicured fingernails, and women who use binoculars and wear silk shawls at Fontainebleau in the evening sun, lost the run of themselves completely, as polkas bounced off the high ceilings. The climax came when two little girls from Co Clare stepped on to the floor with sweeping brushes and danced the broom dance.
My bedroom, flooded by moonlight, was at the end of a long corridor, and it occurred to me that in Mullingar I often gaze at the very same moon, when I wake in the night and go down to the kitchen to get a glass of water.
On my way back upstairs in Mullingar, I have a choice of three toilets: one under the stairs, one at the top of the stairs, and one en suite. But in the grand chateau of Beauregard there were only two lavatories, both far from my corridor, and I was obliged to go down the winding staircase to the front hall at five o'clock in the morning, unlatch the ancient doors and step out into France.
Solitude is a great consolation for those who are always lonely in a crowd, and so the morning mist and the empty lawns were a great comfort to me after a night of such society.
In west Cavan years ago, there was nothing more splendid, after a night of music and drink, than to go out the door into the fields at dawn, for relief, and hear the birds at it, in the trees, like the Berlin Philharmonic under Karajan.
France, too, looked good at dawn: a soft September fog floated over the duck pond, though there was no birdsong.
I crossed the gravel forecourt and found a spot well hidden by foliage, where I relieved myself, like any king or peasant of ancient days who might find himself alone in the universe when all the music is over.
Nothing moved; not even the big stag that eyed me from across the duck pond.
mharding@irish-times.ie
