Mme Philippot must have been sixty-something when we bought St Pierre. She came to a party and grandly pointed to the trees all around, remarking, “il vous faut coupé. Il faut coupé les arbres; il faut coupé les buissons.” We started to call her Madame Coupé-Coupé. Her son built the pigeonhouse with a long stone wall on either side of it. One winter it rained really hard, and a section of the wall collapsed with a slide. Luckily the pigeonhouse stood firm, and the following summer he rebuilt the wall.