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- Augustes third marriage
The move to Orthez3Orthez is a small town in Béarn, with a prestigious history as a capital of a small state: Orthez, au quatorzième siècle, était une capitale4; de cette grandeur, il reste quelques débris: des murs ruinés et la haute tour d'un château où pendant des lierre. Les comtes de Foix avaient là un petit Etat presque indépendant, fièrement planté entre les royaumes de France, d'Angleterre et d'Espagne. Les gens y ont gagné, je le sais: ils ne haïssent plus leurs voisins et vivent tranquilles; ils reçoivent de Paris les inventions et les nouvelles; la paix, l'échange et le bien-être sont plus grands. On y a perdu, pourtant, au lieu de trente capitales actives, pensantes il y a trente villes de province inertes, dociles. Les femmes souhaitent un chapeau, les hommes vont fumer au café; voilà leur vie; ils ramassent de vielles idées creuses dans des journaux imbéciles. Autrefois ils avaient des pensées politiques et des cours d'amour. Auguste moved to Orthez on 26 September 1923 for professional reasons5. My father told me once, not long before he died, that Auguste owed his Orthez job to his old colonel from his war days (colonel de Vicoze). He was, according to Guy, at one time director of personnel of the cement factory, but there is no written evidence of it. There is still a cement production unit on the same site. For a while, Auguste lived in a small flat in Orthez, where the Bouyssonies actually visited. Hélène escorted her mother Victoria on a pilgrimage by train to Lourdes, including a trip to Cauterets (a watering place) in September 1923 and seeing some friends in the region. All this is known to us from the usual series of postcards sent to the family member remaining at home. At Lourdes, the ladies stayed in a pension de famille. The next day, Hélène reports that they were in wonder, gazing at length at the swimming pool and the grotto, watching the procession of unwell people in search of miraculous cures. The following day, a happy Victoria tells of the beauty of seeing so many pilgrim delegations from various French regions, all dressed in their traditional costume. They also took the cable car to the Pic du Jer, as illustrated on the next post-card. From there they travelled to Orthez, where Auguste was waiting for them at the station, wearing his bérêt béarnais, to take them to his small lodgings. The next day, they visited the town, crossed the Gave (de Pau), then inspected the factory where Auguste worked. Apparently this change of air was good for Victoria. On the following day, they journeyed to the Basque coast with Auguste, where they stayed in Hendaye. After a lunch at the station’s restaurant, they set off for San Sebastian in Spain, and the next day, after a stop in Biarritz, they returned to Orthez. From there, they went back home by train via Toulouse, apparently more economical or easier than via Bordeaux. As the trip back took a whole day, they slept at the hotel Moderne in St Denis, former Hotel Vitrac, where they were collected by Baptiste and ‘tonton’, presumably Bourgès, Victoria’ brother-in-law.
“Commune de Carennac (Lot) - en vacances: Mlle Hélène Buyssonie, professeur d’anglais en Alsace; - mariage de Mr Montin, veuf d’Yvonne Buyssonie avec une jeune veuve placée domestique à Orthez (Basses-Pyréenées) où il est domicilié. Vœux de bonheur” (last two words struck out). There is a signature, unfortunately illegible. Once his father had resettled and remarried, it was possible to complete the family but it is possible that his father thought best not to move him too soon from the farm, where he was visibly happy and well-treated. Hence the delay, and Guy only arrived in Orthez to start his junior school, October 19287. His brother Charles, 15 years older, was at least at the beginning, also living with their stepmother Louise, or perhaps only visited during the holidays. Once he had been firmly established in Orthez, in a prosperous and happy condition, it seems Auguste soundly judged that he need not keep any land or business interests in the Lot, even though he continued to visit now and then, as he was faithful to his old country. So he decided to sell up all his assets, and re-invest them closer to his residence. He was helped in the sale's negotiations by his brother Joanny, an expert land valuator, and his son Charles, who was a student in Bordeaux, but taking frequent trips back to his native Lot. Unfortunately, we do not know what happened to the money, once Charles’s share had been deducted, but may have been invested in Auntie Louise’s business. It is strange that on the 1929 legal act, she is presented as ‘sans profession’. It could have been used to buy the insurance portfolio (as the couple were already living at 1 rue Saint Gilles), but this house may have come from Louise’s first marriage, there is no information about that. In Orthez, there is no doubt that Auguste had now reached a respectable bourgeois position, with a house in town, a supervisory job in industry, and later a toy farm, Maupoey. The town house still stands unchanged at 1 Rue St Gilles, not far from the railway station. It is an important landmark for Tooty and I, as in our childhood it stood as a family haven where we received a warm welcome there by Auntie Louise on arrival from Australia in 1956. Then, after living for several years in Normandy, Guy got a posting in his home département and we lived there from 1965 to 1969. It was quite spacious, with enough room for Louise’s workshop on the ground floor, where she employed a dozen seamstresses designing and sewing clothes to measure for the Orthez ladies. One peculiarity was that the top floor was occupied free of rent by a couple of “faithful retainers” Léopold and Lucie, often mentioned in the letters as nearly part of the family. There was an agreement that Lucie would “look after” Louise when she would turn old. In the event, Lucie died many years before Louise, a cause for much sniggering in the family about plans that do not materialise. But I am anticipating, let’s get back to the 30’s. Download 0.6 Mb. Share with your friends:
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