The Road to Santiago: Pilgrims of St. James

to choose the latter again for my fourth and last pilgrimage to St. James, but alas, l’homme propose mais Dieu dispose, and thereby hangs a tale.
    In 1953 I had set out gaily from Paris after hearing Mass at the little church of St. Julien-le-Pauvre, where Dante once said his prayers, and I walked up the Rue St. Jacques, and out on to the great Roman road to Orléans. With me were two Frenchmen and a Spanish Basque. The two Frenchmen did nothing but argue with one another, for one was a strict Catholic and a devotee of Claudel, whereas the other was a Voltairean esprit fort and an admirer of André Gide. The Spanish Basque was taciturn and plodded along manfully. His one wish was to reach the Basque frontier as soon as possible, for, like his celebrated countryman, Pío Baroja, he thought that all genuine Europe was concentrated in the mountains of the French and Spanish Basques, and he only felt safe when he was there. When we reached Chinon we found the town engarlanded for celebrations in honour of the fifth century of the death of Rabelais. Alas ‘l’amitié Tourangelle’, les Compagnons de Rabelais’, the ‘wine of one ear’ of La Devinière, the Kermesse of King Pichrochole’s wafer-makers and the evil eye of the Sibyl of Panzoust led me away from the road to Santiago by devious routes and turned me into a Pantagruelian pilgrim. The story of that picaresque roaming over the Rabelaisian road I must reserve for another occasion when I have paid my debt to the Apostle.
    After doing my penance, I made my vow for 1954, the jubilee year and I resolved not to risk the perils of the fourth road, but to chose the Via Tolosana and begin my pilgrimage at Arles in the Avenue des Alyscamps.
    My 1954 pilgrimage bore for me a deep significance, for it marked the time of my retirement from official life, and I wished to perform religiously all the rituals, in order to prepare myself for making my examination of conscience. When I look back over my past years in Spain I feel a profound melancholy, as though the scenes I have witnessed, the fugitive melodies I have heard, the personalities I have met for a fleeting instant were all part of a dream. In the past, when life was not so complex it was easier to retire from the fierce struggle and change the active life for the contemplative, many of the greatest thinkers retired to the cloisters where there were none to disturb their meditations; but today our duty to the State and our responsibilities forbid us to renounce the burden of life in the world, and we bring up our children in the idea that it is selfish and unpatriotic to relinquish obligations and retire from the struggle. The tyranny of State and Society will, however, soon deprive us of all the individual’s greatest rights. We must live amid the noise and shouts of the world and our houses must be open for all the world to see. Soon we shall not be allowed to possess a secret room closed by a hidden key, for then the guardians of law and order will cry out that it is Blue Beard’s closet. “He is the cat that walks alone,” they will say, “and we are sure he is a suspicious character.” And yet never was a time when humanity needed so much its moments of silent meditation. The greatest reformer of today will be the man who founds a League of Silence. I wrote these words in 1931 when I wandered alone through Castile living with shepherds in the mountains and with Gypsies in the plain. *
    My greatest joy then in my wanderings sprang from my quest of healing solitude, which Don Quixote discovered in the spacious country home of Don Diego de Miranda, the Knight of the Green Cloak, of whom the aged hero of Lepanto, Cervantes, constantly dreamed as he wrote his spiritual biography. Montaigne, who was always preparing for death, says when in a benevolent mood: ‘We have lived enough for others; let us live for ourselves at least this remaining bit of life. Let us bring back our thoughts and intentions to ourselves and our comfort. It is no small business to prepare serenely one’s retirement; it gives us enough to do without the intrusion of any other concerns. Since God gives us permission to arrange for our removal let us prepare for it: let us pack up our belongings, take leave betimes of the company and shake off those violent holdfasts that engage it elsewhere and estrange us from ourselves. We must undo these powerful bonds and from this day forth we may like this and that but be wedded only to