A Longtime Reader Is No More

Regular and longtime readers of the blog will no doubt be familiar with comments from someone calling themselves 'chm'. This is our old friend Charles Henry Michel, resident in the US since the seventies, but French born and raised. I learnt yesterday that he died on Friday. He was 99 years old, and had been bedridden, living in an aged care home (and complaining about the food) for several years.

 

A gathering of 10 different nationalities of bloggers at our place in June 2012. Charles Henry is fourth from the left, standing in the back row, next to Simon and behind me.

He had been reading the blog, and adding his thoughts, insights, anecdotes and opinions on a frequent basis since 2007, so almost from the start. He found us through his friend Ken's blog Living the Life in Saint-Aignan. Saint-Aignan sur Cher is not that far from us, and it was Ken who introduced us in person when Charles Henry came to visit.

He was a tall, charming, elegant and handsome man, even in his 80s when we first knew him, always dressed in white, with a good head of white hair and a beard. He had grown up in a family of artists and doctors from what I understood from his stories, and every year until his health prevented it he would spend the summer in France.

 

Charles Henry, centre, with Ken on the left and me with my back to the camera, in Saint Savin in June 2009.

I knew I could count on him if I had a question about mid-20th century French life, or the proper way to prepare some delicacy, or for a steer towards extra information about some historical object or place. There wasn't much about French culture he didn't know about or wasn't interested in, and he was always willing to share his knowledge and experience.

Curious and generous minds like his are always a loss, and the blog and our lives are richer for having him involved, and will be poorer having lost him.

Getting the Best View

Despite the fact that these people on the stepladder completely ruined my view of the 2016 Tour de France riders as they whizzed through Saint Savin, I was amused by their ingenuity and self-confidence. 

The Tour de France starts today and if it is passing somewhere near you we really recommend you get out there and watch it. It's a great day out even if you are at risk of being stampeded by nine year olds competing for trinkets flung from the caravane, or have your well chosen vantage point on a retaining wall outclassed by three people who set up a stepladder just ten minutes before the riders arrive.

The Painted Church of Antigny

The church at Antigny in the Gartempe valley in the Vienne, to our south-west, is so amazing, with so many details worth looking at, that I fear I will not do it justice in a brief blog post. It is one of a string of painted churches along this section of the Gartempe, the most famous of which is Saint Savin. Don't get me wrong, Antigny is no Sistine Chapel (although it does share some characteristics with Leonardo's Last Supper). The thing about the church at Antigny is that many of the most extraordinary paintings are at eye level or just above, not up so high you really need binoculars to appreciate the detail. The paintings are in a limited palette of colours and vernacular in style. They are not frescoes (ie painted on damp plaster) but wall paintings (ie painted on dry plaster). Perhaps the most significant thing about them is that although I think they have been wholly or partly covered in render at some point, they have not been damaged by being hacked at with a pick to create a key for the later render, unlike many rediscovered wall paintings. The restoration in 2005 revealed at least six layers of wall paintings and successive renders.

The lanterne des morts, opposite the church in the former cemetery. 

Lanternes like this are somewhat of a peculiarity of the Poitou area.

The visible paintings date from two different periods, with late 12th century works on the north wall of the nave and the rest from the 14th century. But the paintings are not the only things worth looking at in this church. Yes, there's more! The architecture of the church itself is a bit unusual, with a large porch to the southern side, called a caquetoire ('cacklehouse'), also known in the Poitevin dialect as a balé, and by the front door a slab of stone resting on four short carved pillars which was for resting a coffin or body on before it went into the church for a funeral, called an édicule. The coffin rest has two grooves at one end and a circular depression at the other, probably for draining away fluid seeping from shrouded bodies on the slab, in the days before coffins were commonplace. The church is solid looking, with a square tower ornamented with fleurons.

 The church at Antigny, with its rather squat square tower. The porch is on the right.

The church was built in the 11th century on the site of a Merovingian cemetery, and was subsequently remodelled in the 15th and 18th centuries.  The nave is covered by a timber vault in oak. The wall paintings have been recently restored and many new details have been revealed. The chapel, dedicated to Saint Catherine, was built in 1421 by Renaud de Mauléon, Lord of Bois-Morand. The interior decor was commissioned by Jean de Moussy (1433 - 1510) also Lord of Bois-Morand (son-in-law?). In the 18th century the porch was constructed to extend the chapel.

