The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of Civilization
🎭 Short Historical Play: “The Edge of Wood and Stone”
Setting: Pyrenees, France – 1771–1772
Cast:
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Paul-Marie Leroy – military engineer, visionary, rational but under pressure
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Captain Bresson – naval officer from Rochefort, demanding and impatient
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Jean-Baptiste – local woodcutter, skeptical but strong
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Sister Claire – local abbess, spiritual and concerned for the workers
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Narrator – optional, gives historical framing
Scene: Cliffside Survey, Early Spring, 1771
[A jagged overlook. Snow still lingers in the shadows. Below, the forests of the Aspe Valley stretch out. Leroy stands holding a notebook. Bresson paces behind him.]
Captain Bresson (frustrated):
We are already behind. Rochefort needs masts. You promised a route, engineer—not a scenic tour.
Leroy (calmly):
You asked for the straightest trees in the kingdom. They grow in the unkindest places. The valley has them. But dragging trunks down the ravines? Impossible.
Bresson:
Then build a road. Isn't that your job?
Leroy (pointing to the vertical cliff):
Into this? This is not a road—it is a wall of stone.
[Enter Jean-Baptiste, wiping sweat from his brow, carrying a pickaxe.]
Jean-Baptiste:
No ox can pass here, Monsieur. Only goats and fools.
Leroy (grinning):
Then we’ll train the rock to behave. We’ll carve a path into the cliff, a shelf wide enough for a timber cart.
Jean-Baptiste:
That’s madness.
Leroy:
It’s mathematics.
Scene: Later That Year – Monastery Grounds
[Sister Claire offers water and bread to workers resting. Leroy sits, exhausted.]
Sister Claire:
You carve through the mountain as if it were butter. But at what cost?
Leroy:
Four men injured last week. No deaths—yet. But yes, it is steep work.
Sister Claire:
And for what? A warship? A king’s vanity?
Leroy (quietly):
For France to hold her own. Against the English. Against wind. Against time.
Sister Claire (softly):
Then may your road be steady, and your men not fall.
Scene: Completion – Autumn 1772
[The final segment of the Chemin is completed. Workers cheer as the first massive pine trunk is dragged along the narrow path.]
Jean-Baptiste (in awe):
We did it. A road in the sky.
Bresson (smiling for the first time):
Rochefort will get its masts. You’ll get your commission.
Leroy (looking down the valley):
No—what I want is for the mountain to remember us. And for the ships to carry this path in their bones.
📜 Epilogue (Narrator)
Narrator:
The Chemin de la Mâture remains carved into the cliffs to this day—1,200 meters long, suspended hundreds of meters above the river. What once carried masts for warships now carries hikers and historians. A triumph of engineering. A testament to vision. A path between nature and necessity.
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