Issue No. 15

Josette says that the ball probably hit a
caillou—a pebble. “Ce n’est pas de ta faute,”
she says, touching his arm. He seems
reassured to think the pebble may be at
fault.Peter goes next. He’s tall and thin
compared to the French, and looks more
like cricket bowler than a boules player.
He’s about to go into shooting mode.
Shooting is a strategy in which the player
throws the ball hard enough to knock an
opponent’s boule away from the
cochonnet, or the cochonnet away from an
opponent’s boule.
Just as Peter is about to throw, Robert
emits a barely audible clucking noise. Peter
stops in mid-windup. He puts his hands on
his hips, tilts his head, and stares at Robert.
Their running joke is that Peter turns
chicken whenever he throws. Robert looks
away and feigns innocence.
Peter winds up again, and Robert clucks
again. This time Peter follows through and
his boule misses Josette’s by a mile,
skittering off into the trees. Robert can’t
contain a guffaw.
On his second throw, Peter is ready for him,
and he knocks Josette’s boule off to the
right with an explosive crack, leaving the
cochonnet open.
Up comes Marco, a man so old that he
doesn’t actually walk. He simply rocks back
and forth while leaning forward. His
throwing style is a miracle of efficiency: he
stands ramrod straight under his sailor hat,
imagining the course of the boule; then he
opens his hand. The boule rolls down his
fingers, onto the ground, and continues to
the target as if pulled by a magnet.
This time it rolls right up to the cochonnet
and holds the point.
Jeannine is the last to go. Her throwing style
could be described as no style at all. Most
players lead with the back of the hand as
they lob the boule into the air, but Jeannine
just tosses it out there underhand.
Her boule lands short of Marco’s, then rolls
up close to it. So close, in fact, that all the
players rush up to see who has won the
round. Jean-Pierre stares at the two balls
and the cochonnet. He squints and rubs his
chin. He looks at Robert, who is walking
from one side to the other to get a better
view. Sophie says it’s Jeannine. Christine
thinks it’s Marco. Members of both teams
are down on their haunches to get a better
look at the situation. Opinions are running
about fifty-fifty. There’s no resolution in
sight.
Simple rules of boules
The game is played between two teams of 1, 2
or 3 players - singles or doubles.
To start a coin is generally tossed to decide
who begins the game and has the right to
place the cochonnet (the small ball - literally
piglet). You can also use an a stone or cork
from a bottle.
A circle is drawn by the winning team of the
coin toss. Players must not step outside while
throwing. The circle should be about 0.5m in
diameter. The cochonnet is tossed between
4m and 8m, or 6 to 10 paces from the circle in
any direction.
A player from the coin toss winning team
throws the first boule. The aim is to get it as
close as possible to the “cochonnet” without
touching it. Both feet must stay together on
the ground and within the circle while
throwing and until the boule has landed.
A player from the other team steps into the
circle and aims to throw a boule closer to the
cochonnet than their opponent, or to knock the
opponent’s boule away. You must throw within
1 minute of your turn starting.
More details on the rules of playing on The