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Monpazier is an exquisite 'bastide' - a medieval fortified village - in the Dordogne, south-west France. Known as 'La Perle de l'Angleterre', it was founded in 1284 by the English king, Edward I. From early 2013 until January 2020, my wife Anni and I were fortunate - privileged - to be numbered among its population of around 530, which includes Brits, Dutch, Germans, Americans, South Africans, Australians and New Zealanders... in addition of course to the resident French who, with great generosity of spirit, tolerate all these foreigners in their midst.
Although we are now based in Australia, I continue to curate the website and update it as necessary with the help of friends and colleagues on the ground. If you click on Publications, then Articles, above, you will find a series of articles about our time in France, written for various newspapers over the 30 years of our association with the country.
Although we are now based in Australia, I continue to curate the website and update it as necessary with the help of friends and colleagues on the ground. If you click on Publications, then Articles, above, you will find a series of articles about our time in France, written for various newspapers over the 30 years of our association with the country.
Monpazier is considered to be the most perfect, and best preserved, of all the 300-plus bastides that have survived in the Aquitaine region, singled out by no less an authority than Le Corbusier. In 1991, it was declared 'un grand site national' - a national treasure. No surprise therefore that it attracts an estimated 250,000 visitors a year.
LATEST UPLOADS : Below is a list of the most recent items with key words in bold caps. To locate each, put a key word(s) in the SEARCH box (Command F), followed by two taps, or more, on the return key until the item appears. For the 'permanent core items' on the history of Monpazier and the bastides, scroll down...
LATEST UPLOADS : Below is a list of the most recent items with key words in bold caps. To locate each, put a key word(s) in the SEARCH box (Command F), followed by two taps, or more, on the return key until the item appears. For the 'permanent core items' on the history of Monpazier and the bastides, scroll down...
ELIZABETH DAVID'S VICARIOUS VISIT Did she - or didn't she? A culinary mystery story
L'ENTENTE CORDIALE IN A BOTTLE Why French soda was sold in English bottles
THE JUPITER JOINT How the Bordeaux boat-builders came inland
THE MANSARD ROOF François Mansard, the 'Monsieur Velux' of his day
WINCHELSEA Monpazier's English sibling
WORTHY OF MONTY PYTHON A tale of 'reciprocal pillage'
THE MIRACULOUS 'BREAD TREE' How a tree saved whole families from starvation
THE CURSE OF CRENELATION What Viollet-le-Duc did - and fortunately did not do - for Monpazier
AVIAN VERMIN Why pigeons, rather than a nuisance, could be a 'living larder'
MEASURE FOR MEASURE The truth behind Monpazier's measuring bins
A WEEKEND OF MOYENAGERIE Monpazier's annual Fête Médiévale
L'ENTENTE CORDIALE IN A BOTTLE Why French soda was sold in English bottles
THE JUPITER JOINT How the Bordeaux boat-builders came inland
THE MANSARD ROOF François Mansard, the 'Monsieur Velux' of his day
WINCHELSEA Monpazier's English sibling
WORTHY OF MONTY PYTHON A tale of 'reciprocal pillage'
THE MIRACULOUS 'BREAD TREE' How a tree saved whole families from starvation
THE CURSE OF CRENELATION What Viollet-le-Duc did - and fortunately did not do - for Monpazier
AVIAN VERMIN Why pigeons, rather than a nuisance, could be a 'living larder'
MEASURE FOR MEASURE The truth behind Monpazier's measuring bins
A WEEKEND OF MOYENAGERIE Monpazier's annual Fête Médiévale
THE BIRTH OF THE BASTIDE
It’s the seventh day of January in the year 1284 – and probably vachement froid. A small group is gathered on a plateau of cleared land known as 'La Boursie'. It measures about 400 by 220 metres, falls away on three sides and overlooks the valley of the River Dropt. One of the group is holding a pole, bearing the arms of Edward 1st, King of England, and those of Pierre de Gontaut, the local Lord of Biron and Edward's business partner in the joint enterprise. The pole – ‘le Pal’ – is placed in the central hole of a stone block sunk into the ground by a team of surveyors (The hole can still be seen today just beyond the north-east corner of the central square. Photo left).
There is a short speech, read from a scroll of parchment. Here, it has been decreed, will be built a new town. It will be called Montis Pazerii – the Mount of Peace. Public criers with trumpets are despatched to the surrounding countryside to proclaim the birth of the bastide and recruit ‘candidats-habitants’ as its future citizens.
It’s the seventh day of January in the year 1284 – and probably vachement froid. A small group is gathered on a plateau of cleared land known as 'La Boursie'. It measures about 400 by 220 metres, falls away on three sides and overlooks the valley of the River Dropt. One of the group is holding a pole, bearing the arms of Edward 1st, King of England, and those of Pierre de Gontaut, the local Lord of Biron and Edward's business partner in the joint enterprise. The pole – ‘le Pal’ – is placed in the central hole of a stone block sunk into the ground by a team of surveyors (The hole can still be seen today just beyond the north-east corner of the central square. Photo left).
There is a short speech, read from a scroll of parchment. Here, it has been decreed, will be built a new town. It will be called Montis Pazerii – the Mount of Peace. Public criers with trumpets are despatched to the surrounding countryside to proclaim the birth of the bastide and recruit ‘candidats-habitants’ as its future citizens.
Shortly after the opening ceremony, surveyors attach ropes to the pole and measure out the rectangular grid upon which the buildings will be erected. Successful candidates for citizenship will have access to free wood and stone for one year to build their houses, and will have to take up residence within three. At its medieval height, Monpazier will have between 2000 and 2500 inhabitants – about four times its present population.
An aerial shot of Monpazier taken by my high-flying neighbour Andy Simpson in August 2017. It shows to advantage Monpazier's distinctive grid pattern and how the bastide manages to be both framed by the surrounding countryside and raised above it.
MEDIEVAL SURVEYORS - HOW DID THEY DO IT?
The future Monpazier was a reasonably flat ‘greenfield site’, but to fill the 400 x 220 metre rectangle would still have required the professional skills of surveyors (arpenteurs) to lay out the main square and all the surrounding building plots. A challenge indeed... particularly ensuring that the right-angles are 'right'. The theodolite wouldn't be invented until around 1500, while GPS wasn’t even dreamed of. But medieval surveyors had to hand a piece of equipment that couldn't have been more basic, yet which, according to some, was used by the Egyptians to build their pyramids: a loop of rope with twelve equally-spaced knots.
MEDIEVAL SURVEYORS - HOW DID THEY DO IT?
The future Monpazier was a reasonably flat ‘greenfield site’, but to fill the 400 x 220 metre rectangle would still have required the professional skills of surveyors (arpenteurs) to lay out the main square and all the surrounding building plots. A challenge indeed... particularly ensuring that the right-angles are 'right'. The theodolite wouldn't be invented until around 1500, while GPS wasn’t even dreamed of. But medieval surveyors had to hand a piece of equipment that couldn't have been more basic, yet which, according to some, was used by the Egyptians to build their pyramids: a loop of rope with twelve equally-spaced knots.
The 'trick' is to apply Pythagoras's theorem of the square on the hypotenuse...
So, using pegs, stretch taut the rope to measure out a triangle on the ground... make the number of spaces between the knots 3,4,5 units respectively... et voilà! You will have the perfect right-angle every time!
The Egyptians pre-dated the Greek Pythagoras by a couple of millennia, so either Pythagoras got his theorem from them or both he and the Egyptians hit on the idea independently. Whichever the source, it survived into the ‘dark’ Middle Ages.
So, using pegs, stretch taut the rope to measure out a triangle on the ground... make the number of spaces between the knots 3,4,5 units respectively... et voilà! You will have the perfect right-angle every time!
The Egyptians pre-dated the Greek Pythagoras by a couple of millennia, so either Pythagoras got his theorem from them or both he and the Egyptians hit on the idea independently. Whichever the source, it survived into the ‘dark’ Middle Ages.
NOT A BLOG: I’m suspicious of blogs. Too often they are licences for unsupported opinion, unstructured thought, sloppy writing (Hey, it’s only a blog!) or at worst a dire version of ‘WHAT I DID IN MY GAP YEAR’. If this were a blog, it would doubtless be titled, ‘A DUDE IN THE DORDOGNE’. So, if not a blog, what is it? Primarily it's observational. The best description I can come up with is: ‘an illustrated notebook with a journalistic edge’. But you're the judge...
THREE FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS...
How ‘English’ were the English kings of the Middle Ages?
Not very. Historians of the Middle Ages tend to talk about ‘Crowns’ – the English Crown and the French Crown – rather than England and France, or the English and the French. There’s a reason. William (the Conqueror), Duke of Normandy, crossed the Channel and invaded England in 1066. After victory at the Battle of Hastings, he was crowned King William Ist of England – and from then on for many decades so-called ‘English monarchs’ not only spoke French; they were French. A century later, the conflict between 'the English’ and ‘the French’ was more accurately between two branches of the French royal family: the Angevins (aka Plantagenets) based in England and the Capetians based in France.
As the historian Simon Schama has pointed out, the Magna Carta was signed by French barons... and that was in 1215.
How did the English Crown come to acquire a third of France in the form of Aquitaine?
Pretty well by chance – and a salutary example of the Law of Unintended Consequences...
Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine (inherited from her father), was originally married to the French (Capetian) king, Louis VII. The marriage was annulled after she had failed to bear him a male heir - or he had failed to provide the necessary means. He kept their daughters and, critically for what happened next, she kept her lands.
Just two months later Eleanor re-married – this time a member of the rival branch of the family, the Angevin Henry Plantagenet who had inherited the titles Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy. Through the dowry that Eleanor brought to the marriage, Henry now also became Duke of Aquitaine.
All of this would have remained an internal French affair, a mere re-allocation of national real estate – but for the fact that two years later in 1154 Henry added one more title to his collection: Henry II, King of England. The effect was seismic: Aquitaine now belonged to the English Crown… and would remain so for three hundred years.
* It's worth noting that Eleanor is the only woman to have been, by successive marriages, both Queen of France and Queen of England. Equally noteworthy in the context of her annulled first marriage is that, through her second marriage, she produced two future kings of England: John and Richard (the Lionhearted).
How ‘English’ were the English kings of the Middle Ages?
Not very. Historians of the Middle Ages tend to talk about ‘Crowns’ – the English Crown and the French Crown – rather than England and France, or the English and the French. There’s a reason. William (the Conqueror), Duke of Normandy, crossed the Channel and invaded England in 1066. After victory at the Battle of Hastings, he was crowned King William Ist of England – and from then on for many decades so-called ‘English monarchs’ not only spoke French; they were French. A century later, the conflict between 'the English’ and ‘the French’ was more accurately between two branches of the French royal family: the Angevins (aka Plantagenets) based in England and the Capetians based in France.
As the historian Simon Schama has pointed out, the Magna Carta was signed by French barons... and that was in 1215.
How did the English Crown come to acquire a third of France in the form of Aquitaine?
Pretty well by chance – and a salutary example of the Law of Unintended Consequences...
Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine (inherited from her father), was originally married to the French (Capetian) king, Louis VII. The marriage was annulled after she had failed to bear him a male heir - or he had failed to provide the necessary means. He kept their daughters and, critically for what happened next, she kept her lands.
Just two months later Eleanor re-married – this time a member of the rival branch of the family, the Angevin Henry Plantagenet who had inherited the titles Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy. Through the dowry that Eleanor brought to the marriage, Henry now also became Duke of Aquitaine.
All of this would have remained an internal French affair, a mere re-allocation of national real estate – but for the fact that two years later in 1154 Henry added one more title to his collection: Henry II, King of England. The effect was seismic: Aquitaine now belonged to the English Crown… and would remain so for three hundred years.
* It's worth noting that Eleanor is the only woman to have been, by successive marriages, both Queen of France and Queen of England. Equally noteworthy in the context of her annulled first marriage is that, through her second marriage, she produced two future kings of England: John and Richard (the Lionhearted).
Portrait believed to be Edward I
Westminster Abbey
Where do the bastides and Monpazier feature in all this?
By the time Henry II’s great-grandson, Edward Ist, comes to the throne in 1272, more than two centuries have passed since the Norman Conquest. Edward, born in London, named after an Anglo-Saxon monarch-saint and taught English as a child, is not just ‘a Frenchy who happened to be King of England’ but an indisputably English monarch. By the same token, Aquitaine doesn't just ‘belong to the English Crown’, it is now seen – at least from the English side of the Channel – as part of England. (In much the same way as, centuries later, France would regard Algeria not as a colony but as part of France 'across the water'.)
By the time Henry II’s great-grandson, Edward Ist, comes to the throne in 1272, more than two centuries have passed since the Norman Conquest. Edward, born in London, named after an Anglo-Saxon monarch-saint and taught English as a child, is not just ‘a Frenchy who happened to be King of England’ but an indisputably English monarch. By the same token, Aquitaine doesn't just ‘belong to the English Crown’, it is now seen – at least from the English side of the Channel – as part of England. (In much the same way as, centuries later, France would regard Algeria not as a colony but as part of France 'across the water'.)
Edward pays homage - Jean Fouquet, 'Les Rois de France'
Bibliotèque Nationale, Paris
Towards the end of the 1200’s, tension and taunting between the two sides ramp up. Edward, though a monarch in his own right, is still expected, as Duke of Aquitaine, to pay homage to the King of France, Philip IV, in whose kingdom his territory lies. It’s a knee-bending formality but one which irks the English Crown and will ultimately lead to the Hundred Years War. In anticipation of conflict, each side stakes out its territory.
Initially, the chosen strategy is commerce rather than combat. Both sides realise the value of planting settlements – creating ‘facts on the ground’ - along the boundaries of their respective territories. But to function and, no less, to be defended, these require human inhabitants. So the bastides are born – designated centres of trade with regular weekly markets and fairs which will attract permanent residents from the surrounding area by offering shelter, protection and self-sufficiency… even the pursuit of prosperity.
The upper reaches of the River Dropt become the focal point of the confrontation. It’s a face-off. On the south bank, Alphonse de Poitiers, the French king’s brother, establishes the bastides of Eymet, Castillonnès, Villeréal and Villefranche-du-Périgord. North of the river, the English King Edward orders the construction of Molières, Beaumont… and in 1284, Monpazier*.
* The first of the English bastides, Lalinde, had already been founded by Edward in 1267 when he was still Prince Edward.
Initially, the chosen strategy is commerce rather than combat. Both sides realise the value of planting settlements – creating ‘facts on the ground’ - along the boundaries of their respective territories. But to function and, no less, to be defended, these require human inhabitants. So the bastides are born – designated centres of trade with regular weekly markets and fairs which will attract permanent residents from the surrounding area by offering shelter, protection and self-sufficiency… even the pursuit of prosperity.
The upper reaches of the River Dropt become the focal point of the confrontation. It’s a face-off. On the south bank, Alphonse de Poitiers, the French king’s brother, establishes the bastides of Eymet, Castillonnès, Villeréal and Villefranche-du-Périgord. North of the river, the English King Edward orders the construction of Molières, Beaumont… and in 1284, Monpazier*.
* The first of the English bastides, Lalinde, had already been founded by Edward in 1267 when he was still Prince Edward.
The medieval Monpazier was in many ways the perfect economic model: the town literally fed off the surrounding countryside.
If you were a peasant trying to live independently on the land or, more likely, the tied-serf of a local baron, there were obvious attractions in becoming a citizen of a bastide such as Monpazier. Not only were you allocated a plot within the town to build your own house, but – as part of the package - you also had a ‘potager’ ( an allotment-sized patch of land beneath the walls to grow fruit and veg), access to a field to cultivate crops or raise livestock... and, not least, the right to go hunting small game and foraging in the woods beyond. On top of all that, any surplus to your and your family's needs could be sold or bartered in the market, held every week in the central square.
Fast forward seven hundred years to the Monpazier of the twenty-first century...
If you were a peasant trying to live independently on the land or, more likely, the tied-serf of a local baron, there were obvious attractions in becoming a citizen of a bastide such as Monpazier. Not only were you allocated a plot within the town to build your own house, but – as part of the package - you also had a ‘potager’ ( an allotment-sized patch of land beneath the walls to grow fruit and veg), access to a field to cultivate crops or raise livestock... and, not least, the right to go hunting small game and foraging in the woods beyond. On top of all that, any surplus to your and your family's needs could be sold or bartered in the market, held every week in the central square.
Fast forward seven hundred years to the Monpazier of the twenty-first century...
This 'aerial visualisation' is the work of the late Keith Godard, a British-born, Brooklyn-based, graphic designer. Keith, who died in May 2020, had a holiday home a few kilometres away in neighbouring Belvès. What makes the map unusual is that Keith applied not the rules of classical perspective (as taught at art schools) but 'isometric projection' - a way of seeing the world favoured by architects. The effect, when combined with Keith's subtle combinations of watercolour, is of a startlingly alternative reality that makes an aerial photograph look flat by comparison.
Photo: Keith in front of the halle, Belvès, 2016
Lithographs of the Keith Godard's three-dimensional map, measuring 70 cm x 50 cm, are available from Monpazier's interpretative centre BASTIDEUM or can be ordered direct from his widow, the architect Katrin Adam : [email protected]
Photo: Keith in front of the halle, Belvès, 2016
Lithographs of the Keith Godard's three-dimensional map, measuring 70 cm x 50 cm, are available from Monpazier's interpretative centre BASTIDEUM or can be ordered direct from his widow, the architect Katrin Adam : [email protected]
MEASURE FOR MEASURE
(or 'The Bins of Mystery')
Measuring bins were essential for the efficient function of a medieval market – first to guarantee the buyer the correct amount (corn, wheat, barley, chestnuts, etc.) and second, no less important, to enable the authorities to collect the appropriate tax at the point of sale. These are Monpazier's bins in the main square. They were filled up from the top, tilted, and their contents were poured via the small ‘gate’ into sacks below. You’ll find bins like these in other bastides, both English and French (e.g. Monflanquin) – but Monpazier’s bins have their own story to tell…
(or 'The Bins of Mystery')
Measuring bins were essential for the efficient function of a medieval market – first to guarantee the buyer the correct amount (corn, wheat, barley, chestnuts, etc.) and second, no less important, to enable the authorities to collect the appropriate tax at the point of sale. These are Monpazier's bins in the main square. They were filled up from the top, tilted, and their contents were poured via the small ‘gate’ into sacks below. You’ll find bins like these in other bastides, both English and French (e.g. Monflanquin) – but Monpazier’s bins have their own story to tell…
Guide books often refer to the bins as being ‘original’. Well, highly unlikely, given that they are made of iron and out in the open all seasons. Over the course of seven centuries, they will have been regularly repaired and replaced. But it was always assumed that the replacements would at least have been exact copies of the originals… until, a few years ago, someone interested in medieval weights and measures decided to check just how much they would have contained. To their surprise, it turned out that the bins had been ‘metricized’. Since metrication was introduced during the French Revolution, the present bins must date from the 1790s at the earliest. This is unlikely to have been a purely ornamental change, so one can reasonably infer that they would also have been in regular use. For the record, the largest bin has an internal diameter of 50 centimetres and is 50 centimetres deep – which means, when filled to the brim, it would take one-tenth of a cubic metre. A manageable sack-full.
A WEEKEND OF
MOYENAGERIE
There’s a well-worn story about an epic Hollywood movie of the 1950s in which, before the set-piece battle, the hero exhorts his troops with the words: Men of the Middle Ages, you are about to embark on The Hundred Years War!
Today's Monpazier - not needing the benefit of such prescience - has its own version of The Hundred Years War, albeit somewhat scaled down. It is the annual Fête Médiévale, usually held at the height of the tourist season in late July. Participants come from all around to swing swords and wag wimples. In 2019, my colleague Clint Dougherty (ex-Hollywood cameraman) and I were persuaded by the mayor to capture the event on video. It’s on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAUJI9moy_U&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR3dXXmnnM-j4kdYmiQumj8PBdzSR_HCucRJQQwgA1RtEexL48d1OI2Sow8
The Fête's historical authenticity is occasionally a touch ‘impressionistic’ – with the English King Edward 1st wearing French Bourbon blue – but condensing a hundred years into two days inevitably involves some licence and compromise…
Technical note: We decided to shoot the video not with conventional cameras but with smart-phones mounted on gimbals. Initially sceptical, I ended up being totally won over. Judge for yourself and, if you can't tell the difference, make a token contribution to the Redundant Cameramens' Benevolent Fund...
