FOR RENT : FARMHOUSES IN FRANCE : Staying in a private cottage in the French countryside is a way to soak up the local atmosphere and avoid the high hotel bills

A large private cottage with ample room for three adults, two children and a fat, spotted dog named Freckles. Clean and fully furnished, perched high in the foothills of the Pyrenees Atlantiques, overlooking the white-water river valleys of French Basque country.

An attached tennis court and high-walled fronton for players of pelote , the Basque national sport and cousin to jai alai. Fully equipped kitchen, television set and stack of wood for the fireplace. Cattle guard to keep out the cows, goats and sheep that amble along the rocky road in front of the cottage, announcing themselves by the clinking of bells tied around their necks with rope. Pyrenees eagles soaring in the dramatic, turquoise-blue sky. Sweet regional Jurancon wines, first liquid to touch the lips of the French king Henry IV at his birth in 1553. Splendid restaurants featuring river trout and wild salmon on riverside terraces in the ancient pilgrimage town of St. Jean Pied-de-Port.

Twenty minutes by car from the Spanish border, on the road through the Plain of Aragon that leads to the famous bullfight town of Pamplona. An hour’s drive to the Cotes Basques beach resort towns of Biarritz and St.-Jean-de-Luz. Accessible from Paris by a 3 1/2-hour, high-speed train to Bayonne in far southwest France, and a 1 1/2-hour drive in a car rented at the Bayonne train station.

Nice deal at any price, right? Try $275 for the whole week, which is what we paid during our stay in this French farmhouse last June (it goes for $350 during the high season, July and August). At that price, there’s money left over for a bottle of good local Irouleguy red wine and a spectacular meal at the Les Pyrenees Hotel, the Michelin two-star restaurant in St.-Jean.

Prefer the Normandy region? How about a two-story cottage on a working dairy farm? Fresh raw milk every morn and eve. Chance for the kids to learn that milk comes from something other than containers. Stone fireplace. OK, so the beds were deep-valley and the shower was unpredictable. We paid $200 weekly in high season.

Something a little more upscale? Try a 19th-Century chateau with its own lake and 10 acres of wooded land in Beaujolais wine country. Three double rooms, two bathrooms, terrace, fireplace, etc. Telephone, washing machine and television. Off-season: $400 weekly. High season: $500.

All three of the above (the last of which we didn’t test ourselves), and approximately 38,000 other rural cottages, are part of the remarkable and little-exploited (by Americans, at least) French vacation gite system. Since they were introduced in 1954 by a creative French legislator as a way of providing alternative sources of income in rural areas, gites have become an important source of vacation housing for French and other European travelers.

To belong to the gite (pronounced ZHEET) system, the cottages must meet French government standards of sanitation and amenities. Nearly all, for example, have a fireplace. Kitchen utensils, silverware, plates, cups and glasses Are always provided. Linen usually is not. Some of the gites are as modest as a hermit’s cabin. Others are truly luxurious.

The reason they are so inexpensive is that they are subsidized in part by the French government. For example, when Madame Jeanne Ourtiague-Paris decided to convert an old sheep barn on her family property in the hills above St.-Jean Pied-de-Port into a gite , she received a grant worth several thousand dollars from the Ministry of Agriculture. The government, in exchange for certain quality and inspection standards, finances up to one-third the cost of each gite. According to government statistics, the average weekly price for five people in a gite is 1,200 francs, about $240 U.S. It doesn’t take a math wizard to calculate the rates: about $7 per night, per person.

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Working with her brother, Pierre, a retired Roman Catholic priest, Madame Ourtiague-Paris converted the sheep barn into the attractive Basque Country cottage, named Le Fronton because of its attached pelote court.

Foxglove--spikes of fuchsia flowers with spotted throats--and purple campanulas thrust out from the dense hedgerows of blackberry brambles that line either side of the winding, stoney road that leads up to Le Fronton. Its eminence, crowning one hill and backing up to another, commands a soaring view across hay meadows enclosed by these old-fashioned hedges, over which butterflies and fat bees gather.

The folded hills that rise up on the other side of the valley are softened by distance to become mossy shapes of sleeping dinosaurs, and the children are excited to pick out monsters’ paws, ridged backs, lowered heads; the earth’s own sculpture made friendly by imagination. The wind is fresh. In early summer, it is a green and pleasant place.

