Shall We Dance?

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Paul Davenport

“Shall we dance?
On a bright cloud of music shall we fly?”

In The King and I, Anna puts these questions to herself, but also to the King of Siam, who watches her. She has come to Siam to teach his children, but now finds her feelings toward him confused. How do you get to know a man better? You dance with him. And she does. The King, who observes her with interest, begins to find that he shares her confused feelings. A critical moment occurs when he insists that they dance like Westerners, with his hand around her waist. To see the delightful scene from the 1956 film,[1] with Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner, click here.

Paul-Louis Courier, who lived at la Chavonnière in Véretz, understood the profound social importance of dance in his society, and he protested strongly in 1822 when the priest in Azay-sur-Cher forbade dancing in the public square around the church. We will learn his fascinating story after a small bit of biking.

Biking from Azay-sur-Cher to Véretz, 18 km

Last we week ended our post on the bank of the Cher River at the Chateau de Beauvais, the site of the kidnapping in 1800 of Clement de Ris. Today we will bike from the chateau to Véretz, also on the Cher; to see our route click here. As we head east we approach the bridge over the Cher at Azay-sur-Cher. On the previous post we saw the view from the bridge toward the west; had we turned around on the bridge, we would have had the view below.

1. The Cher River at Azay-sur-Cher, looking east.

In the upper right of the photo is a BMX (bicross in French) racing track. Heading west from the Chateau de Beauvais we reach this BMX track; a sign says it was set up by the French Federation of Cycling (Féderation Française de Cyclism).

BMX followed motorcross, or off-road motor cycle racing (the cross comes from cross country running). Motorcross grew in the 20th century alongside stunt motor cycling: remember Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, or Evel Knieval, who broke 433 bones (a Guinness record) jumping over barrels and canyons. Kids watching this stuff on television began doing tricks on their bicycles, and eventually BMX (bicycle motorcross) was born. The picture below shows 7 of the mandatory 8 lanes at the start of the race (just like a running track). Part of the metal grill in the lower left is initially vertical; it drops to begin the race. The bumps and curves in the dirt track make for an exciting race. In the background is the Cher River.

2. BMX racing track at Azay-sur-Cher.

BMX appeared at the Olympics for the first time in 2008, with the French winning Gold and Silver in the women’s event, and finishing 8th in the men’s event (a Latvian man won the Gold, with Americans taking Silver and Bronze). It is an extreme sport, with thrills and spills. The picture below is from the 2005 European BMX Championships in Sainte-Maxime on the French Riviera. The eight cyclists are clearly visible.

3. 2005 European BMX Championships.

Returning west to the bridge over the Cher, we head south up the hill to the center of Azay-sur-Cher, where we turn east on la rue de la Poste and bike to the town cemetery. We conclude our story of A Kidnapping at the Chateau by visiting the Clément de Ris family monument, the rectangular monument shown below, with an inscription which begins: “A la mémoire de la famille Clément de Ris.” We then return west on la rue de la Poste to the Eglise Sainte Marie-Madeleine in the center of town, where in 1822 the new priest forbade dancing on Sunday afternoon on the public square.

4. Monument to the family of Clément de Ris in the Azay-sur-Cher cemetery.

Paul-Louis Courier

The French Revolution of 1789 raised high hopes for ordinary people in the country. The oppressive Ancien Régime of privileged nobles supported by a politically powerful Catholic Church was to be swept away, replaced by a republic with democratic institutions and liberty, equality, and fraternity for all. Over the following century the transition to democracy was largely made, but it was slow going, with many fits and starts. We saw in our last post, A Kidnapping at the Chateau, that the justice system could be horribly corrupt a decade after the revolution.

Things did not improve for civil liberties in the early years of the Restoration, when the Bourbon King Louis XVIII took the throne in 1814 after the defeat of Napoleon. In particular, the Catholic Church regained much of the civil power it had lost in the Revolution, and together with the nobility and the King conducted an oppressive regime, a regime which Paul-Louis Courier fought against with a brilliant mind and an active pen. He saw and denounced many examples of what Hamlet described in his famous soliloquy as “the oppressor’s wrong” and “the insolence of office.” In one of his first political tracts, Courier wrote [2]:

“Justice, equality, providence! futile words with which they abuse us! No matter where I look, I see only crime triumphant and innocence oppressed.”

Paul-Louis Courier was born in Paris in 1772. His parents soon moved to Touraine. He was an ardent student and became well known for his expertise in Greek language and literature. He served for 17 years (1792-1809) in Artillery in the army. He married Herminie Clavier in 1814, bought the Forest of Larçay in 1815, and moved to Véretz in 1818, where he died in 1825.

We remember Courier best for his pamphlets, composed over the last decade of his life, denouncing the corruption and injustice in French society, written in a language widely praised in his day and ever since. Stendhal wrote in 1825, “Of those writers alive today, M. Courier is perhaps the one who knows best his language, all its subtleties and elegance.”[3]

In 1821 he attacked the proposed acquisition of the Chateau de Chambord by public subscription in a pamphlet entitled The Simple Statement of Paul Louis, winegrower at la Chavonnière.[4] The towns of France were to vote on whether they should make a financial contribution toward the purchase of Chambord, so it could be given to the duc de Bordeaux, born the previous year, the Bourbon next in line for the throne and thus believed by royalists a strong candidate to be King one day.

This was too much for Courier, who while comfortable himself, lived amongst small landowners and labourers who struggled to get by while paying what he saw as oppressive taxes to the national government. His Simple Statement was directed to the town council of Véretz, urging them to reject the subscription. But he clearly had a wider audience in mind: he denounced the corruption of the court and the government, and made a fine case in economics for land ownership by the cultivators themselves, which was necessarily limited when large tracts of land like Chambord were held in a single noble family and kept as forests for hunting rather than fields for farming.

The duc de Bordeaux (who became le comte de Chambord in 1830 when the purchase of the chateau was concluded) was never King, but he came close. With the death of the duc d’Angoulême in 1844 the legitimist wing of the monarchists proclaimed him the rightful king, Henry V, but his rights were not recognized by the various French governments during the next two decades.

After the disaster of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and the fall of Emperor Napoleon III, the newly voted National Assembly of the Third Republic had a majority of Monarchists, and they sought to install Henry V in a constitutional monarchy. It all failed, however, because Henry V rejected the Tricolour flag of the Revolution (still the French flag today), and insisted that France return to the white flag of the monarchy. This was too much for many members of the National Assembly, and Henry V never ruled. Courier would have been delighted. In 1875 the Assembly voted new constitutional laws establishing a Chamber of Deputies, a Senate, and a President as head of state, and these three institutions continue to this day.

