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Topic: from LeMonde Return to archive
September 14th, 2005 05:57 PM
lotsajizz


my French ain't perfect so I do not gurantee the translation!!!


Sir Mick Jagger, Lord of Fourchette



It is in the castle of Fourchette, belonging to Sir Mick Jagger, in Pocé-sur-Cisse (Touraine), that the world rock superband conceived and gave birth to its latest album, ‘A Bigger Bang’.


Do not search on the cover of the new Rolling Stones album, Pocé-sur-Cisse is not mentioned.

One could wonder why this little village of the Indre-et Loire county, a few miles from Amboise,
would be named anywhere on the cover. The answer is simple: this is where the world rock superband conceived and gave birth to its latest album, A Bigger Bang.

A priori, with its 1,610 population, its last farmers, its few wine-growers, and its three small castles,
Pocé-sur-Cisse does not really qualify to be listed among the ‘in’ locales of sweet France.
It is even for that very reason that Mick Jagger, singer, composer, and ‘CEO’ of the Rolling Stones
spends a lot of his time there.

A quarter of a century has already elapsed since Sir Mick, knighted by Her Very Gracious Majesty Elisabeth II of England in 2002, treated himself to the castle of Fourchette (XVIIIth century), former residence
of the Duke of Choiseul (1719-1785). A beautiful rectangular dwelling with a second floor and a gabled attic, situated at the foot of a loam ridge, and nestled in the heart of a five hundred acres park.
Of course the castle of Fourchette is not the rocker’s only residence. At 62 years of age, Jagger owns also
some properties in London, New York, Hollywood, and Moustique, the billionaires’ Caribbean island. Nevertheless, there is a special niche in his heart for his Loire Valley castle.


Here, in Touraine, the lord of Fourchette enjoys a royal peace. If this was not the case, never would he
have asked his accomplices Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and Ron Woods to join him in the little recording studio installed in the castle. The album production took two sessions, each a few weeks long: the first
at the end of 2004, the second in the following Spring. Nothing leaked. The presence of the Rolling Stones
was not known outside of the village. Of course, the villagers knew they were there. With the coming and goings of big cars and delivery vans, the landing of helicopters in the park, not mentioning the tired faces
of the Fourchette’s staff, there was no room for doubt. As usual, the Poceans kept mum. ‘We always took care of not pestering mister Jagger’, explains Claude Courgeau, mayor and director of the local grammar school.
‘He wants peace and we respect that.’

Along the years, a sort of non-verbal agreement developed between the British lord and the local frenchies.
As expressed by a near neighbor, ‘people here are quite proud to protect his privacy. When non villagers
ask me where the castle is, I sometimes send them in the opposite direction.’ In fact Sir Mick is almost
a native son.

In his childhood, Michael Phillip – his real first name – often went camping with his parents to visit the Loire castles. When glory and fortune came, his love of the Loire softness and its proximity to Paris (220 km - 138 miles) brought him back to Fourchette.

Mick Jagger buys the building in 1980, for 2.2 million French francs (about $370,000). At the time, he plans
to spend only a few weeks each year there. Nevertheless, his announced arrival raises some worries on
the banks of the Cisse, little river ending in the Loire, and paradise of fishermen. At that time, the Rolling Stones’ sulfurous reputation has already abated some, but for many it is still a troublesome band.
Neighbors fear an invasion of armies of raggedy fans, and overtly dread nuisances. Most notably noise.
Nothing of the kind will happen.

Mick Jagger already has only one obsession: find a peaceful haven to be with his children during school vacations. A keen amateur of history, the star will very quickly launch a number of remodeling projects
at Fourchette. Advised by an international decorating consulting company, the master updates the castle’s interior, fills it with antique furniture, canopy beds, Louis the XVIth bedroom, first Empire library, etc.
The gardens are entirely redesigned according to an English landscaper’s blueprints. A pool is dug
as well as a pond with cascade and Japanese pagoda. A tennis court emerges from the ground.
The park’s little chapel receives new rafters.

Hundreds of trees are planted around the property to hide it from onlookers. We said it, the artist wants peace. At the end of the 80’s, he will go as far as ‘summoning’ the journalists of La Nouvelle République du Centre-Ouest to voice his complaint about a vague highway project being considered in a neighboring community.
A little later, it’s a camping ground project that threatens the castle’s peace. To stop it, Jagger buys out
the abutting acreage across his property.


Sir Mick, in Touraine, is the inverse of Fritz Bolkenstein (*) in the North. For twenty-five years, the singer
has given work to local businesses. His plumber is not Polish. He is from Pocé-sur-Cisse and lives right near the castle. Mason, painter, wood-worker, roofer, carpenter, electrician, marble-carver, glazier, satellite dish technician, almost all the artisans who will work in Fourchette are local. A former farmer who switched trade because of a failing spine, Jean-Claude Septseault, the designated castle upholsterer, lives in Saint-Ouen-les-Vignes. ‘For nineteen years, he has been my best customer. I am not a great upholsterer’, he confides.
‘But he trusted me and helped me to progress.’ Mr. Septseault does not know how many antique armchairs
and chairs he has restored for Fourchette. He just remembers his most beautiful assignments: Lyon silk divans and Egyptian canvas wall coverings for which he was forced to cancel one vacation week. ‘With him, you often have to work with very short deadlines. But he pays fast, within the following eight to fifteen days. Mr. Jagger is truly not a bothersome client. And he is not haughty. Some look down on you when you go to their place.
Not him.’ The author of Sympathy for the Devil is an angel, one hears.

