In Provence, ‘les courses de taureaux sont passionemment suivies’, notes my tattered Michelin guide. In summer, old Roman arenas become the setting for bullfights, either Spanish-style with picadors and toreadors, or the Provençal version, la course de taureaux, also known as course libre or course camarguaise or course à la cocarde. Michelin calls the latter simples jeux tauromachiques, mere games, but these bullfights are no simple frolic in the park, and the locals follow them passionemment.
I’ve admired the sturdy black bulls with their wide curved horns in the Camargue. I’ve read Laurence Durrell’s account of a course libre bullfight, ‘the heart and marrow of Provence’. But I’ve never been in the right place at the right time. At least, not until we decide to drive to Sommières—after all, it is only 30 minutes from Claret—and I discover that courses de taureaux are scheduled for the very same afternoon.
It’s not because Sommières is close to Claret that we choose to visit, nor that it’s a Roman town with a Roman bridge and Roman road. My reason is a personal one: Sommières is the town of Lawrence Durrell, and I need to make the pilgrimage. I have no idea if he’s still there in 1977, and even if I did pass him in the street I probably wouldn’t recognise him, but it’s enough to know that I’m here, in his vicinity, and that the man with his back to me, sipping a pastis at noon, could well be him.
Durrell’s Spirit of Place is part of our travelling library. As well as essays, it includes some of his letters from the late 1950s to the early 1960s. Introducing the collection, the editor describes how Durrell settled first on the outskirts of Sommières, then moved close to Nîmes, then returned to a different house just outside Sommières, ‘a quite large 19th-century house, somewhat mysterious and romantic, hidden behind big walls, with a conservatory and overgrown garden’.
I search for clues in his letters and writings while poring over the Michelin map, but there’s nothing to guide me, no hint that his house might be south of the town, or on the road to Villevieille. Disillusioned but not disheartened, I plan to be systematic and methodical in my search. From Sommières, we take every road out of the town and back again, my eyes darting from left to right looking for a large house behind a high wall. It’s dispiriting; nothing seems remotely close. On the last road, a little-used lane, I see a modest, dusty house with a walled garden and deem it to be Durrell’s. I’m satisfied.
Back in the town posters for the afternoon’s bullfight are plastered around the square, and there’s no question as to whether or not we will stay for the spectacle. This is not the Greek tragedy of a Spanish bullfight, whose ominous conclusion dulls the delight to be found in the skills of the toreador, the flashes of luminous colour beneath his cape. The course de taureau is a contest between man and beast, lively and spirited, the game always in balance as first the bull then the athletic razeteurs command the ring and take control. Often it’s the bull who is victorious and who ends the season in triumph—for these bulls perform regularly from about May to September, in a variety of arenas throughout Provence. As Durrell writes, ‘the bull is the darling, the hero of the crowd … His is the name traditionally printed in scarlet poster-type on the placards, and his the applause when a razeteur is sent sprawling over the barrier with a broken rib or tossed in a crumpled heap against the stockades’.
The Sommières arena is not big, perhaps only 50 metres in diameter, surrounded by tiers of narrow wooden benches. Loudspeakers broadcast scratchy selections from Bizet’s Carmen as locals slowly filter in. Time is flexible here, especially in summer. I take my place, sensing Lawrence Durrell beside me as my virtual companion. Suddenly, Carmen gives way to a rousing trumpet rendition of the tune to ‘Come to the cookhouse door, boys’, and the big gates open. The first bull strolls out, looks around and, on cue, snorts and paws the ground. Native to the Camargue, the bulls are bred and raised in its marshes and grasslands and, even as seasoned performers, retain a free-spirited wildness. They are small in stature, black, with long legs for running, and curved, wide-set horns. Their keen, darting eyes could never be mistaken for a Jersey’s.
The repeat of the tune brings forth the twelve razeteurs and five tourneurs, all dressed in white, with white sandshoes. The role of the tourneurs is to try to distract a charging bull or animate a lethargic one, but it’s the razeteurs who provide the action. They are lithe and lean and supremely acrobatic. They are also fearless, or ostensibly so, since their role is to get very close to the bull and, using a kind of comb cupped in the palm of their hand, remove several decorations attached to the bull. There’s the cocarde, a red ribbon pinned to the forehead; two white pompoms at the base of each horn; and, most valuable, the string wound around each of the horns. The object of the contest is to steal as many of these ‘prizes’ as possible within the allotted time, for rewards of both points and cash. If the bull is fast and fierce, cunning and clever, he might not lose any of his prizes.
Razeteurs have to be quick on their feet. If fleeing a bull they have to be able to leap fast and high, using the ledge of the wall as a springboard to reach the safety of the inner circle. They have to watch the bull at all times, sometimes goading him, while anticipating his reaction. If he appears sulky and unwilling they have to coax him to perform for the sake of the crowd; no one appreciates a one-sided contest. If they manage to secure a prize, the audience applauds; if they manage to escape the point of the horns, a collective sigh of relief pervades the ground.
Our first bull is somewhat apathetic; he dutifully plays his part, allowing the razeteurs to remove all five prizes, then contentedly trots back to his pen. The second one is more hot-tempered. Il est méchant, people murmur to one another; mean and nasty, not a good sport. He repeatedly leaps over the stockade into the no-man’s land between this wall and the first row of seats, where the razeteurs would normally take refuge. Spectators in the front row of seats immediately withdraw their dangerously dangling legs. As the bull takes their territory, so the razeteurs retreat to the bullring. This game is deemed unfinished, as only two of the prizes have been captured, and when the music signals its end the crowd jeers and boos. Bull number three is reasonably alert and fiery, but not skilful and loses all his decorations.
At interval the ground is watered to settle the dust and people leave their seats to buy icecreams and glasses of pastis. Then the music starts, and the action resumes. Number four bull is sprightly but not smart enough to outwit the razeteurs, who strip him of his prizes within 10 minutes. Number five is not much different. The programmers are keeping the best until last, for the final bull is Aiglon, a star performer; he knows what is expected and acts the part to the fullest.
It is soon apparent that this bull is more of a match than any of the earlier ones, and the razeteurs approach with caution. Inserting his horns between the planks that form the stockade, he tosses them menacingly aside as though they were matchsticks. He leaps the wall into the no-man’s land and chases razeteurs around this narrow circle, snorting and bellowing. He even mounts the inner wall, forcing the razeteurs to climb even higher for safety and some of the audience to hurriedly retreat. One razeteur is not quick enough, and the bull picks him up and throws him over his back. I imagine blood and broken bones, but the razeteur falls between the horns and, apart from a few cuts and bruises, is fine. Each time the bull is reckoned to score a trick, he is honoured by a snatch of the triumphal march from Carmen. Only three of the decorations are removed and the bull is declared the winner, to huge applause from the audience.
Next day’s Midi Libre carries a full report under the headline Aiglon termine en beauté, ‘Fantastic finish from Aiglon’. ‘After three minutes he jumped over the boards, hot on the heels of Bailly, knocked a spectator in the corridor behind the stockade … He had the upper hand for the whole of the session and his leaps over the wall and bold, dramatic movements certainly pleased the audience,’ gushes the local reporter.
In the 1950s Lawrence Durrell wrote about the legendary Gandar. On this afternoon, from his seat beside me, would he have found the feats of Aiglon equally memorable?