Technical note: We decided to shoot the video not with conventional cameras but with smart-phones mounted on gimbals. Initially sceptical, I ended up being totally won over. Judge for yourself and, if you can't tell the difference, make a token contribution to the Redundant Cameramens' Benevolent Fund...
Detail from Heidelberger Sachsenspiegel;
Heidelberg University Library
THE CHARTER OF CUSTOMS
Establishing a bastide was about more than laying out the plan and building the houses. As an added incentive, the founding Seigneurs also offered potential citizens a Charte de Coutumes, literally, a Charter of Customs.
This was in effect a local constitution – a mix of citizens’ rights, penal code and fiscal regulations. Equally, it can be seen as an early form of Social Contract: ‘If you, the citizens, agree to observe the laws and pay your taxes… we, your rulers, will protect you, your family and your possessions and guarantee you certain specified liberties’.
Above: Citizens receiving charter show their digital delight
Establishing a bastide was about more than laying out the plan and building the houses. As an added incentive, the founding Seigneurs also offered potential citizens a Charte de Coutumes, literally, a Charter of Customs.
This was in effect a local constitution – a mix of citizens’ rights, penal code and fiscal regulations. Equally, it can be seen as an early form of Social Contract: ‘If you, the citizens, agree to observe the laws and pay your taxes… we, your rulers, will protect you, your family and your possessions and guarantee you certain specified liberties’.
Above: Citizens receiving charter show their digital delight
Although remarkable for its time, the Charter was subtly skewed in favour of the Seigneur. This was no philanthropic exercise. Yes, it offered a host of individual liberties but it also restricted the collective ones.
Unfortunately, the charter for Monpazier has been lost (not down the back of the mayor’s sofa after the last election party but several centuries ago). The charters of other bastides that have survived, though, suggest they were all very similar. Since we still have those for three neighbouring bastides - the English Lalinde and Beaumont, and the French Monflanquin – we have a good idea of what would have been in the Monpazier charter. It's telling that, although the French and English bastides were ‘in opposition’, the English rulers had no scruples about cribbing the existing French charters pretty well line for line.
Unfortunately, the charter for Monpazier has been lost (not down the back of the mayor’s sofa after the last election party but several centuries ago). The charters of other bastides that have survived, though, suggest they were all very similar. Since we still have those for three neighbouring bastides - the English Lalinde and Beaumont, and the French Monflanquin – we have a good idea of what would have been in the Monpazier charter. It's telling that, although the French and English bastides were ‘in opposition’, the English rulers had no scruples about cribbing the existing French charters pretty well line for line.
Among the thirty or more articles, the main points:
* No inhabitant can be arrested, harmed or have his property seized except in cases of murder, inflicting injury or other
crimes. (Compare this with Clause 39 of England's Magna Carta, 1215: " No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped
of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against
him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.")
* Inhabitants have the right to own property, can dispose of it however they choose and sell it to whomever
they wish without the consent of the Seigneur. This includes the bequeathing of property and goods to their heirs.
* Inhabitants can marry off their daughters to whom they wish – again without needing the consent of the Seigneur.
* Inhabitants are required to pay rent for their houses and land, and to contribute to the general upkeep of the
bastide - i.e. pay ‘rates’. (They would also be expected to pay a tithe, a percentage of their income, to the Church).
* No inhabitant can be arrested, harmed or have his property seized except in cases of murder, inflicting injury or other
crimes. (Compare this with Clause 39 of England's Magna Carta, 1215: " No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped
of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against
him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.")
* Inhabitants have the right to own property, can dispose of it however they choose and sell it to whomever
they wish without the consent of the Seigneur. This includes the bequeathing of property and goods to their heirs.
* Inhabitants can marry off their daughters to whom they wish – again without needing the consent of the Seigneur.
* Inhabitants are required to pay rent for their houses and land, and to contribute to the general upkeep of the
bastide - i.e. pay ‘rates’. (They would also be expected to pay a tithe, a percentage of their income, to the Church).
And there was a form of self-government... The Bayle, as representative of the Seigneur, would be the titular ruler - a sort of Mayor. But, beneath him, there would typically be half a dozen Consuls - the equivalent of today’s town councillors - who would act as ‘representatives of the people’ in administering the day-to-day activity of the bastide. And the Charter required that they be regularly rotated:
* The Consuls will be changed every year. They will be chosen initially by the Seigneur or his representative, the Bayle, and
thereafter the outgoing Consuls will choose the next incumbents of the posts - the selection to be made from those
inhabitants judged to be the most honest and most useful to the community. (Some historians have talked of Consuls being
'elected'. This is misleading. You could, at a pinch, argue that the process is a form of self-government but it's a far cry
from the 'one man, one vote' representative democracy we know today. At worst, it has all the potential to be a self-
perpetuating Club des Vieux Garçons.)
* The Consuls will receive no recompense for their official duties.
* The Consuls will be changed every year. They will be chosen initially by the Seigneur or his representative, the Bayle, and
thereafter the outgoing Consuls will choose the next incumbents of the posts - the selection to be made from those
inhabitants judged to be the most honest and most useful to the community. (Some historians have talked of Consuls being
'elected'. This is misleading. You could, at a pinch, argue that the process is a form of self-government but it's a far cry
from the 'one man, one vote' representative democracy we know today. At worst, it has all the potential to be a self-
perpetuating Club des Vieux Garçons.)
* The Consuls will receive no recompense for their official duties.
One other key article would have regulated the most important function of the bastide: commerce - the buying and selling of goods. For inhabitants this would have been their biggest source of income and potential prosperity:
* The weekly market will be held on Thursday. Outsiders have to pay a fee to sell their produce or merchandise but inhabitants
of Monpazier are exempt. The same will apply to fairs. (Whether or not specifically mentioned in the Charter, all buying and
selling would have to take place in the main square to prevent illegal, tax-dodging side deals being done in back streets.)
* The weekly market will be held on Thursday. Outsiders have to pay a fee to sell their produce or merchandise but inhabitants
of Monpazier are exempt. The same will apply to fairs. (Whether or not specifically mentioned in the Charter, all buying and
selling would have to take place in the main square to prevent illegal, tax-dodging side deals being done in back streets.)
Finally, law and order – and certainly no lack of specifics here:
* Anyone who viciously hits or maltreats an inhabitant with the fist, the hand or the foot but without drawing blood will, in the
event of a complaint, have to pay five sols (don’t ask) to make good the assault.
* If the blow is with a sword, a stick, a stone or a tile – but again without drawing blood – the fine will be twenty sols.
* If blood is shed, the guilty person will have to pay sixty sols and additionally compensate the victim.
* Anyone who viciously hits or maltreats an inhabitant with the fist, the hand or the foot but without drawing blood will, in the
event of a complaint, have to pay five sols (don’t ask) to make good the assault.
* If the blow is with a sword, a stick, a stone or a tile – but again without drawing blood – the fine will be twenty sols.
* If blood is shed, the guilty person will have to pay sixty sols and additionally compensate the victim.
Oh, and not forgetting theft and adultery...
* Depending on the seriousness of the offence, thieves will suffer a range of punishments from a fine to hanging. They may also
be required to run across town with the stolen object hanging around their neck.
* Those engaged in adultery will be liable to the stiffest fine of all: 100 sols each. As an alternative punishment, to add to the
jollity of the local population, they may choose to run across town... naked.
* Depending on the seriousness of the offence, thieves will suffer a range of punishments from a fine to hanging. They may also
be required to run across town with the stolen object hanging around their neck.
* Those engaged in adultery will be liable to the stiffest fine of all: 100 sols each. As an alternative punishment, to add to the
jollity of the local population, they may choose to run across town... naked.
The Church of St Dominique framed in one of the arches of La Place des Cornières. Typically in a medieval European town the church would be the central building and dominate the main square. Not here. One of the most telling features of many of Aquitaine's bastides is that the church, though built close to the square, is not actually in it (See Keith Godard's map above). Commerce, not worship, was the raison d'être of the bastide; first and foremost, it was a place where locals and outsiders could meet in a designated spot to buy and sell. God had His place but, geographically, it wasn't central to the daily life of the community. You see the same pattern in the neighbouring bastides of Villeréal, Monflanquin, Beaumont-du-Périgord and Sauveterre de Guyenne - all with their churches just beyond the main square. That said, we don't know the reason. Was God being made subservient to Mammon... or was He tactfully being spared the sight, and sound, of the money-changers?
Another view of Saint-Dominque - seen from the south-west corner of the village, rising above the rooftops. The church was one of the first structures to be build following foundation in 1284 - not just as a place of worship but, no less important, as a fortified haven in the event of attack. Building continued into the 16th century. And yes, the roof of the bell-tower really is inclined at a jaunty angle, though the Commune hasn't yet hit upon The Tilting Tower of Monpazier as tourist bait. Off to the far left is the Maison du Chapitre, the second highest structure within the walls.
A bright, crisp January morning. The temperature is in single figures but the sun is shining and the sky is blue. This is the best time to appreciate Monpazier's unique architectural diversity, uncluttered by human activity. What makes La Place des Cornières exceptional is the sense of unity in diversity. If you stand in the centre of the square and slowly turn through 360 degrees, you are presented on all four sides with buildings of different styles and eras, from at least the thirteen hundreds up to the seventeen hundreds - buildings which moreover have been frequently repaired and renovated over the centuries, and continue to be so. And yet, for all that each building is a 'soloist' in its own right, the collective atmosphere is one of perfect harmony. If ever there were an essential lesson for budding architects, this has to be it.
THE MIRACULOUS ‘BREAD TREE’
These days we tend to take trees for granted. Cords of wood stacked by the roadside typically prompt the thought, ‘They’d burn well in the Jøtel’. But for our medieval forebears trees were an invaluable resource in countless different ways – and not just fruit trees. Oaks offered sturdy, rot-resistant timber for both houses and boats, not forgetting acorns for the pigs; domestic furniture was made from elm; poplars drained boggy land; walnuts were pressed for their oil. But for those living in the Périgord nothing beat the sweet chestnut. It too could be used for timbers (Monpazier’s halle is made of it) but the nuts themselves were no less prized because they could be turned into a highly nutritious flour - and baked. Rich in minerals, vitamins and phytonutrients, they were a winter life-saver if the crops had failed. Hence the sweet chestnut came to be known as ‘The Bread Tree’.
For the ‘castanhaires’ - the Occitan word for the chestnut-gatherers – October was the busiest month. Right is one of Monpazier's fifteen 'interpretive' panels erected around the village for the benefit of visitors. This one depicts one of Monpazier's carreyrou alleyways.
Panneau publique, Balade Patrimoine en Pays des Bastides
Panneau publique, Balade Patrimoine en Pays des Bastides
The north gates - both of them. Originally, Monpazier is thought to have had six gates: two north, two south, one east, one west. Three have survived: the two north and one south. Bastides are often described as 'fortified' towns or villages - the implication being that, from the laying of the first stone, they were conceived and planned with walls, ditches and ramparts. This may be the result of a confused belief that the word 'bastide' was related to 'bastille', meaning a fortress (and, subsequently, a prison). But there is now an academic consensus that in many cases this was not the case. A number of Aquitaine's bastides - Monpazier included - started out as 'open' communities to promote commerce. Yes, they would have had gates - but these (and the curfews that went with them) were primarily to keep out criminal riff-raff rather than enemy troops bent on regime-change. Actual fortifications - high, thick defensive walls between the gates - came only some decades later during the run-up to The Hundred Years War when the first hostilities broke out between the French and English crowns. A curious feature of Monpazier is that, instead of seriously defensive walls on the northern front - the most vulnerable side - there are only in-fill houses. Did these replace earlier walls or did the Monpaziérois feel that, despite the multiple openings of doors and windows, they would 'do the job'?
RULES OF THE ROAD
Another of Monpazier's ‘interpretive’ panels... This one shows how the exceptional width – eight metres - of the bastide's two principal roads enabled carts to pass each other and so avoid congestion on market days.
Something odd about it? Even plain wrong?
The carters are driving on the left – when, as we all know, the French drive on the right. But in fact the depiction is historically correct. The French, like the British, used to drive on the left. They switched to the right only after the Revolution of 1789.
The practice of keeping to the left is generally explained by the greater ease of drawing one’s sword (assuming one is right-handed) in a single movement if approached by a stranger with less-than-friendly intentions. Well, possibly. Arguably a more plausible reason is that horses, the precursors of the automobile, have always been mounted from the left side – the near side of the track, street or highway. Why? Perhaps because it’s more natural for the right-handed majority of riders. Or maybe it’s something to do with the way horses’ brains are configured that they prefer it that way. (Any animal psychologists out there?)
As to why the French made the switch to the right after the Revolution, it seems to have been symbolic. Mindful of their personal safety, the aristocracy of the ancien régime would keep left when passing those of the lower orders (again, the self-defence consideration). But once the Revolution had effectively abolished the aristocracy, everyone was in theory a ‘citizen’ and so identifying with the peasants on the right was politically correct and, in terms of self-preservation, a smart move. Napoleon, a product of the Revolution, duly put it into law - not just in his own country but also in those he conquered (e.g. Egypt).
Another of Monpazier's ‘interpretive’ panels... This one shows how the exceptional width – eight metres - of the bastide's two principal roads enabled carts to pass each other and so avoid congestion on market days.
Something odd about it? Even plain wrong?
The carters are driving on the left – when, as we all know, the French drive on the right. But in fact the depiction is historically correct. The French, like the British, used to drive on the left. They switched to the right only after the Revolution of 1789.
The practice of keeping to the left is generally explained by the greater ease of drawing one’s sword (assuming one is right-handed) in a single movement if approached by a stranger with less-than-friendly intentions. Well, possibly. Arguably a more plausible reason is that horses, the precursors of the automobile, have always been mounted from the left side – the near side of the track, street or highway. Why? Perhaps because it’s more natural for the right-handed majority of riders. Or maybe it’s something to do with the way horses’ brains are configured that they prefer it that way. (Any animal psychologists out there?)
As to why the French made the switch to the right after the Revolution, it seems to have been symbolic. Mindful of their personal safety, the aristocracy of the ancien régime would keep left when passing those of the lower orders (again, the self-defence consideration). But once the Revolution had effectively abolished the aristocracy, everyone was in theory a ‘citizen’ and so identifying with the peasants on the right was politically correct and, in terms of self-preservation, a smart move. Napoleon, a product of the Revolution, duly put it into law - not just in his own country but also in those he conquered (e.g. Egypt).
Quintessential Monpazier en saison. It's high summer... artists sketching under the Halle... tourists relaxing outside L'Écureuil café... and a local on her bicycle going about her petit train-train. It's all there.
EDWARD 1st WAS HERE
As Duke of Aquitaine, Edward was no stranger to the region. In all he made five visits – both as Prince Edward when his father Henry III was on the throne and later after he himself became king in 1272. His longest visit lasted three years and three months - from 1286 to 1289 - and took in Monpazier.
Edward arrived in Monpazier, with his court, on 6th November 1286 - and wasn’t best pleased. Like the modern-day homeowner who leaves the builders to get on with the new conservatory and returns to discover they haven’t even poured the slab, Edward found a lot of marked-out plots with nothing on them. It was explained to him – one imagines with some trepidation – that, although a goodly number of ‘candidate-inhabitants’ had been accepted and assigned their plots, they hadn’t actually got round to building the houses.
Whether His Majesty threw a right-royal wobbly is not recorded but it’s probably indicative of his mood that he threatened the tardy inhabitants with a hefty fine if they didn’t get on with it. Since there’s no mention of the fine ever being levied, it seems to have had the desired effect.
How long Edward stayed in Monpazier we don’t know but his next stop – a day’s journey away – was Monflanquin (founded by the French but now under English control) where on 12th November he was busy signing ‘letters patent’. So, given that he arrived in Monpazier on the 6th, his timetable would have allowed him to stay two or three days before moving on.
As Duke of Aquitaine, Edward was no stranger to the region. In all he made five visits – both as Prince Edward when his father Henry III was on the throne and later after he himself became king in 1272. His longest visit lasted three years and three months - from 1286 to 1289 - and took in Monpazier.
Edward arrived in Monpazier, with his court, on 6th November 1286 - and wasn’t best pleased. Like the modern-day homeowner who leaves the builders to get on with the new conservatory and returns to discover they haven’t even poured the slab, Edward found a lot of marked-out plots with nothing on them. It was explained to him – one imagines with some trepidation – that, although a goodly number of ‘candidate-inhabitants’ had been accepted and assigned their plots, they hadn’t actually got round to building the houses.
Whether His Majesty threw a right-royal wobbly is not recorded but it’s probably indicative of his mood that he threatened the tardy inhabitants with a hefty fine if they didn’t get on with it. Since there’s no mention of the fine ever being levied, it seems to have had the desired effect.
How long Edward stayed in Monpazier we don’t know but his next stop – a day’s journey away – was Monflanquin (founded by the French but now under English control) where on 12th November he was busy signing ‘letters patent’. So, given that he arrived in Monpazier on the 6th, his timetable would have allowed him to stay two or three days before moving on.
The essential fact is that Edward was here – living, breathing, eating, drinking… and, as was his habit, assiduously inspecting everything. Today's visitors crossing La Place des Cornières would have to be singularly impervious to the pull of history not to feel a certain frisson - the realization that they are walking, literally, in the footsteps of one of England’s truly great warrior-monarchs: Edward Longshanks, subjugator of Wales, conqueror of Scotland, indefatigable founder of bastides and builder of castles , a man feared and respected across Europe in equal measure.
In the words of one chronicler, ‘a great and terrible king’.
Left: Edward's triple-lion Plantagenet flag still flying over the village
In the words of one chronicler, ‘a great and terrible king’.
Left: Edward's triple-lion Plantagenet flag still flying over the village
DISCLAIMER ALERT! I know, I know… Having lured you into this webpage with the promise of revelation and even titilation, here I am now burying a disclaimer several pages in… Just a reminder that, despite the slick veneer of erudition, I am not an historian or an academic of any sort. I am a TV journalist and producer. That said, even pukka historians will admit that there is always a problem when writing about medieval places because of the scarcity of primary sources. This is compounded in France by the disruption of the Hundred Years War, the Wars of Religion and, not least, The Revolution – when so many records were removed, misplaced or destroyed.
To give an example… Back in the 1990s, I was asked to write an English guide for a village we then lived in, just over the border in the Lot-et-Garonne. I consulted a couple of ‘local historians’ and found they disagreed on almost every essential fact. So I went to the Mairie (Town Hall) and asked to see their archives relating to medieval times. ‘Ah, Monsieur,’ they responded with ill-concealed glee, ‘your English ancestors took them away at the end of the Hundred Years War – so they will now be in the Tower of London’. Very fanciful, you may think. As did I. But it turned out there was more than a grain of truth in the assertion.
After the English defeat at the Battle of Castillon in 1453, the losers did indeed take wagonloads of written material with them back to England and, yes, it was originally stored in the Tower of London. Subsequently these ‘rolls’, as they are called, were moved to the Public Record Office – where they are today and available for inspection on application. I duly followed the trail to the PRO at Kew, just outside London, but it very soon became clear that there was only the slightest chance of the rolls for our particular village having ended up back in England, and to have employed the services of a professional researcher capable of deciphering the stacks and stacks of material would have cost more than the Mairie was willing even to consider. It was far more likely that any records had been lost or destroyed during the Revolution – but, from the French perspective, it was much more satisfying of course to blame the perfidious English.
