Raymond Queneau in Saint-Épain, Indre-et-Loire (37)

 

Of course, Raymond Queneau was born in Le Havre, although his father Auguste was born in Saint-Épain in 1870. Auguste's family worked on the farm La Touche, and the Queneau family had previously worked at La Deniserie, being in the agricultural business dating back to the seventeenth century: this information is on a plaque outside the school named after Raymond Queneau. Raymond's uncle Louis (Auguste's elder brother) continued at La Touche while Auguste joined the army at eighteen to be moved to Le Havre as a colonial accountant in 1901, where he married Joséphine Mignot the same year and she gave birth to Raymond in 1903. Raymond sometimes went on holiday to Saint-Épain, Louis being his godfather as well as his uncle. Raymond spoke very little of his connections to the town, and claimed that all his father knew is that one his ancestors used to castrate sheep with his teeth. Nevertheless, the plaque prints a poem, 'Le Fromage de Sainte Maure' (a village nest to Saint-Épain), from Raymond's Courir le rues:

'LE FROMAGE DE SAINTE MAURE

En me rendant à Auteuil

je passais rue des Belles-Feuilles

lorsqu'il me fut donné de voir

vétues de robes améthystes

qui vantait le val de Loire

et ses produits nutritifs

sur des airs simples et naïfs

c'était une vraie chienlit

mais comme nous étions samedi

les gens d'une dent guillerette

croquaient tartines et rillettes

ah quel plaisir c'était de voir

les avisées et folles choristes

débiter aux gastronomistes

les bons produits du val de Loire

alors m'arrachant à regret

à ce spectacle croquignol

mon petit chemin coninuai

en sifflant un air espagnol'