The Purchase of a French Village

William Christie, an American art historian and musician, moved to France in 1971 in protest against the Vietnam War. William – or Bill, as he’s known to his friends – set up Les Arts Florissants in 1979. The foundation runs a Baroque music festival each year in Thiré (Vendée prefecture), near Luçon, where we are visiting my brother-in-law and his friend, also reputed art historians.

The forty-minute drive to Thiré gave us an intimate view of the countryside. The spectacular view of sprawling fields of hundreds of thousands of sunflowers had a mesmerising effect. The flowers, in full bloom, stared up at the sun like some classical danseuses paying obeisance to the Sun God.

Little did I foresee then that I would soon be witnessing the makeover of a village acquired by the foundation. Many of the properties in the village were purchased by the foundation to board musicians participating in the week-long festival, Dans les Jardins de William Christie, which is held in late August each year.

William Christie purchased and converted a once-dreary farmland in Thiré into an exquisite garden – lakes with families of swans, oak and elm woods, and a river that meanders through the 25-acre property. The swans floated about in the lakes as if they, and not Christie, owned the property.

I imagined the concerts of 17th-century music performed on the premises: by the lake, within the woods, inside the charming cloisters with intricate, labyrinthine formal French gardens, in the village church. I saw, in my mind’s eye, the proliferation of roses in full bloom – their fragrance embellished my reverie.

In the solitude, only softened by the rustle of the leaves in the trees, gentle murmur of the river, trill of songbirds, I almost heard the captivating music of Purcell, the sparkling soprano arias of Bach and Handel. The music that played in my head somehow reinforced the solitude – didn’t disturb it. I saw the faces of aficionados listening with rapt attention – some with their eyes closed, some leaning forward as if to catch all the notes that twirled and floated in the cool evening breeze. An opalescent sky formed the backdrop.

Did I worry about the locals of the village – that their ancestral land had been bought up by an American foundation? Yes, I did.

“It’s better than converting it to a golf course,” I answered the trouble-maker, my inner socialist.

I was made aware that the foundation is only purchasing properties coming up for sale and restoring them. Otherwise these buildings might have fallen to ruins or made way for new construction.

I must return to Thiré one year during the festival, if only to validate my imagination against reality. It can only be more vivid, for what I picture is limited by shades of what I experience. I can but glimpse a small part of what truly might be.