By The Keystone Newspaper By Byron Mantoan
I had just completed a three-day-long march across the French countryside. This was easily one of the greatest achievements of my life and it wasn’t over yet. I was about to live by myself for two weeks in a little apartment in the city of Chartres. It would be on my own dime, and my French language skills were sub-par, but at this point, I wasn’t thinking about the downsides. I was about to have the most freedom I’d ever had in my life.
The next day I found myself vomiting in a bush on the side of the street in Paris while stumbling back to the Catholic church in which I was staying. I wish I could say what a crazy night I had had, and what a way to end the day it was, but I can’t. It was nine in the morning, broad daylight, Parisians everywhere. I still had two trains to catch and a whole day in front of me.
PART I (The Pilgrimage)
Every year, thousands of Catholics make the pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres. In 2023, the turnout was over 14,000. A large portion of the youth on this trip are from Catholic scouting organizations.
Growing up, scouting was a large part of my formative years. Originally, the organization I was a part of was planning on going to the Chartres pilgrimage in 2020, but it never happened. Three years later, the group was finally going to be able to go and invited me. Although I’d aged out of the group, I had helped fundraise for the trip years ago and was owed a spot. Another friend of mine who helped raise money for the previous trip also came along. Two weeks after the pilgrimage, my family would be coming to Europe for a family vacation. Instead of going home with the scouts to America, only to come back later in the month, I decided to stay.
In my time on the pilgrimage, I mostly stuck around the Americans. The foreigners that I spoke to the most were nice enough to approach me first. A wayfarer from Switzerland, an Englishman in his twenties, all eager to talk to me.
The Americans were the odd ones out. We represented the only non-European country present at the pilgrimage. I didn’t mind explaining the organization I was a part of though. “No, we aren’t the Federation of Scouts of Europe,” I’d say, “We’re scouts from America but our organization is a branch of the FSE.”
Walking was the easiest part of the pilgrimage, I was grateful to have trained for it beforehand. There wasn’t a single point in the pilgrimage that I didn’t feel like I could make it. A few other of my fellow scouts struggled on the first day though. I remember being annoyed when a German scout leader seemed to be amused by how tired the American scouts looked.
Along the way, dozens of pilgrims passed out due to heatstroke or exhaustion. We’d walk past them lying on the side of the road. I was told this is a common occurrence. There were medics everywhere so their safety was ensured.
One thing that irked me was the number of kids who were passing out and collapsing. Mostly young girls. The visual itself didn’t bother me, as much as one of the leaders of my group using the girls as motivation. After the trip, he would say something along the lines of, “Remember those girls that fainted, they pushed themselves to the point of exhaustion out of a passion for what they were doing. You can too.” Everyone who came on this pilgrimage knew the risks when they signed up, kids included. But I’m against glorifying pushing yourself to the point that it may be dangerous.
Penance and even martyrdom are virtues in the Catholic church. Countless saints have cemented their place in the church as martyrs and are prayed to daily. After all, if you’re martyred for defending the Catholic faith, you go straight to Heaven. This may contribute to the willingness to push oneself to the point of self-harm. This reverence for martyrdom can rear its head in other ways as well, with reverence sometimes becoming glorification.
Traditional Catholics (often abbreviated to ‘“Trads”) are an endangered species and have been since the Vatican II in the 1960s. The current Pope, Francis, has himself tried to modernize the church, which includes completely doing away with the traditional Latin form of Catholic mass. As Trads’s beliefs have become more sidelined by their own church, the feeling of being an outsider sets in, and it becomes easy to make the jump from one fringe belief to another. Unfortunately, such was the case with many of my American colleagues, who subscribed to far-right conspiracy theories ranging from being anti-vaccine to an existential globalist threat. Such topics tended to come up when conversations got heated. I found these subjects to be a beehive best left undisturbed and decided not to ask.
It should go without saying that this isn’t all Trads. It certainly isn’t all Catholics. What should be said is that Trads are a particularly vulnerable population.
Why would I, or anyone, go on this physically and mentally strenuous trip? Sixty miles of walking and living off bread and vegetable broth is not most people’s dream trip to France. For most people, the answer is clear; it was a pilgrimage to support the Latin mass and traditional Catholic values. That wasn’t me. No religious fervor here. I went on this pilgrimage for adventure. I wanted to go to another country on another continent. I wanted to learn a new language, meet new people, and eat new things.
PART II (After the Pilgrimage)
Sore and sleep-deprived, we traveled back to Paris to spend another night. The next day my group would fly back to America and I would head back to Chartres. Up until this point in my trip, I had felt embarrassed by my poor French and the loud passe I walked around with. I love my friends, but they couldn’t have fulfilled any more of the negative American stereotypes if they tried. I had reassured myself by thinking, “No matter how bad we are, there’s no way we’re the worst American tourists they’ve ever seen.”