Courier’s Simple Statement pamphlet was not well received by the authorities, who seized the document and brought him to trial on a charge of outrage to public and religious morals.[5] He thereby became a celebrity among progressive thinkers in Paris, writing to Herminie: “The more they persecute me, the greater my standing among the public” (Plus on me persécutera, plus j’aurai l’estime publique). After the sentence was pronounced, the other great opponent of the abuses of the Restoration–poet, singer, and songwriter, Pierre-Jean de Béranger–agreed with Courier on the reputational value of imprisonment: “If I were M. Courier, I would not give up those two months of prison for 100,000 francs.” (A la place de M. Courier, je ne donnerais pas ces deux mois de prison pour cent mille francs).

Courier was condemned to two months in jail and entered the Sainte-Pélagie prison in Paris on October 11, 1821. Upon his release, the vigneron de la Chavronnière continued to write more than farm, and to spend more time in Paris than in Véretz. He would act on the national stage until his death.

In July, 1822, Courier published his “Petition for villagers who are prevented from dancing.”[6] It was the excesses of the Restoration that infuriated him. Courier probably favored a constitutional monarchy as opposed to a republic, and was not disrespectful of the Catholic faith or individual religious belief. However, he wrote with passion and force against a monarchy surrounded by thousands of useless courtiers supported by heavy taxes on a struggling people, and against the massive intervention of the Church in civil life.

The case in question arose when a newly ordained priest arrived in 1821 in Azay-sur-Cher, and attempted, as he had been taught in the seminary of Tours, to impose the rules of the Ancien Regime. He sought the support of the Prefect, who agreed, and the people were forbidden to dance on Sunday afternoon in the public square near the church.

5. The Church of Sainte Marie-Madeleine in Azay-sur-Cher

The church still stands, with a small square around it on the east side, alas now largely filled with cars. The base of the steeple, the oldest part of the church, dates from the 12th century. The nave was rebuilt in 1790.

6. The Chancel of Sainte Marie-Madeleine

The Chancel was renovated from 1850 to 1880; it has a lovely sculptured alter. The central stained glass window is of Mairie-Madeleine. In the New Testament she is by far the most prominent of Jesus’ female followers; she was with Him at the Crucifixion and burial. She is often shown with a skull, as she is here.[7] The skull may represent the inevitability of death and our need to prepare for it.

7. The Church of Saint Marie-Madeleine, seen from the east.

This view of the church, from the east side, shows the massive base of the steeple, and two of the three windows in the Chancel in the previous photograph. There was room for dancing on this side of the church, too.

In his dancing Petition, Courier speaks of justice and morality. It is only just that these hard working village folk, crushed for six days a week under the burden of earning their daily bread, be allowed a simple recreation on Sunday afternoon. And the dancing supports morality among the young, who are able to meet members of the opposite sex in a public place, where they may be seen by their parents and others. Dancing is a safe way to get to know one another, as the scene with Anna and the King shows us. Courier praises the priest of Véretz, an elderly, educated, sensible man, who supports dancing in front of his church: “they dance in front of his door, and most often in front of him.”

The week after the pamphlet was issued, the police invaded Courier’s home at la Chavronnière and searched it, seizing copies of the offending document. While a pile of accusations were drawn up against him, this time he was found not guilty at the trial.

It is high time we got back on our bikes at the church in Azay-sur-Cher and headed off to Véretz. Our route takes us south and then northwest, to la Chavonnière, where Courier and his wife Herminie lived from 1818 until he was murdered in 1825, a crime which will be the subject of our next post.

8. La Chavronnière in Véretz, where Paul-Louis Courier lived from 1818 to 1825

Our route takes us down to the Cher River and the old section of Véretz, with some fine old buildings on narrow streets. The one below is an example, with the church steeple visible in the background.

9. A home in old Véretz.

Paul-Louis Courier Square looks out on the Cher River in the heart of old Véretz. There are several establishments where our bikers may get a drink or a light lunch. On one edge of the square is a monument to Courier, which reads: “To Paul Courier, Champion of Common Sense and Liberty.”

10. Monument to Paul-Louis Courier in Véretz

On the left side of the photo is the Cher River. Just off the photo to the right was a boat which caught my eye.

11. A boat in the Cher River at Véretz.

The boat has a large rudder and tiller; someone manning the tiller would need to look around the covered structure on the deck to see forward. The boat’s form reminded me of boats used for painting on rivers by two great 19th-century artists, Charles-François Daubigny (who called his boat le botin) and Claude Monet, who used his boat at Argenteuil in the 1870s. After Daubigny’s death in 1878, the city of Auvers-sur-Oise kept his boat for many years until it rotted. They then were able to arrange the loan of Monet’s boat from the city of Argenteuil, and displayed it at the Daubigny Museum in Auvers, where I was able to take a picture of it in 2004.

12. Monet's boat at the Daubigny Museum in Auvers-sur-Oise, 2004

I visitied Auvers two years later and the boat was gone. The Daubigny house and museum are privately owned by a married couple. The wife told me in July 2006 that the house had been in her husband’s family for some time. She said Monet’s boat had needed some repairs to protect it from the elements. They had asked for financial help from the city of Argenteuil, which refused and took the boat back to put it in storage. She did not know where the boat was but believed it was not on public display.

Photograph 3 is from the Wikimedia Commons, commons.wikimedia.org. All other photographs were taken by the author.

[1] Music by Richard Rodgers, Book and Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. I cannot resist a Rodgers and Hammerstein story: they were partners at bridge one day and Rodgers was playing the hand in a suit. He drew trumps but mistakenly left one out. Hammerstein, who saw the error, began to whistle “One Alone” from the 1926 Broadway show The Desert Song. Rodgers played on, had a good trick needlessly trumped, and went down one. Later, when Hammerstein castigated him for ignoring the obvious hint, the great musician replied, “So who knows from lyrics?”
[2] “Justice, équité, providence ! vains mots dont on nous abuse ! Quelque part que je tourne les yeux, je ne vois que le crime triomphant, et l’innocence opprimée.” Pétition aux deux Chambres (1816).
[3] Alain Dejammet, Paul-Louis Courier (Fayard, 2009), p.9. “M. Courier est peut-être l’écrivain vivant qui connaît le mieux sa langeu, toutes ses finesses et délicatesses.”
[4] The full title was a lengthy one: Le Simple Discours de Paul Louis, vigneron de la Chavonniére, aux membres du Conseil de la Commune de Véretz, département d’Indre et Loire à l’occasion d’une souscription proposé par Son Excellence le Ministre de l’Intérieur pour l’acquistion de Chambord. A fascinating description of the affair is to be found in Jean-Pierre Lautman, Paul-Louis Courier, ou la plume indomptée (C.L.D., 2001), Partie IV, Chapitre 3, “L’opposant irréductible,” pp. 193-208. The quotations from Courier and Béranger are from this source. I have benefited greatly from a lengthy discussion with M. Lautman, who has devoted the last two decades to the study of Courier. See also Dejammet, pp. 426-432.
[5] Thirty-five years later, Baudelaire was taken to trial on the same charge for Les Fleurs de Mal.
[6] Paul-Louis Courier, “Pétition pour des villageois que l’on empêche de danser,” (Editeur l’Insomniaque, 2007), pp. 21-37. All citations from the petition are from this source.
[7] For examplse, Georges de la Tours (1593-1663) did four paintings of Marie-Madeleine, all with skulls. My favorite is the painting in the Louvre, Magdalen of Night Light, 1640-45, 128 x 94 cm.