After the English defeat at the Battle of Castillon in 1453, the losers did indeed take wagonloads of written material with them back to England and, yes, it was originally stored in the Tower of London. Subsequently these ‘rolls’, as they are called, were moved to the Public Record Office – where they are today and available for inspection on application. I duly followed the trail to the PRO at Kew, just outside London, but it very soon became clear that there was only the slightest chance of the rolls for our particular village having ended up back in England, and to have employed the services of a professional researcher capable of deciphering the stacks and stacks of material would have cost more than the Mairie was willing even to consider. It was far more likely that any records had been lost or destroyed during the Revolution – but, from the French perspective, it was much more satisfying of course to blame the perfidious English.
The bottom line is that very often, in the absence of archival evidence, one has to rely upon ‘local knowledge’, however inconsistent and unreliable, even when relating to events within current lifespans. In such situations, one can only resort to weasel words like ‘estimated’, ‘consensus’ and ‘generally agreed’ - or just admit that nobody really knows.
A single tower remains on the eastern side of the village. Beneath it, a 'medieval' garden, stocked with medicinal herbs. To visit it, you must walk from the Place des Cornières, down to the bottom of the rue Galmot… and enter Bastideum, Monpazier’s heritage centre. The garden is behind the building. (Note for photographers: the best view is from the window on the centre’s upper floor, see right). In truth, the garden is a re-creation but, in matters horticultural, authenticity can be more important than age. It was planned and planted in 2010 by the municipality with the help of students from the agricultural school of Monbazillac, working with Dordogne’s departmental centre for landscaping.
LAWRENCE OF MONPAZIER ?
Not as improbable as you might think…
During the summer of 1908, the 19-year-old T.E. Lawrence, then a student at Jesus College, Oxford, embarked on a solo cycling tour of French castles connected with Richard the Lionheart. The trip – to gather research for his thesis on medieval military architecture - lasted two months, covered nearly 4000 kilometres… and entailed as many punctures as castles.
After a visit to the Château de Bonaguil, the future ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ stayed overnight in Monpazier before moving north.
Unfortunately he doesn’t specify where he lodged. There are, though, two contenders: L’Hotel de Londres and L’Hotel de France. L’Hotel de Londres – a 19th century building opposite the north gates now occupied by the Bistrot-2 restaurant – was a favourite staging post for British travellers and had a reputation as a gourmet hot-spot.
Not as improbable as you might think…
During the summer of 1908, the 19-year-old T.E. Lawrence, then a student at Jesus College, Oxford, embarked on a solo cycling tour of French castles connected with Richard the Lionheart. The trip – to gather research for his thesis on medieval military architecture - lasted two months, covered nearly 4000 kilometres… and entailed as many punctures as castles.
After a visit to the Château de Bonaguil, the future ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ stayed overnight in Monpazier before moving north.
Unfortunately he doesn’t specify where he lodged. There are, though, two contenders: L’Hotel de Londres and L’Hotel de France. L’Hotel de Londres – a 19th century building opposite the north gates now occupied by the Bistrot-2 restaurant – was a favourite staging post for British travellers and had a reputation as a gourmet hot-spot.
But the two-wheeling Lawrence was travelling on a student’s budget and in a letter to his mother he talks of staying in a huge room with 'a glorious Renaissance window' accessed by a handsome staircase. This would perfectly fit the Hotel de France (now Le Chevalier Bleu). The window disappeared in subsequent renovations, along with some fine sculptures - flogged off to Americans in the late 1920s.
The staircase, though, remains. See photo left.
But which room did T.E. stay in? The window is a clue. Below is an old postcard of the Hotel de France taken in the early 1900s. Look closely and you can make out the projecting stone mullions of not one, but two windows in 'the Renaissance style' on the first and second floors. 'Glorious' indeed. Lawrence could have stayed in either.
The staircase, though, remains. See photo left.
But which room did T.E. stay in? The window is a clue. Below is an old postcard of the Hotel de France taken in the early 1900s. Look closely and you can make out the projecting stone mullions of not one, but two windows in 'the Renaissance style' on the first and second floors. 'Glorious' indeed. Lawrence could have stayed in either.
As for Monpazier, Lawrence describes it as ‘a little town fast going to ruin.’ Just as well his grasp of the past was better than that of the future. That said, could now - over a century later - be the time to lobby for a blue plaque? Artist's impression right - and below, a photo of the Hotel de France as it was in 2016 before closing, being renovated and, post pandemic, re-born as Le Chevalier Bleu.
Sources: Elisée Cérou, article in Cahiers du Groupe Archéologique de Monpazier 1987; Archives départementales de la Dordogne. Lawrence's letter to his mother, 16.08.08, published in 'The Home Letters of T.E.Lawrence and his Brothers', (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1954).
A full-length article on Lawrence's 1908 'Tour de France' appears in Edition no.11 of 'Secrets de Pays' magazine. The French version is available online at:
www.espritdepays.com/dordogne/histoire/lawrence-du-perigord
A full-length article on Lawrence's 1908 'Tour de France' appears in Edition no.11 of 'Secrets de Pays' magazine. The French version is available online at:
www.espritdepays.com/dordogne/histoire/lawrence-du-perigord
GONE WEST
The Hotel de France’s renaissance windows weren't the only items sold off to Americans back in the 1920s. The ornate entrance to a twelfth century chapel round the corner on the Rue Saint Pierre (see right) was also dismantled, crated up and sent west – though whether by the same buyer isn’t clear.
The Hotel de France’s renaissance windows weren't the only items sold off to Americans back in the 1920s. The ornate entrance to a twelfth century chapel round the corner on the Rue Saint Pierre (see right) was also dismantled, crated up and sent west – though whether by the same buyer isn’t clear.
Here's what the building looks like today - naked.
If anybody knows where the stonework is now, the current owner would be interested to hear from them...
Contact me (see top line) and I'll pass on the information.
If anybody knows where the stonework is now, the current owner would be interested to hear from them...
Contact me (see top line) and I'll pass on the information.
While on the subject of trans-Atlantic 'relocations'... the most famous - notorious? - example locally is that of two early 16th century works originally in the chapel of the nearby Château Biron: an Entombment of Christ and a Pietà. They were commissioned by members of the Gontaut family, lords of Biron, whose ancestor Pierre de Gontaut had been Edward 1st's 'business partner' in the founding of Monpazier two centuries earlier. They were acquired by the industrial magnate and global collector J.Pierpoint Morgan in the late 19th or early 20th century - and left in his will to the Metropolitan Museum, New York, where they can be seen today.
Entombment of Christ, c. 1515, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Entombment of Christ, c. 1515, Metropolitan Museum of Art
It’s tempting, with the benefit of 21st century hindsight, to describe the removal of the above works as ‘cultural plunder’ – on a par with Lord Elgin’s dodgy ‘purchase’ of the Acropolis sculptures in the early nineteenth century. But rather than asking how much the Americans paid for them, perhaps we should be asking how much the locals received. Both parties were complicit.
More to the point, why didn't the authorities stop it? Local architects were appointed to protect France’s historic monuments as long ago as 1897. But it wasn’t until 1946, just after WW2, that the body known as ‘Architectes des bâtiments de France’ was created with a duty not just to protect specific monuments but to supervise ‘the quality’ of buildings in the immediate vicinity. Since 1995, the ABF has come under the French Ministry of Culture – and today wields considerable power to protect the local patrimoine. In this case, nearly a century too late.
More to the point, why didn't the authorities stop it? Local architects were appointed to protect France’s historic monuments as long ago as 1897. But it wasn’t until 1946, just after WW2, that the body known as ‘Architectes des bâtiments de France’ was created with a duty not just to protect specific monuments but to supervise ‘the quality’ of buildings in the immediate vicinity. Since 1995, the ABF has come under the French Ministry of Culture – and today wields considerable power to protect the local patrimoine. In this case, nearly a century too late.
INTO THE WOODS... This is the view from the western flank of the village in early May. In medieval times, the forested areas that surround Monpazier were an asset to be exploited. Not just wood and nuts, as already mentioned, but also game - gibier - in the form of rabbits and wild fowls. There were boar and deer too, though you'd be wise to leave those to the 'recreational' hunters, the nobility. The earth beneath was rich in iron-ore - an essential raw material for the local blacksmiths, whose furnaces also required charcoal, made in the forests by the charbonniers from the wood of the trees. To misquote Julie Andrews, the hills would have been alive with the sound of humanity...
Sadly, I don't know his name but he and his minder are regular - and welcome - visitors to the village whenever there's a festival or 'animation'. Never mind his name, perhaps I should also check on 'his' sex before making assumptions.
STEPPING OUT: The rural French, it’s fair to say, really don’t understand the concept of the pavement (aka ‘sidewalk’). You do find pavements, of a sort, in supposedly urban areas like Monpazier, but only in lethally fragmented form. Every few metres the pedestrian is confronted by an obstacle – a pot of flowers, a table and chairs - even, here in the Rue Saint Pierre, a pair of stone troughs and a flight of steps up to a garden on a higher level.
Generally the only way round is to step into the road and risk being side-swiped by the speeding white van of Monsieur Robinet, the plumber. The old adage holds true: there are two sorts of pedestrian - the quick and the dead.
* It's probably no accident that the French for 'pavement' is 'trottoir' - literally a place for 'trotting'. So, think horses not humans. It must also be significant that all those old sepia postcards show people walking and standing in the middle of the road. Back then, there would have been no need for a dedicated pedestrian pavement because there were no motor vehicles - while the horses, presumably, kept to the 'trottoir'.
Generally the only way round is to step into the road and risk being side-swiped by the speeding white van of Monsieur Robinet, the plumber. The old adage holds true: there are two sorts of pedestrian - the quick and the dead.
* It's probably no accident that the French for 'pavement' is 'trottoir' - literally a place for 'trotting'. So, think horses not humans. It must also be significant that all those old sepia postcards show people walking and standing in the middle of the road. Back then, there would have been no need for a dedicated pedestrian pavement because there were no motor vehicles - while the horses, presumably, kept to the 'trottoir'.
LA PLACE DES CORNIÈRES – DE PANISSALS’ CUNNING PLAN
The man who laid out Monpazier's distinctive grid pattern was Bertrand de Panissals. Loyal to Edward 1st, he was responsible for other English bastides but Monpazier gave him the chance to work on a superb 'green-field' site: a high plateau measuring 400 by 220 metres overlooking the valley of the River Dropt, with level access from the north but falling away steeply on the other three sides. So, not just constructible but défendable. Monpazier would be de Panissals' masterpiece. It is thanks to his genius, his understanding of the way humans function, interact and move around, that Monpazier is such a perfect 'machine for living'. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the central Place des Cornières.
The man who laid out Monpazier's distinctive grid pattern was Bertrand de Panissals. Loyal to Edward 1st, he was responsible for other English bastides but Monpazier gave him the chance to work on a superb 'green-field' site: a high plateau measuring 400 by 220 metres overlooking the valley of the River Dropt, with level access from the north but falling away steeply on the other three sides. So, not just constructible but défendable. Monpazier would be de Panissals' masterpiece. It is thanks to his genius, his understanding of the way humans function, interact and move around, that Monpazier is such a perfect 'machine for living'. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the central Place des Cornières.
The square was – and still is – the beating heart of Monpazier. For seven centuries, it’s been the designated place for the weekly Thursday market, as well as fairs and other events. Its most obvious feature is its fringe of arcades, running around the perimeter – an early form of shopping mall which, along with the covered halle on the southern side, enables buyers and sellers to go about their business protected from the elements, whether blistering sun or driving rain.
Watercolour of La Place des Cornières: MD
Watercolour of La Place des Cornières: MD
More complicated – and for the planner a far greater challenge - is the way the square connects with the town’s main thoroughfares, north-south and east-west. And never more important than on market days when all roads lead to the square.
The logical layout – to be seen in countless other civic grid-plans around the world – is to make the square the intersection, so that the thoroughfares enter and exit at right-angles at the mid point of each side. Logical maybe but, if the square is full of people and possibly animals too, not very practical. The incoming traffic will be in constant conflict with the stalls, pens and any number of informal human groupings. The result will be an unintended 'quartering' of the area.
But Bertrand de Panissals had a cunning plan, My Lord (with apologies if you've never seen the BBC TV series ‘Blackadder’).
The logical layout – to be seen in countless other civic grid-plans around the world – is to make the square the intersection, so that the thoroughfares enter and exit at right-angles at the mid point of each side. Logical maybe but, if the square is full of people and possibly animals too, not very practical. The incoming traffic will be in constant conflict with the stalls, pens and any number of informal human groupings. The result will be an unintended 'quartering' of the area.
But Bertrand de Panissals had a cunning plan, My Lord (with apologies if you've never seen the BBC TV series ‘Blackadder’).
Instead of the main axes entering the square at the mid point of each side, de Panissals lined them up with the arcaded edges. On non-market days, the traffic – whether human, animal or vehicular (carts and wagons in his time) – is mostly 'through traffic' and, having no need to enter the central area, it maintains its direction of travel, unimpeded, beneath the arches* [orange lines below]. The square itself is effectively bypassed and so likewise unimpeded. But on market days, when much of that traffic does need to enter, access is diagonally, from the corners [the blue line]. It flows into the square like a river, rather than cutting in like a knife. It has access but not priority. In modern terms, it’s the difference between a roundabout and a cross-roads.
There is, incidentally, a 'strategic detail' here that was most likely a later refinement. The photo above shows the entrance from the rue Notre Dame into the north-east corner of the square. Note how the junction between the two buildings forms a high triangular arch. It's a pattern that is repeated in the diagonally opposite corner of the square. The reason? The theory is that this was to enable armed horsemen to enter and exit the square without having to dismount - or lower their lances. Very useful at times of civil unrest if it were necessary to clear the area. For proof that it worked, see photo right...
You have only to wander around the annual Flower Fair in May - or any market day during the tourist season - to see that de Panissals' plan works as well today as it did seven hundred years ago.
* It wasn't until 1987 that motor vehicles were stopped from driving through the arcades - and then only during the summer months. Hard to believe but only in December 1994 was a total year-round ban finally imposed.
* It wasn't until 1987 that motor vehicles were stopped from driving through the arcades - and then only during the summer months. Hard to believe but only in December 1994 was a total year-round ban finally imposed.
Time for 'une petite pause café' ?
Here the medieval warriors in clanking armour (if only in my imagination) would strut their manly stuff, their ornate helms under their arms. Fast forward seven centuries... and today's motorbike warriors unconsciously mirror the past, their 21st century helms neatly lined up while they sip their cafés crèmes.
The covered 'halle' on the southern side of the square - complete with its three different-sized metal bins for measuring grain and, no less important, calculating the taxes.
THE JUPITER JOINT
Back in the 1990s a Dutch friend showed me round his medieval chateau on the slopes of Penne d’Agenais, just over the departmental border in the Lot-et-Garonne. Up in the roof space, he asked: ‘Remind you of anything?’ When I responded, 'Looks like an upside-down boat’, he explained that boat-builders in Bordeaux would move inland to find work when times were tough. For them, building a roof was no more complicated than building a boat – only the other way up… or down. The overall shape aside, the big give-away, he said, was the jointing – the sort used mainly or exclusively by boat-builders. It’s a story I’ve heard several times since – and if you want to see one of the best examples of marine jointing in a roof, you have only to drive twenty minutes north-west of Monpazier...
Back in the 1990s a Dutch friend showed me round his medieval chateau on the slopes of Penne d’Agenais, just over the departmental border in the Lot-et-Garonne. Up in the roof space, he asked: ‘Remind you of anything?’ When I responded, 'Looks like an upside-down boat’, he explained that boat-builders in Bordeaux would move inland to find work when times were tough. For them, building a roof was no more complicated than building a boat – only the other way up… or down. The overall shape aside, the big give-away, he said, was the jointing – the sort used mainly or exclusively by boat-builders. It’s a story I’ve heard several times since – and if you want to see one of the best examples of marine jointing in a roof, you have only to drive twenty minutes north-west of Monpazier...
The hilltop town of Belvès boasts a fine 15th century market halle (see left). In 2016, after a fire destroyed part of one of the roof’s main beams, it was decided to replace the damaged part by grafting a new section on to what remained. As an hommage to the boat-builders of earlier centuries, wood-worker Vincent Papeix used one of the most famous, most complicated and most secure, of all marine joints – known in French as un trait de Jupiter; in English, a Jupiter joint. It's so called because in profile it looks like the lightning bolt which the Roman god hurled at his enemies (see close-up photo below).
The joint, which is tightened by banging in a pair of 'key wedges' from opposing sides, was often used by boat-builders when laying a keel – the backbone of a hull. Eight metres was generally reckoned to be the maximum length you could get out of an oak or chestnut tree. But keels often had to be longer – and, always, as straight as possible. Hence the need for secure jointing.
So impressive was the Belvès repair and so historically important its Jupiter joint that (with the agreement of the commune) a visiting artist, Brad Downey, coated the new wood in gold leaf so the work would stand out when viewed from below. The reaction of the heritage preservation authority, Les Batiments de France, is not known.
So impressive was the Belvès repair and so historically important its Jupiter joint that (with the agreement of the commune) a visiting artist, Brad Downey, coated the new wood in gold leaf so the work would stand out when viewed from below. The reaction of the heritage preservation authority, Les Batiments de France, is not known.
THE CURSE OF CRENELATION
Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879) was the nineteenth century guru of French architecture – a contemporary of John Ruskin in England with a comparable status and influence. And he had a particular attachment to Monpazier. Indeed, Monpazier has reason to be grateful for the interest he showed - and arguably even more grateful that he didn't show more...
Portrait: public domain
Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879) was the nineteenth century guru of French architecture – a contemporary of John Ruskin in England with a comparable status and influence. And he had a particular attachment to Monpazier. Indeed, Monpazier has reason to be grateful for the interest he showed - and arguably even more grateful that he didn't show more...
Portrait: public domain
Like Ruskin, Viollet-le-Duc was an enthusiastic promoter of the architecture of the past, particularly the Gothic period, assiduously cataloguing buildings in words and drawings, and thereby recording their details for posterity. The work for which he is best remembered is his monumental Dictionnaire Raisonné de l'Architecture Française (all ten volumes from the 11th to 16th centuries). Monpazier gets more than a passing mention; it is held up as the perfect exemplar of the medieval bastide and a model of town planning of any age. He was particularly struck by, first, its egalitarian layout, how it had been designed according to the essential needs of its inhabitants and, second, by the ingenious design of the central square (see article above about Bertrand de Panissals). By focusing on Monpazier in this detailed way Viollet-le-Duc drew the attention of others – including, in the next century, Le Corbusier. The fact that the town has been accorded the highest level of protection, un grand site national, can be traced directly back, via Le Corbusier, to Eugène Viollet-le-Duc*.
But this was no library-bound academic; he was a trained architect who believed in applying his passions - by reconstructing buildings and whole towns which had suffered through wear, tear, neglect or conflict. ‘Re-imagining’ might be a better word and the man himself wouldn’t have demurred: 'To restore an edifice', he observed in the Dictionnaire Raisonné, 'is not to maintain it, repair or rebuild it, but to re-establish it in a complete state that may never have existed at a particular moment.'
But this was no library-bound academic; he was a trained architect who believed in applying his passions - by reconstructing buildings and whole towns which had suffered through wear, tear, neglect or conflict. ‘Re-imagining’ might be a better word and the man himself wouldn’t have demurred: 'To restore an edifice', he observed in the Dictionnaire Raisonné, 'is not to maintain it, repair or rebuild it, but to re-establish it in a complete state that may never have existed at a particular moment.'
Restoration has always been a controversial area and through our 21st century eyes Viollet-le-Duc’s interpretation borders on ‘Disneyfication’. It is to Viollet-le-Duc that we owe Carcassonne in the reconstructed form we see today, with its crenelated walls, fairy-tale towers and slate-covered conical caps… these in a part of the country where terracotta tiles were the traditional norm. He also worked on Paris’s Notre Dame, adding a taller, more ornate central spire (yes, the one destroyed in the fire of April 2019. Perhaps the Almighty also had doubts about Viollet-le-Duc's architectural taste.). Meanwhile across the Channel... the very notion of restoration was anathema to his English contemporary. ‘It is impossible', Ruskin declared, 'as impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture.’
