Just recently I got an email from someone out of the blue. I didn't know them but they were planning to holiday in the area and were researching local sites with wall paintings with a view to visiting them. She had come across a snippet of information about the Chapelle de Tous-les-Saints in Preuilly-sur-Claise and knew that it had wall paintings. She'd seen the photos on the town
website, and our blog
post on the chapel. Sadly, I had to tell her that the building is in too dangerous a state to let people visit, but it did remind me that I have been meaning to write about the wall paintings for ages. Quite by chance, the same week, I was tipped off that one can see the paintings by peering under the door of the chapel, and so by poking the camera under the door, I've even managed to get some photos. The next step was to spend an afternoon in the library researching the local history articles.
The Danse Macabre of the Women.
The history of the chapel and its wall paintings over the most recent hundred years is a disturbing tale of under resourced high minded altruisim by private individuals on the one hand and shameful inaction (or worse) on the part of the local authorities.
The wall paintings were only rediscovered in 1957, by accident, when the building was on the point of demolition. A visiting architect and his companion idly picked off some render on the interior walls and realised there were significant medieval paintings underneath. The building had been hastily
listed as a national monument in 1953 and a local heritage group provided the town council with a modest grant for its maintenance. The grant was not used and the charity asked to be reimbursed - a request which was ignored! Not only that, but the council lobbied to have the building declassified and actively attempted to demolish one gable end!! Finally the architect, Henry Lhéritier de Chézelle, acquired the chapel privately and used his own money to stablise the walls and make it watertight. When his health failed and he could no longer continue the work, his children tried to raise the money necessary to finish the restoration. Although the townsfolk were supportive, and local tradesmen offered their skills for free ('to pay back all the petty vandalism that we did in the chapel when we were kids') the council continued to allow the building to deteriorate after it reverted to their care.
The Orchestra of the Dead.
The significance of this chapel lies in the presence of a danse macabre painted on the interior walls. Its state of preservation is quite poor. The technique used to create it partly explains the fragility of the work - as always with wall paintings, which are done with pigments mixed with glue on a dry wall. It is not a fresco, which are done on fresh damp render. In addition, the faces of the characters portrayed have been systematically hacked away. This act of vandalism probably dates from 1562 when Protestant troops took Preuilly in the Wars of Religion. Their iconoclasm is responsible for the damage to numerous works of art.
Later the paintings were covered by a uniform layer of lime render. To ensure its attachment, the plasterers had to create a key by chipping the walls all over with a pick. This operation had the twofold but contradictory effect of protecting the paintings from light, but damaging them with pick marks. Since their rediscovery the danse macabre has sustained other damage from various acts of ill will, making the reading of the story more and more difficult.
The Danse Macabre of the Men.
Nevertheless it is still possible to determine the general structure. The danse macabre of Preuilly comprises:
- on the right, as you enter, 9 visible panels of 160 x 50 cm representing the Danse Macabre of the Women. The western gable, with the main entrance, was destroyed then recontructed, so the first few panels have practically disappeared. The female characters are the Queen, the Abbess, the Wife, the Maiden, the Old Woman, the Child, the Shepherdess, the Lover, the Nun, the Widow and the Village Woman.
- on the left, panels of the same dimensions, representing the Danse Macabre of the Men. The male characters are the Monk, the Archbishop, the Legate, the Lawyer, the Schoolmaster, the Minstrel, the Bailiff, the Emperor, and the Pope.
- on the left of the former altar is the Orchestra of the Dead, made up of 4 musicians - one holding some bagpipes, another a portable organ, one plays a psaltery (a harplike instrument) and the fourth is a flautist. This Orchestra of the Dead seems to appear as a motif in 1485.
- on a higher level on each side of the altar one can, with difficulty, distinguish 2 characters. One is perhaps the clergyman who generally accompanies the Danse Macabre.
In the order the characters are represented, Preuilly's Danse Macabre doesn't show any particular differences to an established tradition. In fact, the genre is extremely codified because the design of the danse was widely known due to several very successful publications of the day. The first to have been widely distributed was that made by a Parisian bookseller Guyot Marchant and illustrated by the Rouges brothers, appearing in 1485. It reproduced the fresco from the original Danse Macabre, in the Cemetery of les Innocents in Paris. The following year, when it was republished, Guyot Marchant added a Danse Macabre of the Women, which clearly inspired the one in Preuilly.
Detail showing the Queen and the Abbess, both being approached by Death.
The characters are outlined in black, and painted in yellow and red ochre. (An ochre quarry was found near Saint-Georges-sur-la Prée in Berry.) Each of the panels shows 2 characters - one living and one dead. The dead are here represented in the form of eviscerated cadavers. On the level above the panels is a poem in gothic lettering to accompany each scene.
