As the canalised sections of the river increased, the river itself was becoming more and more a narrow, rocky, meandering stream running alongside the canal sections. The Meuse had carried us all the way from Visé in Belgium, and perhaps one day would carry us nearly to the North Sea if we ever had the opportunity to follow it down into the Netherlands.

And so it was that on 7 September we left Verdun and travelled the next week into Toul along the Canal de la Meuse, following the river but not in it, the natural, meandering course of the river mostly never than a few metres away.

Our first stop, after a short cruise of 3 hours (13.5kms, 5 locks) was in the small village of Dieue-sur-Meuse. There is not a lot to Dieue, but at least it still has an operating boulangerie, even though it can no longer support a boucherie.

One interesting feature we discovered in Dieue was the Rogation Cross in a road leading out from the village centre – a small but fascinating glimpse into the life of little communities like this. The cross marked the beginning of a series of processions traditionally held on the three days before Ascension Day, beseeching God to protect the crops. It harks back to an earlier pagan tradition, the Robigalia, at which a dog was sacrificed to propitiate Robigus, the deity of agricultural disease. In areas like this, with few buildings and no churches but large wheat crops and the ever-present threat of rust, such crosses were frequently erected, for prayer, fasting and abstinence, in the hope of attracting the benevolence of their god. Presumably of considerable significance for a religious people for whom wheat, in the not-too-distant past, provided 70% of the calories in their diet.

The following day, 8 September, we cruised 24kms (5 hours, 4 locks) from Dieue-sur-Meuse into Saint-Mihiel. A larger town of some 5,000 inhabitants, Saint-Mihiel has some points of interest, and provided an incident of major interest to first-season novices like us.

Occupied for most of WWI by the Germans, the town was liberated by US-French forceS in September 1918, marking the first major entry into the war by a US-led force, under the command of General “Black Jack” Pershing.

Somewhat earlier, a Benedictine abbey had been created in Saint-Mihiel in the early 8th century, only dissolved (like so many others) in the Revolution. The abbey is best known for its library, which is still on the same site, purpose-built in 1775 and which preserves some 9,000 volumes, dating back to the 9th century.

Saint-Mihiel is also known as the home of the 16th-century sculptor Ligier Richier, whose marvellous works in wood and finely-grained, locally-quarried limestone can be seen in the abbey church and the Eglise Saint-Etienne. He was lost to Saint-Mihiel when his conversion to Protestanism forced him into exile in Geneva.

The most famous aspect of Saint-Mihiel for us, however, will forever be known to us and our friends as The Dutch Armada. When we arrived at the small, modern, neat pontoon in the port de plaisance right below the town, we were forced by the presence of other boats to moor right at the end of the pontoon, in fact with half our boat protruding precariously beyond it, pointing straight towards shallow water under the town’s bridge.

Some hours after we had triple-checked that everything would be OK for our brief stay, a series of small to medium craft of various styles began arriving, cruising up and down, looking  for spots to tie up, the faces of each new arrival looking increasingly concerned and confused as they realised how little mooring space there was for an ever-increasing flotilla.

A few of them gave up and cruised back down river a few hundred metres to an alternative mooring without services. The others took to rafting up outside each other and to the boats already moored to the pontoon. Because of our precarious position we made it clear that we were prepared to permit only one boat to moor up against us. More and more boats continued to arrive. We advised the skippers that, when the leader of their expedition arrived, we wished to meet him and discuss the situation, which we felt was highly inconvenient as well as dangerous.

Finally, the Armada’s leader arrived, bounded off his boat to the shore, barefoot, naked from the waist up and swaggering like an admiral who had already consumed more than his daily ‘ration’. “I understand you want to see me,” he said. I took him a short distance away, to have a private word. I explained the situation as I saw it…. the sheer number of boats was placing a dangerous load on the pontoon, and the small town could ill-afford to repair any damage. Some craft had simply rafted up to small boats already tied up with only small ropes, without securing additional lines to the pontoon, posing a risk of boats breaking loose. The number of boats travelling together, on a canal with locks and limited capacity, posed a cause of great inconvenience not only to lock-keepers but to other craft wishing to proceed in an orderly, timely manner. At moorings with power, such a large number of boats would inevitably overload the power supply, even if all boats could plug in to the limited number of points. I asked if he had thought of the fleet breaking up into smaller packs, perhaps only joining together in larger cities.