A Kidnapping at the Chateau

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Paul Davenport

The kidnapping of a Senator of France in his own home by six armed bandits sent by the Minister of Police: could this happen in the quiet riverside town of Azay-sur-Cher? Indeed it could, and did, in 1800. Subsequent events included a rigged trial and the execution of three innocent men, all to cover up a conspiracy against Napoleon by high officials in his own government. We will get to the bottom of this murky affair, but first we need to do some biking.

Biking from Tours to Azay-Sur-Cher, 24 km

This article is the first of a series of three, during which we bike from Tours to Azay-sur-Cher, to Véretz, and then back to Tours, a trip of 52 km. On our way to Azay-sur-Cher, we pass two railroad bridges over the Loire River and learn a bit about their history. Railroads helped establish the importance of Tours as a regional center in the 19th century and they continue to be crucial to the city’s development today. In Azay-sur-Cher we will bike to the Chateau de Beauvais, the site of a mysterious kidnapping which Balzac spun into one of his great novels.

The first part of our route is the same as that of the Chenin Grapes article. We head east on the Loire à Vélo passing the cliffs of Rochecorbon across the river. To see our route to Azay-sur-Cher, click here.

As we approach Montlouis-sur-Loire, the Loire à Vélo bike trail goes under the TGV bridge on the line from Paris, which arrived in Tours in 1990. Work is now underway to build a new high speed line south to Bordeaux, with completion expected in 2017.

1. The TGV bridge across the Loire at Vouvray

TGV means Very Fast Train (Train de Grand Vitesse). TGVs travel at speeds over 300 km an hour, compared to the Canadian trains which I took for most of my life, which are really flying if they hit 100 km an hour. The dense population of France has allowed for the construction of high speed trains that are simply not seen in Canada. Once on an early morning trip from Tours to Paris on the TGV, we hit snow approaching Paris, and over the PA system the chef de bord announced that “because of the bad weather conditions, the train will have to slow down to 220 km an hour; please accept our apologies.” Now that is an announcement, I thought to myself, that you would never hear on a Canadian train.

After the TGV bridge, the bike route leaves the river valley, climbing to the levee on the left bank of the river. Nearby is the giant 6 meter wine bottle with a Montlouis-sur-Loire label which we saw in the Chenin Grapes article.

Looking east from the Montlouis bottle we can see the railroad which crosses the Loire river on the line from Paris to Bordeaux. This is not a TGV; it might reach speeds around 150 km an hour. The bridge was on one of the first great long distance rail lines in France. Paris-Orleans was built from 1839 to 1843; Orleans-Tours, 1843 to 1846; and Tours-Bordeaux, 1845 to 1853.

The Montlouis bridge was built as part of the Orleans-Tours run in 1845-46. The original design had masonry piles and arches in wood. A young engineer, Romain Morandière, was given charge of the project. He convinced his superiors that the cost of the project could be reduced if the arches were changed to reinforced concrete, with a veneer in stone. Morandiére’s design was used for two other bridges over the Loire, at Orleans and Cinq-Mars. His bridge at Montlouis was 11 m high and 383 m long, with 14 spans of 25 m.

2. The railroad bridge across the Loire River at Montlouis-sur-Loire

Morandière’s bridge stood the test of time: it was described in an academic article in 1930 as “one of the most remarkable monuments on the Paris-Bordeaux line.”[1] No one, to my knowledge, has praised the beauty of the TGV bridge just a kilometer downstream: it is simply an example of functional infrastructure, late 20th century.

The location of the Montlouis bridge deserves comment. Why did the line not cross the Loire at Tours, the major city in the area? The article just cited explains that Tours did not want the line to pass through the center of the city. Hence the route chosen involved crossing the Loire to the east of Tours, heading west on the south side of Tours, and then turning north into the Tours station, which is a dead end. The train would then back out of Tours, and continue south.

Within a few years the railroad company was tired of the delay, and over the strident objections of Tours, a station was built in St. Pierre des Corps, southeast of Tours, so that the trains could continue west and south without entering the main station in Tours. The same drama occurred in Orleans, with the same result: a station (les Aubrais) outside the center of the city. When the TGV reached Tours in 1990, like the 19th century line it crossed the Loire east of Tours (indeed, just 1 km west of Morandiére’s bridge) and then headed to the station in St. Pierre des Corps.

In the 1840s there was some debate about the northern section of the Paris-Bordeaux line: should it go straight to Tours or pass through Orleans? Since a line had to be built to Orleans in any case, it was decided to take the route south to Orleans, and then west along the Loire Valley to Tours. In the 1980s, 140 years later, the same question arose, but the response was different: the TGV line goes direct from Paris southwest to Tours and does not provide service to Orleans.

`Like most Loire bridges, the Montlouis bridge suffered damage in war time. To frustrate German movements of troops and material, arches on the bridge were blown up by the French army in 1870 and again in 1940. Allied bombing destroyed the bridge completely in 1944. In 1946 it was rebuilt in the original style, with reinforced concrete and stone. Two arches were added to deal with flooding on the Loire, the last undammed major river in Europe (in French, it is a rivière sauvage). The bridge stands proudly today, its arches reflected in the mighty Loire, with a continuing beauty that would make Morandière proud.

Leaving the Montlouis wine bottle, we continue east through the town of Montlouis-sur-Loire to the fork in the road shown in our first post, when we took the road to the left along the Loire à Vélo to Husseau and Amboise on the Loire River. Now we keep right toward the Cher River. With vines on either side of the road we head south.

3. A fork in the road west of Montlouis.

If you own a vineyard, you can only grow vines on a strictly limited area, part of AOC quality control. So what do you do with the rest of your land that doesn’t require a lot of work? For those who can afford it, an attractive option can be horses. In the photo above, the vines on left side of the road on the right continue for another 300 m and end in a large field with a few horses. Two of them come up to greet us as we bike by, with the vines on the horizon behind them. Alas, I had forgotten to bring apples.

4. Horses in a field among the Montlouis vines.

As we approach Azay-sur-Cher there is a wide flood plain on the north side of the river. The vines are gone and we pedal through farmer’s fields and woods. The bridge over the Cher River provides lovely views.

5. The Cher River at Azay-sur-Cher, looking west.

Just after crossing the bridge, we turn left on a dirt road and head east along the left bank of the Cher. We are biking with the flood plain and river on our left, and slopes to our right which provide wonderful sites for chateaux which look out on the Cher. We pass three chateaux, each with a link to a famous person or a significant event, as every significant chateau must have:

the Chateau de Coteaux, where Chopin gave piano lessons in 1833;
the Chateau de Leugny, where at the end of the 15th century lived Jean Descartes, said to be a progenitor of Réné Descartes, born in Touraine in 1596;
and the Chateau de Beauvais, where the kidnapping of Senator Clément de Ris took place in 1800.

