IN FRANCE PROFOUND

A mountain view of history in France.

When journalist Allman, author of Finding Florida and Rogue State, bought an 800-year-old house in Lauzerte, a mountain village in southwestern France, he found himself steeped in the tumultuous history of the region, which he recounts with zesty enthusiasm in a combination of memoir, historical narrative, and travelogue. “Look out the windows of my House long enough,” writes the author, “and you will witness the rise and decay of cultures, the formation and disintegration of economic systems.” Now officially designated as “One of the Most Beautiful Villages” in the country, Lauzerte did not even exist during its “vicious and colorful” medieval times, dominated by the wily, rapacious Eleanor of Aquitaine and her numerous descendants. While murder and mayhem swirled dramatically, incited by kings of France and England and avaricious popes, Lauzerte was “a little place without importance.” Then, in 1241, under French rule, it became a bastide, “a planned, chartered polity inhabited by free citizens.” By 1300, it had grown into “a place of consequence.” The Hundred Years’ War—fought to rid France of the English—and the Wars of Religion that followed, brought bloodshed to the squares of Lauzerte. Allman detours in time to prehistory, when inhabitants recorded images in Pech Merle, a nearby cave, one of Allman’s secret destinations. Because of its mountaintop location, lack of railroads, and distance from Paris, Lauzerte was slow to modernize. Only after World War II, Allman notes, did most people get indoor toilets. But change has come, especially because of cars, which forced businesses to relocate to flatter terrain around the village. Americanization, globalization, and recolonialization have affected the area but not the author’s beloved house, which still bestows gifts of “magic and madness, joy, folly, good food and good wine.”

An engaging, richly detailed tale.