But Viollet-le-Duc’s intentions were good; his restorations can be seen as un hommage to give the contemporary visitor a better idea and understanding of the past. And, as his supporters point out, without his intervention many of the structures he restored would never have survived in any form. Problems arise when deciding which particular slice of the past to restore. Whichever period is chosen will likely involve the removal – i.e. destruction – of everything that follows and the covering up – i.e. disappearance - of what has gone before. Yet such was Viollet-le-Duc’s eminence that his restorations were enthusiastically commissioned by the conservation authorities of the day.
But Viollet-le-Duc’s intentions were good; his restorations can be seen as un hommage to give the contemporary visitor a better idea and understanding of the past. And, as his supporters point out, without his intervention many of the structures he restored would never have survived in any form. Problems arise when deciding which particular slice of the past to restore. Whichever period is chosen will likely involve the removal – i.e. destruction – of everything that follows and the covering up – i.e. disappearance - of what has gone before. Yet such was Viollet-le-Duc’s eminence that his restorations were enthusiastically commissioned by the conservation authorities of the day.
Which is why we should be grateful that no-one ever suggested he ‘restore’ Monpazier – or today we might see a running perimeter of crenelated battlements, pointy towers at every corner and, for good measure, a full complement of gates with working draw-bridges.
Far better to have, and to appreciate, his finely crafted ‘impression’ of the town in its medieval prime…
* I am over-simplifying a little here. A decade before Viollet-le-Duc highlighted Monpazier, the Perigordian archaeologist and historian Félix de Verneilh had drawn public attention to the region's remarkable 'New Towns of the Middle Ages' - a fact which Viollet-le-Duc himself acknowledges.
Drawing by Viollet-le-Duc from his Dictionnaire Raisonné de l'Architecture Française, showing how Monpazier's Place des Cornières is entered diagonally from the corners
Far better to have, and to appreciate, his finely crafted ‘impression’ of the town in its medieval prime…
* I am over-simplifying a little here. A decade before Viollet-le-Duc highlighted Monpazier, the Perigordian archaeologist and historian Félix de Verneilh had drawn public attention to the region's remarkable 'New Towns of the Middle Ages' - a fact which Viollet-le-Duc himself acknowledges.
Drawing by Viollet-le-Duc from his Dictionnaire Raisonné de l'Architecture Française, showing how Monpazier's Place des Cornières is entered diagonally from the corners
House martins are one of the delights or menaces (depending on your viewpoint) of Monpazier's central square, forever building their nests beneath its overhanging structures. For the local feline population they are a constant source of both interest and frustration. [Translation note: the French word for the bird is 'martinet', which is normally translated as a 'swift' - but to me they look like house martins. If there's an ornithologist out there, do get in touch...]
Bloody pigeons – those avian vermin that desecrate our public places! We'd be better off without them, right? Well, that’s not how our European ancestors viewed them. For them, pigeons were a highly prized commodity - for their eggs, their flesh and, not least, their nitrogen-rich droppings to fertilize the fields. In France they were so valued that only the nobility were allowed to build and own dovecots. The structures themselves – called pigeonniers or colombiers - were often architectural masterpieces, like the Tour de Rance (see right) in the Lot-et-Garonne. But for the peasants, they became objects of resentment because the birds they attracted would eat their seed corn at planting time.
No wonder then that, come the Revolution, one of the first acts was to abolish this ancient aristocratic privilege. Anyone could now have ‘a living larder’, offering nothing less than the Biblical ‘manna from Heaven’... fresh meat and eggs as/when needed... and totally free. All it required was access to a roof-space, facing south or east, with a ledge for the birds to sit and sun themselves. It could be as basic as a few holes in the stonework beneath the roofline (See left, pigeon loft in Monpazier's Rue Saint Pierre).
17th century technical note: the holes should be no wider than a hand (ten centimetres) - to allow the birds in, but keep predators out...
17th century technical note: the holes should be no wider than a hand (ten centimetres) - to allow the birds in, but keep predators out...
THE ONLY KNOWN EXAMPLE OF A MEDIEVAL AIR-EXTRACTOR
While the Monpaziérois appreciate their heritage, their patrimoine, they also recognise that it has to be balanced against the needs of modern life. Despite being one of around 160 'Plus Beaux Villages de France'*, Monpazier has not become a medieval theme park - but remains a living social and commercial organism.
So, in addition to those enterprises catering primarily for tourists such as hotels, chambres d'hôte, restaurants and souvenir shops, it boasts bakers, butchers, mini-supermarkets, a post-office and a bank... as well as doctors and community nurses - all servicing the needs of the resident population.
While the Monpaziérois appreciate their heritage, their patrimoine, they also recognise that it has to be balanced against the needs of modern life. Despite being one of around 160 'Plus Beaux Villages de France'*, Monpazier has not become a medieval theme park - but remains a living social and commercial organism.
So, in addition to those enterprises catering primarily for tourists such as hotels, chambres d'hôte, restaurants and souvenir shops, it boasts bakers, butchers, mini-supermarkets, a post-office and a bank... as well as doctors and community nurses - all servicing the needs of the resident population.
* I'm being hard on the 'Plus Beaux Villages' organisation - so let me explain... 25 years ago we lived in a gem of a French village in the Lot-et-Garonne that was elevated to its ranks but, because it was so small, the effect was disastrous. Within months, it had been not so much preserved as 'embourgeoisé' - gentrified. The chi-chi art galleries and shops selling 'produits régionaux' moved in and the locals moved out... followed by us. That said, the organisation's intentions are good. Their 'ambition raisonée et passionnée' is to prevent associate members becoming soul-less 'villages-musées' by 'reanimating life around the fountain or in the central square shaded by hundred-year-old lime and plane trees.'
For the record, Monpazier had trees in its central square until the 1950s - when they were cut down. The reason is unclear: some say it was because they got in the way of the market traders; others that it was in response to the demands of film-makers. My money is on the film-makers... "Trees? Nah!... and, whilst we're about it, how many of these old buildings do we really need?"
Archive postcard: Edit. Lachaudru
For the record, Monpazier had trees in its central square until the 1950s - when they were cut down. The reason is unclear: some say it was because they got in the way of the market traders; others that it was in response to the demands of film-makers. My money is on the film-makers... "Trees? Nah!... and, whilst we're about it, how many of these old buildings do we really need?"
Archive postcard: Edit. Lachaudru
SPOT THE DIFFERENCE
The photo on the left - of La Place des Cornières - is part of a 1950s postcard. On the right, I have superimposed the central building as it looks today. Clearly the window has been altered in almost every respect. In fact, it's a totally different window. An example of over-enthusiastic restoration? A touch of 'Disneyfication' perhaps? Well, no... About the same time as the postcard went on sale, debris was discovered in one of the walls of the building - including some carved stone fragments. It was deduced that they were part of a larger, grander window which had originally been the centrepiece of the façade. These elements then formed the basis of the reconstruction we see today. (Source: Docteur R. L'Honneur)
It's just a pity that, having gone to such trouble, they couldn't match the stone below the sill line... unless of course the difference is deliberate, to indicate for future historians that there was another window there previously and, roughly, its position.
But if what we see today really is the original, why would you?
But if what we see today really is the original, why would you?
L'ENTENTE CORDIALE IN A BOTTLE
This is a late 1800s bullet-nosed French soda bottle - bought for 15 euros at a vide grenier (car boot sale) in the neighbouring bastide of Villeréal. Apart from its age, two things made it irresistible.
First, it is stamped: MARMIER & CIE, MONPAZIER.
Second, the bottom reveals it is FABRIQUÉ EN ANGLETERRE.
So, here we have a cordial bottle that makes an entente (an harmonious connection) between my adoptive country and my native land. Geddit?
But it’s the history behind the object that intrigues…
The bottles, made of moulded green glass, are a great example of Victorian ingenuity – and early recycling. Turned out by Hiram Codd of Camberwell, London, they were known as ‘Codd-neck bottles’. The key element was a marble (visible in the photo above) which, under carbonated pressure, formed a seal with a rubber ring in the neck. But, when the pressure was released by pushing the marble down into the bottle, the marble could be trapped by a neat double-indentation in the glass, enabling the liquid to flow out freely. The inventors knew they were on to something and took out a patent – which is why the Monpazier bottle, and countless others throughout Europe, were all ‘Made in England’. (There's a video on YouTube of Codd-neck bottles still being manufactured around 1925. Making the marble seems to have been more complicated than making the bottle. To view, click on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxz_pe77AFM )
In one respect, the bottles were too innovative for their own survival. Children would smash them to get at the marble – which explains why so few of the millions that were made have survived to become collectibles and très recherchés.
In one respect, the bottles were too innovative for their own survival. Children would smash them to get at the marble – which explains why so few of the millions that were made have survived to become collectibles and très recherchés.
As for Marmier & Cie of Monpazier, the stall-holder who sold me the bottle told me the company used to have a soda bottling plant just outside town, on the road south to Cahors... on the left. Finally, there are those who claim the word ‘codswallop’ derives from the bottle – but it’s probably yet another example of folk etymology. In other words, a load of codswallop.
ELIZABETH DAVID'S VICARIOUS VISIT
Initially, this was a mystery on many fronts. It started when an Australian friend sent me a photo, taken on his iPhone, of a couple of pages from his (chef) son’s copy of Elizabeth David’s seminal A Book of Mediterranean Food. This was the work, originally published in 1950, that revolutionised – not too strong a word – British cooking in the immediate post-war years. And it’s still regarded as a culinary ‘bible’ today, over seventy years later. A signed first edition will set you back £2,500.
Photo of Elizabeth David by Hassia, National Portrait Gallery, London
Initially, this was a mystery on many fronts. It started when an Australian friend sent me a photo, taken on his iPhone, of a couple of pages from his (chef) son’s copy of Elizabeth David’s seminal A Book of Mediterranean Food. This was the work, originally published in 1950, that revolutionised – not too strong a word – British cooking in the immediate post-war years. And it’s still regarded as a culinary ‘bible’ today, over seventy years later. A signed first edition will set you back £2,500.
Photo of Elizabeth David by Hassia, National Portrait Gallery, London
What the pages showed was a chapter headed:
HARE AND RABBIT
A FARMHOUSE DINNER
It opens with the words:
Come to Montpazier (sic) any time of the year and you will eat well. The thick stone walls are cool in summer and warm in winter, for the wind can whip cruelly about this upland. Then, the low lights of the wood fires seem good after the brilliant grey-green hill-frosts of early winter.
Both illustrations by John Minton
HARE AND RABBIT
A FARMHOUSE DINNER
It opens with the words:
Come to Montpazier (sic) any time of the year and you will eat well. The thick stone walls are cool in summer and warm in winter, for the wind can whip cruelly about this upland. Then, the low lights of the wood fires seem good after the brilliant grey-green hill-frosts of early winter.
Both illustrations by John Minton
QUESTION 1: What on earth is this doing in a book entitled ‘Mediterranean Food’? Monpazier is 300 kilometres from the Mediterranean and closer to the Atlantic.
QUESTION 2: The chapter describes in detail not just the food but the locale: The food is prepared over a fire in a vast open hearth. The cauldrons, pots and saucepans hang black upon the ratchet… The kitchen is in the hall and you can eat with an eye upon the spits and sizzling pots.
I know of no eatery in Monpazier that would fit this description – with the possible exception of the Hotel de France in its heyday. But the writer gives no clue whether this is a private venue or a restaurant open to the paying public. To further confuse matters, it is described as ‘a farmhouse’.
QUESTION 3: I have never heard, nor come across any report, of Elizabeth David visiting Monpazier. Still less stopping for a meal.
QUESTION 2: The chapter describes in detail not just the food but the locale: The food is prepared over a fire in a vast open hearth. The cauldrons, pots and saucepans hang black upon the ratchet… The kitchen is in the hall and you can eat with an eye upon the spits and sizzling pots.
I know of no eatery in Monpazier that would fit this description – with the possible exception of the Hotel de France in its heyday. But the writer gives no clue whether this is a private venue or a restaurant open to the paying public. To further confuse matters, it is described as ‘a farmhouse’.
QUESTION 3: I have never heard, nor come across any report, of Elizabeth David visiting Monpazier. Still less stopping for a meal.
Only when I downloaded a Kindle edition of ‘A Book of Mediterranean Food’ did I find some answers. So…
ANSWER 1: In her 1950 introduction to the book, David says, I have varied this collection with some classic dishes and recipes from regions of France other than those bordering the Mediterranean. Hmm, OK. So, if I buy a manual on servicing my classic MGB GT, I might expect to find a section devoted to changing the fan-belt on a Triumph TR6...
ANSWER 2: Still no idea… infuriatingly. If anybody ‘out there’ has any information, do get in touch.
ANSWER 3: The first thing I noticed on my Kindle edition when I found the ‘Monpazier section’ was that every paragraph was within inverted commas (in contrast to the print edition). At the end of the section, several pages later, was a very belated acknowledgement: Cross-Channel by Alan Houghton Brodrick. So, not written by Elizabeth David herself but taken from a book published three years earlier. When I read the rest of the book, it became clear that this was part of its format: to drop in such contributions by other writers and travellers. Strange, though, not to make clear the identity of the author where it surely belongs: at the start.
So, did Elizabeth David ever visit Monpazier?
Probably not, but she seems to have known a man who did and who greatly appreciated its Lièvre à la Royale
… wherever he may have eaten it.
ANSWER 1: In her 1950 introduction to the book, David says, I have varied this collection with some classic dishes and recipes from regions of France other than those bordering the Mediterranean. Hmm, OK. So, if I buy a manual on servicing my classic MGB GT, I might expect to find a section devoted to changing the fan-belt on a Triumph TR6...
ANSWER 2: Still no idea… infuriatingly. If anybody ‘out there’ has any information, do get in touch.
ANSWER 3: The first thing I noticed on my Kindle edition when I found the ‘Monpazier section’ was that every paragraph was within inverted commas (in contrast to the print edition). At the end of the section, several pages later, was a very belated acknowledgement: Cross-Channel by Alan Houghton Brodrick. So, not written by Elizabeth David herself but taken from a book published three years earlier. When I read the rest of the book, it became clear that this was part of its format: to drop in such contributions by other writers and travellers. Strange, though, not to make clear the identity of the author where it surely belongs: at the start.
So, did Elizabeth David ever visit Monpazier?
Probably not, but she seems to have known a man who did and who greatly appreciated its Lièvre à la Royale
… wherever he may have eaten it.
This is pure self-indulgence... Old wood, even older stone and late afternoon sunlight are the essence of Monpazier. It's a door into a garden on the rue St Pierre - snapped as the last rays of the setting sun were forcing their way between wood and stone.
WORTHY OF MONTY PYTHON - IF TRUE
Look up any guide to Monpazier – whether on line or in print – and there’s a fair chance you’ll find a reference to a story that is invariably described as being ‘worthy of Monty Python’. It goes like this: During one of the many periods of conflict, the inhabitants of Monpazier decided to raid the neighbouring bastide of Villefranche-du-Périgord, just twenty kilometres to the east. Unknown to them and by sheer coincidence, the inhabitants of Villefranche had decided to raid Monpazier… on the same night. As a result, each found the other’s town undefended, ransacked it and made off with the plunder – only to return home to realise what had happened. Upshot: the two sides agreed to meet and hand back everything they’d taken.
It’s a great story if you’re prepared to suspend quite a chunk of disbelief. First, how come the raiding parties didn’t bump into each, whether going or returning? This is generally explained by their taking different routes. Hmmm. OK, how likely then is it that, during a period of conflict, both sets of inhabitants would have left their towns undefended?
Yet, before we dismiss the story as bunkum, there is an historical source for it – a contemporary chronicler, no less. He was the Duc de Sully, the First Minister to Henri IV, and he tells the above story, almost word for word, in his memoires.
It’s a great story if you’re prepared to suspend quite a chunk of disbelief. First, how come the raiding parties didn’t bump into each, whether going or returning? This is generally explained by their taking different routes. Hmmm. OK, how likely then is it that, during a period of conflict, both sets of inhabitants would have left their towns undefended?
Yet, before we dismiss the story as bunkum, there is an historical source for it – a contemporary chronicler, no less. He was the Duc de Sully, the First Minister to Henri IV, and he tells the above story, almost word for word, in his memoires.
Sully claims the incident – this ‘reciprocal pillaging’ - happened in the late 1570s at the time of the Wars of Religion. He was writing probably in the 1630’s, so about fifty years later. Significantly, though, he tells the story as an aside from his main narrative, with the words, ‘The name of Villefranche reminds me of an unusual event that happened around this time…’ (See right)
In short, it’s an unsourced anecdote - a recollected yarn.
Mémoires du Duc de Sully, Vol 1, version pub. 1776
Credit: John Adams Library (Boston Public Library)
In short, it’s an unsourced anecdote - a recollected yarn.
Mémoires du Duc de Sully, Vol 1, version pub. 1776
Credit: John Adams Library (Boston Public Library)
So, what's the truth? Well, as it happens there is a second source – another contemporary chronicler and this time rather more credible: Jean Tarde, the Vicar General of Sarlat. Tarde’s version, being considerably more detailed, with dates, has the ring of truth about it:
On 20th May, 1577, Protestant forces in the Dordogne laid siege to Villefranche, [a Catholic stronghold at the time]. Meeting with resistance, they called upon the Sieur de la Noue for some back-up in the form of a large cannon. Realising their situation was hopeless, the inhabitants of Villefranche surrendered on 29th May. Despite assurances to the contrary, many were slaughtered or held for ransom and the entire town was pillaged. The Sieur, perhaps embarrassed by the consequences of his help, left the scene and headed home via [Protestant-held] Monpazier – where he came upon the pillagers weighed down by furniture they had looted. Making clear his displeasure, he told them this was no way to treat a neighbour and warned them that, by way of divine retribution, there might come a day when the inhabitants of Villefranche would do the same to them. Which is precisely what happened – more than a month later. In July, Monpazier was itself taken by the forces of the Sieurs of Limoil and Montpeyran. Eight inhabitants were killed, many were held for ransom and the town was pillaged. The Sieur de la Noue’s prophecy was duly fulfilled. An uneasy truce between Catholics and Protestants was finally agreed at Sarlat in October.
On 20th May, 1577, Protestant forces in the Dordogne laid siege to Villefranche, [a Catholic stronghold at the time]. Meeting with resistance, they called upon the Sieur de la Noue for some back-up in the form of a large cannon. Realising their situation was hopeless, the inhabitants of Villefranche surrendered on 29th May. Despite assurances to the contrary, many were slaughtered or held for ransom and the entire town was pillaged. The Sieur, perhaps embarrassed by the consequences of his help, left the scene and headed home via [Protestant-held] Monpazier – where he came upon the pillagers weighed down by furniture they had looted. Making clear his displeasure, he told them this was no way to treat a neighbour and warned them that, by way of divine retribution, there might come a day when the inhabitants of Villefranche would do the same to them. Which is precisely what happened – more than a month later. In July, Monpazier was itself taken by the forces of the Sieurs of Limoil and Montpeyran. Eight inhabitants were killed, many were held for ransom and the town was pillaged. The Sieur de la Noue’s prophecy was duly fulfilled. An uneasy truce between Catholics and Protestants was finally agreed at Sarlat in October.
So, still an interesting tale – no doubt typical of the turbulent times - but not as Pythonesque as claimed. Yes, the neighbouring bastides did attack and pillage each other but, crucially, not on the same night.
End of story? Not quite… Our unreliable racconteur, the Duc de Sully, claims - in the very same volume of his multi-part memories - to have been personally present at the siege of Villefranche. He tells how, after sustaining a number of stab wounds during an attack, he got tangled in his own ensign (i.e. flag) and, falling in the mud, nearly suffocated. He was saved by his valet. When, however, he came to writing the memoires decades later it seems he failed to realise that the siege and the anecdote of the ‘reciprocal pillage’ almost certainly relate to the same events - same town, same timeframe and identical circumstances except for the period between the respective lootings. Perhaps he was simply unaware of what had happened over a month later, perhaps by then he had forgotten... or perhaps a man who takes his valet into battle dictates his memoires and so fails to make the obvious connections that would leap off the page if he had personally written the words. We will never know.