Three glasses of red wine and two shots of Amaretto are what did this to me. It’s specific, and admittedly not a lot of alcohol. It’s become an inside joke between me and my best friend/drinking partner that night. I think in the moment I was more embarrassed by how little I had drank to get myself to this point than how drunk I was.
My weakened state from the pilgrimage was likely what contributed to my getting plastered so easily. During the pilgrimage, I was promised countless graces. If I had just honored God in the greatest way possible, I felt as though I had surely canceled it out with my disgusting display of overindulgence. Good thing I had a colleague in my ear reminding me that I would have to go to confession after this.
Despite my sorry state, I think the overwhelming achievement of completing the pilgrimage outweighed this failure. At the time, the prospect of the day ahead of me was enough to give me the ability to keep it together. With the superpower of hindsight, I should never have gone back to Paris. But I wasn’t thinking about regrets at the time. Had I given up at any point I would have been living on the street of a foreign city. What would I have done then?
Paris is the New York of Europe. Take that to mean whatever you want. You won’t believe how many times I’ve re-typed this paragraph to try and make my point. Believe me when I say the vibes are there. The metro is no different from the subway. I pushed my way into the crowded tube wearing a blue hiking pack bigger than my own torso on my back, and a gray backpack on backward so it rested on my chest. I took up the space of two people. I don’t think the Parisians appreciated that, commenting on my “Grand Sac.” All I could say was “Desole.” I hope I didn’t smell like vomit.
Then I got to Montparnasse station. I had an hour to navigate the two floors of tracks and trains. 50 giant screens displayed all the instructions I could possibly need, but not in a language I could read. I don’t work the best while running up against a deadline. I think at this station was when it first occurred to me I may have made a mistake. But, what was there to do except keep going? This is also where I had some of my first real conversations in French. I think the adrenaline and the dire straits helped. The annoyed tones of the workers whom I had inconvenienced didn’t.
But alas, I made it on my train to Chartres. Someone tried to talk to me but she spoke fast and I caught none of it. I think I played it off well. I shrugged at the people around me and said in French, “My French isn’t good, I’m an American.” My defense mechanism during awkward encounters like this was to self-deprecate or apologize. I was proud of being able to say that much. I wish I could look back with better knowledge of French and understand what she said, but I appreciated her politeness.
PART III (Once in Chartres)
Once in Chartres, I wandered around before finally finding my apartment. When I arrived I remembered how hungover I was and threw up again. This little apartment was my first real taste of independence. Even at college, there were layers of safety nets protecting me. My family was always one phone call away. Now, I was halfway around the world from home. The afternoon went on and I made myself at home, noting the holes in the walls, and the thick yellow grease caked onto the fan above the stove. I started to feel lonely around then but it was quickly replaced by hunger. I found a convenience store and stocked up on fruit, bread, and snacks. I went home, chugged a Poweraid and ate a banana, then promptly puked it up.
I was hung over the next day as well. By the third I was okay. I never called home the entire time I was there. I wasn’t shunning anybody; it just never occurred to me. I wouldn’t consider the state I was in “survival mode” but I felt like I had to be all business. I had fantasized about all the writing I was going to get done once I was on my own.
I spoke only French for the two weeks I was alone there. This excluded when I would talk to myself, as I often do when I’m alone. I did that in English out of habit. On quite a few occasions people would walk up to me in the street and start speaking French. I’d take it as a sign that I didn’t look American. I think that’s a compliment. I’m still not fluent in French, but I can hold my own in a simple conversation. Learning some French is what I’m most proud of from my stay.
I think most people had wilder expectations than me when they heard I would be staying in France by myself for two weeks. My younger friends’ imaginations ran wild, would I leave the country and explore the rest of Europe? What kind of wacky misadventure would Byron get up to? As if I was in a movie. Some people thought I would get a girlfriend. My drinking partner was just afraid I’d get drunk without him, but I didn’t drink the entire time I was alone. I don’t know what I was expecting for myself. I just wanted to practice my French and write in peace.
The most vivid memories of my time living in Chartres, and my stay in France in general, are the details. I remember the stench of the complimentary olive-scented body wash that came with my apartment. I remember the windows swung inward at an awkward angle. The tenants before me must not have been careful, because holes were left where the windows had hit the walls. I turned on the stove, and couldn’t figure out how to turn it off, only for it to shut off automatically. I never figured out how to hook up the TV. I was pleasantly surprised when there was a movie theater across the street from where I was staying. I couldn’t have planned that better if I tried.
My apartment in Chartres was the most independence I’ve had in my life. All my need for adventure led me to those two rooms of cracked, dirty, greasy freedom. I can’t say it was what I anticipated, but it was real. I consider myself lucky to have had it.