The poor state of preservation means that no indepth analysis of the style can be made. On the other hand, it is possible to suggest a date of creation, due to several indicators. The most significant comes from the presence of the Danse Macabre of the Women, which excludes a date prior to 1486. The lively costumes evoke the end of the 15th century. Therefore, it seems likely that the wall paintings, along with the building itself, were constructed in the last 2 decades of the 15th century.
La Chapelle de Tous-les-Saints.
The Danse Macabre de la Chapelle de Tous-les-Saints represents the signature of an era. It carries an exceptional testimony of the state of mind, fears, anxieties and religiosity of the populace at the end of the Middle Ages. Death stalked the land in the form of plague, war and famine without respite, and without respect for social class, intellect or personality. This wall painting, despite being very altered by time and man, is precious nonetheless, because of its rarity (there being fewer than a dozen danse macabre extant in France).
The responsibility for the care of the work is today in the hands of the local council. They must take it seriously and ensure the building remains safe (the tie-beam supporting the roof carpentry is broken, for instance, and should be repaired). They should also take steps to acquire the funding to conserve the paintings - it seems it would be available, if only the council would act to prepare an application! Some sections of the Danse Macabre are still sealed under a layer of render. Wouldn't it be great if we could get a professional in to study these unseen sections and maybe know a bit more about something which is an original and precious part of Preuilly, and France's heritage?
At the very least, in the days leading up to the annual
Journées du Patrimoine, it seems such a shame that this little treasure is not on the list of buildings open for people to see and appreciate, even if only once a year.
Susan
Source: Reignaud-Bauchet, A-M et Walter, B, La Danse macabre de la Chapelle de Tous-les-Saints a Preuilly, Les Cahiers de la Poterne, 2003.
Ingredients:
Gordon Bennett was an interesting character. Heir to a fortune - and the New York Herald - he was the man who sent Stanley to look for Dr Livingstone (I assume there was a story in that) but is more noted for being profligate. Not only did he sponsor what eventually became Grand Prix racing, he also established prizes for yachting and ballooning and once set a wad of bank notes on fire because they were uncomfortable in his pocket. He spent much of his life in France, being educated here and founding the Paris Herald (which eventually became the International Herald Tribune). You can read all about him, and the expression Gordon Bennett! here.
As we walk around the parc this morning I hope the temperature is somewhere between the two, so that the waterfall is water rather than ice, but we aren't sweating buckets. The way the weather has been this year, it's a bit of a crap shoot...
The bathrooms at the Chateau de Candé, on the outskirts of Tours, are fine exemplars of Between the Wars bathing luxury and elegance. When Charles Bedaux acquired the place in 1927 he was the 5th richest person in the United States. He subjected the building to a complete overhaul and extensive modernisation. The house was the first private residence in France to have a telephone and 60 tons of pipes were shoehorned into the walls for that very modern indulgence, hot and cold water on tap.
Although Charles was French, he had made his money in America and was a big fan of American style plumbing. The baths at Candé could be filled and emptied in under a minute decades before the surrounding village houses got piped town water.
Susan
Women's underpants are usually les slips (bikini briefs), les boxers or les shortys (boyleg briefs) and les culottes (full briefs). Interestingly, I notice that UK and Australian underwear retailers no longer bother to mention cotton lined crotch gussets - it is presumably now a given. Yet French retailers often feel it desirable to list fond doublé coton ('doubled cotton bottom') in the description of a pair of underpants. French sizes for underpants are a randomly assigned number, that do not bear any sensible relationship to your actual measurement.
Chasse réservée means that unless you have permission from the owner you can't hunt there. In practice it usually means the land is reserved for the local communal hunt.
Chasse interdite means that the land has been officially registered as withdrawn completely from any hunting activity. It means that even the landowner cannot hunt on the land, and you very rarely see this sign here.
There is often a notice on the town notice board warning people of these flights, I assume either to alert you to the fact that naked sunbathing may not go un-noticed, or to calm the nerves of the black helicopter brigade.
Ken because he and Walt blogged about their new mobile butcher charcuterie service and buying big juicy pieces of rib eye at the front gate; and Alexander because he brought an impressively sized piece of beef to Martine's party - which I promptly ruined by cooking too long at too low a heat. I figured I was sadly out of practice with cooking this sort of cut and had better do something about it. I felt really guilty about not doing Alexander's beef justice (although he managed to dent his own cred as well by also bringing to the party some truly terrible homemade rosé!)
When I got it home I realised the piece I had bought was slightly too large for the pan I wanted to cook it in. I had nothing else suitable - all my other pans were either too lightweight or way too big. Thus we decided to engage in a bit of butchery, and Simon got out the hacksaw and set to work on the end of the rib. It only needed a few centimetres removed, something he achieved quickly and easily.
