"Deep in the [post-war 1948] countryside of Correze in the Massif Central in the middle of France ... there was a church, packed with attendance by women and children, while the men discussed the important things of life in the bar-cafe across the square. The village priest, always called Monsieur l'Abbe, was friendly to me but slightly distant, convinced that as a Protestant I was tragically destined for hell. Up at the chateau on the hill dwelled Madame de Lamaziere, the very old matriarch of the surrounding land. She did not come to church; it came to her in the form of poor Monsieur l'Abbe, sweating up the hill in the summer sun to bring her Mass in her private chapel. The pecking order was very rigid, and even God had to recognize the distinctions.
As my French improved, I made friends with a number of village boys to whom I was an object of extreme curiosity. The summer of 1948 was blazingly hot and our daily magnet was the lake a mile outside the village. There, with rods made from reeds, we could fish for large green frogs, whose back leg, dusted with flour and fried in butter, made an excellent supper."
Frederich Forsyth, 2015, 14-16
The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue
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