I’m warming to René Stevens. Yesterday we looked at a detail on his 1910 map of The Forest. His eye was usually accurate, so I decided to cross-reference with Sandor Pierron’s 1900 ‘Histoire de la Forêt de Soigne’. De Swerte Dorens is mentioned as a locality on ‘Le plus vaste massif de la forêt’ running from ‘Hoolaert’ to ‘Verkens Hut’ near ‘Waterloos’. Some research is coming my way.
Today I was reading his 1914 ‘Guide du Promeneur dans la Forêt de Soignes’, looking for another reference to ‘De Swerte Doren’. I took a trip (a literary one) from the start of the Drève de Lorraine, via Groenendaal and ending up at La Petite Espinette. He mentions the Royal Racecourse on the way. His capitalisation etc.. I’ll translate into English every once in a while. On page 59 and 60 of the book.
‘𝐋𝐀 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐄 𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐀 𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐔𝐄 𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐔𝐄, encore une des plus longues drèves de la forêt, est malheureusement coupée, vers la droite, par l’odieuse trouée du 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐏 𝐃𝐄𝐒 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐒 𝐃𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐄𝐋’.
He uses the Flemish Brabantine version of the geographical location.
‘The Drève de la Langue Queue (long tail drive/avenue) , still one of the longest drèves of the forest, is unfortunately (I suspect some restraint here) broken, towards the right, by the odious hole of the Groenendael Racecourse.’
‘... pour l'établissement duquel des milliers de beaux arbres furent sacrifiés à la gloire des des passions malsaines…’
‘... for the establishment of which thousands of beautiful trees were sacrificed to the glory of unhealthy passions...’
This is not a simple walking guide to The Forest.
This is a ‘Rage Against The Machine’.