I seasoned the meat with freshly ground 5 baies (a pepper mix of black, white, pink, green and coriander) and heated the pan to smoking. Five minutes searing on each side and 5 minutes resting - it was delicious. I can hold my head up again, and we had several days worth of roast beef sandwiches as a bonus.
One evening in late July I went out to lock the garage and discovered a bat 'legging' it across the driveway. They can move remarkably rapidly on the ground by swinging their wings forward and using the hooked thumbs as pivot points, waddling behind with their hind feet. Nevertheless, it appeared to be injured, with the left wing being held awkwardly.
I rushed inside to get the bat rescue gear (gloves and a toilet roll), my camera, and called Simon, so he could come and see the bat. I could only find a huge leather work glove, which meant that when I picked up the bat by gently encouraging it on to the glove, it kept wanting to snuggle down under the capacious wrist band. You are not supposed to touch bats when you rescue them, so this wasn't ideal. Eventually I managed to get it to settle in a crevice in the stones of our granary, but several times it determinedly climbed down and legged it across the grass. I was worried about one of the many neighbourhood cats spotting it. As small mammal specialists they would make very short work of an injured and grounded bat.
We can only speculate that it had been roosting for the day under the wooden palisade gable of our garage. The palings are in poor condition and are now rather loose. They flap a bit in the wind and maybe it got knocked from his perch. Unlike the previous bat we had to rescue, who was outraged at us accidentally knocking it to the ground when we removed a piece of rotten lime mortar, this little chap was entirely passive and unaggressive. It just looked around and sniffed the air a bit, but did not appear distressed by being handled or attempt to bite.
Very sadly, in the morning, I found a little brown furry body in the driveway. I took the opportunity to measure it and confirm the identity. It was a pipistrelle, only 3.5cm from nose to rump, with a 2.5cm tail. This is only just within the size range for an adult pipistrelle, so I assume it was one of this year's youngsters. Tim pointed out to me that bats dehydrate very quickly and that it is a good idea to offer them a drink by placing a straw holding water in front of them (a thumb over the end will hold the water in the straw and allow the bat to lap water from the other end). I wish I'd thought to do that now.
The little body is now in a tomato pot, providing fertilizer and decomposing to bones so I can examine the teeth later and determine which species of pipistrelle it is.
Any ideas?
The annual open house weekend, known in France as les Journées du Patrimoine (heritage days) is coming up on 15-16 September. Amongst the many places you could visit is Preuilly's little museum in the Poterne. As local museums go it's not at all bad, with many objects that refer back to Preuilly's past from prehistoric times to the Second World War. Because it is staffed by young volunteers it is only open during the summer holidays and the journées du patrimoine.
The objects from the museum in the photos have a special meaning for us. Regular readers will be aware that our property is a former grain merchant's. In the first half of the 20th century it was run by the Poupineau Bardon family. The grain measures were also gifted by the family connected to our place.
The history of the chapel and its wall paintings over the most recent hundred years is a disturbing tale of under resourced high minded altruisim by private individuals on the one hand and shameful inaction (or worse) on the part of the local authorities.
The significance of this chapel lies in the presence of a danse macabre painted on the interior walls. Its state of preservation is quite poor. The technique used to create it partly explains the fragility of the work - as always with wall paintings, which are done with pigments mixed with glue on a dry wall. It is not a fresco, which are done on fresh damp render. In addition, the faces of the characters portrayed have been systematically hacked away. This act of vandalism probably dates from 1562 when Protestant troops took Preuilly in the Wars of Religion. Their iconoclasm is responsible for the damage to numerous works of art.
Nevertheless it is still possible to determine the general structure. The danse macabre of Preuilly comprises:
The characters are outlined in black, and painted in yellow and red ochre. (An ochre quarry was found near Saint-Georges-sur-la Prée in Berry.) Each of the panels shows 2 characters - one living and one dead. The dead are here represented in the form of eviscerated cadavers. On the level above the panels is a poem in gothic lettering to accompany each scene.
The Danse Macabre de la Chapelle de Tous-les-Saints represents the signature of an era. It carries an exceptional testimony of the state of mind, fears, anxieties and religiosity of the populace at the end of the Middle Ages. Death stalked the land in the form of plague, war and famine without respite, and without respect for social class, intellect or personality. This wall painting, despite being very altered by time and man, is precious nonetheless, because of its rarity (there being fewer than a dozen danse macabre extant in France).
However, yesterday it was cars we went to see and there was plenty to feast the eyes on. Of course, the majority were French cars (including at least one marque new to us - more later) but there was also plenty of Americana and British cars.
Today I have concentrated on photos of Citroëns, but over the next week or two we will have some more exotic and esoteric stuff.
Note that the abdomen is mainly black, with plain yellow bands.
What should you do if there is a nest?
