St-Benoît-sur-Loire

Philippe 1er of France was born in the year 1052 and was crowned king in 1060, when he was eight years old. His mother served as his regent for the first seven or eight years of his reign. We know him in English as Philip the First. Philippe was not a common name in France at the time, evidently — Philippe's mother was Anne de Kiev, a Ukrainian.

The tomb of Philippe Ier at St-Benoît-sur-Loire

Le roi Philippe remained on the throne of France until his death in 1108 — a 48-year reign. He was the great-grandson of Hugues Capet, who as king of France from 987 to 996 was the founder of the Capetian dynasty. The last direct descendant of Charlemagne had failed to produce a male heir. Hugues Capet was elected king by an assembly of French noblemen.

Philippe 1er spent most of his long reign trying to keep his unruly vassals — the dukes and other noblemen who controlled one piece or other of territory around Paris — in line. He succeeded at least to an extent, because his descendants continued to rule France until 1328.

The abbey church at St-Benoît-sur-Loire

One of Philippe's vassals, the Duke of Normandy that the world came to call William the Conqueror, won the battle of Hastings and became king of England when Philippe had been king of France for just six years (and was 14 years old). Philippe and William (Guillaume, in French) made peace ten years later, when William promised he would quit trying to extend his realm by conquering Brittany. Evidently, Philippe spent years trying to provoke unrest and dissension within the Anglo-Norman kingdom as a way to reduce its threat to his own power.

When he was 20, Philippe was married to Bertha of Holland, and they had five children. Then in 1092, at the age of 40, he fell in love with Bertrade de Montfort. He repudiated Bertha. He married Bertrade and was excommunicated by Pope Urban II.

His excommunication prevented Philip from taking part in the First Crusade, which was launched in 1095 and which he didn't personally support because of his conflict with the papacy.

When Philip died in 1108 at the château of Melun, near Paris, his body was carried in a great procession from there to the abbey church at St-Benoît-sur-Loire, some 70 miles distant, where he wished to be buried.

The monastery at what is now called St-Benoît-sur-Loire had been founded four or five hundred years earlier. It was called Fleury then. In the late 600s, a group of monks from Fleury made the long trek to southern Italy and brought back some of the remains of St. Benedict (Benoît is French for Benedict). The bones that they found and carried back were certified as authentic by the pope at the time.

St-Benoît-sur-Loire became a very holy place in Christendom, given Benedict's stature as the founder of the great religious order that carries his name, the Benedictines. The saint's remains, or relics, according to the Michelin guide, were a "source of miracles, of healing, and many wonders that couldn't but draw crowds and spread the fame of the place from then on known as St-Benoît."

CHM and I visited the church at St-Benoît on July 15, 2006, and that's when these pictures of the interior of the church were taken. Earlier in the day, we had been at Yèvre, Bellegarde, and Sully, where there are impressive châteaux. We arrived at St-Benoît just ahead of a busload of teenagers in a school group. Restoration work was going on at the church, so parts of the building that we wanted to see were closed to the public. And it was crowded with tourists.

The great church at St-Benoît stands on the banks of the Loire just a few miles from Sully, in an area called Le Val d'Or — the Valley of Gold. The building that exists today was built mostly around the time of Philippe Ier, in the 11th and 12th centuries. Of the earlier monastic buildings, nothing remains.

The Michelin guide describes the church this way: "A dazzling example of art and spirituality, St-Benoît is enthralling for the simple grandeur of its proportions, the delicate riches of its sculptures, and the soft golden light that seems to drape its vaults and columns." St-Benoît-sur-Loire was a great center of learning and scholarship in the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries.

The monastery went into decline in the 15th century. The French kings gave it over to hired abbots, some of whom were laymen with no religious mission or education. In the early 16th century, the monks revolted against King François 1er's appointee, and the king had to go in person to St-Benoît with an army to put down the rebellion.

In the second half of the 16th century, during the wars of religion pitting catholics against protestants, one of the abbots of St-Benoît converted to protestantism. He let the protestant forces pillage the monastery and melt down its gold treasures, including the 35-pound reliquary that held St-Benoît's supposed remains. The library was sold off, including some 2000 manuscripts that ended up dispersed all over Europe.