End of story? Not quite… Our unreliable racconteur, the Duc de Sully, claims - in the very same volume of his multi-part memories - to have been personally present at the siege of Villefranche. He tells how, after sustaining a number of stab wounds during an attack, he got tangled in his own ensign (i.e. flag) and, falling in the mud, nearly suffocated. He was saved by his valet. When, however, he came to writing the memoires decades later it seems he failed to realise that the siege and the anecdote of the ‘reciprocal pillage’ almost certainly relate to the same events - same town, same timeframe and identical circumstances except for the period between the respective lootings. Perhaps he was simply unaware of what had happened over a month later, perhaps by then he had forgotten... or perhaps a man who takes his valet into battle dictates his memoires and so fails to make the obvious connections that would leap off the page if he had personally written the words. We will never know.
ROBESPIERRE LEAVES HIS MARK
WHY THE BLADE IS MIGHTIER THAN THE CHISEL
WHY THE BLADE IS MIGHTIER THAN THE CHISEL
The façade of Monpazier’s St Dominque church is a favourite ‘station’ for tour guides. Of particular interest are some words that have been carved – crudely scratched – into the stone:
LE PEUPLE FRANÇAIS RECONNOIT L’EXISTENCE DE L’ÊTRE SUPRÊME ET L’IMMORTALITÉ DE L’ÂME
The English translation is straightforward enough: The French people acknowledge the existence of the Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul. A Catholic statement of the obvious, you might think. Well, up to a point…
What the guides seldom explain is how and why the inscription came about. The crudeness of the carving is a clue, for it’s a tale of turbulent times (and my thanks to fellow journalist and part-time neighbour Andy Simpson for bringing it to my attention).
LE PEUPLE FRANÇAIS RECONNOIT L’EXISTENCE DE L’ÊTRE SUPRÊME ET L’IMMORTALITÉ DE L’ÂME
The English translation is straightforward enough: The French people acknowledge the existence of the Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul. A Catholic statement of the obvious, you might think. Well, up to a point…
What the guides seldom explain is how and why the inscription came about. The crudeness of the carving is a clue, for it’s a tale of turbulent times (and my thanks to fellow journalist and part-time neighbour Andy Simpson for bringing it to my attention).
As the French Revolution started to unravel in 1794, Maximilien Robespierre, its de facto leader, famously responsible for the Reign of Terror, realised it had thrown up a particular problem. By outlawing the Roman Catholic Church and religious worship generally, the Revolution had given licence to debauchery and all manner of immoral behaviour. Without the restraining effect of the Church’s teaching, the citizenry had gone feral. So Robespierre devised – as one would in such a situation – his own religion for the use of the nation. He named it Le Culte de l'Être Suprême (in French ‘culte’ refers to any religion, not just sects). Intended to inspire virtue, it cut to the spiritual chase, declaring: a) there is a Supreme Being [formerly known as 'God'] and b) the human soul is immortal.
Portrait: Carnavalet Museum, Paris; artist unknown
Portrait: Carnavalet Museum, Paris; artist unknown
To inaugurate the new state religion every commune was ordered to hold a commemorative event on 8th June. The citizens of Monpazier went further than most – sending some unfortunate individual (clearly not a trained mason) up a ladder to chisel the two essential tenets on the front of the church. The same inscription, sometimes with slightly different wording, is also to be found on other churches across France.
Sad to report, the Cult of the Supreme Being lasted only as long as Robespierre himself – seven weeks. He was guillotined on 28th July. The inscription has fared rather better and can still be read.
Sad to report, the Cult of the Supreme Being lasted only as long as Robespierre himself – seven weeks. He was guillotined on 28th July. The inscription has fared rather better and can still be read.
CONTINUING THE REVOLUTIONARY THEME...
Commemorative plates marking royal events are nothing new. These days they most often celebrate coronations, weddings and significant anniversaries. But in the early 1790s a royal execution was all the rage – the guillotining of Louis XVI. I picked up this plate at one of Monpazier’s brocantes (20 Euros, since you ask). It was probably made in Nevers, which was famous for its faience patriotique. Different plates show different stages of the execution. This one is ‘before’, depicting Louis - on the right beneath a small cross - as he is about to mount the scaffold. Display of such plates was about more than domestic decoration; rather, it was a way of demonstrating one’s republican fervour… just in case neighbours and visitors suspected any royalist backsliding.
Commemorative plates marking royal events are nothing new. These days they most often celebrate coronations, weddings and significant anniversaries. But in the early 1790s a royal execution was all the rage – the guillotining of Louis XVI. I picked up this plate at one of Monpazier’s brocantes (20 Euros, since you ask). It was probably made in Nevers, which was famous for its faience patriotique. Different plates show different stages of the execution. This one is ‘before’, depicting Louis - on the right beneath a small cross - as he is about to mount the scaffold. Display of such plates was about more than domestic decoration; rather, it was a way of demonstrating one’s republican fervour… just in case neighbours and visitors suspected any royalist backsliding.
THE ‘MONSIEUR VELUX’ OF HIS DAY
Despite what today's DIY enthusiasts may believe, there’s nothing new about opening up roof-space to create extra accommodation. A Frenchman, François Mansart, is generally credited with popularising (though not inventing) the practice during the 1630s. He gave his name - which the English perversely changed to ‘Mansard’ - to a particular sort of hip-roof, punctured by what we Brits would call 'dormer' windows.
The design offered more standing room than the conventional pitched roof and, using just timber and tiles, it could be built on top of an existing building to add an extra floor without the need for brick or masonry. It was the perfect solution for housing – and hiding - the servants…
Despite what today's DIY enthusiasts may believe, there’s nothing new about opening up roof-space to create extra accommodation. A Frenchman, François Mansart, is generally credited with popularising (though not inventing) the practice during the 1630s. He gave his name - which the English perversely changed to ‘Mansard’ - to a particular sort of hip-roof, punctured by what we Brits would call 'dormer' windows.
The design offered more standing room than the conventional pitched roof and, using just timber and tiles, it could be built on top of an existing building to add an extra floor without the need for brick or masonry. It was the perfect solution for housing – and hiding - the servants…
The Mansard window offered not just extra space but ventilation and light. It was the VELUX (VE = ventilation; LUX = light) of its day. But, unlike the modern Velux window, it was an architectural feature in its own right.
Mansard roofs and windows were particularly popular in Paris because of a city law which restricted the height of buildings to 20 metres. Since the measurement was only up to the cornice, the Mansart extensions escaped the calculation. Baron Haussmann, the man who rebuilt Paris in the second half of the nineteenth century, loved them.
Monpazier too has many fine examples of Mansard windows – most dating from the seventeenth century. The convent on the rue Gaimont, built in 1666 (coincidentally the year of Mansart’s death), boasts rows of them - and there’s a very fine pair in the rue Saint Jacques, on the right side if you're walking from the Place des Cornières towards the South Gate. Look up!
Mansard roofs and windows were particularly popular in Paris because of a city law which restricted the height of buildings to 20 metres. Since the measurement was only up to the cornice, the Mansart extensions escaped the calculation. Baron Haussmann, the man who rebuilt Paris in the second half of the nineteenth century, loved them.
Monpazier too has many fine examples of Mansard windows – most dating from the seventeenth century. The convent on the rue Gaimont, built in 1666 (coincidentally the year of Mansart’s death), boasts rows of them - and there’s a very fine pair in the rue Saint Jacques, on the right side if you're walking from the Place des Cornières towards the South Gate. Look up!
You could even buy a Mansard window ‘off the shelf’ – in much the same way as today’s DIY enthusiast can buy a fibreglass Greek portico-pediment ensemble to upgrade the front door of their former council house.
Some years back, my American friend Emily Conyngham (proprietor of Atelier Charmant, also in the rue Saint Jacques, no. 19) had for sale an imposing Mansard frame in weather-proof zinc – possibly 19th Century – which, with minimum fuss, could be slotted into a roof space. (See right). Better still, the opening is a classic oval oeil de boeuf.
My bet is that whoever bought it used it to frame a mirror and hung it on an interior wall as a conversation piece...
Some years back, my American friend Emily Conyngham (proprietor of Atelier Charmant, also in the rue Saint Jacques, no. 19) had for sale an imposing Mansard frame in weather-proof zinc – possibly 19th Century – which, with minimum fuss, could be slotted into a roof space. (See right). Better still, the opening is a classic oval oeil de boeuf.
My bet is that whoever bought it used it to frame a mirror and hung it on an interior wall as a conversation piece...
AN IRREGULAR HOT-SPOT
For a nondescript building, the former Hotel de Londres - currently re-named Bistrot 2 - has quite a story to tell. It was a source of notoriety even before it was built. Its intended location, back in the mid-1800s, was the Foirail Nord, the area just outside the walls in front of the two north gates. But this was a valued public space where fairs (foires) and animal markets were held - and the Commune had plans to enlarge and improve it. The putative builders, worried that their 'outline' planning permission might be revoked, got a team of navvies to surreptitiously dig the foundations during a single dark night - aux dires les anciens (according to the old folk). But, because they couldn’t use lamps to see what they were doing, the west side of the building ended up a couple of metres wider than the east side. The result is not a rectangle but a trapezium.
For a nondescript building, the former Hotel de Londres - currently re-named Bistrot 2 - has quite a story to tell. It was a source of notoriety even before it was built. Its intended location, back in the mid-1800s, was the Foirail Nord, the area just outside the walls in front of the two north gates. But this was a valued public space where fairs (foires) and animal markets were held - and the Commune had plans to enlarge and improve it. The putative builders, worried that their 'outline' planning permission might be revoked, got a team of navvies to surreptitiously dig the foundations during a single dark night - aux dires les anciens (according to the old folk). But, because they couldn’t use lamps to see what they were doing, the west side of the building ended up a couple of metres wider than the east side. The result is not a rectangle but a trapezium.
Despite this irregular start in life, the hotel became a gourmet hot-spot from the 1880s until the outbreak of WW2 in 1939. It was much favoured as a stop-over by wealthy Brits – milords – travelling from the north, through the Perigord, down to the Pyrenees. A photo likely taken a couple of years before WW1 (see left) shows an impressive range of automobiles parked out front.
Other nationalities, including some celebrities, followed...
During the 1930s, the composer Igor Stravinsky and the dancer Josephine Baker both left appreciative notes in the hotel's guest book, the livre d'or.
After enjoying a succulent lunch of woodcock with truffles, Josephine Baker remarked that René Cassagnolle, the proprietor, was now her third love after Paris and her country (the U.S.). Indeed, the lunch may well have influenced her decision a few years later in 1940 to rent the nearby Château des Milandes, which she finally bought in 1947.
More restrained, Igor Stravinsky thanked René for his excellent hospitality and - see right - accompanied his words with a before-and-after sketch.
My thanks to Alain Bouissière, a former owner of the Hotel de Londres, for generously allowing me to plunder his collection of memorabilia, including the photo above and Stravinsky's note, right.
After enjoying a succulent lunch of woodcock with truffles, Josephine Baker remarked that René Cassagnolle, the proprietor, was now her third love after Paris and her country (the U.S.). Indeed, the lunch may well have influenced her decision a few years later in 1940 to rent the nearby Château des Milandes, which she finally bought in 1947.
More restrained, Igor Stravinsky thanked René for his excellent hospitality and - see right - accompanied his words with a before-and-after sketch.
My thanks to Alain Bouissière, a former owner of the Hotel de Londres, for generously allowing me to plunder his collection of memorabilia, including the photo above and Stravinsky's note, right.
Why the name, Hotel de Londres? Nobody knows. It could either be in recognition of the travelling Brits (‘a home away from home’) or a reference to Monpazier’s English founder, Edward 1st. One architectural footnote: The building behind, the Villa Reine – named after René’s daughter and visible in the colour photo above – served as the hotel annex. To make a statement of sorts, it is a few centimetres higher than the Maison du Chapitre, formerly Monpazier's tallest building after the church.
Welcome to the Wild South-West of France... Monpazier has frequently served as a movie location for historical dramas (fact) and here's an equine extra for the latest Sergio Leone 'Baguette Western' (if only). The truth is that he/she is a fully-kitted representative of one of the many horse-riding establishments in the area. A favourite trek is to a place nearby called FONGALOP.
I kid not - check it out on the Internet.
I kid not - check it out on the Internet.
The history of Monpazier and the Dordogne is not all medieval. Recent history – the German occupation during WW2 and the role of the Vichy Regime - has been no less momentous. One thing the visitor to this part of France soon notices is the number of wartime memorials – small tablets on houses, engraved roadside stones and sometimes more elaborate structures fenced by low railings. Typically, they record the deaths of local partisans, whether in combat or executed by the Nazis in reprisal. But there is one memorial just outside Monpazier – on the road to Cadouin – which is particularly noteworthy.
It is dedicated to HENRIETTE LAFON who, the inscription tells us, was killed on 28th June 1944: VICTIME DE LA BARBARIE HITLERIENNE. No mention of how or why. The date, though, is significant – three weeks after the D-Day landing in Normandy and the Allied push to liberate mainland Europe. In the Dordogne, the Germans were in retreat and being harassed by local partisans, the maquisards. It was in this febrile, retributory atmosphere that a German patrol leaving Monpazier encountered a pair of partisans on a motorbike who immediately made a U-turn, abandoned the bike and fled into the woods. By pure chance Henriette Lafon was caught in the middle of this scene, not far from her home and with a young boy she was looking after. Fatally, she decided to make a run for her house and was cut down by a burst of machine-gun fire.
Inscriptions relating to victims of WW2 are revealing in both what they say – and don’t say. It’s a sensitive issue. Sometimes, the perpetrators and/or their actions will be described, without qualification, as allemand (German); other times, more explicitly, as Nazi. The use in this case of the word Hitlerienne is unusually specific – though not unique. One cannot help wondering on what basis, and with what intended implications, such choices are made.
My thanks and due credit to Raymond Kuntzmann who published the facts of Henriette Lafon’s death in June 2017 in 'La Gazette'.
My thanks and due credit to Raymond Kuntzmann who published the facts of Henriette Lafon’s death in June 2017 in 'La Gazette'.
Courtesy of The Court Hall Museum, Winchelsea
Most people who have heard of the bastides know they are concentrated in south-west France – and they know that some were founded by the French, others by the English. What few realise is that there is an English bastide… in England.
Its name is WINCHELSEA and it’s on the south coast, just ten miles east of Hastings. The connection with Monpazier is two-fold…
Its name is WINCHELSEA and it’s on the south coast, just ten miles east of Hastings. The connection with Monpazier is two-fold…
Courtesy of The Court Hall Museum, Winchelsea
First, Winchelsea ( or 'New Winchelsea' as it was originally called) was also founded by Edward Ist – in 1288, just four years after Monpazier. Although there is no proof that Edward and his surveyors had the latter in mind when laying out the former, the two towns share the same classic grid pattern with exceptionally wide streets - and are built on plateaus. Also, Edward made a point of personally visiting them both. So, although not officially ‘twinned’, they can justly be described as 'siblings', albeit nearly 1000 kilometres apart.
The second connection is wine. In the early 1300s, Winchelsea was one of the major English ports for the importation of ‘Gascon red’ from Bordeaux – the equivalent of 4.5 million modern bottles a year at its height.
The second connection is wine. In the early 1300s, Winchelsea was one of the major English ports for the importation of ‘Gascon red’ from Bordeaux – the equivalent of 4.5 million modern bottles a year at its height.
Church of St Thomas the Martyr - minus its nave and transepts
But here’s one of the great paradoxes of history… Just as French vintners were responsible for the commercial success of Winchelsea in its early years, so - after a succession of cross-Channel raids during the Hundred Years War – French troops were responsible for its almost total destruction. The buildings we see today are the survivors, mostly 17th century or later.
Yet the chessboard plan of a typical bastide has survived – as have the three main gates and one half of the cathedral-sized church built on Edward Ist’s orders.
NOTE: I've written about the Monpazier/Winchelsea connection in two articles - one in THE CONNEXION, May 2018 ; the other in the French history magazine, SECRETS DE PAYS, July 2018.
Yet the chessboard plan of a typical bastide has survived – as have the three main gates and one half of the cathedral-sized church built on Edward Ist’s orders.
NOTE: I've written about the Monpazier/Winchelsea connection in two articles - one in THE CONNEXION, May 2018 ; the other in the French history magazine, SECRETS DE PAYS, July 2018.
THE WORST JOB IN TOWN
[Sensitivity alert: scatological material]
If you didn't know, you might think it had once been a water-mill or even, with its connecting twin-pools, a wash-house. In fact this was Monpazier’s tannery – as the nearby Chemin de la Tannerie indicates. Until the 20th century, tanneries were an essential part of any rural economy – vital in supplying the population with the leather for its footwear, jerkins, hats, belts and, not least, saddles and harnesses. Even buckets. The raw material came from the slaughterhouse: the hides of livestock raised for either meat or milk.
[Sensitivity alert: scatological material]
If you didn't know, you might think it had once been a water-mill or even, with its connecting twin-pools, a wash-house. In fact this was Monpazier’s tannery – as the nearby Chemin de la Tannerie indicates. Until the 20th century, tanneries were an essential part of any rural economy – vital in supplying the population with the leather for its footwear, jerkins, hats, belts and, not least, saddles and harnesses. Even buckets. The raw material came from the slaughterhouse: the hides of livestock raised for either meat or milk.
Tanning was a notoriously messy and smelly process – worse even than fish-gutting. You’d have to be pretty desperate to do it. It involved, first, scraping off any putrefying flesh… second, removing the wool or hair by soaking in urine (usually human*) and, thirdly - assuming you’re still with me - the bacterial fermentation of the hides by immersing them in ‘dung water’. The essential ingredients of this were faeces – dog turds being particularly effective.
"Had a good day at work, dear?" "Oh, just the usual shit..."
"Had a good day at work, dear?" "Oh, just the usual shit..."
A visitor to Monpazier in 1778 records the village having ‘two or three tanneries’. Interestingly, the sole surviving one is on the west side of the village, presumably to be close to the River Dropt. The siting is unusual. Because of the prevailing western wind, it was generally the practice in Europe to place any noxious processes to the east of the local human population – i.e. down-wind. This also explains why the wealthy within that population would establish themselves in ‘the west end’ of town (up-wind of the poor); London being a prime example.
* Etymological note: There’s a long history of tanners paying for piss. The Roman emperor Vespasian even put a tax on it – which is why the old Parisian pissoirs were called 'vespasiennes'.
* Etymological note: There’s a long history of tanners paying for piss. The Roman emperor Vespasian even put a tax on it – which is why the old Parisian pissoirs were called 'vespasiennes'.
Meet Monsieur Frank Abel - or, as I prefer to call him, 'le Grand Personnage de Monpazier'.
Frank is arguably the closest the village has to a permanent human fixture, except that he also seems to have the divine power of omnipresence. For a while I was convinced he was an identical triplet. I would see him at different times of day, every time in a different location but always in the same relaxed pose - immaculately turned out in marinière and jeans, a glass in hand, an ashtray at arm's reach... and bathed in sunlight.
I can only assume this is his reward for having led a blameless life.
Frank is arguably the closest the village has to a permanent human fixture, except that he also seems to have the divine power of omnipresence. For a while I was convinced he was an identical triplet. I would see him at different times of day, every time in a different location but always in the same relaxed pose - immaculately turned out in marinière and jeans, a glass in hand, an ashtray at arm's reach... and bathed in sunlight.
I can only assume this is his reward for having led a blameless life.
PULL THE OTHER ONE
Stacked roof tiles. Traditionally, the only thing that holds them in place on the roof is the weight of one on another - though these days you will often see discreet wire clips (or even the occasional 'machined tile' with a locking wedge, like those top right). Legend has it that they used to be made by 'experienced women' who would slap a square sheet of damp clay on their naked thighs to achieve the slightly tapered shape. Sorry to disappoint but it's almost certainly a rural myth - probably put about by the same people who claim the best cigars are rolled on the thighs of Cuban virgins.
