Where the money goes on a baguette

I found this interesting picture on another blog.  I'll never eat another baguette without thinking about profit and loss!  I should date this picture as September '08.  What  a lot of salaries, n'est-ce pas?  Is this the effect of crazy 'social costs'?

Fête de Locomotion 2008

The Richelieu Festival of Locomotion is held in the domainal park of the Château of Richelieu every other year.  This year it took place on the weekend of the 6 and 7 September 2008.

Saturday is really a day of set up, but in the afternoon there was an auction of historic and sporty cars run by auctioneers from Chinon.  This year the sale included the world's largest collection of Velos Solex, the front-wheel power-assisted bicycles that seem associated with berets, onions, Gaulloises and other iconic clichés of la douce France.  Now they are a rarity as everybody drives cars.  

Twenty or so ancient or sporty cars were sold off to an expectant audience, and bargains were to be had.  How much would you pay for a classic Citroën H van in rare pick-up format? - believe me, the lucky purchaser was delighted at what he paid.  The next day the main event started with a gracious tour of the locality at the speed that can be achieved by 1926 Citroën saloons, which stopped off at a château behind Fay-la-Vineuse for a vin d'honneur and a session admiring the collection of cars.  The long line of cars was protected by WW2 Willys jeeps marshalling the 2008 traffic; the military vehicles complete with very pretty girls of the Free French forces riding shotgun with the Yankee liberators. Followed of course by déjeuner together under the trees of the park.

Well done to the Amateurs d'Utilitaires de la Vallée de la Loire for the whole event. 

(p.s. vallée n. f. is a valley, so surely de la vallée rather than de le vallée?  

Quelle horreur!!)

thanks to Susie for the pictures - Abbé Henri Proust's old Box Brownie is acting a bit dickie at the moment...

The new Richelieu stamp (2)

Thank you Jean et Caroline for getting us an immaculate first day cover (5th August 2008) of the 0.55 cent stamp depicting the Duc-Cardinal and the Porte de Châtellerault of the town of Richelieu.

This follows an earlier post in this  site, warning of the issue by La Poste.

Back in the saddle

Abbé Henri Proust, who writes most of these blog posts, has finally arrived back at his presbytery computer, so the stream of Éminence Rouge blog posts, all about the gorgeous little town of Richelieu, can now resume after les vacances.

Welcome back M. l'Abbé!

The Tour de France threads its way through Richelieu

The fifth stage of the famous cycle race will pass through Richelieu tomorrow, Wednesday 8th July 2008.

follow the race here

10/7/08  The two pictures were taken by Laurent Bonnet while the peleton passed through the Porte de Loudun and are posted on Jean-Louis' blog. Sadly blog-master Henri Proust could not attend in person.  Thanks!

The new 0.55€ RICHELIEU stamp

La Poste is about to issue a new stamp, for the value of 0.55 euros.  As you can see the design features the statue of the Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu that today stands between the park and the town, and the Porte de Châtellerault at the southern extremity of the walled cité.  First day covers are available at the post office in the place du Marché on 5th and 6th July 2008, and the designer, M. Claude Jumelet, will give a talk about the project.

Thanks to Jean-Louis Laurence for tipping us off on his blog today.

Hunting music - 13 September 2008

Concert de Musiques de la Chasse, le 13 septembre 2008 au Parc de Richelieu à RICHELIEU ( près de Chinon)
avec la participation du Débuché de Paris - Pascal Vigneron, orgue - Dimitri Vassilakis, piano - Christine Auger, clavecin - Anne Julie Kerhello, Soprano - Jean-Philippe Doubrere, basse - Soliste de l’Orchestre de Chambre du Marais

Concert of hunting music, 13 September 2008 in the Domainal park of RICHELIEU (near Chinon) with the participation of the Débuché de Paris - Pascal Vigneron, organ, Dimitri Vassilakis, piano - Christine Auger, harpsichord - Anne Julie Kerhello, soprano - Jean-Phillipe Doubrere, bass - Soloists of the Chamber Orchestra of the Marais, Paris.