At one point on the dirt road, we can see Cher and the Chateau de Leugny.

6. Dirt road along the Cher, with the Chateau de Leugny visible in the upper right

This is what I love about biking the back roads of Touraine: there is peace and quiet, and yet around every bend in the road there may be a beautiful view or an important piece of architecture or a significant historical site. You can go as far, and see as much, as your legs will take you.

Another 200 m east, and we have a direct view of the chateau, with its stern yet lovely neoclassical facade from the late 18th century.

7. Chateau de Leugny

We are approaching the Chateau de Beauvais,[2] the site of the kidnapping of Clément de Ris (1750-1827), who lived through the Revolution, the Consulat, the Empire, and the Restoration, and held significant government positions in each, in Paris and in Touraine. He could go with the flow. He held an important office with Queen Marie Antoinette, but quickly became a supporter of the Revolution in 1789. He owned property in Touraine, where he was living when Napoleon named him a Senator in late December, 1799. The following fall, on September 23, 1800, he was kidnapped while in his Chateau de Beauvais by six armed men. They first robbed the house and then held him in a cave near Loches for 19 days, when he was released without any physical harm.

8. Chateau de Beauvais

News of the kidnapping of the Senator reached the First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, who ordered his Minister of Police, Joseph Fouché, to respond vigorously. Fouché rounded up three Chouans–although there was no evidence against them and they had strong alibis–and had them executed.

Over time the true story of the kidnapping at the Chateau de Beauvais leaked out. There was apparently an alliance among Clément de Ris, Fouché, and Talleyrand, Bonaparte’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, to remove Bonaparte from power when the time was right. The war in Italy against the Austrians seem to present an opportunity: if Bonaparte were defeated, he could be forced out of office. However, reinforcements turned the tide at the battle of Marengo on June 14, 1800, and Bonaparte returned to Paris victorious.

Clément de Ris held incriminating documents with regard to the conspiracy and Fouché doubted his commitment to the cause: the Senator had come to prefer the quiet life in Touraine to the plotting of the French court. Fouché staged the robbery of the Senator’s home in order to recover the documents, which he did. To bring a quick end to the investigation and public discourse about the affair, he had three innocent men executed. He ordered Clément de Ris to say nothing about the matter and not to testify at the trial; the Senator, a weak man who goes with flow, agreed.

Following this dreadful affair, Clément de Ris remained a Senator but appears to have avoided the intrigues of the Paris court. He died at the Chateau de Beauvais in 1827 and was buried in the cemetery of Azay-sur-Cher.

The kidnapping is the subject of a film from 1958, The Mysterious Kidnapping of Senator Clément de Ris, part of a remarkable French television series broadcast from 1957 to 1966, La caméra explore le temps (“The camera explores history.”)[3] Each of 39 episodes presents an original film describing an event in French history, with discussions before and after the film by two journalist-historians, André Castelot and Alain Decaux. We will make reference to some of these films, which are both instructive and entertaining, in future posts on this blog.

At the start of the episode on Kidnapping, Castelot explains that in his novel on the crime, Balzac had considerably romanticized his subject. He then sets out, in contrast, the purpose of “La caméra explore le temps” series: “However for us, as always, we will try to grasp the historical truth as closely as possible–truth which confronts us with questions we will seek to answer later in the show.” (“Quant à nous, selon notre habitude, nous allons essayer de serrer le plus près possible la vérité historique. Vérité … d’ailleurs qui pose une certaine nombre de points d’interrogation, auxquels nous essayerons tout à l’heure de répondre”).

In presenting the Kidnapping film, Castelot describes France as a dangerous, restive place in September, 1800. As Napoleon “tries to get his house in order,” in Paris “it is raining daggers” (ils pleuvent des poignards) in Fouché’s colorful words, while in Vendée the Chouans who support the monarchy and have fought the Revolution from 1991, continue to oppose Napoleon’s regime.[4]

Castelot focuses on the gross abuse of the justice system in the trial of the three Chouans: “Nothing could be more unjust than this trial” (Rien de plus inique que ce proces). At the original trial in Tours it became clear that the three accused were entirely innocent; moreover, the principal witness, Clement de Ris, refused to testify. The trial was moved to Anger, where the innocence of the accused was evident: they had watertight alibis; two witnesses to the crime (a guest of de Ris, and a medical doctor) said the accused were not among the kidnappers; the bribed prosecution witnesses could not keep of their lies. Fouché invited the judges to dinner and told them not to acquit. He even read a letter to the judges. Castelot reads a passage from Fouché’s letter to the judges:

“It would be an unfortunate and dangerous example to find the accused innocent. If they have not been positively found guilty, they have nonetheless merited death a hundred times in different circumstances!”[5]

In other words, Fouché was saying, if the accused are innocent of the crime charged, condemn them to death anyway, because I tell you to. Two of the three judges complied and the three men were guillotined on the champ de Mars of Angers, November 3, 1800.[6] The third judge, who refused to convict the accused, was a Captain who lost his rank and was persecuted the rest of his life.[7]

Below on the left is a 1795 painting of Clément de Ris by Joseph-Benôit Suvée (1743-1807). On the right is a painting (date unknown) by Claude-Marie Dubufe (1759-1820) of Fouché in his uniform of Minister of Police.

9. Clément de Ris 10. Joseph Fouché

During my visits to Azay-sur-Cher I had the good fortune to meet with Danielle Chouen at the City Hall of the town. Mme. Chouen is an elected member of the Municipal Council, and serves as the Associate (Adjoint) to the Mayor for Social and Intergenerational Relations. Her family has lived in Azay-sur-Cher for many generations. Her father was the last boatman operating out of Azay on the Cher River. Mme Chouen guided me through the historical documents held at the City Hall and talked at length about Azay’s interesting history.

11. Mme. Danielle Chouen of Azay-sur-Cher

Balzac enters the fray

A conspiracy against Napoleon, the kidnapping of a Senator organized by the Minister of Police, power struggles in Paris, trumped up judicial charges, bribed prosecution witnesses, shameful executions: sounds like a story for Balzac. And it was. Doubly so, in fact: Clément de Ris had been a protector of Balzac’s father. Four decades after the kidnapping at the Chateau de Beauvais, Balzac penned Une Ténébreuse Affaire (A Murky Business) and gave immortality to an event which would otherwise have been largely forgotten by now.[8]

In a novel of over 200 pages, Balzac spins many tales and creates many characters. From the historical record, he takes a conspiracy of three against Napoleon before the Battle of Marengo, including Talleyrand and Fouché, but the third conspirator is now Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (1748-1836) a brilliant essayist and revolutionary leader, who assisted Napoleon in the coup d’état of 1799.