Inside, the house is small, but not at all uncomfortable. Downstairs, a glass-fronted fireplace takes up one corner. A long, wide oak table, easily seating 10 and bringing to mind the large farm families of another era, runs nearly the length of the room. A cupboard nearby reveals heavy crockery plates, coffee bowls, assorted mismatched serving pieces. Drawers contain the cheap forks, spoons and knives--not nice, but serviceable. A big, old basket holds firewood and kindling. On the mantle rest a kerosene lantern, its bowl filled and the wick trimmed, and a single candle in a clay stick. We need matches.

We need toilet paper, too, and dishwashing liquid. The kitchen, separated from the dining area by a half wall, is well-equipped with a large variety of cheap aluminum cookware and glass casseroles, an electric coffee grinder, a toaster, a broiler, a coffee maker, a four-burner gas stove, a tiny refrigerator and not quite enough electrical outlets.

We need charcoal. We need lamb chops and merguez sausages and cheese--lots of cheese, all sorts--and bread, several kinds of bread: eggy loaves to cut and toast; dense, nutty loaves to eat with cheese, a crisp baguette to pull apart and eat all by itself. We need fruit, grapes, peaches and apples. What is the local wine like? We’ll find out. And let’s buy a tart. Let’s get a chicken, one of the free-range birds with yellow skin. And don’t forget the herbs; get fresh thyme and basil at the fruiterers. Oh, and pepper and salt. Mustard. We’re off to town, shopping list in hand, down the hillside.

We linger long at the butcher’s counter, intrigued by the possibilities of a mountain barbecue. The children, never as fond of variety and change as adults would wish, hold out for hotdogs. The eldest, Gene Marie, 6, mentions her hatred of flies and bees. Why aren’t children romantic?

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Heart-lifting views, no matter how spiritually nourishing to adults, pall quickly for children, who want to do stuff. This means exploration, adventure, descending steep hillsides toward rushing cataracts that give mothers bad dreams . . . and speaking directly to cows. The cows, like large warm rocks, seem friendly enough. Horses are actively curious and don’t mind drifting over to stare at us as we stare back. Shy, rickety-legged colts hide near their dams’ flanks.

The sheep are indifferent. They seem not to notice us when we drive up into the open pastureland that tops the mountain, but keep their noses down, as if they were connected to the short grass. But if one lifts its head, they all do. One turns, so do the others. They all run away. They behave, in short, like sheep. Instructive. The 6-year-old is having a wonderful time.

Frank, the 3-year-old, mounted on a small plastic tricycle from which he must be forcibly removed at mealtimes, circles the tennis court, even during games. He is having a wonderful time. Our dog, Freckles, whose central and abiding passion is garbage and things that smell bad, is having a wonderful time. There is just nothing like farmland, in her opinion. It goes without saying that the grown-ups are having a wonderful time.

Le Fronton, three other cottages and three bed and breakfast guest rooms are filled about six months a year and give owner Mme. Ourtiague-Paris, a widow who once lived in San Francisco, enough income to hang on to the family’s 12 acres.

“If it were not for the gites ,” she said in Basque-accented French (she speaks rudimentary English) in the kitchen of her own home, “most of the old buildings on our land would be in ruins. It has allowed me to live honestly in my homeland.”

The same kind of story--”Rural Exodus Halted: Small Farmers Stay on Land Thanks to French Government Program”--is repeated in hundreds of localities across France. But while the gite system is well-known here and in Western Europe--30% of the estimated 3 million families who use the system annually are non-French--very few Americans know about it or use it.

This is partly because the French government, quick to appreciate a good idea but incompetent at marketing it, has made little attempt to promote the gite system across the Atlantic.

Americans are much more likely to be familiar with the smaller program of 12,000 bed and breakfast lodgings-- chambres et tables d’hotes --advertized in an official guidebook, “French Country Welcome,” published in English by the Federation Nationale des Gites de France and sold in many American bookstores. Another book, “French Country Bed & Breakfast” by American travel writer Karen Brown, also describes this popular program.

In some ways, in fact, the bed and breakfast system is more in keeping with typical American travel needs. The rooms, usually in large country homes or converted chateaux, can be taken by the night, whereas gites are let on a weekly basis, often Saturday-through-Friday nights. A substantial number (1,400 of the 12,000 chambres d’hotes ) also offer breakfast and dinner, eliminating the need for shopping and cooking.

Both systems require the guests to have their own transportation, subjecting them to exorbitant French rental car prices. The price of the car used for our week’s stay, for example, was nearly twice as much as the lodging (although U.S. travelers can pin down much more acceptable rental contracts before leaving home).