The admiral’s response was dismissive, contemptuous and arrogant, so I decided to give him a little Aussie logic. Raising my voice just enough to be heard by his imprisoned fellow-travellers, I gave him to understand that I thought he may be displaying something akin to thoughtlessness, arrogance and recklessness. I might have mentioned that his competence as a leader was under considerable doubt, and there may have been something in there about giving his country and its citizens a bad name abroad. I pointed out to him that several people in his fleet seemed to me to be confused and worried by the situation but were receiving no guidance or relief. I suggested he talk to his group to seek a solution to a problem that was obvious to all except his good self.

These were the first harsh words I had used to strangers since we arrived in Europe, certainly on the water, and it left me a little shaken. With Jane, I retreated somewhat abashed on a tour of the town, calming my nerves but still shaking my head at the stupidity and thoughtlessness of this expeditionary invasion. We returned to Eben Haezer and took a low profile.

Late in the afternoon, we became aware that the invaders had convened a meeting on the grass beside the pontoon. We tried to look uninterested, and couldn’t hear what was being said, but it was obvious that there was a lot of animated and concerned discussion going on. The Admiral, still casually semi-naked, looked on from the edge of the group but didn’t appear to be playing a leading role in the discussion.

An elderly couple who had rafted up to us proved to be the most lovely people, and we felt sorry for them as they struggled from their boat across our deck to make it to land, and vice versa. We later learned from them that the group had changed its plans and would now try to avoid smaller places, mooring wherever possible only in larger towns. At least that was something!

The next morning, the Dutch Armada took their leave, departing in a series of four or five craft at a time, to arrive at the upstream locks in a staggered fashion. Our elderly neighbours were among the last to leave and we wished them bon voyage and best of luck. Nearly two hours later we made our own departure, not really knowing what might confront us at our next stop but with our fingers firmly crossed and our minds trying to focus on good thoughts.

After 4 hours, 21kms and 5 locks, we pulled into Commercy and – joy, oh joy! – discovered a completely empty pontoon to tie up to. Obviously the Dutch Armada had decided to continue on, to our immense relief.

The port de plaisance at Commercy is delightful, set on the edge of town in a picturesque location, with water and power available via jetons (tokens). We spent three very pleasant days there, 9-12 September, and thoroughly enjoyed our stay.

Commercy is quite an attractive town, well-kept with interesting architecture, good shops and a market. It is best known as a residence of the last Duke of Lorraine, King Stanislaw I of Poland and, of course, also as the birthplace of the madeleine.

It is also home to people who take their petanque VERY VERY seriously. Next to our mooring there is a complex with a couple of dozen petanque courts, as well as a modern and well-equipped indoor arena, the walls of which are covered in trophies. On our last day, a petanque festival took place, with a crowd of several hundred, at least 12-16 games being played simultaneously, and a marvellous atmosphere of joyous competition. They were serous about it, though…. no time off, even for a quick lunch, although the fast food vans and beer/wine stall did a brisk business.

Right next to the petanque complex is a very well set-up velodrome, although we saw no evidence of its being used while we were there.

The main architectural feature of the town is the Chateau de Commercy, originally built in the early 18th century and massively enlarged by King Stanislaw I in the 1740s. After his death in 1766 the complex fell into disrepair and was heavily damaged in WWII by a fire that broke out when it was being used by American forces. The city of Commercy acquired the Chateau in 1957 and embarked on a program of restoration lasting until 1977. Designated a Monument historique in 1960, it is currently occupied by the town hall, municipal offices and library, and presents an imposing courtyard and facade.

It was during the time of King Stanislaw, according to the most common legend, that Commercy’s most famous product, the gateau Madeleine, was invented. The story goes that Madeleine Paulmier, one of Stanislaw’s chefs, perfected the recipe and its shell-like moulded shape; Louis XV, who happened to be Stanislaw’s son-in-law, was charmed by the little cakes and named them after the cook. He and his wife Maria took them back to Paris and the court at Versailles from where they became enormously popular in the following centuries, to the point where they were famously used by Proust in his monumental work À la recherche du temps perdu, to illustrate his theme of involuntary memory. In any event, they are delicious little creations, and we bought a box of them to enjoy on our cruising.