The Chateau de Beauvais and Clément de Ris do not appear; he is replaced (as the kidnap victim) by Fouché’s agent Milan, who is sent to occupy a property, Grondeville, in Champagne. In Balzac’s tale, Grondeville was formerly owned by the Simeuses, ardent monarchists who were guillotined during the Revolution; their twin sons have been forced into exile.

Malin, who is involved in the conspiracy against Napoleon, has compromising documents (just as Clément de Ris did). Fouché sends his agents to the chateau; they find and burn the documents, kidnap Milan, and leave him in a cave in a manner which throws suspicion on the Simeuse children and their loyal steward (régisseur), Michu. Michu is convicted and executed, and Fouché’s conspiracy remains in place.[9]

The political complexity, the convoluted suspicions, conspiracies, and double crosses of all this are at the heart of Balzac’s novel. When he takes power in the coup d’état in November 1799, Napoleon decides to keep Talleyrand and Fouché in senior ministerial posts, despite whatever doubts he has about them: Talleyrand as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Fouché, as Minister of the Police. After the collapse of the 1800 conspiracy, the two continue to plot against their leader.

In 1809 a new opportunity arises: just as in 1800 Napoleon is outside the country waging war, this time in Spain, and the outcome is again doubtful. A rumour arises that he has died in battle, and Talleyrand and Fouché plot to have the Empress Josephine declared regent, believing no doubt that the two of them will be in charge. Napoleon hears of the conspiracy and returns to Paris on January 9, 1809. He confronts Talleyrand, accuses him of treason, and says famously, “Listen, you are a load of s–t in a silk stocking!” (“Tenez, vous êtes de la merde dans un bas de soie !”)

And yet, far from having him executed for treason, Napoleon eventually keeps Talleyrand as a senior advisor, along with Fouché, who had been reinstated as Minister of Police in 1804. In March of 1814, as the Allied armies enter Paris, it is Talleyrand, backed by Fouché, who negotiates the removal of Napoleon and the Bourbon Restoration of King Louis XVIII.

Photographs 9 and 10 are from the Wikimedia Commons, commons.wikimedia.org. All other photographs were taken by the author.

[1] “Le chemin de fer de Paris à Bordeaux,” Annales de Géographie, 1930, t. 39, n°221, pp. 449-467. The quote is from p. 452, “un des monuments les plus remarquables de la ligne Paris-Bordeaux.”
[2] Two kilometers east of Beauvais along the riverside trail is the town of Nitray. While not on our route, the lovely Chateau de Nitray is worth a visit for those who have the time.
[3] The films can be watched for free on the website of the Institut national de l’audiovisuel, http://www.ina.fr. This was a favorite program of my wife Josette and we own a dozen DVDs of the episodes.
[4] For the record, I note two minor errors at the end Castelot’s presentation: the film shows an image of the facade of a chateau, which Castelot says belongs to Clement de Ris, the Chateau de Beauvais at 4 km de Tours. In fact the image shown is that of Leugny, the chateau just to the west of Beauvais, and the distance by road to Tours City Hall from either chateau is more like 19 km. M. Castelot may have intended to say “quatre lieues” from Tours, which would be about right. The length of a lieue in France varied over the centuries and according to regions, but in 1800 it would have been about 4.5 km.
[5] “Il serait d’un exemple regrettable et dangereux de prononcer l’acquittement. Si les accusés n’étaient pas positivement reconnus coupables, ils n’en ont pas moins cent fois mérité la mort en d’autres circonstances !” Castelot reads this passage from Fouché’s letter at about 1hr 4mn from the start of the film.
[6] “Azay-sur-Cher: L’enlèvement du sénateur Clément de Ris,” Guide du Val de Loire mysterieux (Tchou, éditeur, 1968), pp. 180-182. I am grateful to Mme. Danielle Chouen of Azay-le-Rideau for this reference and for directing me to the work by Jacques Maurice in the next note.
[7] In the discussion with Castelot following the film, Decaux points out that some writers have treated the kidnapping as a simple crime for ransom, in which Fouché was not involved until after the kidnapping occurred. While he cites no examples, one may be offered: “Azay-sur-Cher: L’enlèvement d’un sénateur,” in Jacques Maurice, Petites Histoires de Touraine (Editeur, C.L.D., 1981), pp. 87-89. Maurice even gives the odious Fouché a positive character reference: Fouché manipulates the trial “with an absence of his usual scruples” (avec l’absence de scrupules qui le caractérisait)!
[8] Honoré de Balzac, Une Ténébreuse Affaire, first appeared in the journal Le Commerce, January 14 to February 20, 1841. My English translation of the title comes from Honoré de Balzac, A Murky Business (Penguin Classics, 1978), translated and with an Introduction by Herbert J. Hunt.
[9] Balzac’s writings on the police and the courts, which play such a central role in Une Tenebreuse Affaire, are reviewed in a fascinating article by Raynor Heppenstall: “Balzac’s Policemen,” Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 8, no. 2 (April, 1973), pp. 47-56.

The Legend Continues

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Paul Davenport

Last week we concluded our post with a visit to the Chateau d’Amboise. Our bikes are parked in convenient bike racks on the main square of Amboise, near the entrance to the chateau. Leaving the chateau we walk up the rue Victor Hugo 400 m to the Clos-Lucé, a small chateau where Leonardo da Vinci spent his last three years. At the end of our visit there we will return to our bikes and cycle the 30 km back to Tours.

Clos-Lucé was built in the late 15th century of tufa stone and pink brick. This is a rare and lovely combination; it is also to be seen at Louis XI’s chateau in Tours, Le Plessis-les-Tours, a place we will visit on a subsequent bike ride.

The University of Western Ontario 2010 student bike trip

1. Students on the 2010 Western bike trip at the Clos-Lucé.

The property was acquired by King Charles VIII in 1490 as a refuge for his wife, Anne de Bretagne, a very devout woman. He added an oratory at the chateau for her, where she came frequently to pray. A fresco in the oratory is titled the Virgin of Light (Virgo Lucis); it is thought that the Lucé in the chateau’s name comes from Lucis, a reference to the painting, which may have been done by da Vinci’s loyal assistant Francesco Melzi. Clos means an enclosed place, and in this case a quiet, protected place.

The chateau, which has been the property of the Saint Bris family since 1855, was opened to the public in 1954.[1] From the chateau terrace, there is a splendid view of the Chateau d’Amboise, which Leonardo must have enjoyed.

2. The Chateau d'Amboise seen from the terrace of the Chateau Clos-Lucé.

The French kings of the 16th century knew Italy through warfare. From 1494 to 1559, Charles VIII, Louis XII, François I, and Henry II waged a series of wars which involved invasions of northern Italy. The wars were often based on competition among France, Spain, and Venice for control over the various city states of Italy. These excursions allowed the French kings and the nobles fighting with them to see the marvels of the Italian Renaissance.

In 1499 Louis XII’s troops marched through Lombardy and took Milan, where he visited the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan and saw Leonardo’s fresco of 1498, The Last Supper, painted on the wall of a large room which became the refectory. He was so taken by the work that he asked if it could be detached and transported back to France. His request was perforce denied (frescos don’t travel well), but copies of the painting soon appeared in noble houses in France.

