Passadoc Gazette – No 136

– Yes! We went to the coast of the Landes! The beaches are beautiful... Look!

And a febrile index, your interlocutor scrolls on his « smartphone » dozens of photos and stops on the exceptional view that will dazzle you.

So you pretend:
- Ah! Yeah, actually, it's beautiful! tell yourself by discovering a small corner of the sky, a stretch of beach lined with a few pine trees that are not very different from those on the coast near you; But your neighbor is nice... And then he seems so happy!

– And you?
– We made Brittany this year! Our lodger was a fisherman; he took us a whole day on his boat; We came back with full lockers! Let me show you this!

Your turn to search...
– Wait... That's the gulls... That, the kids bathing... Ah! There!

Admiring the neighbor in front of this small basket filled with some cakes, two or three spiders and a small blue lobster, crustaceans that he finds on his market every Sunday morning!

But when did this human and summer transhumance date?

In the 19th century, only the wealthy, civil servants who received paid leave, could go on vacation (v. 1850).

Marcel Pagnol* :
He and my father made a pair of friends, although Uncle Jules, older and richer, sometimes looks protective. From time to time he protested against the abusive length of school holidays.

– He admitted that children need such a long rest. But in the meantime, we could use teachers for something else!
- Yes! Ironically said my father, they could replace, for two months, the officials of the prefecture, exhausted by their long naps, and bruised by the leather round!

Remember also the « travel » from little Marcel to a villa in the hill, « and we will spend the great holidays » Tell him his father. [...] Then began the best days of my life. The house was called the Bastide-Neuve, but it had been new for a long time.

It was not until 1936 (Le Front Populaire – Les Accords Matignon) that paid leave was generalized: initially, two weeks; five weeks in 1982.

It is the rich British society that – from 1820 – falls under the charm of Mediterranean beaches. Summer and winter, Queen Victoria makes frequent stays in Hyères, Nice; It takes a carriage ride along the seaside, and especially on the now mythical avenue that the Nice community calls El Camin des Ingles which will naturally become The English Promenade the annexation of Nice County (1860).

– Where is our coast?

Patience... Here is one photographed by André Abbe.

Jeanne Monin