The other wonderful thing about Commercy is a firm in town that will deliver fuel – both red and white diesel – in a tanker truck to your dockside and pump it into your tanks, for not much more than the best lowest price you might find at a service centre. Really efficient and friendly, notwithstanding our piss-poor attempts at French and their non-existent skills in English.

Our next day of cruising, 12 September, saw us leave the Canal de la Meuse behind and enter the western end of the Canal de la Marne au Rhin (Ouest). After 3.5 hours, 15.5kms and 5 locks, we arrived in the small village of Pagny-sur-Meuse, which marks the point where we would leave the southward (upriver) course of the Meuse behind and head west towards Toul and the Moselle.

Pagny is another of the villages and small towns in this stretch of waterway that offer a neat, modern pontoon to moor at, without services, but pleasant enough for a short stay. Once again, as at Commercy, we had the mooring to ourselves. The village has a boulangerie, a couple of small brasseries/pizzerias and a lot of flowers!

But by far the outstanding feature of Pagny is Le Relais Favorite, a bar/restaurant/grill in the Total Service Centre, between the village and the N4 motorway, only a short walk from our mooring. This marvellous establishment is one of the restaurants les routiers one can find throughout France, unpretentious but reliable and cheap restaurants that cater for truckers and travellers. For €12 each we got a five-course meal, including soup de jour, massive entrée buffet, a choice of plat (main course), a dessert buffet and a cheese plate, plus a bottomless carafe of wine!

We can only dream of such motorway layovers in Australia…..

The following day we set off for the city of Toul, only 14kms away but with 12 locks and a short tunnel to deal with. The tunnel (souterain de Foug) was only 867m long, with pretty good clearance at sides and top, and we navigated it without trauma. The locks, though there were many of them, were all going downhill (much easier than uphill) and fairly shallow, so they were also accomplished with a minimum of fuss, even though they just seemed to keep on coming, one after the other….

We arrived in the Port de France in Toul, immediately after the last lock, and glided ever so slowly, scanning the quays and pontoons for a space sufficient for a boat of our size. Eventually, just as we were despairing, we spied a spot against the main quay. Only trouble was, it required a 90º turn, then a fairly tight manoeuvre through a crowd of craft and another 90º turn at the last moment to come alongside the quay, with very little space fore and aft. I took a deep breath, slowed Eben Haezer even further, and went for it.

Many modern, smaller boats than ours have bow and stern thrusters; even those with only bow thrusters seem to be able to use them to make their craft go virtually sideways. Our boat is fitted with hydraulic bow thrusters – a great convenience, to be sure, but not permitting the kind of fast and tight manoeuvres granted to the smaller, lighter craft. The advantage is that our bow thrusters do not drain the electrical supply and never give out; the disadvantage is that they depend on engine power which, when you are trying to go very, very slowly, means there isn’t a great deal of power to drive them. So you plan, aim, plan, aim and glide, very slowly.

As it happened, I must have entered some kind of dream space, a zone of concentration and calm, because we managed to execute a perfect set of turns and glides to come alongside the quay and drift without fuss or incident to where we could tie up. High fives and inner elation all round.

Toul is a marvellous place, with a well-run port, excellent port capitaine and much to see, do and enjoy in the city. We stayed days longer than we had intended, but enjoyed every moment and we look forward to returning soon. We’ll cover our experiences of Toul in a separate post.

On 4 September we slipped out of Consevoye and, with great anticipation, made our way 4.5 hours (24kms, 4 locks) to the iconic town of Verdun.

War and its effects, human and physical, are everywhere to be seen along this section of the Meuse.

We had formed a grim but clearly imagined view of our visit to Verdun. It’s a town that holds a very special place in every French heart, especially in this, the 100th anniversary of the gruesome but heroic scenes that unfolded in the First World War. Grim might be the wrong word yet, as we pulled alongside the stone quay in the city centre, we had already unconsciously adopted a solemn, reverential mood as we moored in a place that has seen more than its share of horrors.

The city itself has a sombre but not unattractive tone in its architecture, dominated by stone and serious-looking edifices along the canal/riverfront. This atmosphere was accentuated by the overcast conditions on our day of arrival, which lent added solemnity to our thoughts.

The name of the city is a latinised version of a word meaning ‘fort’, and it seems Verdun has always played a strategic role. In the 17th century a large citadel was built on the site of a former abbey, significantly strengthened in the 17th century by the famous French military engineer Vauban. The Prussians held the city briefly in 1792 and again in 1870, after which an extraordinary ring of 28 fortifications ringing the city was built.

