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snowdrops, celandines and cowslips, and they had multiplied still further since it had become against the law to pick them. Violets flowered alongside lingering pockets of snow heralding the bounties to come; fungi of all kinds, and the first of the
fraises du bois
.
    Then summer would arrive with a rush and there would be blue scabious in amongst the cow parsley. There was wildlife galore: marmot, mountain sheep, deer, boar roaming free, and cattle everywhere. Food was basic, but it was plentiful. The Director was right; it had a lot to offer.
    Coming off the Autoroute de Soleil just before the main Péage de Villefranche, he drove out of town on the D38 and, following the signs for Roanne, passed a turning for the Route de Beaujolais.
    Beaujolais!
He’d been practically weaned on it, but in his day it had been quaffed out of pots drawn from the cask, not racked and re-racked within an inch of its life so that it could be bottled anddespatched at speed to the four corners of the world in order that people could pronounce on what was left of its virtues.
    Later in the year the same sign would be the signal for the more intrepid to seek out the little village of Vaux-en-Beaujolais, setting for Chevallier’s bestselling political satire,
Clochemerle
. Over the years its
pissoir
had become famous; a shrine to the power of marketing
Beaujolais Nouveau
. He told himself not to be grumpy. If that was what gave people pleasure and made others prosper, then so be it. At least there were signs of a renaissance;
vignerons
who were working hard to raise the level again.
    Once clear of Villefranche, the road began to climb steadily, heading towards the foothills of the Auvergne. On large-scale maps it showed up as a vast area of nothingness;
la France profonde
, the unexplored region. A day’s travel away from home had always been an adventure into the unknown.
    The smaller-scale maps contained within the pages of
Le Guide
revealed for the most part a gastronomic wilderness without so much as a single Bar Stool,
Le Guide’
s symbol for somewhere to stop for lunch. The fact that it was surrounded on all sides by restaurants of note – Roanne, where he was heading, had Troisgros; Collonges-au-Mont-d’Or outside Lyon had Bocuse; and the Rhône Valley tothe east, full of riches – only served to emphasise the dearth of good restaurants.
    Now that Pierre Gagnaire in St Étienne had gone, closed down and moved to Paris, like so many before him, the one shining light, the single beacon shining in the wilderness, was Dulac, and by the sound of it even he was having his troubles.
    Monsieur Pamplemousse was so busy with his thoughts he very nearly collided with another car at a lethal road junction just after Les Olmes, where the D38 joined the N7. Gesticulations were exchanged. The Director wouldn’t have been pleased. To say that it was all changed since he was last there would have gone down like a lead balloon.
    Another 60km. Say, three quarters of an hour. He checked the time again. The clock said 13.30. He would be just about right.
    After St Symphorien he hit the main road into the city and fast traffic started to build up as if from nowhere. As always, everyone else was in a tearing hurry and seemed to know exactly where they were going. Working on the theory that since Roanne’s most famous restaurant was right opposite the
gare
, and as with most three Stock Pot establishments probably even better signposted than anything else in the town, and since the Director had told him the Place des Promenades Populle was right by the railroadstation, he couldn’t go far wrong if he aimed for Troisgros.
    His theory worked. Ten minutes later and he was circumnavigating a large tree-lined park, the perimeter of which was lined with cars. The Director’s instruction to seek out a parking bay near a wall suddenly seemed optimistic. It looked as though he would be lucky to find anywhere at all to park. Moreover, there didn’t seem much in the