Stacked roof tiles. Traditionally, the only thing that holds them in place on the roof is the weight of one on another - though these days you will often see discreet wire clips (or even the occasional 'machined tile' with a locking wedge, like those top right). Legend has it that they used to be made by 'experienced women' who would slap a square sheet of damp clay on their naked thighs to achieve the slightly tapered shape. Sorry to disappoint but it's almost certainly a rural myth - probably put about by the same people who claim the best cigars are rolled on the thighs of Cuban virgins.
THE IMPRINT OF HISTORY
Before being baked in a kiln, terracotta floor tiles had to be laid out in the open to dry - wherever there was a convenient space. This is the result.
Go into any medieval house and if - like this one in the Rue du Trottoir - it still has the original tiles, take a close look... Sometimes it's a bird, other times a cat, a dog... or even the footprint of a small, unattended child.
A moment fixed in time.
Before being baked in a kiln, terracotta floor tiles had to be laid out in the open to dry - wherever there was a convenient space. This is the result.
Go into any medieval house and if - like this one in the Rue du Trottoir - it still has the original tiles, take a close look... Sometimes it's a bird, other times a cat, a dog... or even the footprint of a small, unattended child.
A moment fixed in time.
THE DARK SIDE
It’s all too easy to romanticise a place like Monpazier, to sanitize its history because of its age, charm and architectural beauty. But Monpazier has been no more immune to the horrors of war, plague and lawlessness than any other part of Europe. The picturesque central square where today's tourists quaff their Kirs and Pastis was in previous centuries a place of execution. The best known was that of the leader of a peasants’ revolt, Julien Buffarot - a local weaver who had a following of several thousand before being captured and condemned to 'supplice de la roue'. This involved his being tied to a cart wheel so that his limbs could be systematically broken with an iron bar. The long-delayed coup-de-grâce was a blow to the head. The date: Thursday, 6th August 1637 – deliberately chosen because Thursday has always been Market Day in Monpazier*. A public spectacle to amuse the children... and to send a message to the adults. Or, as the French say, 'pour encourager les autres'.
* When the guillotine was first used in April 1792, the public complained it was all over too quickly.
* When the guillotine was first used in April 1792, the public complained it was all over too quickly.
While on the subject...
This is one of Monpazier's two north gates - the one that leads into the rue Saint Jacques. Note the hook - and inserted close-up. It was the custom in medieval times to hang the bodies of criminals from a town gate - again, as a warning to others.
Allegedly, that was the purpose of this particular hook. I'm always suspicious of 'local legends' but, that said, it's a formidable piece of hardware that would certainly do the job; it's right in the centre of the arch and it's hard to think of any other obvious purpose.
It's unlikely that it was used to cure hams, and not even at the height of the Villages Fleuris competition have I ever seen a flower-basket hanging from it...
This is one of Monpazier's two north gates - the one that leads into the rue Saint Jacques. Note the hook - and inserted close-up. It was the custom in medieval times to hang the bodies of criminals from a town gate - again, as a warning to others.
Allegedly, that was the purpose of this particular hook. I'm always suspicious of 'local legends' but, that said, it's a formidable piece of hardware that would certainly do the job; it's right in the centre of the arch and it's hard to think of any other obvious purpose.
It's unlikely that it was used to cure hams, and not even at the height of the Villages Fleuris competition have I ever seen a flower-basket hanging from it...
Late afternoon, looking south over the Vallée du Dropt, the battle-line between the English and French during the Hundred Years War. Time for a well-deserved glass of chilled rosé after a hard day's sightseeing. Not for long though... they've set up their table and chairs on the pétanque pitch.
'Le Lavoir' - the village wash-house outside the northern walls, just below the war memorial and recently restored. Here the women of Monpazier would beat their washing on the sloping slabs while the water was - and still is - continuously replenished by a natural spring. Doubtless too a chance to gossip and metaphorically wash the dirty linen of others. Piped water into the home arrived in Monpazier in the 1950s, to be followed by domestic washing-machines - but the lavoirs (another was built at the other end of town) were still in use in the early 1970s, though by then mainly for washing sheets.
It's worth noting that in its day the public wash-house would have represented 'progress'. On the left is an undated photo (source unknown; early 1900s?) of a local woman washing in what, from the reeds in the foreground, would seem to be a stream with a block of stone let into the bank.
Perhaps even more surprising is this photo on a visitors' 'interpretative panel' at Eymet. According to the caption, the town's women there used to do their washing in the River Dropt itself right up until the 1950s - as can be seen.
In fact, washing was such an essential part of daily life that it attained the status of a religious ritual. The dirty linen went from Hell (boiled in a copper) to Purgatory (beaten on a slab) and finally to Paradise (rinsed, blanched, dried, and ironed)*. Unlike the Church, though, it seems only women were ordained into its mysteries. No surprise there. To quote an old Haitian saying: 'If work is such a good thing, how come the rich haven't kept it for themselves?'
* SOURCE: francescax8.unblog.fr/category/lavoirs-de-france/page/2/
NOTE: 'Historic' photos of lavoirs are not always what they seem. In recent decades, it has been common to 're-create' the weekly wash as an educative exercise for school-children and those members of the community who have only ever known washing-machines. Photos are taken and, to add authenticity, rendered in sepia or black and white. So far as I can tell, the above period photos are genuine.
In fact, washing was such an essential part of daily life that it attained the status of a religious ritual. The dirty linen went from Hell (boiled in a copper) to Purgatory (beaten on a slab) and finally to Paradise (rinsed, blanched, dried, and ironed)*. Unlike the Church, though, it seems only women were ordained into its mysteries. No surprise there. To quote an old Haitian saying: 'If work is such a good thing, how come the rich haven't kept it for themselves?'
* SOURCE: francescax8.unblog.fr/category/lavoirs-de-france/page/2/
NOTE: 'Historic' photos of lavoirs are not always what they seem. In recent decades, it has been common to 're-create' the weekly wash as an educative exercise for school-children and those members of the community who have only ever known washing-machines. Photos are taken and, to add authenticity, rendered in sepia or black and white. So far as I can tell, the above period photos are genuine.
A GLIMPSE OF GREEN
Part of what makes Monpazier special is the constant awareness of its being surrounded by countryside.
Whether walking down a street or beneath the arcades of the central square, you keep catching sight of the woods and fields just a hundred metres or so beyond.
A reminder that this is and remains 'a country town'.
A GLIMPSE OF GREEN
Part of what makes Monpazier special is the constant awareness of its being surrounded by countryside.
Whether walking down a street or beneath the arcades of the central square, you keep catching sight of the woods and fields just a hundred metres or so beyond.
A reminder that this is and remains 'a country town'.
THE GATE TO PARADISE
The truth is that nobody knows how this small opening in the western wall got its name (In fact it may never have been a gate at all). I've heard four different versions. The most inventive, and seemingly the official version, is that it was originally the main sewage outlet for the bastide - a theory supported by the local topography. After Monpazier's fortification in the early thirteen hundreds, this - it is argued - would have been the only 'entrance' by which peasants in the surrounding countryside could gain access to the bastide and its many privileges. If they could then conceal themselves within the walls for a year and get a local to vouch for the fact, a quaint law - it is claimed - granted them automatic citizenship. So for those who were oppressed, homeless or whom these days we'd call economic migrants, this hole in the wall was the passport to a better life: La Porte du Paradis. Hmmm... I'm sorry to be a kill-joy but would it not have been far easier to wander in on a market day and just not leave? The more boring theory is that the old Occitan word for a water-mill was 'parador' and there were no lack of those on the western side of the village along the River Dropt. So perhaps it was originally 'La Porte du Parador' - the gate leading to the water-mill - which in subsequent centuries became corrupted to 'Paradis'. Take your pick!
The Porte du Paradis again - but this time shot from inside and looking out - over the western slopes.
Well, up to a point... This is what is known as 'ethical manipulation'. Yes, it's the inside of the Porte du Paradis and yes, it's the view over the western slopes - except that the view is actually a hundred metres further up the road, on exactly the same axis and taken at the same time of day. I've used the former as a frame for the latter. Bottom line: never mind the accuracy, feel the aesthetics. Naughty but nice. And don't struggle to repeat the shot - because it'll be wasted effort.
Well, up to a point... This is what is known as 'ethical manipulation'. Yes, it's the inside of the Porte du Paradis and yes, it's the view over the western slopes - except that the view is actually a hundred metres further up the road, on exactly the same axis and taken at the same time of day. I've used the former as a frame for the latter. Bottom line: never mind the accuracy, feel the aesthetics. Naughty but nice. And don't struggle to repeat the shot - because it'll be wasted effort.
For those who make the effort, Monpazier is a place of constant discovery. Although its founders laid it out with mathematical precision, its inhabitants over the centuries have frequently subverted THE MASTER PLAN by introducing their own domestic complexities and irregularities. Walk down any street, turn into a narrow lane - one of the so-called 'carreyrous' - and you're likely to come across an architectural jumble like this... But therein lies the charm of the place.
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The 'carreyrous' - a network of alleyways superimposed on Monpazier's master plan - were the medieval answer to a problem that has bedevilled town-planners since the dawn of civilisation: how to separate pedestrians from 'traffic' (in this case, horses and carts).
You'll find them in other bastides, though usually with a twist on the name. Only two metres wide, they offer not just traffic-free short-cuts but access to workshops. In some cases, they would themselves become open-air work-places, whether for shoeing horses, making furniture... or (in the north-east corner of the village) spinning, weaving and dyeing wool. Later, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they gained a reputation as places of danger where those who ventured after dark were likely to be robbed and beaten. Nowadays, they offer those residents who don't have gardens or courtyards a shady, cool sit-out area in summer - and tourists, an alternative and arguably more 'authentic' trail away from the main streets. Below, le carreyrou du Pontet... |
JOURNEY – What’s in a word?
The English word 'journey' comes from the French 'journée', but the French word for a journey is ‘un voyage’. Une journée in modern French means 'a day', an entire one from sunrise to sunset. Wishing someone ‘Bonne Journée!’ is expressing the hope that their whole day, or at least what remains, will be good.
So, having taken the word from the French, how have we English come to use it not as a measure of time but of distance?
Go back to the Middle Ages, to the era of the bastides. The roads – more often just tracks – were rutted, unpaved, and dangerous. Brigands lurked behind every tree, or so one had to assume. If you had any sense, therefore, you would travel only during the hours of daylight and, if you were anyone of value or had anything of value, with an armed entourage.
For this reason a journey lasted no longer than a day – une journée. The French originally gave the word a connotation of distance as well as time but then, when roads and transport improved, they let it lapse. But the English kept the meaning,
And the bastides? There is an oft-repeated theory – which I can't vouch for but, if you believe in ‘truthiness’, it sounds as if it should be true – that they were deliberately sited no more than a journée apart. For example, the distance between the English bastides of Beaumont-du-Périgord and Monpazier is 16 kilometres. Today in a car you can do it in as many minutes – but if you were walking or riding in convoy with pack animals over an unmade road in the late thirteenth century, you’d allow yourself a good three or four hours. Hardly a full journée but easily accomplished within one – and that, the theory goes, is the point.
For an idea of how perilous even the shortest journey could be, read Robert Merle’s historical romp, THE BRETHREN, about a Protestant family living in a castle near Sarlat during the Wars of Religion. Thoroughly recommended for a taste of both the region and the times.
The English word 'journey' comes from the French 'journée', but the French word for a journey is ‘un voyage’. Une journée in modern French means 'a day', an entire one from sunrise to sunset. Wishing someone ‘Bonne Journée!’ is expressing the hope that their whole day, or at least what remains, will be good.
So, having taken the word from the French, how have we English come to use it not as a measure of time but of distance?
Go back to the Middle Ages, to the era of the bastides. The roads – more often just tracks – were rutted, unpaved, and dangerous. Brigands lurked behind every tree, or so one had to assume. If you had any sense, therefore, you would travel only during the hours of daylight and, if you were anyone of value or had anything of value, with an armed entourage.
For this reason a journey lasted no longer than a day – une journée. The French originally gave the word a connotation of distance as well as time but then, when roads and transport improved, they let it lapse. But the English kept the meaning,
And the bastides? There is an oft-repeated theory – which I can't vouch for but, if you believe in ‘truthiness’, it sounds as if it should be true – that they were deliberately sited no more than a journée apart. For example, the distance between the English bastides of Beaumont-du-Périgord and Monpazier is 16 kilometres. Today in a car you can do it in as many minutes – but if you were walking or riding in convoy with pack animals over an unmade road in the late thirteenth century, you’d allow yourself a good three or four hours. Hardly a full journée but easily accomplished within one – and that, the theory goes, is the point.
For an idea of how perilous even the shortest journey could be, read Robert Merle’s historical romp, THE BRETHREN, about a Protestant family living in a castle near Sarlat during the Wars of Religion. Thoroughly recommended for a taste of both the region and the times.
One thing you don't expect to find in a 700-year old medieval village... but if you check out Monpazier on Google Earth, you will notice a surprising number of suspiciously blue rectangles and ovals within the walls. More than a dozen by my reckoning. Take a walk around the village, though, and the only time you'd ever know is when a garden door is left open...
THE GREAT OAK
Having been born in Hampshire on the cusp of the New Forest, I’m more familiar than most with mighty oaks. I’ve always felt the rather spindly, fast-growing French examples bear scant comparison with the magnificent specimens that provided the timber for ships like the Mary Rose and Nelson’s Victory. But here’s an exception – Le grand chêne de la Bigotie. It stands high up on a grassy bluff, a couple of hundred metres north-west of Monpazier and can be seen from the western walls. Twenty-five metres tall and reckoned to be about 250 years old, it has been officially declared one of France’s ‘arbres remarkables’ and part of the ‘patrimoine collectif’ that must be preserved.
(C) The owner
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Like Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire, it changes not just with every season, but with every passing cloud. What marks it out is less its size than its proportion, balance… and sheer arborial exuberance. It’s a living idealization, an archetype - what in our imaginations we feel a tree should look like.
The view from the other side - overlooking Monpazier - is equally impressive. And very English. So much so that it evidently inspired the artist Thomas Gainsborough...
The view from the other side - overlooking Monpazier - is equally impressive. And very English. So much so that it evidently inspired the artist Thomas Gainsborough...
Like many medieval towns and villages in France, Monpazier has its share of neglected buildings - just waiting for mad, monied foreigners to do them up. But don't assume they are unoccupied.
THE ART OF NECESSITY
There's a PhD thesis to be written on how medieval villages have handled the run-off of rainwater over the centuries.
Our neighbours' guttering - see left - is a serpentine wonder to behold and in all probability inspired the architects of the Beaubourg Centre in Paris. But this sort of arrangement is a relatively modern innovation. Right up until the nineteenth century, most rainwater would have run straight off the projecting roof-tiles into the gaps between the houses in order to flush the streets and alleyways clear of any accumulated ordure, including dead animals. [Etymological note: the English expression 'raining cats and dogs' is thought to be derived from this crude but effective municipal practice.]
But with greater health awareness and proper sewerage systems came gutters, rain-heads and downpipes... along with some metal-bashing ingenuity. The result, as above, was often an unintended work of art: proof that elegance and complexity need not be mutually exclusive.
There's a PhD thesis to be written on how medieval villages have handled the run-off of rainwater over the centuries.
Our neighbours' guttering - see left - is a serpentine wonder to behold and in all probability inspired the architects of the Beaubourg Centre in Paris. But this sort of arrangement is a relatively modern innovation. Right up until the nineteenth century, most rainwater would have run straight off the projecting roof-tiles into the gaps between the houses in order to flush the streets and alleyways clear of any accumulated ordure, including dead animals. [Etymological note: the English expression 'raining cats and dogs' is thought to be derived from this crude but effective municipal practice.]
But with greater health awareness and proper sewerage systems came gutters, rain-heads and downpipes... along with some metal-bashing ingenuity. The result, as above, was often an unintended work of art: proof that elegance and complexity need not be mutually exclusive.
With due acknowledgment of original research by Jacky Tronel, 'Esprit de Pays'
Barthélémy de Laborie du Pourteil (1731-1808) is one of those characters who pop up in history, fight for and achieve extraordinary things that change the lives of those around them … and within decades of their death are forgotten.
Laborie (for short) was a man of the Church – Vicar of Sarlat and Curé of Monpazier, where he spent his working life. But he was as much a doer as a preacher: apart from founding Monpazier’s Charitable Hospital/Hospice in the old convent, he established an innovative employment programme which saved from destitution not just scores of local individuals but whole families.
Laborie (for short) was a man of the Church – Vicar of Sarlat and Curé of Monpazier, where he spent his working life. But he was as much a doer as a preacher: apart from founding Monpazier’s Charitable Hospital/Hospice in the old convent, he established an innovative employment programme which saved from destitution not just scores of local individuals but whole families.
The Monpazier of the late eighteenth century was isolated and on its uppers. A glance at the famous Cassini map of the time would suggest the town was a commercial crossroads, a veritable hub of activity, well served by no fewer than half a dozen roads, to and from all points of the compass. Well, it had roads alright but, being at the southern extreme of the Dordogne Department, they and their maintenance were of scant concern to those up in Périgueux head office. The only other potential form of communication was the River Dropt and that had been made navigable only as far as Eymet, 45 kilometres away. Nor were there, yet, any railways.
Map Credit: Library of Congress,
Geography and Map Division.
Map Credit: Library of Congress,
Geography and Map Division.
A Government inspector who visited Monpazier in 1778 - wisely travelling during daylight hours - describes it as ‘a town without commerce and crawling with paupers… the houses are vilaines (sordid, dirty) and mostly old’. On the up-side, he found the air to be of excellent quality – which explained the large number of old people, there being no epidemics to kill them off.
But, as the inspector discovered during his stay, there was something else worthy of praise: a remarkable ‘filature de coton' – a cotton-spinning workshop - set up by the local Curé, M. Barthélémy de Laborie, and funded by his own money and, through some intensive lobbying, The Royal Purse. Housed in the old convent building, with four supervising nuns, it provided jobs for both young women and young men, using raw cotton brought through Bordeaux from the French Caribbean colonies of Saint-Dominigue and Guadeloupe. Once spun, the cotton was sold into the wholesale market, with the merchants of the Agenais region reportedly taking all they could get.
But, as the inspector discovered during his stay, there was something else worthy of praise: a remarkable ‘filature de coton' – a cotton-spinning workshop - set up by the local Curé, M. Barthélémy de Laborie, and funded by his own money and, through some intensive lobbying, The Royal Purse. Housed in the old convent building, with four supervising nuns, it provided jobs for both young women and young men, using raw cotton brought through Bordeaux from the French Caribbean colonies of Saint-Dominigue and Guadeloupe. Once spun, the cotton was sold into the wholesale market, with the merchants of the Agenais region reportedly taking all they could get.
In 1780 – by which time a sign over the workshop proclaims it to be a FILATURE ROYALE DE COTON – the enterprise is employing no fewer than forty young girls, each with her own spinning wheel. Half of them are orphans who live in the building; the other half live locally with their families but work here during the day. Thanks to the resident nuns, they also receive an education – learning to read, write… and of course the Catechism.
But that’s not all – and this is what makes Laborie’s efforts so exceptional for the time...
But that’s not all – and this is what makes Laborie’s efforts so exceptional for the time...
Their education complete, the older girls are either found jobs ‘in service’ with local families or sent back to their parents, with their spinning wheels and a small amount of money so that they can continue to earn by doing piece-work from home. Some are even helped with their dowries. According to an official report, more than eighty young women have ‘graduated’ through the scheme and are now back in the community, shining examples of virtue and industry. Indeed, without the financial help of their working daughters, many families we are told would have perished during the recent years of economic hardship.
Alongside this operation, there are the young male spinners… Working in another part of the building, they spin both cotton and wool. When old and strong enough, the wool-workers among them are professionally trained in-house while the rest are apprenticed, usually at the Curé’s expense, to local tradesmen to work as weavers, cobblers, hatters, tailors or even masons - and are thereby saved from a life of begging or, worse, crime.