But for those experienced travelers who prefer to settle in and have a base from which to sightsee, the gite system can be a good idea. At the Beaujolais Chateau D’Emeringes mentioned above, visitors are near some of the best Beaujolais appellations (Julienas, Morgon, Brouilly, etc); the Romanesque abbeys in Cluny and Tournus and Burgundy wine country. From there, Lyon, Geneva and Beaune are all easy day trips.

In Britain over the past few years, the French program has been a big success, appealing to what Yvan Rahal, marketing director for the Gites de France office in London, described as the “Francophile independent traveler.” In 1991, he said, 93,000 British families stayed in gites offered by his agency. Since 1977, the London office staff has increased from two to 40 employees. Another company, Brittany Ferries, in Portsmouth and Plymouth, is affiliated with 1,400 gites , mainly in the northern territories of Brittany and Normandy.

In addition to the exorbitant car rental costs, the main drawback for Americans is the awkward gite selection process. There are certainly gites for every taste and price range. Matching up with them, however, is a different matter (see Guidebook, page L12).

But traveling during off-season (times other than the July-August peak period and school vacation periods), chances are very good that a traveler can find a gite in a few days’ time simply by visiting the office in Paris. Bookings can be made either through the Gites de France office or by contacting the gite operator directly. Veteran gite travelers employ some of their time in gites looking at other gites in nearby areas for future reference. The local tourist agency usually lists all gites in its area.

Obviously, gites are not for everyone, especially new travelers. Basic knowledge of French is helpful. Areas that deal more often with British travelers, such as Brittany, Normandy and Perigord, have a higher percentage of gite operators who speak English.

“Some people wander into our office and ask if we are like Club Med,” said Rahal. “People should know what to expect from the gites .”

GUIDEBOOK

The Gites of France

The gites system: Privately owned cottages in rural France are registered under the Federation Nationale des Gites Ruraux de France, which inspects them and sets prices. Although a few are luxurious, most are rustic country houses set in outlying villages, away from major tourist centers but sometimes located within easy driving distance from them. They are generally available for weeklong periods beginning on Saturdays, Easter through October.

Commonly, accommodations are fully furnished and include all kitchenware, but linens are not provided (although they are sometimes available for an extra fee). Rates are highest in July and August, the traditional European holiday months, and in the most popular areas, such as Provence, two-week minimum stays may be required. The best gites are easiest to find slightly off-season, in May and June, September and October, and it’s even possible travelers can find a gite in a few days’ time simply by visiting the office in Paris. In general, however, long-range planning is advised.

How to book: Bookings can be made either through the Gites de France office or by contacting the gite operator directly (veteran gite travelers employ some of their time in gites looking at other gites in nearby areas for future reference). The local tourist agency usually lists all gites in its area.

All available gites are listed, with photograph and basic description, in French-language booklets put out by the Gites de France office in Paris. To get them, you need to pinpoint the departement, or region, that interests you, and request the book in writing from the Maison des Gites de France, 35 Rue Godot de Mauroy, 75009 Paris, France; telephone 011-33-1-4742-2020, fax 011-33-1-4742-7313. For example, if a traveler is interested in finding a gite in Burgundy, he or she should ask for the Burgundy gite guide. One woman in the Paris office, Muriel LeGros, specializes in American requests.

A more hassle-free route is to let The French Experience, a specialty tour operator based in New York, do most of the work. They charge clients a 25% commission on the rental fee to research and book gites from the United States, and can also help with rental cars and other arrangements. Write 370 Lexington Ave., New York 10017, or call (212) 986-1115.

The London office of Gites de France publishes an annual listing in English of 2,500 gites in France. But this is available, for a price of three British pounds, only in London; the list is mailed only to United Kingdom addresses. Gites de France Ltd., 78 Piccadilly, London W1V-9DB; phone 011-44-71-493-3480, fax 011-44-71-495-6417. Also available through Brittany Ferries Portsmouth, Wharf Road, Portsmouth PO28RU (phone 011-44-705-827-701, fax 011-44-705-811-053) or Brittany Ferries Plymouth, Millbay Docks, Plymouth PL13EW (phone 011-44-752-221-321, fax 011-44-752-600-698).

Le Fronton: The gite we rented in St.-Jean Pied-de-Port can also be booked directly through Madame Jeanne Ourtiague-Paris, Ithurburia rte. Napoleon, 64220 Saint Michel, France, telephone 011-33-5937-1117.