Information and tickets: 02.47.93.03.72 - or infos@musiques-et-patrimoine.com

Summer 2008 events from the Office de Tourisme

Below we show the agenda for the summer months in Richelieu.
NOTE the 'Festival of the Cape and Rapier' on the 19 and 20th July and the popular new Music Festival held in the Dome of the old Château at the end of July and the beginning of August.

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Read this document on Scribd: NOUVOFF0006

Know your Touraine wines

Most of our French neighbours feel there is little point buying wine from outside the all-encompassing vineyards of the long Loire valley. Red, white, rosé, sweet, dry, sparkling, botrytised (?) all from local yokels (usually a 'cousin')! 

This web site gives a very quick run down on the various wines complete with temperature recommendations - usually carelessly overlooked in the rush to get the bottle opened.

A real 17th century carriage

This is a 'Gala Coupé' carriage from the seventeenth century that is in a museum in Brussels. Could a good coachman steer one of these into the gate of a Richelieu 'hôtel particulier', or were the entry gates more for farm carts than grandiose sets of wheels like these?  Probably it would be more at home at the château fore-courts with their larger turning circles.  In the period of The Three Musketeers it was thought effeminate for a gentleman to travel by coach as he should be in the saddle - hence the high boots of the cavalier's outfit.  The unspeakable but dainty Madame de Winter in contrast travels by coach. It was only in the era of Louis XIV that the manly riding boot gave way to the dinky court pump and silken stocking of Versailles and Vaux-le-Vicomte.  The authentic booted cavalier's costume below dates from 1630.

Richelieu carriage gates

Most of the large houses in Richelieu are fitted with a standard design carriage gate that gives access to the court behind.  These monster oaken gates allow the passage of a carriage with two horses (plus postillion) or a mounted rider.  As the main gates are so large, a pass door is provided for general foot passage, and this is fitted into one of the main leaves.  The design is adapted to suit various heights of opening, sometimes with the top panel fixed, sometimes with it integral to the main leaves.  There are one or two gates still from the 1630s, but most must have been recreated to the original design.  As 1630 is  380 years ago, most of these doors may have been replaced more than once.

The two drawings below have been recreated in digital format from a hand-drawn set produced in 1943 (presumably during the occupation of Richelieu by the German army) by a certain J. Brandon of the Centre de Recherches sur les Monuments Historiques.

Double/right-click on the drawings and they will come up nice and big in their own window.

This is true of all this blog's images, which are about 900 pixels wide on average at 72dpi.

Armand-Jean invents the dinner knife

1637: Perhaps weary of watching dinner guests picking their teeth with the points of their daggers, Cardinal Richelieu orders the blades of his dinnerware to be ground down and rounded off. Et voilà, the modern dinner knife is born.

Prior to Richelieu's flash of inspiration (or simple revulsion at bad manners), diners typically used hunting daggers to spear their morsels, which were then conveyed to the mouth by hand or with the help of a spoon. The fork, the implement that really revolutionized chowing down, had existed since biblical times. Despite its utility, however, the fork remained a relative rarity in the West until the 17th century, even among the French royals that Richelieu served with unswerving devotion.

Richelieu's knives became the rage among the court and soon everyone who was anyone in France had a set. The dinner knife became commonplace throughout France after Louis XIV -- who, like most kings, had his own reasons for not wanting sharp blades and pointed tips around -- decreed its universality. Soon afterward, the dinner knife found its way throughout continental Europe to England and, eventually, the American colonies.

It's fitting that the table knife helped refine table manners at the French court. If the French didn't invent good manners (and they didn't: the ancient Egyptians instituted a code of behavior during the Fifth Dynasty), they at least gave the world étiquette, the five-franc word that's synonymous with refined behavior.

Cardinal Richelieu, of course, was more than a simple cutler. As Louis XIII's chief minister, he was no stranger to using sharp implements to influence geopolitical events.

His policies transformed France into a powerful state, bringing it into direct conflict with the House of Hapsburg and the Holy Roman emperors. Allying Catholic France with the Protestant Swedes in the Thirty Years' War, Richelieu looked on as sword-wielding mercenaries laid waste the tiny neighboring German states, helping fuel the grudges that set the stage for modern European history.