What strikes the modern reader is not just the scale of the operation but the degree of organization, administration and book-keeping it must have entailed. We have no pictures of Laborie but we know he was a formidable 'networker', cultivating connections in the highest places, and - as he would later demonstrate - utterly fearless in the face of authority. Above all, he had an ability to ‘make things happen’. The day-to-day supervision and education of the young spinners was carried out by the good sisters, the nuns, but, for all its essentially philanthropic intent, this was a serious commercial enterprise – and it is clear that Laborie, in addition to his duties as a priest, was a hands-on CEO.
Alongside this operation, there are the young male spinners… Working in another part of the building, they spin both cotton and wool. When old and strong enough, the wool-workers among them are professionally trained in-house while the rest are apprenticed, usually at the Curé’s expense, to local tradesmen to work as weavers, cobblers, hatters, tailors or even masons - and are thereby saved from a life of begging or, worse, crime.
What strikes the modern reader is not just the scale of the operation but the degree of organization, administration and book-keeping it must have entailed. We have no pictures of Laborie but we know he was a formidable 'networker', cultivating connections in the highest places, and - as he would later demonstrate - utterly fearless in the face of authority. Above all, he had an ability to ‘make things happen’. The day-to-day supervision and education of the young spinners was carried out by the good sisters, the nuns, but, for all its essentially philanthropic intent, this was a serious commercial enterprise – and it is clear that Laborie, in addition to his duties as a priest, was a hands-on CEO.
Then came The Revolution…
1789: The French Revolution was not just a revolt against the aristocracy. It also targeted the Clergy and the Catholic Church. Neither Monpazier nor Laborie would be spared its impact…
In 1792, having refused to take the new Constitutional Oath (which denied primary allegiance to God), Laborie was stripped of his directorial role and replaced by three lay administrators. The school and workshop were closed, and shortly after the nuns themselves were expelled. Barthélémy de Laborie’s life’s work was effectively dismantled. After forty years living in Monpazier, he returned to his family home in Saint-Cyprien but, characteristically, he continued to protest – for which he was imprisoned in Périgueux, twice. As a ‘dissident priest’, he was lucky to escape the guillotine. Monpazier’s new administrators, meanwhile, took over part of the convent building as their new Town Hall, the Hotel de Ville (a grander version of a Mairie).
1789: The French Revolution was not just a revolt against the aristocracy. It also targeted the Clergy and the Catholic Church. Neither Monpazier nor Laborie would be spared its impact…
In 1792, having refused to take the new Constitutional Oath (which denied primary allegiance to God), Laborie was stripped of his directorial role and replaced by three lay administrators. The school and workshop were closed, and shortly after the nuns themselves were expelled. Barthélémy de Laborie’s life’s work was effectively dismantled. After forty years living in Monpazier, he returned to his family home in Saint-Cyprien but, characteristically, he continued to protest – for which he was imprisoned in Périgueux, twice. As a ‘dissident priest’, he was lucky to escape the guillotine. Monpazier’s new administrators, meanwhile, took over part of the convent building as their new Town Hall, the Hotel de Ville (a grander version of a Mairie).
In 1801, the revolutionary leaders having guillotined each other and Napoleon now in power as First Consul, ‘Citizen Laborie’, as he now was, asked permission to re-establish the hospice and adjoining workshop. The request was granted and the nuns returned – to find that in the intervening decade the building had fallen into total disrepair. Laborie asked for his old job back – as Curé of Monpazier – but it went to another man and, for good Christian measure, the bishop banned him from Monpazier. By now in his seventies and ‘no longer having the necessary energy to renew the work’, Laborie once more retired to Saint-Cyprien. He died there in 1808. If there is any public memorial in Monpazier to him or his work, I have yet to find it.
Official record
Barthélémy de Laborie's death
24th November 1808, aged 78
Note how Laborie is referred to as the former curé of Monpazier - 'ancien archi-prêtre de Montpazier (sic)'
Source: La Mairie, Saint-Cyprien, Dordogne
Barthélémy de Laborie's death
24th November 1808, aged 78
Note how Laborie is referred to as the former curé of Monpazier - 'ancien archi-prêtre de Montpazier (sic)'
Source: La Mairie, Saint-Cyprien, Dordogne
But Barthélémy de Laborie’s spirit lives on…
Today, Monpazier’s old Couvent des Récollets has been renovated at public expense and houses ‘Les Papillons Blancs’, an association which cares for elderly handicapped people. There are currently about thirty residents and they can often be seen, alone or in groups, with or without carers, strolling around town or enjoying a coffee. Known to every shopkeeper, café-owner and permanent resident, they are a familiar and integrated part of Monpazier society. There is no finer example of ‘care in the community’. If he is looking down, the good Curé would, one feels, heartily approve.
Today, Monpazier’s old Couvent des Récollets has been renovated at public expense and houses ‘Les Papillons Blancs’, an association which cares for elderly handicapped people. There are currently about thirty residents and they can often be seen, alone or in groups, with or without carers, strolling around town or enjoying a coffee. Known to every shopkeeper, café-owner and permanent resident, they are a familiar and integrated part of Monpazier society. There is no finer example of ‘care in the community’. If he is looking down, the good Curé would, one feels, heartily approve.
SOURCES: I have drawn on a number published documents but, as I have made clear above, I am most indebted to Jacky Tronel and the extensive archival research which he undertook for his excellent article on Laborie in the magazine ‘Esprit de Pays’. This can be found, in French, together with the aforementioned sources, at: www.espritdepays.com/dordogne/des-hommes/barthelemy-de-la-borie-du-pourteil My sincere thanks to Jacky for bringing the story of the good Curé to my attention and now, I hope, to that of a wider Anglophone readership. As for the additional sources:
Archives historiques du département de la Gironde, Léon Cosme; Monpazier Archaeological Group, Patrick Benne; Archives, Mairie, Saint-Cyprien.
Archives historiques du département de la Gironde, Léon Cosme; Monpazier Archaeological Group, Patrick Benne; Archives, Mairie, Saint-Cyprien.
THE WORLD'S MOST BEAUTIFUL PARKING LOT
Monpazier regularly plays host to classic car rallies - which manage to fill the main square. This one, below, was organised by the Citroën Traction Avant Owners' Club. (Techie note: Traction Avant is French for 'front-wheet drive').
Monpazier regularly plays host to classic car rallies - which manage to fill the main square. This one, below, was organised by the Citroën Traction Avant Owners' Club. (Techie note: Traction Avant is French for 'front-wheet drive').
TIT FOR TAT
The main square also holds 'brocante' fairs. It's a word that is hard to translate - somewhere between antiques and junk.
'Bric-à-brac' perhaps?
This being France, at least you can be sure the goods will be displayed in the best possible taste.
It takes the French to put a nipple on the breast of a mannequin... la cerise sur le gâteau.
The main square also holds 'brocante' fairs. It's a word that is hard to translate - somewhere between antiques and junk.
'Bric-à-brac' perhaps?
This being France, at least you can be sure the goods will be displayed in the best possible taste.
It takes the French to put a nipple on the breast of a mannequin... la cerise sur le gâteau.
Talking of markets... I’m a sucker for the large-format magazines of the pre-WW2 era - the French equivalents of The Illustrated London News. You typically see them – often in piles - at book fairs and sometimes also brocantes. Packed with articles and adverts, they offer a fascinating glimpse into the daily lives, both the pretentions and preoccupations, of the public of the time. Most striking, though, is the quality of the artwork, whether the adverts or the drawings embedded in the text. Below is an example taken from a special ‘Motor Touring’ edition of L’ILLUSTRATION, 2 October 1937, (bought at Monpazier's Fête du Livre, 2015) about what was evidently a pressing topical preoccupation: the rights of a car driver when confronted by a dog… I’ve done the translation in the form of a Q/A quiz but I've no idea whether the law that applied in 1937 still holds good eighty-plus years later. The only legal advice I can offer is the old Latin tag: cave canem.
Again, though, this is primarily about the artwork...
THE DOG, THE CAR & THE LAW
[Le chien, l'automobile et le droit]
Responsibilities & Rights
[Le chien, l'automobile et le droit]
Responsibilities & Rights
CASE 1: A loose dog causes an accident because, in trying to avoid it, a driver runs into a couple of pedestrians. Who is legally responsible?
CASE 2: A dog is lying in the middle of the road and shows no sign of moving. What should the driver do?
Is he entitled to run it over?
Is he entitled to run it over?
CASE 3: A driver runs into a pack of hunting hounds - not strays but working dogs. What is the situation if he injures one of them?
ANSWERS: CASE 1: The owner of the dog is 100% responsible
CASE 2: The driver does not have the right to kill or injure the dog, even if it's wild. Nor does he have
any legal protection if, in trying to avoid it, he swerves and causes an accident. Rather, he
should slow down enough not to cause an accident.
CASE 3: The driver should compensate the owner of the dog(s)
CASE 2: The driver does not have the right to kill or injure the dog, even if it's wild. Nor does he have
any legal protection if, in trying to avoid it, he swerves and causes an accident. Rather, he
should slow down enough not to cause an accident.
CASE 3: The driver should compensate the owner of the dog(s)
UP, UP AND AWAY
La Maison du Chapitre is, after the church, reckoned to be the oldest and tallest building within the walls of Monpazier – and with a colourful history to boot.
Dating in its present form from about 1350, it’s testament to how some people will always regard themselves as more equal than others.
One of the founding egalitarian tenets of Monpazier was that every citizen should have the same sized building plot - no more, no less. Inevitably, a wealthy merchant managed to merge two plots and then built upwards so that, literally and metaphorically, he could look down upon his fellow Monpaziérois. As a result, the Maison du Chapitre rose over the years to its present height – all four storeys. (Building up rather than out was a favourite medieval way of affirming one's status – as anyone who has been to San Giminiano in Tuscany can vouch).
At the end of the 15th century the building was taken over by the local clergy and became ‘une grange aux dîmes’ – in English, a tythe barn. Parishioners were required to pay a proportion of their earnings – a ‘dime’ or one-tenth – to the Catholic Church for the upkeep of the clergy and to finance their charitable work. Payment could be in either cash or kind – typically a proportion of one’s harvest. But bushels of corn or barley needed room to store them. In the absence of a conventional barn, the Maison du Chapitre served as a handy alternative. Today, the glazed ground floor is home to one of Monpazier’s three bakeries and, as a Salon de Thé, a popular rendezvous for tea, coffee and pastries.
La Maison du Chapitre is, after the church, reckoned to be the oldest and tallest building within the walls of Monpazier – and with a colourful history to boot.
Dating in its present form from about 1350, it’s testament to how some people will always regard themselves as more equal than others.
One of the founding egalitarian tenets of Monpazier was that every citizen should have the same sized building plot - no more, no less. Inevitably, a wealthy merchant managed to merge two plots and then built upwards so that, literally and metaphorically, he could look down upon his fellow Monpaziérois. As a result, the Maison du Chapitre rose over the years to its present height – all four storeys. (Building up rather than out was a favourite medieval way of affirming one's status – as anyone who has been to San Giminiano in Tuscany can vouch).
At the end of the 15th century the building was taken over by the local clergy and became ‘une grange aux dîmes’ – in English, a tythe barn. Parishioners were required to pay a proportion of their earnings – a ‘dime’ or one-tenth – to the Catholic Church for the upkeep of the clergy and to finance their charitable work. Payment could be in either cash or kind – typically a proportion of one’s harvest. But bushels of corn or barley needed room to store them. In the absence of a conventional barn, the Maison du Chapitre served as a handy alternative. Today, the glazed ground floor is home to one of Monpazier’s three bakeries and, as a Salon de Thé, a popular rendezvous for tea, coffee and pastries.
A LETHAL BALCONY
Take a closer look at the front of the Maison du Chapitre … particularly the charming little balcony on the second floor. In summer it’s decked with geraniums (hence the authentic plastic pots) and not hard to imagine a comely Juliet leaning over.
Take a closer look at the front of the Maison du Chapitre … particularly the charming little balcony on the second floor. In summer it’s decked with geraniums (hence the authentic plastic pots) and not hard to imagine a comely Juliet leaning over.
Think again. The balcony is reckoned to be a later adaptation of what originally was a medieval killing machine – known as une bretèche. And if Juliet were leaning over, it wouldn't be to flash her décolletage at passing beaux.
Typically, a bretèche was a pair of corbels projecting from a wall with an opening in between from which the occupants/defenders could drop rocks or pour boiling oil on to those below trying to get in. As is the case with the Maison du Chapitre, it was usually placed directly above the building's main entrance.
In short, a warm welcome guaranteed.
Typically, a bretèche was a pair of corbels projecting from a wall with an opening in between from which the occupants/defenders could drop rocks or pour boiling oil on to those below trying to get in. As is the case with the Maison du Chapitre, it was usually placed directly above the building's main entrance.
In short, a warm welcome guaranteed.
On the right is an illustration by Léo Drouyn of the Maison du Chapitre as it was in 1847 - before the bretèche (circled in red) was converted into a balcony. When in use centuries earlier the projecting corbels might have had a horizontal platform between them with a hole in it or they might even have supported a small wooden 'shed' to protect the defenders from incoming arrows. And it could well have seen action. Monpazier may have been founded by the English Crown but during the course of the Hundred Years War, it changed hands with the French at least half a dozen times.
SOURCE: Elisée Cérou (Groupe Archéologique de Monpazier)
NOTE: My journalist's conscience is pricking me... I should add that some architectural historians have speculated that the corbels could have been inserted at a later date as a gantry for lifting sacks. A bretèche, incidentally , is not to be confused with those medieval latrines which hang off the external walls of upper storeys - superficially similar, except that they were built on to the side walls and never above an entrance... for obvious reasons.
SOURCE: Elisée Cérou (Groupe Archéologique de Monpazier)
NOTE: My journalist's conscience is pricking me... I should add that some architectural historians have speculated that the corbels could have been inserted at a later date as a gantry for lifting sacks. A bretèche, incidentally , is not to be confused with those medieval latrines which hang off the external walls of upper storeys - superficially similar, except that they were built on to the side walls and never above an entrance... for obvious reasons.
The patisserie of La Maison du Chapitre. In the lead-up to Christmas it produces the best mince pies in the world. As the ticket says, 'pour célébrer Noël à l'anglaise' - and greatly appreciated by Monpazier's anglo-saxon community. Now, if we could just get English bakers to make croissants even half as good...
Monpazier is a favourite venue for companies specialising in package painting holidays. Groups of artists from across the world, both amateur and professional, are to be found perched on the southern and western slopes of the village, working 'en plein air'. This pastel is by professional artist David Wolfram from southern California (attending one of the Domaine du Haut Baran artists workshops: www.hautbaron.com ). For more of David’s work, see: www.davidwolframart.com
POSTSCRIPT: I got an email from David on his return to California to say that he was having to finish his Monpazier pictures back in the studio because, quote, 'the palette that I had in my plein air pastel setup, which works great for Californian coastal scenes, was lacking a lot of colors that I needed for France.' See the finished version left.
David is not the first artist to encounter such a problem. When English and German artists emigrated to Australia in the early 1800s, they couldn't understand why it was so hard to represent accurately on paper and canvas the local landscapes - particularly the greens and earth colours. Only when they swapped their European palettes for Australian ones did they start to succeed.
David is not the first artist to encounter such a problem. When English and German artists emigrated to Australia in the early 1800s, they couldn't understand why it was so hard to represent accurately on paper and canvas the local landscapes - particularly the greens and earth colours. Only when they swapped their European palettes for Australian ones did they start to succeed.
LIBERTÉ, ÉGALITÉ... POULÉ
The relative freedom of the local poultry population is not a bad measure of a village, of its community spirit and general quality of life. On the southern slopes of Monpazier, you will find chickens roaming free, up to their bellies in long grass and wild flowers. No cage, no pen, no wire. This suggests two things: first, that the chickens feel so at home they have no inclination to wander and, second, that their owner has no fear of anyone stealing them for the pot. (It is of course possible that the day I took the photo was the day they had escaped. Hmm. I'll take another look and report back.)
UPDATE: 3 days later... Still there, still roamin' free...
The relative freedom of the local poultry population is not a bad measure of a village, of its community spirit and general quality of life. On the southern slopes of Monpazier, you will find chickens roaming free, up to their bellies in long grass and wild flowers. No cage, no pen, no wire. This suggests two things: first, that the chickens feel so at home they have no inclination to wander and, second, that their owner has no fear of anyone stealing them for the pot. (It is of course possible that the day I took the photo was the day they had escaped. Hmm. I'll take another look and report back.)
UPDATE: 3 days later... Still there, still roamin' free...
PHOTO FORENSICS
Old photos and postcards are our windows into the past – and often a healthy corrective for our fanciful modern preconceptions. But they can require a bit of deconstruction.
Here’s a good example – a postcard showing the north gate of Monpazier that leads into the Rue Notre Dame.
As for the date, I’m guessing very early 1900s, pre-WW1, but it might even be late 1800s. Take a closer look…
Old photos and postcards are our windows into the past – and often a healthy corrective for our fanciful modern preconceptions. But they can require a bit of deconstruction.
Here’s a good example – a postcard showing the north gate of Monpazier that leads into the Rue Notre Dame.
As for the date, I’m guessing very early 1900s, pre-WW1, but it might even be late 1800s. Take a closer look…
The most striking items are the advertisements plastered on to the gate itself – something inconceivable today. They seem to be on paper, board or tin rather than painted on to the stone (as was sometimes the practice). You can see on the right where, in the manner of modern political campaigns, they’ve been stuck over each other. What they are advertising is revealing. If the Roman mob could be bought off with bread and circuses, it would seem the Monpaziérois were no less susceptible to booze and chocolate – Amer Picon and Chocolat Poulain.
As for the large horizontal strip reading RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE, it's either been painted directly on to the stonework or - judging by the suggestion of a raised hem along the lower edge - it could be an actual cloth banner. Certainly there's no 'ghost' or trace of any paint today. If it's a real banner, that raises the likelihood that it was strung up to celebrate a public event such as Bastille Day, le quatorze juillet. So perhaps this was intended as a commemorative photo of sorts.
Then there’s the human participants in this frozen drama – the carefully posed group of three women and two children to the right of the gate and, to the left, the single man with his cap and startlingly clean white shirt.
As for the large horizontal strip reading RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE, it's either been painted directly on to the stonework or - judging by the suggestion of a raised hem along the lower edge - it could be an actual cloth banner. Certainly there's no 'ghost' or trace of any paint today. If it's a real banner, that raises the likelihood that it was strung up to celebrate a public event such as Bastille Day, le quatorze juillet. So perhaps this was intended as a commemorative photo of sorts.
Then there’s the human participants in this frozen drama – the carefully posed group of three women and two children to the right of the gate and, to the left, the single man with his cap and startlingly clean white shirt.
Framed within the arch, there’s a couple looking straight to camera, he with his rather sporty bicycle. Why, except to show it off, would you take a bike with you when walking out with your lady friend? I've heard a sports-car referred to as un attrape-filles - a girl-catcher. Maybe in those days a bicycle had the same effect.
On the other side of the street it’s possible to make out a female figure sweeping the gutter with a broom.
But the most bizarre element is the man with the horse. Unless it’s a trick of the camera-angle, the nag has its foot in a bucket. A nasty case of ‘trench-hoof’ perhaps? Alternatively, if the bucket is behind the foot, it might demonstrate an admirable degree of environmental awareness; the equine equivalent of today's 'doggy poo bag'.
On the other side of the street it’s possible to make out a female figure sweeping the gutter with a broom.
But the most bizarre element is the man with the horse. Unless it’s a trick of the camera-angle, the nag has its foot in a bucket. A nasty case of ‘trench-hoof’ perhaps? Alternatively, if the bucket is behind the foot, it might demonstrate an admirable degree of environmental awareness; the equine equivalent of today's 'doggy poo bag'.
The essence of Monpazier is its ambiance... It's enough just to be there and absorb the tranquility. If you could bottle it, you'd be a multi-millionaire.
HOW OLD IS OLD?