You might have noticed the elaborate tile floor upon which Philippe 1er's tomb effigy rests. One source describes it as an Italian mosaic that was completed in 1531. Another calls it a "Byzantine mosaics floor." It is one of the church's extraordinary features.

Another July 15 château... Sully

Can you believe it? I was going to call this entry "Another day, another château," but then I realized it was the same day. Yèvre, Bellegarde, and now Sully-sur-Loire. All within 30 miles of each other.

Arriving at the château de Sully-sur-Loire

How long do you think is going to take me to catalog all the châteaux in the Loire Valley? I guess it really is a hopeless task. But now that I've started....

Sully is a forbidding, military kind of place

Sully-sur-Loire is located right on the Loire river, about 25 miles upriver from Orléans. It's a town of about 6,000. The name of the town goes back to Roman times, when somebody named Silius lived in the area. The inhabitants of Sully are called the Sullinois.

In the middle ages, a local aristocrat named Maurice de Sully became bishop of Paris. He was the one who had the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris built. Joan of Arc (who else?) and Voltaire also figure significantly in the history of the little town of Sully-sur-Loire.

Map of Sully-sur-Loire showing the location of the château.
There must be a lot of visitors because there are many parking lots...

But the famous figure most closely connected to Sully was Maximilien de Béthune, who became a Duke of Sully and took its name. He served as right-hand man to king Henri IV at the end of the 16th century. Here's a Wikipedia article about him. He was a protestant, as was Henri IV, at a time when the wars of religion between the protestants, or Huguenots, and the catholics were raging across France.

The classic moated château, Sully-sur-Loire

Sully advised Henri to convert to catholicism in order to become king of France (« Paris vaut bien une messe ») but refused to convert himself. That didn't stop Henri from appointing him to many important positions in government.

Sully played a big role in reunifying France after the 16th-century wars of religion and reviving the economy. He became owner of the château in Sully-sur-Loire in 1602, buying it from the baronial family that had owned it for three hundred years. Sully's career ended when Henri IV was assassinated in 1610.

Somehow the flowers look out of place in front of such a fortress

The château de Sully had existed in one form or another since the 10th century, 600 years before Henri IV and Maximilien de Béthune came along. Parts of the buildings existing today date from the 14th century. It predates the fancy Loire valley châteaux like Chambord and Chenonceau by centuries.

Sully is the classic moated castle and one of the most beautiful along all the Loire. It was built here to guard the river crossing, and is about halfway between the old cities of Orléans and Gien, on the part of the Loire that is closest to Paris.

Stocky stone tower guarding Sully

Bellegarde

The château de Bellegarde is one of my favorite stopping-off points on the drive to Paris as we do it. We don't usually take the autoroute (the toll is $20 each way) even though that would be the fastest route. And the most boring.

The château de Bellegarde, between Orléans and Fontainebleau

Instead, we drive through the forests of the Sologne up to Orléans, and then we head northeast toward Fontainebleau, passing through Châteauneuf-sur-Loire, Bellegarde, Puiseaux, Malesherbes, and Milly-la-Forêt. The countryside is pretty, and there's no traffic until we hit the freeway that leads into Paris, which we are on for the last 30 minutes of the three-hour trip.

Close-up of the towers and rooftops

Bellegarde was a surprise the first time we did the drive, two or three years ago. We didn't know it existed. And it turned out to be the perfect stop for the dog. She could take a walk around the grounds and a couple of pipis before we headed on into the city.

Brick tower added on in the 18th century

The château de Bellegarde was built in the late 1300s, so it's 700 years old. It was originally what is called a donjon in French — a fortified tower, or keep. But in the 1600s, it became the property of the duc d'Antin, who was the son of one of Louis XIV's mistresses, Mme de Montespan.

The château on the right with 18th-century additions in the background

Façade of one of the duc d'Antin's additions

Like nearly all châteaux, Bellegarde changed and evolved over the centuries, as needs changed and building techniques and styles advanced.

