That beautiful spring day, when I debarked in the charming village of Cagnes-sur-Mer, my first reflex was to go and say hello to my old friend Auguste Renoir.

As usual, he gave me a hearty welcome… a vigorous embrace with great cheer and a delicious bottle of cold Tavel rosé that we sipped beneath the arbor, shaded in the superb garden of his Collettes property.

When the divine bottle was dry, father Auguste leaned over and in his quavering voice said:

“Flechounet, tell me, what do you think about going out to sea and fishing up the wherewithal for a fish soup and who knows, if luck is with us, we might even pull out two beautiful rascasses to enhance our feast?”

With our skipping a beat I assented: “my dear friend, it would be a pleasure and an honor to be your lackey!”

A half-hour later the two of us were dropping anchor several hundred meters from the coast.

“Auguste, tell me, with your fingers crippled with arthritis as they are, how do you manage to hold a fishing rod?”

Well, Dear Fleche, you must know that Gabrielle, my darling little cousin, comes to my studio every morning and attaches the paintbrushes to my hands with strips of cloth. You can do the same with a fishing rod, no?”

No sooner said than done and there we were, the two of us, waiting for a nibble from the abyss and, as that took some time to arrive, our discussion moved right along.

“Auguste, once more, I’d like you to tell me the story about the painting you did when you were young… you know, “la Grenouillere” (where frogs live). I never get tired of your marvelous masterpiece of that name, nor of hearing your story.”

Renoir cleared his throat, installed himself securely in the shade of the canopy and started: “Well, my friend, at that time, grace of the gods, there were any number of bistros, open-air cafes and “guinguettes” (dance halls) along the banks of the Seine River. Everyone came to rub shoulders with the riffraff in that paradise on the river and we all danced like crazies. Bands from the village played and the little women with their spit-curls flirted; they weren’t all that timid either and running after those jolly girls was part of the excursion.

At the time I had invited friends to pose for my painting of “le Grenouillere”. There was Caillebotte, Monet and so many others and I tell you, we had such a good time… of course that was after the pause, because when I was painting, it was serious! And all the while, we were also fishing on the river. Back then there were lots of fish and take it from me, they were great! A fish fry of Chub or Abelettes and all the other little fish was divine. Not like today with the smell of diesel fuel and that chemical muck. It’s a real cesspool! And it’s shameful! Well, the years passed. My paintings are selling like hotcakes and my wife counts the coins like a veritable scrooge and makes me paint things that are nice, flaccid and insipid because that’s the sort of thing that the bourgeois want to hang on the walls of their living rooms. It’s all pitiful! Oh, how I dream of the good old times of “la Grenouillere”.”

Then, after a few minutes of drifting in reverie, father Renoir perked up.

“Hey Fleche, what if we just take off and leave the bloody Cote d’Azure behind… head south, go where the wind takes us! I’ve only got a few years to live and I want to kick up my heels!

So, that’s the reason, dear readers of le Mouching that this missive comes to you from the coast of Mauritania where we ended up; Renoir built a superb studio where he takes enormous pleasure in making awful paintings covered with black lines which he signs: “Bernard Buffet”.

The arthritis in his fingers has disappeared like an enchantment and we regularly go fishing for monster bouillabaisses (fish soup); that is… whenever the damned chinese boats, veritable fishing factories, leaves us momentarily in peace.