Not as easy a question to answer as you may think – particularly when it comes to houses. Our first house in Monpazier - a modest three-storey shoebox (see right) - was designated as one of the oldest within the walls; so getting on for 700 years. It might be more accurate, though, to say that there had been a house on this site for 700 years. The only part that could be said with reasonable certainty to have always been there was la cave, the cellar. Possibly also the walls which in places were nearly a metre thick. When the house was renovated in 2006, the conservation authorities insisted that a house of such age would have had only a single opening on the ground floor facing the street. So, as a condition of the renovation, the developer was given the choice of blocking up either a perfectly good window (dating from the seventeen or eighteen hundreds)… or the door. No surprise that he opted for the window. Fortunately for us, the front door was semi-glazed (circa 1950), so enough light still found its way in to mitigate the authentic medieval gloom.
As for the rest of the house… The twisting central wooden staircase is between two and three hundred years old – dating from a time when the building of which our house forms the central part was an overnighting ‘hostelry’. Rumour has it that is was actually a venue for activities of a more vigorous, though still horizontal, kind. Looking at the well-worn treads, you do wonder with what anticipatory delight the guests must have ascended this particular stairway to heaven.
Not as easy a question to answer as you may think – particularly when it comes to houses. Our first house in Monpazier - a modest three-storey shoebox (see right) - was designated as one of the oldest within the walls; so getting on for 700 years. It might be more accurate, though, to say that there had been a house on this site for 700 years. The only part that could be said with reasonable certainty to have always been there was la cave, the cellar. Possibly also the walls which in places were nearly a metre thick. When the house was renovated in 2006, the conservation authorities insisted that a house of such age would have had only a single opening on the ground floor facing the street. So, as a condition of the renovation, the developer was given the choice of blocking up either a perfectly good window (dating from the seventeen or eighteen hundreds)… or the door. No surprise that he opted for the window. Fortunately for us, the front door was semi-glazed (circa 1950), so enough light still found its way in to mitigate the authentic medieval gloom.
As for the rest of the house… The twisting central wooden staircase is between two and three hundred years old – dating from a time when the building of which our house forms the central part was an overnighting ‘hostelry’. Rumour has it that is was actually a venue for activities of a more vigorous, though still horizontal, kind. Looking at the well-worn treads, you do wonder with what anticipatory delight the guests must have ascended this particular stairway to heaven.
Everything else is up for conjectural grab. They may not have used the word but our European ancestors were enthusiastic recyclers and every generation would alter and adapt its domestic interior to suit its needs while using the building material - the wood and stone - most readily to hand. Because there was no concept of ‘conservation’, still less of ‘heritage’, any re-configuration was permissible.
The courtyard at the back of the house is a more recent example of ‘architectural improvisation’. Originally, it was a storeroom. There also seems at some point to have been another room above it. Then during the 2006 renovation one, possibly two, floors disappeared and it was opened to the sky to become an enclosed courtyard where, according to all available maps, there had never been a courtyard before. (In fact, most of the Monpazier's gardens and courtyards glimpsed on Google Earth are the result of buildings which in recent centuries have collapsed or been deliberately dismantled. In medieval terms, they are anachronisms. The 'Men of the Middle Ages' were not greatly given to visiting their local Jardiland in search of parasols and hanging baskets.)
In sum, the house may be 700 years old or thereabouts – but only in so far as the repurposed elements of which it is composed are likely to be mostly of that age.
In sum, the house may be 700 years old or thereabouts – but only in so far as the repurposed elements of which it is composed are likely to be mostly of that age.
Cat on a hot tiled roof. Sometimes the simplest image can be the most striking. Anyone remember that Théophile Steinlen poster for 'La Tournée du Chat Noir'?
UN PETIT LOPIN DE TERRE…
Having decided to make Monpazier our permanent home in early 2016, we had to look for a bigger house, if only to accommodate the container-load of ‘stuff’ arriving from Australia. We were lucky to find one still within the village and were taken aback when, late in the day, the agent said, ‘Oh, did I mention that it comes with a 330-square-metre parcel of land on the west side – just below the walls? It’s a couple of hundred metres from the house though…’
In fact it’s a throw-back to the old medieval practice (already mentioned) of giving new citizens two plots – one within the village to build a house; the other outside to grow fruit and vegetables. Several centuries later, the two plots are still conjoined; every time the building plot has changed hands, the garden plot has gone with it.
Below is a watercolour of the vertiginous steps leading down to the garden – painted by my Australian artist friend Del Patterson. As a frequently frustrated amateur, I envy Del’s ability to create not just a recognisable ‘representation’ of a place but the atmosphere that goes with it. Part of her secret is that, to absorb and convey that atmosphere, she insists on painting ‘en plein air’. (If you wish to know more about Del’s work, perhaps with a view to buying or commissioning, email me via the contact page on this site)
Having decided to make Monpazier our permanent home in early 2016, we had to look for a bigger house, if only to accommodate the container-load of ‘stuff’ arriving from Australia. We were lucky to find one still within the village and were taken aback when, late in the day, the agent said, ‘Oh, did I mention that it comes with a 330-square-metre parcel of land on the west side – just below the walls? It’s a couple of hundred metres from the house though…’
In fact it’s a throw-back to the old medieval practice (already mentioned) of giving new citizens two plots – one within the village to build a house; the other outside to grow fruit and vegetables. Several centuries later, the two plots are still conjoined; every time the building plot has changed hands, the garden plot has gone with it.
Below is a watercolour of the vertiginous steps leading down to the garden – painted by my Australian artist friend Del Patterson. As a frequently frustrated amateur, I envy Del’s ability to create not just a recognisable ‘representation’ of a place but the atmosphere that goes with it. Part of her secret is that, to absorb and convey that atmosphere, she insists on painting ‘en plein air’. (If you wish to know more about Del’s work, perhaps with a view to buying or commissioning, email me via the contact page on this site)
A SECOND STONE AGE
Stone has for centuries been a favoured building material but only a few medieval buildings - churches, castles, palaces and the occasional merchant’s or magistrate’s house - would have been left with the stone on show, les pierres apparentes. Dressed blocks worthy of such exposure were the preserve of the wealthy and powerful.
Yet the poor too used stone. The difference was that the walls of their houses were typically constructed of rough-hewn lumps of the stuff which, if the owner could afford it, were then rendered with mortar (crépi) to keep the elements out. See photo left.
Stone has for centuries been a favoured building material but only a few medieval buildings - churches, castles, palaces and the occasional merchant’s or magistrate’s house - would have been left with the stone on show, les pierres apparentes. Dressed blocks worthy of such exposure were the preserve of the wealthy and powerful.
Yet the poor too used stone. The difference was that the walls of their houses were typically constructed of rough-hewn lumps of the stuff which, if the owner could afford it, were then rendered with mortar (crépi) to keep the elements out. See photo left.
But then came the later owners… Starting in the 1960s, foreigners in search of holiday homes flooded into south-west France – notably the Brits who famously would turn the Dordogne into ‘Dordogneshire’. They didn’t just want old buildings, they wanted them to look old – and so hacked off the render. Sometimes they were lucky and the stone beneath had been well stacked. More often they found only rubble, which had to be extensively pointed (or beurré, meaning 'buttered') to stop it falling apart. The result, in its worst form, is a builder’s version of that English culinary delicacy, Spotted Dick : a curtain of limestone mortar dotted with chunks of stone - and a source of irritation for many architectural historians.
It’s a classic paradox: whereas in medieval times the ability to crépi your house was a demonstration of your relative wealth... today’s well-heeled second-home owners can’t wait to rip it off in the mistaken belief that they are making their new acquisition ‘more authentic’. If there are fewer examples of Spotted Dick in Monpazier, it is because the heritage authorities have been especially tough and insisted that renovators must preserve and, if necessary, repair the original crépi.
It’s a classic paradox: whereas in medieval times the ability to crépi your house was a demonstration of your relative wealth... today’s well-heeled second-home owners can’t wait to rip it off in the mistaken belief that they are making their new acquisition ‘more authentic’. If there are fewer examples of Spotted Dick in Monpazier, it is because the heritage authorities have been especially tough and insisted that renovators must preserve and, if necessary, repair the original crépi.
Its 'vernacular' gates are one of the glories of Monpazier. They tend to be less cared-for than the bastide's more impressive entrance gates and, as a result, develop cracks, chips, moss and lichen with the years - in short, a pleasing 'patina'. This one on the western side of the village is the entrance to a small triangular orchard.
Another gate... opposite the one above. It opens on to a flight of stone steps that leads down to the area where the peasants of the past used to tend their 'potagers' (vegetable patches).
Another bloody moggy... with apologies. I do try to avoid 'cute' but the cats of Monpazier have a way of posing for photos that makes them irresistible. 'Lilie' lives in the rue Saint Pierre. It's a bit chilly outside, and she has evidently decided to adopt a mouse-monitoring role rather than being 'out there' on active duty. Or it might just be that Tuesday is whisker-maintenance day.
The French word 'commérage' typically refers to a group of women gossiping in a huddle... Here on the eastern flank of the village we have a 'cow-mérage'. It's not a bad life being a 'Blonde d'Aquitaine' (the regional breed). When you get bored with the bovine tittle-tattle, you can admire the view.
Qui va là? Keeping a look-out is a job for professionals, requiring a sharp eye and a pointy nose...
REMARKABLE TALES OF CITRUS SURVIVAL
I've never known a region of France that doesn’t claim to benefit from a benign micro-climat. The Dordogne is no exception – and, to be candid, I always suspected it was the work of the regional tourism board. Winters can be harsh here with frost, ice and even occasional flurries of snow.
And yet… In June 2015, in a moment of madness, we thought a lemon tree would look good in a corner of our diminutive courtyard. Only when we returned home with our perfectly formed citronnier did we realise that we’d subconsciously been thinking we were still in South Australia, not South West France. Its chances of surviving the winter months had to be about the same as the temperature – less than zero. Not being blessed with an orangery, we came up with a poor second best and asked a friend to enclose it in an anti-frost ‘housse de protection’ when the weather started to turn. Even so, we were pretty pessimistic. We left Monpazier in August with a guilty backward glance, telling ourselves it would just have to ‘tree-up’ and take its chance.
I've never known a region of France that doesn’t claim to benefit from a benign micro-climat. The Dordogne is no exception – and, to be candid, I always suspected it was the work of the regional tourism board. Winters can be harsh here with frost, ice and even occasional flurries of snow.
And yet… In June 2015, in a moment of madness, we thought a lemon tree would look good in a corner of our diminutive courtyard. Only when we returned home with our perfectly formed citronnier did we realise that we’d subconsciously been thinking we were still in South Australia, not South West France. Its chances of surviving the winter months had to be about the same as the temperature – less than zero. Not being blessed with an orangery, we came up with a poor second best and asked a friend to enclose it in an anti-frost ‘housse de protection’ when the weather started to turn. Even so, we were pretty pessimistic. We left Monpazier in August with a guilty backward glance, telling ourselves it would just have to ‘tree-up’ and take its chance.
Five months later, mid-January – and we were back. There in the corner of the courtyard was what looked like one of Rodin’s early attempts at depicting Balzac. Gingerly unzipping the protective cocoon, we discovered that not only had our little citronnier survived… it had even fruited! Abundantly. So, apologies to the local tourism board; perhaps the Dordogne has a micro-climat after all.
Joke: What do you get if you run a French car at full speed into a wall?
Answer: A Citroën pressé
(Note to self: stick to the serious stuff or start a separate Kids Corner)
Joke: What do you get if you run a French car at full speed into a wall?
Answer: A Citroën pressé
(Note to self: stick to the serious stuff or start a separate Kids Corner)
As mentioned already [see LAWRENCE OF MONPAZIER?], the 19-year old T.E. Lawrence – the future ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ - stayed overnight in Monpazier in August 1908 while on a solo cycling tour through France.
In a letter home to his mother back in Oxford, he tells how he took a nocturnal stroll around the southern and western flanks of the village, following Le Chemin du Tour de Ville. The cicadas were evidently in fine form, as was Lawrence’s lyrical prose: “It was glorious, with hundreds of them singing in the trees in perfect time with a chorus of frogs in the meadows, and with a full moon lighting up the country like day for miles around, so that I could see the lights gleaming in the windows of Le Château de Biron, 15 kilometres away [actually half that – Ed]. It was the reflection of the moonlight, for the chateau is uninhabited” *.
Anyone who, like me, tries to recreate Lawrence’s experience is doomed to disappointment. No matter how many times I followed his route along Le Chemin du Tour de Ville, even scanning the horizon with binoculars, the Chateau de Biron always eluded me… To get a decent view, you have to seek higher ground – to the north or west (see photo above, taken from a kilometre west of Monpazier).
So, was this an example of ‘artistic licence’ on young Lawrence’s part? Was he perhaps conflating two locations for dramatic effect? Possibly. The Lawrence Legend abounds with alleged instances of embroidery and exaggeration.
That was certainly my suspicion...
In a letter home to his mother back in Oxford, he tells how he took a nocturnal stroll around the southern and western flanks of the village, following Le Chemin du Tour de Ville. The cicadas were evidently in fine form, as was Lawrence’s lyrical prose: “It was glorious, with hundreds of them singing in the trees in perfect time with a chorus of frogs in the meadows, and with a full moon lighting up the country like day for miles around, so that I could see the lights gleaming in the windows of Le Château de Biron, 15 kilometres away [actually half that – Ed]. It was the reflection of the moonlight, for the chateau is uninhabited” *.
Anyone who, like me, tries to recreate Lawrence’s experience is doomed to disappointment. No matter how many times I followed his route along Le Chemin du Tour de Ville, even scanning the horizon with binoculars, the Chateau de Biron always eluded me… To get a decent view, you have to seek higher ground – to the north or west (see photo above, taken from a kilometre west of Monpazier).
So, was this an example of ‘artistic licence’ on young Lawrence’s part? Was he perhaps conflating two locations for dramatic effect? Possibly. The Lawrence Legend abounds with alleged instances of embroidery and exaggeration.
That was certainly my suspicion...
|
…until a local Monpazierois, Jean Gogeon (sadly no longer with us), took me to a precise spot mid-way along the western stretch and told me to direct my gaze between the side of a building and an electricity pole. Just visible, six kilometres away, were a pair of chimneys and part of a roof… belonging to the chateau. See photo left.
The explanation? Well, if Lawrence wasn’t lying, it can be only one of two: either over the course of more than a century the trees in between have grown up to obscure the original view... or the chateau has sunk. * The Home Letters of T.E. Lawrence and His Brothers, published by Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1954 |
The Church of Our Lady of the Nativity at Aigueparse - ten kilometres east of Monpazier. Built in the twelfth century right on the border between Périgord and Agenais, it was geographically at the epicentre of both the Hundred Years War and the Wars of Religion. The only reason it has survived is that it was built more like a fortress than a church (and has never subsequently been modified or updated). Note how the windows are no bigger than arrow-slits - and at some point might well have been used as such.
What, you may ask, could possibly be the connection between a small watercolour of an English river scene and a French bastide eleven hundred kilometres away? Well, think Elgin Marbles and British Museum…
The watercolour – a brown monochrome smaller than a postcard – was painted in 1829 by an English artist called Thomas Sidney Cooper. He went on to become famous (and wealthy) in Victorian society for his rendition of cattle, earning him the nickname ‘Cow Cooper’. In fact he was so good at it that other artists would ask him to put them into their own landscapes. This though is an early work, when he would have been 26 years old. So no cows. As to what it does depict… more later.
I came across the painting in a corner of Balthazar de la Bastide, the antique shop in Monpazier run by my friend Bruneau Chabanel. I’d like to say that, upon seeing it, I smote my forehead and exclaimed, ‘My God, it’s a T.S.Cooper! I must consult the catalogue raisonné immediately!’ I didn’t. I’d never heard of T.S.Cooper and had to look him up on Google. But it’s true that I was immediately drawn to the painting. Partly because it is exquisitely executed but also because of the misty tower in the background. For 25 years we lived in Oxford and I convinced myself that it had to be the Tom Tower of Christchurch College.
In which case the river in the foreground had to be the Thames or, more likely, a mill race off it.
The watercolour – a brown monochrome smaller than a postcard – was painted in 1829 by an English artist called Thomas Sidney Cooper. He went on to become famous (and wealthy) in Victorian society for his rendition of cattle, earning him the nickname ‘Cow Cooper’. In fact he was so good at it that other artists would ask him to put them into their own landscapes. This though is an early work, when he would have been 26 years old. So no cows. As to what it does depict… more later.
I came across the painting in a corner of Balthazar de la Bastide, the antique shop in Monpazier run by my friend Bruneau Chabanel. I’d like to say that, upon seeing it, I smote my forehead and exclaimed, ‘My God, it’s a T.S.Cooper! I must consult the catalogue raisonné immediately!’ I didn’t. I’d never heard of T.S.Cooper and had to look him up on Google. But it’s true that I was immediately drawn to the painting. Partly because it is exquisitely executed but also because of the misty tower in the background. For 25 years we lived in Oxford and I convinced myself that it had to be the Tom Tower of Christchurch College.
In which case the river in the foreground had to be the Thames or, more likely, a mill race off it.
I ended up buying the painting. Bruneau explained that he had acquired it a week earlier at an auction in Paris but feared he had paid too much to be able to make a profit in Monpazier. Very generously, seeing as how I and the artist shared nationality, he offered it to me for what he had paid – une vente blanche, as the French call a non-profit sale.
But does it depict Oxford? Hard to be sure. Cooper spent most of his early life in and around Canterbury and there’s no record of his having travelled to Oxford. In outline the tower is unlike any tower or spire of any English country church of any period – but, with its suggestion of an ogee dome and flanking finials, it unquestionably echoes the shape of Sir Christopher Wren’s secular Tom Tower.
Until proved otherwise, I'll continue to believe that this is a small piece of Oxford currently resident in France (actually, now in Australia) - and hope the Ashmolean doesn't launch a campaign for its return.
Until proved otherwise, I'll continue to believe that this is a small piece of Oxford currently resident in France (actually, now in Australia) - and hope the Ashmolean doesn't launch a campaign for its return.
The road from Monpazier to Fumel on a crisp January morning. As soon as I saw the sun filtering through the branches I knew I had a shot - and that it would be gone in a few seconds. I stopped the car in the middle of the road and jumped out, forgetting that we'd just come down a steep hill notorious for its 'verglas' (black ice). The reaction of the drivers behind was less than supportive of my artistic endeavours. Fortunately, our hire car had French plates.
It's below freezing and there's frost on the ground but for a fashion-conscious alpaca warmth and style were not incompatible. A Burberry check, unless I'm mistaken. [After googling, I find I am mistaken - so perhaps it's an exclusive McPaca tartan, woven of course from his own wool.]
A converted 'pigeonnier' just outside Monpazier on the road to Monflanquin. If you can't write a novel here, you never will...
Le Château de Biron again... this time late one summer evening on the road from Lacapelle Biron back home to Monpazier. It was past ten o'clock. After driving a couple of kilometres through an oppressively dark tunnel of trees, we came to an open stretch of barely fifty metres and there, off to the left, was the chateau in startling silhouette, low-lit by a sun that had set half an hour earlier. All the more dramatic for being so unexpected.
Dusk is a magical time in Monpazier. In summer, the western sky turns a startling mix of blue, purple, pink and mauve. Even La Place des Cornières - the focal point of daytime activity - dims by comparison...
GOOD GAME
It’s called ‘Bonjour, Bonsoir’ and can be played by anyone, any age.
It goes like this… It’s late afternoon, early evening, and you are walking along the street when you see a local you know coming towards you.
‘Bonjour’, you say… and they respond, ‘Bonsoir’.
A hundred metres further on, you see another local. This time you say, ‘Bonsoir’… and they respond, (you’ve guessed) ‘Bonjour’.
The Monpaziérois, I can confirm, are past masters of the game. What I cannot say is whether they do it among themselves or only with foreigners like me. In pursuit of enlightenment, I have often enquired at what time of day, what diminution of lumens ‘Bonjour’ becomes ‘Bonsoir’ - but the only answer I ever get is, ‘Cela dépend…’
So I remain in the dark - or twilight.
The dying of the light... that magic moment just before the sun slips below the horizon. Cameramen call it 'the golden hour' but the final glowing ember lasts only seconds.
Vines at sunset - looking over the western wall.
Bonne nuit... à demain!
Bonne nuit... à demain!