On a corner of the rue de la Liberté, two acoustic guitarists, Jacques Fourgèvre and André Bernard, are playing a splendid, toe-tapping rendition of Sweet Georgia Brown in the key of D major - personally I prefer the slightly higher E major, but what’s a tone between musicians?
All around, enlightened-elite BoBos (bourgeois Bohemians), bewildered and wide-eyed first-time visitors to Sarlat, and thrifty holidaying pensioners munch on labour-intensive but inexpensive salades Sarladaises, babble animatedly on stylish Androids and no doubt ponder the meaning of life as they effect not to acknowledge
the melodious duo – alas, their tapping feet give them away....
Still, the narrow street is thronged with baguette-wielding 'Madames', smart-suited hommes d'affaires, querulous children, yappy dogs and ever-watchful opportunistic cats. Some of the smaller dogs are restrained in fashionable carry bags, from which only their eyes and ears protrude smugly.
It’s all a hubbub of unorchestrated mayhem and delight; not ideal for connecting with the Zen-like rhythms of nature, but perfect for slipping easily into "France mode", and a charming chaos that is the very essence of lunchtime in urban France.
We make our coffee last until finally our entertainers head off to relocate to another corner, another audience, I give them all the loose change I have, just three euros, a fraction of their worth in terms of the atmosphere they brought to this busy market
day in Sarlat, or, to be precise, Sarlat-la-Canéda, the capital and major town of the Périgord Noir.
Not surprisingly, Sarlat sits on France’s Tentative List for future nomination as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Not only are its 77 protected monuments and buildings just cause, but this, too, is the birthplace of Étienne de La Boétie, the French judge, writer and founder of modern political philosophy in France, and of François Louis Fournier-Sarlovèze, a French general of the Napoleonic Wars.
Deconstructed omelette, ready to be cooked!