According to a 2004 study by Le Magazine de la Touraine, Mick Jagger has invested, in twenty years,
more than 3 million of euros ($3,660,000) to remodel Fourchette. Though the figure is not confirmed by
the castle’ staff – a steward, a gardener, and a couple of guardians –, it goes without saying that hiring local natives to embellish the dwelling and maintain it everyday is a major contribution to the good relationship Jagger has with the neighborhood. Though more than rich – his personal worth has been estimated at 257 million of euros ($313,500,000) in 2003 -, the lord is not excessively prodigal. He does not tip right and left
and pays ‘the right price, no more’, specifies a former collaborator. ‘As anybody who does not like to throw money away, he scrutinizes work orders, of course. He is Mr. Everybody…’

With this correction: the man is largely responsible of the good health of the local economy. Even at a minute scale, as witnessed by the village’s newsstand owner, who sold this summer a good hundred postcards
of witch he has the exclusivity. And see why! This card which shows multiple views of the castle has been designed in ‘co production’ with Mick Jagger himself. ‘He takes half of the postcards, that he uses as business cards. As for myself, I sell the other half for thirty centimes (37 cents) apiece’, he explains. His shop is close
to the castle gates, but he keeps from offering tee shirts, gadgets or magazines associated with the Stones
to passing fans.
‘I could, it would sell very well. But one does not want to bother him’. Generous … A few years ago, he even refused to display the posters of e gossip magazines featuring the marital problems of the singer and his wife
at the time, the Texan model Jerry Hall., mother of four of his seven children.

The man with the famous lips does not want to be the inaccessible lord in his ivory tower. He takes care of
his integration in Touraine and treats himself to outings without bodyguards. Stories are numerous: Mick at
the village pizzeria, Mick exploring Amboise on his scooter, Mick buying screws at Bricomarché (French Home Depot), Mick jogging in the vineyards of AOC Touraine, Mick visiting the Bauval zoo, Mick paddling under the arches of the Chenonceaux castle, etc. The singer who by now speaks French quite well, though
with a strong British accent, was spotted at villages’ festivals where none of his fans would have imagined
he could be found. He was seen at the Ducks Festival of Cangey (population: 780) in 2000, at the Zucchini Festival in Montreuil- en-Touraine (population: 648) the following year, and also at the air show in Dierre (population: 498) in 2004. ‘A few years ago, he made a brief appearance at the grand opening of our Leisure Center’, remembers Claude Courgeau, Pocé’s mayor. ‘The director had sent him an invitation. He came out
of courtesy. He wanted to see what was happening at the village.’ Lord of the manor in jeans and sneakers, ‘Monsieur Jagger’ loves nothing more than to go out incognito, a feat totally impossible in London, Paris, or New York. ‘ Mick has been around quite a lot, he has ascertained things. Now he wishes to come back
to simplicity’, guesses his British friend Krishna Lester, wine-grower in Saumur-Champigny and coach
of a cricket club of which the Stones foundator is the president. Two or three times a year, Sir Mick also goes
to Saumur to practice his favorite sport. How doe he go there? At the wheel of his old Peugeot 505 station wagon, a lot more inconspicuous than the Ferrari or 30’s Cadillac sleeping in Fourchette’s underground garages.

This tremendous wish to be anonymous can sometimes even play tricks on him. ‘One night, getting out of my place’, narrates Baby Dahan, owner of a Moroccan restaurant in Tours, ‘Mick wanted to have a drink. We went to a nightclub downtown. He was dressed casually. The bouncer did not recognize him and did not let him in.
It seemed his look was not good enough fort the club’s image. Mick did not insist. We had a drink elsewhere.’ Mick never insists. Or almost never. Sometimes he takes the liberty, physically if needs be, to rid himself
of the harassers who want to photograph him with his children. He also copiously grumbles against
the touristic helicopters flying too close to his domain.

His customary but too fleeting escapades out of the castle havenot allowed him to make a lot of friends
in Touraine. Except – well! – among the local aristocrats. Thus one counts, among his ‘acquaintances’,
a few great landlords, like the Marchess de Brantes. ‘It is simply because I am American, and so speak English, and my daughter is the same age as his’, confides the gentle lady. Nevertheless, ‘Mick loves gentry’, say a couple of friends in front of their castle. ‘He appreciates well-brought people, with a certain level of education, who have a taste for old stones and share his way with Touraine. It is not snobbism, no. He behaves like a castle dweller. He likes to talk with people who do not react like fans with him. He hates that and can become very cold.

The Marchess de Brantes remembers a dinner at her castle, in Authon. ‘A neighbor, very rural, asked him: “And you, young man, what do you do for a living?” ‘ Mick loved it. Not surprising? Did he not use to introduce himself to the owner, now deceased, of a coffee shop in Amboise in this way: ‘I am Mick. From Fourchette.’ A simple man, I tell you.

Frédéric Potet
Article Featured in Le Monde – 09/13/05 issue

(*) Bolkenstein is a Dutch European Community Commissar who owns a vacation house in the north of France.
He is famous for once proposing lowering all wages in the E.U. nations to the level of the smallest wage in any E.U. country. Soon after French journalists found that, for his house, he hired the cheapest tradesmen (as far as Poland for a plumber) in the E.U.
September 14th, 2005 06:08 PM
lotsajizz I used one of those universal translator programs for most, then unscrambled the French grammar and added some corrections and restored a French phrase or three that simply did not translate well.
September 14th, 2005 09:14 PM
Zulu Fun Mix Thank you for translating and posting! It's a pleasurable read, and not the usual sort of fare.
September 14th, 2005 10:19 PM
exile
quote:
lotsajizz wrote:
A neighbor, very rural, asked him: “And you, young man, what do you do for a living?” ‘ Mick loved it. Not surprising? Did he not use to introduce himself to the owner, now deceased, of a coffee shop in Amboise in this way: ‘I am Mick. From Fourchette.’ A simple man, I tell you.




Very Funny.
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