François I invaded Italy and captured Milan in October 1515. The king met with Pope Leo X in Bologna; Leonardo, who was present at the meeting, received a commission to make a mechanical lion for the French king. A year later, at the invitation of François I, Leonardo was in France; he had been living a difficult life in Italy with few commissions. He arrived at Clos-Lucé during the first few months of 1516. François I was out of town that day on state business, but he certainly would have joined Leonardo at the first possible moment.

François I had been well educated in the wonders of the Italian Renaissance and during his reign sought to bring the new artistic styles to France. He would have known Leonardo as one of the leading lights of the Renaissance. What better way for the King to show his leadership in cultural affairs than to have Leonardo live next to his court in Amboise? Leonardo was given Clos-Lucé as a residence and a substantial annual pension, so that he could work without financial worries.

The many sides of Leonardo’s genius are on display at the Clos-Lucé: the artist, the philosopher, the creator of magical events, the scientist, the engineer. The artist is celebrated with reproductions of his paintings, including the Mona Lisa (La Joconde in French), which hangs proudly in the Renaissance Great Hall of the chateau.

3. Da Vinci, "Mona Lisa" (1506).

The philosopher appears in the many pithy Leonardo sayings that are hung throughout the chateau, like the one below.

Da Vinci quote, Every obstacle is overcome by stern resolve

4. Dr. Al Salmoni of The University of Western Ontario at the Clos-Lucé during the 2010 Western student bike trip, bike helmet in hand.

Translating the French (“La rigueur vient toujours à bout de l’obstacle“) involves at least two options, depending on how you treat rigueur. Rigeur often refers to precision of thought, and thus da Vinci may be making a statement about science and intellectual work in general; in that case the translation might be “Precise thinking overcomes every obstacle.” A more general interpretation of rigueur would lead to the translation which dominates the many websites devoted to da Vinci quotes: “Every obstacle yields to stern resolve.” As a career professor and lifelong runner, Dr. Salmoni can endorse both interpretations, as his smile in the photograph indicates.

Leonardo had established a reputation in Italy as a creator of magical events, often held at night, using innovative lighting, costumes and backgrounds of his own design, and employing his technical skill with machines created for a specific party. His first such event at Clos-Lucé was on May 3, 1517, to celebrate the baptism of the King’s first son, and the marriage of the King’s niece. Leonardo was a master of theatrical drama and surprise, and the King and his guests loved his shows.

Leonardo the scientist and engineer appears in the many drawings displayed from Leonardo’s notebooks, including the one below.

Da Vinci sketch of helicopter at Clos-Lucé

5. Drawing by Leonardo of a machine with some characterstics of a modern helicopter.

Apart from his paintings, it is the sketches in his notebooks which provide the most tangible evidence today of Leonardo’s genuis. The notebooks consisted of some 13,000 loose pages which have wound up in museums across Europe. The pages show models for machines and scientific inventions, and sketches for paintings, along with grocery lists and household budgets.

The pages were not published during Leonardo’s lifetime and virtually all remained unpublished for centuries; thus for most of his proposed inventions, the eventual machines were designed, built, and run by people who had no knowledge of Leonardo’s drawings. A great many of the pages were gathered, translated, and published for the first time in 1883 by Jean-Paul Richter, a German art historien. The Notebooks, as assembled by Richter, are now on the internet; Richter’s Preface is fascinating, as are Leonardo’s notes and sketches. [2]

Happily, of Leonardo the scientist and engineer, at Clos-Lucé we can see more than the sketches. Years ago the IBM Corporation built actual models of forty inventions shown in the sketches, using materials available in Leonardo’s time. These are on display in the basement of the chateau. One of the models is a cross-section of a boat propelled by two side paddle wheels, driven by cranks which would presumably be turned by hand. Two large flywheels would steady the motion.

6. Model of a boat driven by paddle wheels, built by IBM based on a Leonardo sketch

Like so many of Leonardo’s inventions this one had to wait until the appropriate source of power was available.

The park outside the chateau celebrates Leonardo’s love of nature; he strolled in this park 500 years ago. The small Amasse river flows through the park on its way to the Loire; the river has been cleverly redirected to allow for a series of bridges and other structures which illustrate Leonardo’s designs: a two-level bridge, a swinging bridge for military use, a mill operated with gears he sketched, an Archimedes screw. On the edge of a small pond is a larger model of the paddle wheel boat.

7. Paddle wheel boat in the park of Clos-Lucé.

While the IBM models in the chateau basement are fragile and cannot be touched, many of those in the park are made to be operated by hand, much to the delight of children, and indeed some adults. There are two cranks for turning the paddles on the boat in the park.

A model of the “helicopter” sketch in photograph 3-5 is to be found down a grassy slope from the chateau entrance.

8. A helicopter model at Clos-Lucé

In the middle of the six supports is a vertical shaft. In theory, if you could turn that shaft fast enough, the wings of the structure on top could lift it up into the air. Just as with the paddle boat, the needed power was not available in de Vinci’s time. Commercial paddle boats would await the steam engine and the early 19th century. Helicopters, which needed the internal combusion engine, became operational in the 1930s and 1940s.

While celebrating Leonardo’s achievements, the Clos-Lucé site also allows us to contemplate the mystery of this extraordinary man. Why so few completed paintings by one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance? Why so many projects, artistic and engineering, begun but not finished? Why no major publication during his lifetime on his philosophy, his science, or his engineering? And why, despite these shortcomings, do we hold him up as the ultimate Renaissance man?

This mystery is at the heart of a recent biography by Sophie Chauveau, Léonard de Vinci (Gallimard, 2008), who traces the life of a genuis who is constantly seeking new challenges and working most of the time in difficult circumstances. She cites the British author and art historien Kenneth Clark, that each generation must reinterpret this extraordinary person.[3] It is no accident that in his fabulously successful fictional story, The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown gives a central role to Leonardo and his paintings and sketches, and even puts his name in the book’s title. The da Vinci legend continues to fascinate us.

Leonardo died on May 2, 1519 at Clos-Lucé. A popular myth, that he died in the arms of Francois I, is the subject of a painting by the great 19th century artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. A reproduction of the painting hangs next to his bed in Leonardo’s bedroom at Clos-Lucé.

9. Ingres, "The Death of Leonardo da Vinci" (1818)

In all likelihood, however, the King missed Leonardo’s death at Clos-Lucé just as he had missed his arrival. According to Chauveau, on that day Francois I was baptizing his second son at Saint-Germain-en-Laye west of Paris, over 200 km away. Part of the mystery of Leonardo is the resting place of his final remains. At his request he was buried inside the Chateau d’Amboise, in the Saint-Florentin church. The church was badly damaged during the Revolution, and taken down by order of Napoleon I in 1808. A bust of Leonardo was later erected on the site of the church.

