My antic obsession about bergers et bergères is back. Especially bergères: there is no reason for me to feel concerned about sheperdesses, except that there used to be once sheperdesses. Here is an old postcard with a sheperdess from Corsica, but she doesn't look like the sheperdess I'm thinking of. This one is very masculine and she's got a rifle. A grizzly bear (red from fury) is right behind her but she's not noticing the danger, being too coquette.

About 400 years ago it was hip to write love stories between bergers et bergères; it even became a genre called roman pastoral. I'm not wrong to write hip, because I just red in the wikipedia article that the sheperds in roman pastoral where not born sheperds, they were proto-hippies, escaping the corruption of the cities to live a natural life. I regret to have missed the movie Les Amours d'Astrée et de Céladon by Eric Rohmer, based on Honoré d'Urfé's novel L'Astrée, the most famous roman pastoral.