These fortifications, or many of them, played a major role in the event Verdun is most famous for…. the Battle of Verdun between February and December 1916, the longest, costliest and nearly the most deadly in the entire First World War, possibly ever.

The day after our arrival we caught a hop-on-hop-off shuttle bus into the hills above Verdun to try to get close to the scenes of destruction that still evoke these horrors 100 year later.

A few statistics help to put the carnage into context. By 1916, WWI had become a war of attrition, and the Germans chose Verdun as a place where they hoped to wear down the French through massive destruction when national prestige could not permit retreat.There was no real aim to gain territory for strategic purposes; it was more about harvesting a killing field.

In an area not much greater than 20 square kilometres, both sides launched some 30 million rounds of heavy artillery in 6 months. One strategically identified hill absorbed so much bombardment, it was reduced in height by 27 metres. Seven villages were  destroyed, utterly and forever wiped from the landscape. Most deaths occurred through artillery bombardment, not through direct combat; bodies that had been buried were repeatedly uncovered and pulverised by fresh bombardments.

Both sides suffered some 1 million casualties, including perhaps 300,000 deaths, very many of whom were not recovered but could only be listed as missing. At times at the height of battle there were 10,000 or more deaths and injuries every day, for weeks.

We visited the Douamont Ossuary, site of one of the largest war cemeteries in France, with more than 16,000 graves. More gruesome still is the ossuary itself in the basement of the building, which you can glimpse through small windows, where the bones of at least 130,000 unidentified soldiers are interred. More are discovered and placed there even today, 100 years later, whenever roadworks or building excavation uncovers yet more bones in the killing fields of Verdun.

On a more direct level, we also visited one of the seven destroyed villages, Fleury-devant-Douamont, where today the sun-dappled groves of trees strive to camouflage the scene of total destruction suffered in battle. Fleury was desperately fought over, changing hands 16 times in little more than a month at the height of the battle. We wandered the pathways, reading the plaques which marked where once had stood a house, a bakery, a butcher’s shop, a small farm. Now all that remained were craters. And memories of people’s destroyed lives.

In the end, the Germans failed to destroy the French Army and its spirit at Verdun. Due to the policy of high rotation adopted by the French command, more than 70% of soldiers in the French Army in 1917 served there, embedding memories of their experiences in millions of French soldiers and millions more of their family members. Fundamentally, for the French, Verdun became the embodiment, the representative memory of WWI.

More positively, in recent years, Verdun has come to represent more than war and death. In the 1960s it started to become a symbol and place of Franco-German reconciliation, culminating in a moving visit in 1984 by Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who stood hand in hand with Francois Mitterand in driving rain at Douamont to remember common sacrifice.And Verdun’s 18th-century Episcopal Palace has become the World Centre for Peace, Liberty and the Rights of Man, which focuses on peace and harmony generally but with a special emphasis on Franco-German relations.

I should mention here that while we were in Fleury and Douamont, many of the visitors we shared these places with were small groups of young Germans, each with a guide explaining places and events. Clearly, there is a desire to understand how such things came to pass and, I like to think, not just because so many tens of thousands of their relatives and countrymen are buried in these hills.

After an enjoyable three days in Charleville-Mézières, we left the city on 28 August, bound for Sedan and the limit of navigation of the Meuse River. South of Sedan the Meuse becomes a canal which follows the river bed but with many canalised sections.

We arrived in Sedan after 5.5 hours and the final 28 kms (6 locks) of the navigable river. To be honest, there is nothing especially remarkable about the city of Sedan, save the fortress Chateau de Sedan, which is reputedly the largest medieval castle in France, dating from the early 15th century with numerous additions and fortifications over the centuries. The chateau certainly is massive. It’s worth a couple of hours but frankly there is little else in the city to detain you for more than a day or two.

Rather ironically, for a town with such a massive fortress castle, is that it was the scene of not one but three humiliating military defeats for France in the space of 70 years. In 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War it saw the French Army beaten and Emperor Napoleon III taken captive along with 100,000 of his troops, leading to the Siege of Paris and the formation of the Third Republic and the Government of National Defence. In WWI the town was captured early and occcupied for four years, during which Crown Prince Wilhelm victoriously paraded his troops through the town to mark the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. Then in WWII a decisive battle in May 1940 resulted in swift victory for the Germans, the effective destruction of the French Army’s capacity and the quick advance of the Germans to the Channel… and the famous evacuation of the Allied forces at Dunkirk.