 Detail of wall paintings in the side chapel: above, the story of the three living and the three dead; below, Christ carrying the cross.

The chapel attached to the church at Antigny, the oratory at the chateau of Bois-Morand (privately owned and not open to the public) and the Chapel of Saint Catherine at Jouhet were all decorated at the end of the 15th century on the orders of Jean de Moussy. They depict the life of Jesus, the Last Judgement, the story of the three living and the three dead and Christ in Majesty.

An archer, a detail of a partly destroyed depiction of the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian.

The Day of Judgement, with the dead rising from their coffins below, being assessed for entry into Heaven on the left by Abraham, assisted by the Archangel Michael weighing souls. There is some intriguing but not uncommon imagery in the centre. Mary is expressing milk and Christ bare chested, with a sword pointing at his head. John the Baptist is kneeling on the right.

Some scenes from the life of Christ: top left, the shepherds receive the news of Christ's birth; top centre, the three magi visit the infant Christ; top right, the massacre of the innocents; bottom left, Judas betrays Christ to the soldiers with a kiss; bottom centre left, the seated figure is Christ and I think the figure behind him is Mary, but I'm not sure what story is being illustrated in this panel; bottom centre right, Christ on the cross; bottom right, Christ being held while Pontius Pilate washes his hands.

Christ in the tomb. I notice he has no genitalia, but the sword wound in his side is clearly shown.

The last supper. The lamb on the central platter caused us some amusement.

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Bridge Across the Gartempe

The (probably*) 13th century bridge across the Gartempe which allows you to cross between the communities of Saint Savin and Saint Germain. It is 100 metres long, slightly humpbacked, with a central width of 3 metres. Each of the piles forms a refuge alongside the narrow track. There are 6 arches, one of which is designed for boats to go under. In the Middle Ages this was a major route, between Poitiers and Bourges. You can still drive over it but nowadays the main route into town is across the 19th century bridge, from where I took this photo.

*It might be 11th or 12th century, but it resembles 13th century bridges in Limoges, so 13th is the generally accepted opinion.

Painted Sheep

Ewes painted in the Tour de France jersey colours.

Consumption of lamb is going down and the price of lamb meat is going down, dropping nearly a euro per kilo this year according to the national ovine federation. Lamb producers are worried, so some of them took the opportunity to raise the profile of the sector at the Tour de France this year in Saint Savin. We visited a pen full of somewhat disgruntled ewes who had been painted in the colours of the cyclists jerseys (and rather curiously, crutched in a heart-shaped pattern...)

The sheep pen in the landscape at Saint Savin.

Visiting the pen also gained us a couple of reusable shopping bags proclaiming us to be supporters of geographically protected Poitou-Charentes lamb. Sadly there was no barbecued lamb on offer.

'At our place, our ewes make the countryside that you love.'

Pasture, or prairie, as it is generally referred to in lowland France, is one of the fastest disappearing habitats in the country. Sheep farmers point out that in the mountains sheep grazing can help prevent avalanches and wild fires.  In the lowlands of the south-west, they point out that pasture helps control and mitigate flooding. Sheep pasture uses few fertilizers and pesticides, and the system of fields and hedges traditionally used to raise lamb here prevents erosion and filters out excess nitrates, phosphates and herbicides. The sheep farmers are of course too polite to say 'as opposed to arable farming methods', but that is what they mean. I of course am too polite to mention sheep dip.

(We realise we haven't yet blogged about out day at the Tour de France this year. It may still happen...)

The Works at Saint Savin

A couple of days ago CHM asked about the chateau at St Savin.

It is good to announce that restoration work is happening - maybe not as fast as some might like - but it's definitely happening. The building still has scaffolding, but most of the windows appear to have been either replaced or fixed (or even added!), and parts of the building have a fresh coat of render. Searching back through our archives I found a photo from September 2006 for comparison:

We were there mainly for the Tour de France, but we did visit the church. With any luck there will be Tour de France photos at some stage....

(photos by Nina, because we forgot)