10. Bust of Leonardo da Vinci in the park of Chateau d'Amboise.

So far, so good, but now the tale gets twisted. One story has it that in the 1860s Leonardo’s bones were found on this site, and transferred to the Saint-Hubert chapel, where they still lie under the stone on the floor in the photograph below.

3-11 The Saint-Hubert Chapel at the Chateau d'Amboise

The plaque on the wall in the photograph concludes with the following sentence on Leonardo’s remains: “His presumed remains found during excavations undertaken in 1863 were transferred to this chapel.” The use of “presumed” (restes présumés) shows the appropriate doubt. The official Chateau pamphlet drops the doubts and tells the visitor flat out that the Saint-Hubert Chapel is indeed the grave of Leonardo.

Yet doubts remain. Why were the bones discovered so long after the razing of the original chapel in 1808? One source suggests that the 1863 excavations were done by the French State.[4] If true, this could certainly increase our scepticism, because the head of state at that time was Emperor Napoleon III, who was desperate to justify his undemocratic regime with popular causes. Why not associate himself with Leonardo, just as François I had done three centuries earlier? The bust in Figure 3-10 is dated 1869, just a year before Napoleon III had to flee France.

Sophie Chauveau is convinced the whole “discovered bones” story is a myth and that his final resting place is just one more Leonardo mystery. Indeed, she believes that the mystery of da Vinci’s life was one that he himself cultivated. She ends her book as follows [5]:

“So Leonardo has played his last trick.
There is no gravestone real or figurative for the greatest artist of the Renaissance. Nothing? Not the smallest trace. A man who scattered traces of himself all his life, as if to cover his footsteps, sees his wishes literally granted in his death.
He rests nowhere.
The legend can continue.
And it continues.”

[1] The current head of the family, Gonzague Saint Bris, is a remarkable man–journalist, novelist, biographer, romantic, shameless self-promoter, loved or hated by all in the literary elite. Jean-Louis Gouraud has written a wonderful portrait of Saint Bris, “Les Éléphants Sont-Ils Romantiques?” (La revue, no 6, octobre 2010), which is displayed on Saint-Bris’ website, http://www.gonzaguesaintbris.com.
[2] http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/dv/index.htm
[3] Chauveau, p. 9: “qu’a chaque génération cet étonnant personnage devait être réinterprété.”
[4] http://www.amboise.com.
[5] Chauveau, pp. 263-264:
“Ainsi le dernier tour de Léonard est joué.
Aucune sépulture réelle ni figurée n’existe pour le plus grand artiste de la Renaissance. Rien? Pas la moindre trace. Lui qui n’a cessé d’en semer de son vivant, comme pour mieux brouiller les pistes, voit ses voeux littéralement exaucés dans sa mort.
Il ne repose nulle part.
La légende peut continuer.
Et elle continue.”

Photographs 3, 5, and 9 are from the Wikipedia Commons, commons.wikimedia.org. All other photographs were taken by the author.

The Amboise Conspiracy

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Paul Davenport

Biking from Montlouis-sur-Loire to Amboise, 12 km

At the end of last week’s article we enjoyed a winetasting with M. and Mme. Blot at the Domaine de la Taille aux Loups in Husseau, on the east side of Montlouis-sur-Loire. Leaving the domaine, we head east along the Loire à Vélo to Amboise, where we visit the great royal chateau. To see our route from Montlouis to Amboise in Google Maps, click here. Next week we walk up the rue Victor Hugo in Amboise to Clos-Lucé, where Leonardo da Vinci spent the last three years of his life.

Our route to Amboise is not along the Loire River, but up on the plateau, where we share the quiet roads with an occasional car. After a few kilometers we pass by the Aquarium du Val de Loire, which offers a convenient rest stop (02 47 23 44 44) for those who did not stop at the Taille aux Loups. I was biking this route in the summer of 2008, planning our Western student bike trip for 2009, and looking for a rest stop on a rural plateau with no cafes.

I came around a corner and there was the Aquarium, to which we had taken our young children during summer vacations in Touraine two decades earlier. I had always come to it from the opposite direction by car, and indeed I had forgotten its existence. What a surprise to find it there on my proposed bike route. The perfect rest stop: if you don’t want to visit the aquarium, buy a snack at the counter, to thank them for the use of the washrooms.

This is one of the largest fresh water aquariums in Europe, with some 10,000 fish in 4 million litres of water. The emphasis is on fresh water European fish, but there are also various exhibits involving sea water, including tropical fish, a coral reef, and sharks. My favorite fish is the silure, which looks like an enormous catfish out of a horror movie. They hang out on river bottoms and seem too fat too float or swim. They can be up to 2.5 m long and weigh up to 250 kg, making them the largest fresh water fish in Europe. They do well in the lower reaches (below 400 m altitude) of the significant rivers of France, including the Loire, where a reduction in oxygen (through pollution) can make life difficult for other sorts of fish.

1. Silure for dinner?

Leaving the Aquarium, our route continues east, and then turns south, down the hill past the impressive St. Denis Church to the Loire and Amboise. From the bridge over the Loire we have a fine view of the Chateau Royal d’Amboise.

2. The Chateau d'Amboise

In the late 15th century the chateau was substantially expanded and renovated by Kings Louis X1 (who reigned 1461-1483) and Charles VIII (1483-1498). The work occurred just before the adoption by French monarchs of the new Italian Renaissance styles in architecture, and Amboise maintained the look of a fortified castle. Later renovations by Francois I (1515-1547) and Henri II (1547-1559) introduced the new Italian styles to the chateau. Our visit inside the chateau takes us to the Royal Apartments, which include a magnificent Council Room, with a double vaulted stone ceiling and beautiful fireplaces at either end.

The University of Western Ontario 2010 bike trip

3. Students from the Western 2010 bike trip gather in front of a roaring fire in the Council Room on a very cold spring day.

The large round tower on the left of the main building in photo 2 is the Minimes Tower, housing a large spiral ramp which was used to bring horses with carts up to the terrace to provision the chateau. The views from the tower are spectacular. Looking west we can see the Boys’ Tower at the western edge of the Chateau terrace, the roofs of Amboise, and the massive St-Denis Church in the background.

4. Looking west from the Minimes Tower at the Chateau d'Amboise

Looking east, we can the Loire winding down to Amboise.

5. Students on the Western 2010 bike trip on the Minimes Tower.

The beauty and peace of the chateau and the surrounding town may make it hard to imagine that they were the site of cruel, bloody events that took place here in March, 1560. Those events have left their mark on French history.

The Amboise Conspiracy

Religion and politics should not be mixed. When they are, the result is often disorder and bloodshed, as France experienced in the seven decades after 1560. Among the best known events of the Religious Wars in France are the Saint-Barthélemy Massacre in 1572, and the assassinations of two kings, Henry III in 1589, and his son Henry IV in 1610. A portent of all this bloodshed were some brutal killings in Amboise in March, 1560, which had both religious and political dimensions.

