* 4th Richelieu Music Festival Programme * 29 July - 15 August 2010

Music Fest 4

the next fesitival of CAPE AND RAPIER

The biennial festival that relives the fantasy of the 17th century of the world of 'The Three Musketeers' takes place on the weekend of 17-18 July 2010.
Henri Proust has attended the most recent three 2004, 2006 and 2008; each more successful than the last, as the crowds grow for this wonderful village fête magnifique.

DO COME IF YOU CAN

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From Near or Far

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(hallo Maxim in St. Petersburg!)

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Polychromy+Tuffeau

The town of Richelieu is built of the staple materials of the 17th century in Touraine; chalky fieldstone rubble, tuffeau - a very soft whitish limestone, barely more than compacted chalk - and various pierres dures - hardstones - for use in locations where tuffeau's water absorbtion is a problem.  This problem is mainly in foundation work and the first couple of courses above ground level, as can be seen in a change of stone work at low level on all but the humblest constructions.  With slate or tile roof on a oak or chestnut timber charpente, this forms the materials palette of the provincial 17th century.

However (and obviously) the town lived through the aesthetics of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries too, and some of their favourite styles can be found in adaptations to older buildings.  Here, in the dappled light of a hazel nut tree, is a typical piece of 19th century polychromy.  Tuffeau blocks interchanged with five red-brick courses, all embedded in  a much older rendered rubble wall of a rear extension building.

Often the results of this stylistic mélange seem very pretty.....

It may be a motif that is more eighteenth century than nineteenth, as one can see the idea illustrated at the fantasy farm created for Marie-Antoinette at Versailles in the 1780s.

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28 Grande Rue re-opens after building works

Number 28 Grande Rue is the hôtel particulier - the mansion - on the Grande Rue that was restored by the TV actor Gerard Klein and his wife.  It was bought by the municipality in 2007 and is now used as a museum example of the 28 identical hôtels that flank the town's main street.  As it had been restored as a home rather than a museum, it was necessary to make certain adaptations to make it conform with public building saftey standards.  The works have lasted most of a year, but now the mansion has re-opened.  The interior (as yet unvisited in its new format by the Abbé Henri Proust) now includes an exhibition of material about the Cardinal and the history of his new town called ESPACE RICHELIEU:.  All this in addition to the municipal Museum at the Mairie - the townhall - at the other end of the street.

The panel on the exterior shows times of access:
May and June:         at weekends                       10 - 12 am, closed for déjeuner (it is France!), 2 - 6 pm
July to September:   everyday                            10 - 12 am, closed for déjeuner, 2 - 6 pm
School holidays, Easter and All Saints Day:          10 - 12 am, closed for déjeuner, 2 - 6 pm

The Abbé will shortly add pictures of the interior, once he actually gets through the door!

click here for posts on 28 Grande Rue

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The newly restored façade of 16 Grande Rue

The newly-restored façade of the corner hotêl particulier,16 Grande Rue, has emerged from its scaffold.  The yellow ochre render that has been used is in contrast to the more muted palette that has been the norm in recent Richelieu restoration projects.  This colour echoes that used in the restoration of the Cour des Offices at Fontainbleau.  This metropolitan project was illustrated on this blog last year.

The woodwork will be painted in a mid warm-grey rather than the more normal gris de perle or even the even lighter reflets de perle.

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tempête Xynthia

This raging storm passed through Richelieu on the 28 February 2010. In the domainal parc of the château de Richelieu the tall, tall plane trees took the brunt of the wind. Most of them survived and live on but an occasional tree in the lofty avenues was shattered in the storm's fury.

The foresters quite quickly reduced the fallen into nice stacks of split logs. The price of firewood slumped, especially if you need plane tree wood.

The tempest past, the ethereal calm of the parc is now re-established and the canals mirror the plentiful surviving trees. The newly restored handrails on the canals' bridges in 'permitted' oxbood paint now seem to have weathered in well. And shrunk a bit.

20th anniversary twin-town visit to Schaafheim

fdv20

King Henry II, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine and Richard Coeur-de-Lion

These great monarchs were buried in the abbey church at Fontevraud, 15 miles NW from Richelieu.  Henry / Henri and Eleanor / Alienor, father and mother of King Richard I 'the Lionheart', Robin Hood's absent true king of England, and his brother 'bad' King John, the hero of the Magna Carta of 1215 limiting the power of the English Monarchy;  all three men Kings of England, but vassals of the King of France on the continent.  French speaking members of the Plantagenet dynasty who ran their huge domain from Chinon castle.

Richard I at Westminster

The abbey had a very noble pedigree and was always administered by an abbess during the ancien regime.  The inconvenient or devout daughters and dowagers of the high nobles of France filled its echoing corridors up to 1789.

After that it became a notorious Napoleonic high security prison with many famous inmates, even the recent well-known writer Jean Genet, author of 'A thief's journal'.

It has now been restored in its entirety and yearns for a multitude of sweet new novices to fill its immaculate rooms.  But the daughters of today's celebrities prefer clubbing in Ibiza, Mustique and Dubai!

find the location on the map to the right ------>

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New activites on the mansions of the Grande Rue

New parigot owners move in to the hôtel particulier number 5 Grande Rue

An entry-gate clean-up of 11 Grande Rue, 

the only hôtel particulier wth a side entrance on rue Traversière

Work continues on the comprehensive restoration of number 14 Grande Rue

with a concrete delivery, while the main façade masonry is being repaired

The restored rear range of 14 Grande Rue in its new flamboyant colours, and

the half-complete new slate roof at the rear of number 14

with 5 new dormers.

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no town is complete without its own polo field

Behind a line of houses along the coupure du parc - the snippet of the park - a 19th century suburb of Richelieu carved out of the northern extremity of the ducal parc, is that grandiose and stylish asset, a 300 x 200m polo field. Not only a polo field, but a string of live polo ponies as well.

We will have to stop calling it 'that poor little town of Richelieu', or maybe insist that all the BIG money lives in Chaveignes, the little commune that includes the coupure du parc.

Location on the map in the column to the right....

And the local taxes are lower in Chaveignes, they say.

Persian polo as played in the 1550s

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Bacchus? - Obélix? - Mandragore? - Depardieu?

The keystone of the Orangery of the château de Richelieu built in the 1630s to designs by Jacques Lemercier has this blobby portrait in vine leaves? hop leaves? cut in the 'tuffeau' stone work. One can see many images incorporated, not just the hirsute face......

the 'dolmen' at Ligré - 5km from Richelieu

Stonehenge is more impressive, it is true, but not by that much.  On a hill top above the wine village of Ligré to the north west of Richelieu we find the dolmen or burial tomb that overlooks the sweep of the river Vienne.
One itches to get the one fallen stone upright to re-complete the stability this ancient structure.
Was it covered with an earthen burial mound?
It makes it clear that even in pre-history the region was influential.  In later centuries Chinon castle, a couple of miles away, was to rule the Europe of the Plantagenets from Spain to Hadrian's wall in Scotland.   Touraine has been the play-park of noble families and kings for a long, long time.

p.s it is now stranded in a field of rape seed; last year it was sunflowers, I think.

see the location on the map of Richelieu locations to the right....

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