It is hard to tell where all this started, in one way it was in 1966 when my seventeen year old romantic soul was taken over by a French movie by Claude Lelouch : A Man and a Woman (Un homme et une femme.)

This was an intense and, for its time, quite steamy, love story starring Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant.
I must have seen it about four times. Nowadays it is probably best known by its music, you all know it;

Dee Dee Dee
Dabba Dabba Dap,Dabba Dabba Dap
Da Da Da
Dabba Dabba Dap,Dabba Dabba Dap
Dee Dee Dee
Dabba Dabba Dap,Dabba Dabba Dap
Da Da Da Daaah

It had everything, beautiful actors , wonderful swelling romantic music, great shots of France (the hero races up from Monte Carlo to Trouville to be with his love) and people with sophisticated lives – he was a rally driver she worked in the movies.

Un Homme et Une Femme

But that was all forty three years ago and long in my past when the festival of our local area ; Les Nuits des Terrasses et del Catet, came around again last summer.
This we cannot ignore as there is always a concert in the Ruelle (called Rue del Catet) by the side of our house.

Last summer there was also, in the vinyard that produces our favourite local
wine; Le Chateau de Couzon, readings from a novel by none other than M. Trintignant, he whom I had last seen rolling about between the sheets with the beautiful Anouk Aimée some 43 years previously.

Jean-Louis Trintignant, last summer.

Cut to this Christmas.

I am just a little obsessive, friends say that I tend to get a little over enthusiastic about my latest interests from time to time.
This seasons interest is a French Poet/ Songwriter/ Pop Singer called Thomas Fersen.
Now this man is just bound to be a favourite of mine as he spends most of his time writing about food. His song Croque I have already written about and even translated into English here.

This is the most recent of his works which I have purchased.
It is titled:
Pièce Montée des Grands Jours

Nothing would do me but I decided I should translate the title track on this CD into English.

For once I have been foiled, and principally by the title.

M. Fersen is as I have intimated a man as obsessed with food as I am.
This song is set in a prison where the prisoners are digging their way out and about the attempts to bring in useful tools for the job hidden in various large food dishes, it would be taken for granted that to fit these tools the dishes would have to be large and elaborate; what the French called Pièces Montées

Now these pieces were great classics in the nineteenth century made famous by chefs like Careme and would often consists of large dishes of food like Sole made into elaborate wedding cake like constructions.

Probably the only remaining popular piece now is the French wedding cake:The Croquenbouche. (our own three tiered wedding cake would also qualify)

A Croquenbouch (and I ) photographed at friend Isabel’s wedding a couple of summers ago.

These pieces montees would have easily concealed the necessary tools and ropes needed for the prison break.
Fersen lovingly decides which tool should go in each piece- The ten metres of cord in the Dinde aux Marrons. the pick (pioche) -of course- in the Brioche et cetera.

Unfortunately after some time trying to think of ways of translating the concept of the Pièce Montée into English I had to admit defeat.

Now another pecularity about this song is that Thomas Fersen does not sing this song alone.
He is joined by a woman called Marie Trintignant.

Marie Trintignant.

The surname caused a bell to ring faintly in the recesses of the Dwyer brain.
Could she possibly be something to Jean Louis of Un Homme et Une Femme ?

Google confirmed that indeed she was.

But then Google also threw up a sad story about this unfortunate soul.

Mlle. Trintignant was indeed a daughter of Jean Louis and had become an extremely successful actor herself, having been on several occasions nominated for the French Oscars The Cesars.

She had produced four sons from four different French celebrities and in 2003 was living with Bertrand Cantat , the lead singer in the french hit rock band, Noir Désir

Bertrand Cantat

He accompanied her to Vilnius where she was filming. they had a row, he hit her and she fell hitting her head off a radiator.
She died the following day.
He was sentenced to eight years for manslaughter, served four and was released last Autumn.

What a strange and sad end to the lady who sang so well in the song I was trying to translate.

I will leave you with the words of the song I found intranslatible :

Pièce Montée des Grands Jours

C’est une nuit conventionnelle,
Un chien aboie, une chouette hulule,
Les prisonniers dans les cellules
Rêvent de creuser un tunnel.

Mais avec une petite cuillère,
Il faudrait être un peu naïf,
La prison n’est pas un gruyère,
Si au moins j’avais un canif

Je vous fais porter une brioche
Fourrée avec une pioche
Dix mètre de corde environ
Dans la dinde aux marrons,

Si vous goûtez la mortadelle,
N’avalez pas la pelle.
Ce n’est pas tout car j’ajoute
Une lime dans le pâté en croûte
Et dans le petit pot de beurre,
Une pince-monseigneur

Dans la purée pas de grumeaux,
Seulement le chalumeau
Dix mètres de corde environ
Dans la dinde aux marrons,

Un vilebrequin dans le ragoût,
Ca lui donnera du goût
Mais un poil dans la choucroute
Moi franchement ça me dégoûte.

Filez avant que le jour se lève
Si vous trouvez la fève.

C’est une nuit conventionnelle,
Un chien aboie, une chouette hulule,
Les prisonniers dans les cellules
Rêvent de creuser un tunnel.

Je cherche sans y parvenir
une position pour dormir
Aboie le chien, hulule la chouette,:
Je m’allume une cigarette,

J’imagine un cigare qui fume,
Une pâtisserie qui vaut l’détour,
Une danseuse avec une plume
Dans la piece montée des grands jours

Pourvue d’un pistolet en sucre,
Dotée de pièces en chocolat,
Bonnes à manger, pas pour le lucre
J’les cacherai pas sous mon matelas

Je vous fais porter une brioche
Fourrée avec une pioche
Dix mètre de corde environ
Dans la dinde aux marrons,

Si vous goûtez la mortadelle,
N’avalez pas la pelle.
Ce n’est pas tout car j’ajoute
Une lime dans le pâté en croûte

Et dans le petit pot de beurre,
Une pince-monseigneur

Dans la purée pas de grumeaux
Seulement le chalumeau
Dix mètres de corde environ
Dans la dinde au marrons,

Un vilebrequin dans le ragoût,
Ca lui donnera du goût.
Mais un poil dans la choucroute,
Moi franchement ça m’dégoûte.

Filez avant qu’le jour se lève
Si vous trouvez la fève.