Detail of the side tower, built in brick in the 1700s

In the early 1700s, the duke had the place remodeled significantly, turning it into a residence by adding on new wings and outbuildings, the grand staircases on the front, and formal gardens. One of the "new" buildings is now the Bellegarde town hall.

The moat at Bellegarde is actually a small lake

The château de Bellegarde is right on the main road that crosses the town. It's an easy stop, and it's nice to stroll around the moat, across the little bridge, and up to the château itself. There's a nice rose garden.

The bridge

I took these pictures after lunch in Combreux on July 15, 2006, when I visited Bellegarde with Marthe, Pierre, and CHM. It was a hot, clear Saturday afternoon and, again, we had the place all to ourselves.

Brickwork along the edge of the moat

Lavoirs — yesterday's laundromats

Back to July 15. CHM and I were in my car, driving south from Yèvre-le-Châtel, following Pierre and Marthe in their car toward the town of Combreux, where we had reservations for lunch. Suddenly, just as we turned a corner in a village next to the church, Pierre pulled off the road onto the shoulder. I did the same, figuring we had made a wrong turn and would need to backtrack.

Village lavoir located right next to the church.

But no, Marthe had spotted a lavoir, an old wash house. I don't even remember what village we were passing through. It might have been Boiscommun. Or Courcelles. For a minute just now I thought I had found it on the web in Sury-aux-Bois, but now I'm not sure. Anyway, it's in a village just west of Bellegarde and just north of Combreux. I'll have to go look for it again the next time I'm in that area. Maybe CHM will remember.

This lavoir has been decorated with plantings and pots of beautiful flowers.

A lavoir is a wash house. It's where people went to wash their clothes and linens in the days before washing machines (which is not really that long ago). Usually a lavoir is a covered structure built on the banks of a river, stream, or canal. Women (who undoubtedly did by far most if not all of the laundry) carried their dirty clothing and linens as well as the necessary equipment down to the lavoir on laundry day. Remember, houses had no running water. There was a well, and maybe a pump. There was no electricity.

The roof of the lavoir, which in this case is a fairly big building

I found a long description on a web site in French. Here's my translation:

Before I take you back to the years between 1946 and 1950, which is when I had the experiences I'm going to tell you about, doing the laundry, you have to remember that back then there were no disposable paper products. Everything was cloth. No throw-away paper tissues or paper towels. Absolutely everything had to be washed, even cleaning rags. And there were no mechanical devices to do laundry; it all had to be done by hand. As a result, people put on clean clothes just once a week — that's just the way it was. On Sunday, the members of the household changed their clothes, taking off the dirty ones they had worn for seven days, including the men's shirts that had soaked up all the sweat of the hard labor required of them in those days.

That said — young women, listen carefully — it took two or three full days of work to get the laundry done. I loved laundry days, myself. The day before, my grandmother would sort the dirty laundry, thrown into a pile or sometimes put up to hang in an outbuilding for weeks on end so it wouldn't get moldy. It's true. We had enough clothes to get us through. Grandma put the whites — all the household linens were white — into a big tub that we filled with water, hauling it by the bucketful from the well, and threw in two or three big handfuls of soda crystals. That was called soaking the laundry. And then there were what we called Grandpa's "Russian socks" — they were rags that he wrapped his feet in and wore inside his big old workboots. They stank to high heaven. Grandpa said they were good enough for everyday wear. If he said so...

The roof structure of the lavoir

The site goes on with details. The laundry had to be rinsed in the stream to remove the worst of the dirt. Then it had to be boiled in a big metal washtub over a fire. Then it had to be rinsed and hung out to dry. Clothes, sheets, towels, handkerchiefs, rags... it took a lot of time and was hard work.

Another view of the flowery lavoir

My mother has told me that when she was a girl in the 1930s and 1940s laundry day was Monday at her house and she had to do a good part of the work. By the time I was coming along in the 1950s, people had washing machines — the kind with wringers at first, more recognizable ones later. But Ma still did a good amount of laundry in the bathtub on a washboard.

