october 17, 2024: the Lignon, my Lignon, my friend, suddenly went berserk. I've been fishing him for a long time, and I'm well aware of his capricious nature - I've already spoken about it in this very column - but I'd forgotten just how terrible his tantrums can be.
A huge wave broke
I had also forgotten a certain August 12, 1963.
A blazing heat, a summer day like any other: the children from the summer camp had set up their tents at Costerousse on the banks of the Lignon, upstream from Tence. Happy and carefree, they were getting ready for a swim after their siesta. With the sun beaming down on the steaming meadow, the afternoon looked set to be a splendid one.
A few kilometers away, my family and I were preparing our fishing gear. I was happy, we were going fishing near Tence. I already loved this village in the Haute-Loire, but I had no idea that many years later, I'd be settling there. My father had decided that we would prospect a spot a little upstream from the Costerousse bridge, where minnows and gudgeon were abundant.
All was going well, and the trolley was filling up nicely, when, around mid-afternoon, heavy drops began to fall and thunder began to rumble. We had to take shelter! We had just enough time to reach the car before the deluge. We arrived at the village of Tence, five kilometers downstream, and although we could hear the thunder of the storm in the distance, the sky was clear. As a good patrol leader, my father suggested we continue our fishing trip at the foot of the big bridge. As we were happily deploying our fishing rods, a Gendarmerie dispatch rider told us to get out of the area as quickly as possible. The waters of the Lignon were rising dangerously.
When we reached the road overlooking the river, we were stunned to discover that the site we'd just left was completely submerged. A few minutes later, the water level reached the top of the bridge arches, where several cars remained stranded. Due to the torrential rains, logjams had accumulated somewhere on the Costerousse side of the river, forming a dam. When the pile gave way, the huge wave swept downstream, taking everything in its path.
Painful memories
The day after that horrible day, the lifeless body of a child from the colony was discovered clinging to the branches of a tree. Like everything else, it had been swept away by the current. The Lignon that day claimed the lives of four people: two children and two young camp counselors swallowed up by the raging river as they tried to save all the children from drowning.
Sixty years after this terrible event, from the depths of my memory, the dam has just broken too. Memories flood in, the best as well as the most painful. The impalpable landmarks of my entire life as a fisherman cling here and there to the banks of the long river that is my life.
october 18, 2024, this morning, I no longer recognize my river, it's disfigured. Its course has totally changed. There's nothing left of all the trout stations I knew on the tip of my rod. When I see it like this, I wonder. Is she the culprit or the innocent victim of the gods' wrath? Could it be that Neptune and Jupiter, incensed and outraged by the offences men inflict on planet Earth, have joined forces to denounce their carelessness?
Or is it? The past must show the way, and men must seize it. Let's bet that the magical moments offered by Mother Nature will eternally punctuate the wanderings of the contemplative angler: a kingfisher tearing through the morning mist with a blue line, or the exhalations of freshly cut grass on a warm summer's evening.
