A Glass of Chablis with Anne

A portrait of Anne Yvois, told by Ben

It began with a glass of Chablis one winter evening by the fire in one of Anne’s holiday cottages. In a photograph, her father was smiling and her mother was holding flowers. I asked Anne to tell me about them.

One thing led to another, and soon she was telling me her family’s story. Sometimes she laughed. At other moments she fell quiet and looked back at the photograph. I’m still unsure what went to my head that evening, the Chablis or the story. But I remember what I said.

“You speak about Burgundy so well that listening to you makes me want to set out and see it, Anne. On your website, I’d like people to meet you first. To know who built these cottages, what your parents passed on to you, and why you take such pleasure in welcoming people here.”

That was the evening I decided to write her portrait.

Her father, Georges Yvois, was a mason. His family had run a masonry business in Commissey for more than three generations. He built Au 19 and Chez Anne with his own hands. I looked around. A few minutes earlier I had been thinking about the fire and how good it was to be warm. Now I was thinking about the man who had built the walls around us.

Then Anne told me about her mother. Marguerite Bouc was a primary school teacher. She passed on her love of books and philosophy and left Anne her research into the Yvois family. Following that work, Anne tells me about a cousin in the family, Henriette Virginie Yvois. More than a century separates them. Yet here is Anne telling me where someone could have written to Henriette at twenty-one.

Marguerite’s research takes us through Vézannes, where Henriette’s father, Modeste Yvois, came from. We find the family again in Paris. Henriette was born there in 1889. Her mother, Marie Anna Willems, came from Brussels.

On the postcard, Joan of Arc watches over the square on horseback. A little further up the street is 5 rue des Pyramides. Did Henriette sometimes look up at the statue on her way home? Had it ever made her want to go out into the world? Perhaps she walked past without a thought. It’s me, more than a century later, lingering over the picture and wishing I could ask her.

In February 1911, a young Frenchwoman gave that address in a small advertisement in the New York Herald. She was looking for a place as a chambermaid with a foreign family. She said she spoke English and was twenty-five. Henriette’s travel papers give the same address. If she placed the advertisement, she added four years to her age. Replies were to be sent to Madame Yvois. I wonder whether Marie Anna ever had a letter to hand her daughter one morning.

A few weeks later, Henriette crossed the Atlantic with William Harbeck, an American filmmaker bound for Seattle. She was twenty-one. I think back to how much I knew of the world at that age, and I admire her. When she returned to Europe on the Lusitania, a word appeared beside her name on the passenger list: actress. Almost a year lies between the advertisement and that word. Of all the things Marguerite’s research allows us to recover, that is the year I would most like to hear Henriette tell.

The Titanic comes next. Everyone knows what happened to the ship. In the photograph, though, it is leaving Southampton. Henriette is twenty-two. She already knows the Atlantic crossing, and this will be her third.

The British inquiry’s final report records 80 survivors among the 93 women travelling in second class. Several boats were lowered well below capacity. I tried to find out whether Henriette had been able to get close to one. The accounts I read do not tell me where she was. Some survivors remembered the music. So for a moment I imagine her on deck, close enough to hear the musicians.

One last crossing, with music.

After the sinking, the records take us back to Marie Anna. She brought a claim against the shipping company, which was dismissed on procedural grounds. I think again of the advertisement. Two years earlier, anyone offering her daughter work had been asked to write to her. This time it was Marie Anna who had Henriette’s name written down again.

I put the postcard down. Anne had another photograph to show me. A film crew had gathered on the steps. Anne worked in production logistics on Claude Zidi Jr.’s Le Jour J, and some of the crew stayed at the holiday cottages. By day they were filming a story set on the eve of the D-Day landings. In the evening some came back to sleep within the walls Georges had built. This photograph I could put in front of Anne and ask what happened beyond the frame. I picked up my glass. The evening was far from over.

That evening Anne spoke with the same passion about her family and her Burgundy. Listening to her made me want to do what I suggest you do now. Step out of the cottage, walk to the Commissey washhouse, then follow the canal or take the road to Tanlay. She had given me enough stories to see these places differently, and enough curiosity to go and look for myself.

I wish you a lovely stay with the Yvois family. If you get to taste one of Anne’s tarts, I’d love to hear what you think. And in Burgundy, I wish you all the discoveries you can make, without moderation. Except for the Chablis, of course.

Ben