Whisphers Estate - Chalone-sur-Saone, France

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A First Look at the Village and the Valley.

The community of Chalon-sur-Saone is a small town at one end of a broad shallow valley in eastern France.

Much of the valley is given over to vineyards and fruit orchards, though there are also many farms, and rangelands or small livestock (sheep are common) on the hills. Lots of tall old trees line the lanes, and the upper hills and back reaches of the valley are covered with some fine stands of forest timber. Riding paths and game trails cross one another in the uplands, but the forest cuts the valley off from most other contact. To the east, across the river, the foothills of the Alps begin to rise up only a few miles away.

The Chalon valley is perhaps ten miles long and five across at its widest point. It is shaped rather like a mitten, with the Saone river running through the shorter eastern "thumb" to within a few hundred yards of the town. Despite this, the village takes little note of the river, and the tiny dock there is only for rowboats and an occasional houseboat or two. The bulk of the water traffic that passes nearby remains wholly unaware of the little village and the valley beyond. There is only one road into the valley -- a winding dirt track leading south to a neighboring village -- and, though the railroad passes on the valley's western side and stops at the village, the station house is just two small rooms, manned only by the signalman.

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Chalon-sur-Saone does not court contact with the outside.

In between many of the vineyards, and in other lowland areas that have not been used or cultivated, the land is either green rolling grass or huge and ancient thickets of blackberry brambles. In the summer and fall, the berries grow large and succulent in profusion. The locals do not eat them, however, feeling for some reason that blackberries are not good "people food." This only leaves more for out-of-town guests, who do not complain at all about the bounty.

Here and there, scattered across the valley and ranging the hills and ridgelines, are a number of heavy standing stones. These are regarded with great reverence by the villagers, who know that they bring good luck and guard the valley from harm. No one would ever dream of harming or moving a stone, at least not without the permission of the Master of the Estate.

What's the Village Like?

Chalon-sur-Saone is a small town, little more than a village. A few hundred people live in the valley; maybe half of them reside in the village proper.

At first glance, Chalon is a quintessential picturesque small French town. Half-timbered houses, peaked shingle or thatch roofs, cobbled streets in town and gravel or dirt outside, a lovely little central square with a centuries-old fountain, fronting on the Catholic church and the meeting hall.

Houses have little square window panes and French or split Dutch doors, ornamental shutters and flower boxes everywhere. The town center has a few small shops -- butcher, baker, bistro, patisserie, cobbler, cooper and the like -- and many family homes.

Some buildings have two stories, none have more. Everyone has deep root cellars, and a number of wells are scattered through the town. Houses have flower and vegetable gardens, sometimes a fruit tree or two, and occasionally some chickens or pigs, carefully fenced in the yard.

Closer inspection reveals a couple of peculiarities. Chalon has no electricity at all. There are no wires, no power nor phones -- the telegraph line goes to the rail platform, but the sole telephone connections run to the Mayor's house and to the Estate. None of the houses have electric power. The streets are lit at night by hanging oil lamps, tended by an elderly local man and his family. The homes are also lit and heated by oil, or kerosene, or by wood fires and candlelight.

There are no automobiles visible in the village, and almost no powered vehicles of any sort in the valley.A small supply of petrol is kept at the smithy, for the benefit of occasional outsiders, but for the locals, travel is on foot, in the saddle, or drawn by horse.

For all its quaint antiquity, Chalon is a very clean place, and pretty. The buildings and streets are well-tended, there is no sign of neglect or disuse, no rubbish or refuse left in public places. The people are well dressed, though simply, and show no signs of illness, malnutrition, or poverty of any sort. All in all, the place exudes a kind of quiet, ageless prosperity.

You've seen the village in the opening sequences of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast?" That's Chalon-sur-Saone.

The last peculiarity in Chalon is the way the people behave. Guests of the Whisphers Estate are always accorded the greatest respect and deference. The villagers seem to regard the Estate, and all who stay there, as rightful gentry and worthy of devoted service at all times. It is very difficult to pay for anything in Chalon, if one is a guest of the Estate. The Chalonois feel that to accept payment is somehow to dishonor the House and the Master. It is as though, even in the twentieth century, this village were still the proper fief of a beloved feudal lord.

Only three roads leave the village. One, to the south, is a simple dirt track, which winds in ruts and jutting stones out of the valley and twenty miles to the next community of any size, a riverside town called Tournous. Another wanders east and north not far from the river, servicing the orchards and vineyards along the valley's eastern branch.

The third, the main road in the area, travels almost due north, between the farms and fields of the flatlands, for about five miles, ending in the untouched forest of the valley's northern extents. It is this road, too, that passes by the Whisphers Estate.