Sprays of potted flowering plants

Most villages in France have a public lavoir like the one in these pictures. Most of them aren't so dolled up, of course. Around here, there's one in Montrésor, south of us, and one in Choussy, to the north. If there is still one in Saint-Aignan, or in the neighboring villages of Mareuil and Seigy, I haven't found it yet. Then again, there is a new laundromat in town.

And then there's this lavoir in the town of Châteauvieux, just southeast of Saint-Aignan. My friend Marie will recognize it, and I dedicate this topic to her today... She knows why.

The lavoir in Châteauvieux

Yèvre-le-Châtel

Flash! French TV news is reporting today that France gets more foreign tourists per year than any other country. The figure given is 76 million foreign visitors coming to France every year. Well, you'd never know it out here in the country. By the way, the population of France is about 60 million.

* * * * *

It was July 15, a hot Saturday in the middle of tourist season. I left Saint-Aignan at about 7:00 a.m. to drive up to a village near the town of Étampes where my friend CHM was visiting friends. The plan called for me to go fetch him, and then we would stop and see several châteaux and churches during the day, have a nice lunch, and arrive back in Saint-Aignan by nightfall.

The town hall at Yèvre, a "modern" building in a medieval setting

One of the reasons I wanted to come live in France was to be able to travel around the country and see the sights. The countryside is beautiful, and you don't have to go far to stumble upon fantastic old churches, castles, and intact medieval villages. There are Roman ruins too. This spring, I have been doing exactly what I wanted to do here -- and I have also been enjoying the food, the wine, and the people. Those were my other reasons for moving to France.

A gate into the old fortified town at Yèvre, near Pithiviers

I met CHM at his friends' house. They live in a beautiful valley cut by a river through the wide, flat plain that is called La Beauce, south and west of Paris. I had no idea such valleys even existed. And the friends have a wonderful flower garden that runs down a hillside and is planted with an amazing variety of perennial plants and flowering trees.


A restaurant at Yèvre, on the square

We did the garden tour and then headed out to see the châteaux at Yèvre-le-Châtel and Bellegarde, both just east of the town of Pithiviers. Pithiviers (pop. 9,500) is a large town famous for a cake of the same name, which is made of puff pastry and almond paste. CHM's friends were driving their car and he and I were following them in mine. We managed to stay together and arrived as planned, despite road work and heavy Saturday morning traffic in the middle of Pithiviers.

Entering the fortifed town at Yèvre

When we entered Yèvre-le-Châtel, there was some confusion because nearly all the streets in the medieval village were marked with big red signs saying No Entry (Local Traffic Only). You know the ones: the round red signs with the white horizontal bar through them, and underneath a little square sign saying Sauf Riverains. It was not at all clear how we might get into the village and where we might park the car. Châtel, by the way, is an old French spelling for château, which is closely related to the English form, castle.

Two of the five medieval towers at Yèvre-le-Châtel

CHM's friends said all that signage was new since the last time they wee in Yèvre, a few months ago. It was as if the village authorities were afraid hundreds of cars and buses from Paris, Belgium, England, Germany, and Holland might descend upon the place at any minute and clog all the streets up, producing massive gridlock. Yèvre is about 60 miles south of Paris.

A new wooden stairway leads up to the château entrance

It was les grandes vacances, after all. Here we were on July 15, the height of the season with gorgeous hot weather... and ours were the only cars in sight. The place was absolutely deserted at 11:00 in the morning. We finally just turned into one of the streets anyway, ignoring the No Entry sign. We parked on a little triangular place in the shade of some big elm trees. Nobody paid any attention to us — in fact, there was nobody around.

A view of the St-Lubin church in old Yèvre

The château, a blocky medieval fortress, is right off the main square, where we had parked. The existing walls and towers were built in the early 13th century by the French king Philippe Auguste, who reigned over Paris and the surrounding countryside from 1180 until 1223. He had his architects and builders improve on the earlier château-fort at Yèvre using the latest techniques in architecture militaire, which had been brought back by Crusaders returning to France from the Holy Land.