On the religious side, it all began with a German priest, Martin Luther, who in 1517 wrote his “Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences” (also known as the Ninety-Five Theses); he may have affixed them to the door of the church in Wittenberg, although many modern historians believe he simply sent them to his bishop. Luther argued that salvation could not be bought, but only achieved through faith in Jesus Christ. He wrote that our knowledge of God comes from the Bible, thereby disputing the authority of the Pope and his hierarchy. These views were offensive to the established Church, and in 1521 Luther was excommunicated by Pope Leo X. Today in Germany there are roughly equal numbers of Roman Catholics and Protestants.

Luther’s ideas travelled quickly through Germany in a 16th century version of social networking involving pamphlets and ballads.[1] His doctrines also spread to other countries in Europe. In France, the Reform movement was led by John Calvin, born in 1509 in Picardy. In university, Calvin was attracted to humanism, and then to religious Reform. His views forced him to flee to Switzerland in 1535.

The following year he published his Institutes of the Christian Religion, setting out his Reform doctrines. Despite intermittent persecution, the number of Reformers or Protestants in France (or Huguenots, as their enemies called them) grew rapidly after 1850, especially among the nobility. The criticism of each other’s church by Reformers and Roman Catholics was often bitter and extreme; each sought control of the French state as a means to control the rival church.

These tensions came to a head with the sudden death of Henry II, after a jousting accident in June, 1559. His son became king at just 15 years of age, as François II. Through an arrangment concluded when he was four, François was married at age 14 to Marie Stuart, Queen of Scots (later imprisoned and put to death by Elizabeth I of England). When he became King, two of his wife’s uncles, the duc de Guise and his younger brother, the cardinal de Lorraine, became his chief advisors. They quickly took control of the government. The painting below of the duc de Guise is by François Clouet, the official painter of King François I.

6. François, duc de Guise.

The Guises became known for their violent suppression of Protestantism. The House of Guise was found by Claude de Lorraine (1495-1550), a valiant military commander under François I, who in appreciation gave him the title of 1st duc de Guise. In 1525 the duc de Guise suppressed a revolt of Anabaptists, a Protestant sect, in a massacre in Saverne, Alsace, which earned him the title of “the Great Butcher.” His son François, the 2nd duc de Guise, organized the massacre at Amboise in 1560. François’ son Henri, the 3rd duc de Guise, played a role in the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of Protestants in Paris in 1572, and later founded and led the Catholic League (la Ligue Catholique), devoted to the anti-Protestant cause. He was assassinated at Blois in 1588 on order of King Henry III, a story we will tell when our bike trips arrive in Blois.

In early 1560 members of the Huguenot nobility began plotting to kidnap the King, and return him to power after they had removed the Guises. A meeting of the conspirators was held in Nantes on Feb. 1, 1560. The plot was discovered and the King was moved from Blois to Amboise, where the Chateau was more defensible. The conspirators were poorly organized, and an attack on March 17, at the gate of the Bons-hommes under the Heurtault Tower on the north side of the Chateau, was quickly repulsed by the troops of les Guises.

7. The Heurtault Tower, with the gate of the Bons-homme. In the distance, at the top of the wall, is the St-Hubert Chapel.

There followed a bloody massacre of all the conspirators and their troops. The town quickly ran out of gallows and began hanging Huguenots from the balconies of the chateau. Others were decapitated. “The cobblestones of the interior courtyards were red and sticky from the blood of decapitated nobles.” [2] An engraving by Jacques Tortorel and Jean Perrisin from 1570 shows the horror of the scene enacted in Amboise over several days. Tortorel and Perrisin were Protestant artists in Lyon. In 1570 they published in Geneva a collection of engravings on the religious conflicts in France between 1559 and 1570. [3]

8. Jacques Tortorel and Jean Perrisin, "The Execution of the Conspirators of Amboise" (1570).

The engraving shows the north wall of the chateau, as seen from the direction of Photo 2. In addition to the troops present, there are a good many spectators, including, near the lower right corner, a woman with a young boy. The Huguenots are to be taught a lesson.

Two men are being thrown from the chateau balcony with ropes around their necks. Five more are already hanging, along with a sixth on a gallows in the center of the engraving. The latter is the leader of the conspiracy, Jean de Barry, lord of la Renaudie manor in Périgord. La Renaudie was killed in a skirmish on March 19 in the Forest of Chateau-Renault as he headed toward Amboise with a small troop. His body was displayed as the engraving shows, and then chopped into five pieces, each hung at a gate to the chateau.

In the left foreground, a gallows carries three heads; headless bodies lie nearby. A Huguenot Captain, M. de Villemongis, about to be decapitated with a sword, seems ready for his fate, as he washes his hands in the blood of those who have gone before him. [4]

This last figure reappears a century later, as the great French historian Jules Michelet describes how those who had fought with the Huguenot forces faced death that day in Amboise:

“Dying, they raised their loyal hands to God. One of them, M. de Villemongis, dipped his in the blood of his comrades already executed, and raising his red hands, cried in a strong voice, ‘This is the blood of your children, Lord! You will avenge it!'”[5]

His words foretold 70 years of cruel religious wars in France.

[1] “How Luther went viral,” The Economist, December 17, 2011, pp. 39-41.
[2] Jacques Debû-Bridel, La Conjuration d’Amboise (Paris: Editions Mondiales, 1963), pp. 203. “Le pavé des cours intériueres était tout rouge et gluant du sang des gentilshommes décapités.”
[3] A remarkable exposition of the work of Tortorel and Perrisin was held in 2006 at the Musée de la Rénaissance at Chateau d’Ecouen north of Paris, in collaboration with the Bibliothèque National de France. The title was D’encre et de Sang – Les guerres de Religion gravées par Tortorel et Perrissin (Ink and Blood – the Wars of Religion engraved by Tortorel and Perrissin). A summary of the exposition can be downloaded from the museum website, musee-renaissance.fr.
[4] Villemongis is identified by Nicolas Le Roux, Les Guerres de Réligion 1559-1629 (Editions Belin, 2009), pp. 42-43, where the engraving in Photo 4 is also shown, although in a mirror image (left and right are reversed, as compared to Photo 4).
[5] Jules Michelet, Histore de France, le XVIe siècle, II, Un siècle partagé, La Réforme (Lausanne, Editions Rencontre, 1966), p. 350. “Ils levaient en mourant leurs mains loyales à Dieu. L’un d’eux, M. de Villemongis, trempa les siennes dans le sang de ses amies déjà exécutés, et, les élevant toutes rouges, cria d’une voix forte: ‘C’est le sang de tes enfants, Seigneur! Tu en feras la vengeance!'”

Photograph 1 is from the website http://www.magicsilure.fr. Photographs 6 and 8 are from the Wikipedia Commons, commons.wikimedia.org. All other photographs were taken by the author.

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Shall We Dance?

A Kidnapping at the Chateau

The Legend Continues

The Amboise Conspiracy