Playing with Prisma

These versions of the photo below were made using the free 'app' called Prisma.

The porte de chinon at the northern end of the town looking south from the new roundabout.

the original snap

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The Office of Tourism

Sunlight is falling on the façade of the restored Tourist Office, adding a nice shadow to the elevated lettering on the front wall. We wait hoping that the other half of this hôtel particulier - mansion - will shortly be restored to match, now that it has been acquired by the Townhall, together with the adjacent shop. All the Place du Marché's corner pavilions are very conspicuous in the urban vista.

In the cemetery with the Abbé Henri Proust

H.(Henri) A.(Armand) PROUST 1817-1897 - at 80 years;

 Sacerdos Christi in te domino speravi

Priest of Christ

O Lord, in thee have I trusted

the tomb

the man

the street

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Mid-winter in the parc - cold and foggy at noon

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The start of restoration of the church buildings in Richelieu

The church buildings of France are generally the responsibility of the town hall rather than the episcopate. So expensive restoration of listed historic buildings  is either a subject of civic pride and duty or a financial money pit for the poor commune and its tax-payers.

The old Abbé  thinks that the brothers Lemercier would have liked this 'rigorous' layout of scaffolding;
so neo-classical.......

The history of church and state

Title III: Buildings of worship

• Article 12 declares that all buildings which the state has made available to religious organizations will remain the property of the state pursuant to the provisions in the following articles. (This article was amended in 1998.)
• Article 13 specifies that the "buildings used for public worship, and movable objects furnishing them will be left free of charge to public institutions of worship", details the methods by which disputed ownership may be determined, and describes procedures for reclamation of properties and fixtures abandoned by religious organizations. (This article was modified in 2015.)
• Article 14 provides the same directives as Article 13 for "Archdioceses, bishoprics, parsonages and their dependency, big seminaries and faculties of Protestant theology".
• Article 15 specifies that, "in the departments of the Savoy, the Haute Savoie and Alpes-Maritimes" buildings used "for the exercise of worship or for the accommodation of their ministers" may be "allocated by villages on the territory from which they are" pursuant to Article 12, while "cemeteries remain the property of the villages".
• Article 16 creates a special category for "buildings for public religious worship (cathedrals, churches, chapels, temples, synagogues, archbishops, bishops, presbyters, seminars), in which will be included all of these buildings representative in whole or in parts, artistic or historical value."
• Article 17 establishes that the sale of any buildings covered by the above articles shall be offered to: "1 religious associations; 2 communes; 3 departments; 4. Museums and art and archaeology societies; 5 to the state," in that order.

The restoration of the 'North-west angle pavilion' (sometime Tour Sainte Anne)

the 2017 annual message from the townhall

The project for the restoration of the guard tower, located at the north-western corner of the town's engirdling city wall, is announced in the new year message brochure from the town hall.

the project is announced officially!

click here to see more details of how it all started off

...before even the founding of the Fonds de Dotation.

first signs of action!.....

......a window goes missing for details and measurements.

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Bicycle hire starts near the former station of Richelieu.

M. Minassian prepares for the completion, promised for the summer of 2017, of the 'voie verte' or green cycle way, that will link the famous city of Chinon with the Cité Idéale of Richelieu at a distance of about 14 kilometres. The tourist will then be able to promenade along the pretty valley of the Veude river - it becomes the modest stream Mable by the time of its arrival in Richelieu - along the flat former railway line that linked the two towns. It operated from about 1880 till 2000 or so and was constructed mainly for the export of white veal to the Paris markets.
So far, the tracks have been removed for scrap, all the locomotives and rolling stock moved elsewhere (Thouars?) and the frequent junctions of road and former rail line have had new crossings laid to allow cars and bicylces to cross in safety.  It was the problems of these crossings that spelt the death knell of the former railway link. It was impossible to reconstruct so many crossings to modern HSE standards. The trains had to have a man with a red flag go in front by foot!