Poor old Sedan!

On 30 August we left Sedan and travelled along the Canal de la Meuse for 3 hours and 16 kms (2 locks) to the village of Mouzon. The main feature of this rather pretty village is the wonderful Abbatiale Notre-Dame de Mouzon, a church originally established by the Abbey of Mouzon in the 9th century, and which prospered on account of the relics it held of Saint Victor and Saint Anulf, which encouraged strong pilgrim traffic. It was enlarged in the 13th and 14th centuries and again in the 17th and 18th centuries and was saved from the destruction that befell much of the Abbey itself in the Revolution. Our visit to the church was curtailed by a funeral in progress but we nevertheless saw much that was impressive.

The other notable presence in Mouzon is a marvellous little restaurant, Les Échevins. This charming establishment is located in one of the 17th-century “Spanish houses” on Rue Charles de Gaulle. Run by Julie and Damien Hacquard with utter lack of pretension, the atmosphere is remarkable and the food really excellent, at great value.

The following day on 31 August we left Mouzon and travelled 25kms (3 locks, 4 hours) to the village of Stenay. What we found was challenging. The small port, which is in a narrow dead-end channel off the main canal, is quite well formed and equipped, but seemed utterly full and, though we were told there was possibly a spot further up, we were unwilling to risk it, so we rafted up outside another large boat close to the narrow entrance. It was of little consequence to us since we planned to leave the next morning; but the manoevring in and the reversing out were testing for a first-season skipper and crew.

On 1 September we slipped our ropes from our host boat,  reversed with maximum care and caution out of the side channel, and travelled on to Dun-sur-Meuse, an easy 2.5 hours (13kms, 3 locks) along the canal.

There’s not a lot to the small village of Dun-sur-Meuse and its 750 inhabitants. It has a pleasant well-formed pontoon-based halte plaisance and is not unattractive in its way. Its main attraction is the remarkable 14th-century Eglise de Dun-sur-Meuse high on a hill (Haut-Dun) overlooking the village and river, surrounded by walls of the original 11th-century citadel that enclose a cemetery and a collection of ancient houses, some of which have been renovated and clearly provide a superior quality of domicile. Sadly, much of the upper village was destroyed in WWI.

We actually made two departures from Dun-sur Meuse, the first on 2 September which was aborted after two hours when there was a major lock malfunction, necessitating a return to Dun and a second departure the day following. So it was on 3 September we arrived in the village of Consevoye, 17kms, 5 locks and 3.5 hours up the canal.

The mooring at Consevoye turned out to be up a narrow and short side channel from the canal, at an acute angle, requiring a delicate reverse manouevre which we achieved – very slowly – like old hands.Which we were… this was now our 17th operational day in nearly a month of cruising!

Consenvoye is a village of less than 300 inhabitants, but is pretty and charming, despite its lack of shopping and infrastructure. In WWI it fell to the Germans early and was always behind the German lines. Its inhabitants were expelled and on their return four years later they found most of their homes had been destroyed.

For us, it was delightfully quiet, yet welcoming, and we enjoyed  a lovely, simple dinner at the auberge by the rivulet.

Not all was quiet in Consenvoye, however. Not long after we arrived, we heard the strains of a woman’s voice singing an aria, echoing across the canal. Was it coming from the silo/warehouse nearby? We couldn’t tell but it was captivating. After a while our curiosity demanded exploration, so we set off into the village to find the source of the magical sound. What we found was not a woman, but a small group of people in a courtyard, one of whom was operating a sound desk with pre-recorded music, the courtyard littered with what looked like props from a movie set.

We looked on, and finally gained the courage to ask what it was about. In fact, it was a rehearsal for an upcoming community performance, marking the anniversary of the sacking of the village by the Germans in WWI. They invited us back later that evening for a full dress rehearsal. So, after dinner at the auberge, we returned to the courtyard a little after 8.00pm to see what we might see. Alas, no performance, no dress rehearsal, because the cast were still doing what the French do best…. enjoying a communal feast! They toasted us and made us feel completely welcome in their happy crowd. It was a magical moment.