the essential
Albigensian photographer Jean-Paul Azam traveled the Pyrenees. He finds the writers who have explored it before him. His book album “Words and Wonders of the Pyrenees” is a superb travel companion.
Jean-Paul Azam, photographer and writer takes us to the Pyrenees, from the Basque Country to the Côte Vermeille. Photos and illustrations, some full page, accompany the text.
In the Basque Country and Béarn, Andersen, Hugo, on a Pyrenean love journey with Juliette, Flaubert, Loti, Hemingway, but also Delacroix, Proust, Peyré. Blondin evokes the unexpected victory of Gregario Mastrotto in Nay, his hometown, in the big passes stage. Le Bondidier describes the upheaval of the Ossau valley, after the declaration of war in August 1914.
The Englishwoman Anne Lister was the first to climb Vignemale, the highest point in France, in 1838. Joseph Ney steals the victory from him with the complicity of the guide.
The Pyrenees are well frequented, the beautiful book explains it
In Lourdes, are sensitive to the expression of piety: Zola, Huysmans, Barrès. Trotsky is there, at the time of the Pope’s blessing by the TSF, in 1933 and his lines are vitriolic. . Baudelaire finds inspiration in the silence of Lake Gaube. Lamartine, George Sand, Maupassant, Mirbeau, Rostand took to the waters. Mauriac locates “Le Nœud de vipères” in Luchon.
The spa resorts of the Pyrenees were very fashionable, Henry Russell is a true Pyrenean.
Simone de Beauvoir likes to walk, Sartre prefers to write in the grass. Christian Laborde remembers the family climbs to the Tourmalet to see the Tour riders.
In Gavarnie, Taine, Viollet le Duc and Vigny passed. Bismark wandered. Raymond de Carbonnières, under the Revolution, climbs the Pic du Midi.
Simone Arnould Human recounts her passage through the Pyrenees in 1943, to escape Nazism.
Climbing the Pic d’Aneto, the Spanish summit, is perilous, in the 19th century, Vincent de Chaussenque, Albert de Franqueville, Plato de Tchihatcheff tell us. The mountain is still reserved for the wealthy classes.
From Ariège to the Mediterranean, the Who’s Who continues with Gracq in Montségur, Roquebert in the Citadels of Vertigo, Marc Levy for the paths to freedom in Couserans. In the shadow of Canigou, often pink, we find Thiers, Tucholsky, Kipling, St Exupéry, Albert Bausil, Trenet, Paul Fort, Lisa Fittko on the Walter Benjamin path, escape to Spain. The Pyrenees are well frequented, the beautiful book explains this.
