Chapter 81 - THE DAWN
30 October 2026
Chapter 81 opens Volume II, Book Six, The Resistance, of THE DAWN.
This passage pays tribute to the “cran”, the ever-enduring fortitude, of the Provençal peasant during that long-ago era of World War II.
It took 1,000 years to create the unbreakable back of the French peasant. The godless Nazis were not going to break that back.
Roussillon is perhaps the most beautiful village perché in Provence. Its steep ochre cliffs form a panorama and a kaleidoscope of colors, an array of brilliant orange, soft pumpkin, pale terra cotta, bloody red, earthy crimson, rich brown, and soft café au lait. The colors speak for themselves. They tell a tale of desires which first exposed these layers of rock to the sunlight through ochre mining.
They also whisper the drama of competition and of financial ruin, a devastating process which thereafter allowed these cliffs to maunder slowly and peaceably. These ochre escarpments are no longer the sites of quarries of industrial might and economic growth. They murmur a tune of abandonment which brought to this village perché felicitous isolation, merciful desolation, benign neglect, and tranquil solitude.
This tranquil solitude was not the routine setting for these cliffs during ancient and medieval times. Indeed, for the ancient Romans, the isolation and desolation of these highly perched precipices made this town the ideal catbird seat from which to espy enemies approaching from the valley below. Roussillon provided the Romans with a lookout. It was this crucial vantage point which gave this town, and many others like it in Provence, its raison d’être.
The perched panoramic view for tourists was happenstance, if not a sideshow, for centuries. By the Second World War, the ancient defense tactic known as “the Greek fire” had become somewhat improved from this method of pouring boiling oil onto the invader. The requisite element of time nonetheless remained constant. Sneak attacks did not easily happen to a village perché.
These vibrantly colored, scarred cliffs survived centuries of the mistral, rain, and warfare to stand valiantly as a fortress, looking warily down upon any approaching invader. There is the resolute bell tower atop the terra cotta stone walls and weathered azure blue shutters of St. Martin’s Church.
This bell faithfully tolls for Mass and to summon villagers in the event of any emergency, crisis, or news of supreme importance. This village perché, like all the others in Provence, was not without its unique crises or news of great import, although the idea of posting a sentinel for Germans did not occur to villagers until after the Occupation of France included the south of France.
There was no telling what the Germans would do, although to this point they’d ignored those rustic crumbling hilltop towns. There, the peasants drank too much horrid wine and viewed with hardened apathy the fates around them, whatever they may be. Provincials were stupid and of no use to the Nazis.
The provincials were not stupid, even if they took for granted the scintillating beauty of those ochre cliffs. The villagers of Roussillon had grown too accustomed to the grandeur of the azure Provencal sky. Each day it ceaselessly and effortlessly formed the celestial dome over the lush, dark pine trees and the bold and majestic chroma of the layers of ochre in the walls of those cliffs.
Even beauty can bring with it monotony. Even the pure radiance of the sunlight could become a tedious part of the day that simply had to be endured to live in Provence. The quotidien of life required from villagers the implacable will that resulted in hardness and a hardiness of spirit. That stiff-necked will created not only the true Provencal, but also the valiant French resister.