The massive fortifications at Yèvre-le-Châtel

Here's some earlier history in French:

Situé sur un éperon, à la limite des anciens évêchés d'Orléans et de Sens, dont l'Essonne et la Rimarde marquaient la frontière, Yèvre-le-Châtel fut très tôt fortifié. Dès le Xème siècle, Yèvre est une des possessions de l'Abbaye de Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire. On sait qu'à plusieurs reprises les moines de Fleury se plaignirent au Roi, Hugues Capet, des exactions du baron Arnoul de Yèvre. C'est sans doute pour faire oublier les excès de son mari que son épouse, Lucinde, fonda dans l'enceinte du château une abbaye sous l'invocation de Saint-Gault, un des Saints de Bretagne dont les reliques avaient été apportées dans la région par des moines fuyant l'invasion des Normands. La chapelle de cette abbaye est aujourd'hui l'église paroissiale de Yèvre-le-Châtel.

Après le décès du baron Arnoul, le Roi interviendra plusieurs fois pour soumettre ses successeurs et démanteler leurs châteaux qui ne devaient être que des fortins de bois, construits sur une "motte". Le rattachement du château à la couronne de France se situe vraisemblablement vers 1112, lorsque Louis VI le Gros contraint le vicomte Foulques à lui céder Yèvre-le-Châtel dont il fit une puissante châtellenie.

A beautiful old house in the medieval town at Yèvre

What does it say? Yèvre is about half way between the cities of Orléans and Sens, where powerful bishops ruled during the middle ages. It occupied a hilltop which was fortified early on for defensive reasons, and was the property of an abbey located a few miles south on the Loire River as early as the 10th century. The lord of Yèvre, a baron named Arnold, ... er ... lorded it over the people in surrounding towns and villages, and they complained to the French king. To atone for her husband's sins, Arnold's wife, Lucinda, founded an abbey at Yèvre which she dedicated to saint Gault (saint Walt? now there's a thought!), a Breton saint whose remains had been transferred to this region when the Vikings invaded Brittany. The chapel of that abbey still serves as the town's parish church.

The dry moat at Yèvre-le-Châtel

After Arnoul died, the king intervened several times to subjugate his heirs and to have their fortifications, described as wooden structures erected on a "mound" of earth, torn down. Yèvre was annexed by the French king Louis the Sixth, known as "the Fat Man," who convinced the viscount of Angers to cede it to him in about 1112 and built a sturdy stone fort there.

Then along came Philip Augustus in 1180, et voilà : Yèvre-le-Châtel as you see it in these pictures. According to official records, the château was in ruins as early as 1610. It had outlived its usefulness once the wars with the English and the wars of religion were over. But it had stood for more than 500 years, in one form or another.

The art gallery's old sign and nice gate

Saturday morning, July 15. The height of the summer tourist season. An hour's drive from Paris. The château is closed mornings. It's open afternoons, but we were out of luck, since we had a long day of touring planned and needed to move on. There's not another tourist in sight. Ah, France! Besides the restaurant on the square (picture above), I saw only one other business establishment in Yèvre. It was an art gallery in the old town. It was closed. We admired the metalwork of the gate closing off the courtyard of the building it was housed in.

Nice art gallery gate

Cléry-St-André

Last Saturday afternoon I ended up in Cléry-St-André, a little town on the Loire near Orléans that is dominated by a huge church. Notre Dame de Cléry a big and airy gothic structure that was built in the late 1400s, replacing a smaller chapel that had been demolished by the English earlier in the century during the 100 Years War.

Modern windows at Notre Dame de Cléry

I don't have any good pictures of the outside of the church. We parked right next to it and didn't ever walk far enough a way to get a good exterior view. It was just too hot outside for walking.

A more conventional example of stained glass at Cléry

Over the front portico of the church a group of swallows had built nests and were busy coming and going, bringing food back to the nest for their little ones, I imagine. My friend CHM says such a collection of swallows' nest is called a colonie d'hirondelles.

A swallow in its nest

The church at Cléry was full of things you wouldn't expect to find. In a crypt under the floor of the nave, accessible by a set of 8 or 10 stone steps, are the skulls of King Louis XI and his wife, Charlotte de Savoie, in a glass case. Louis XI died in 1483, after spending the last months of his life in Cléry to oversee the completion of the building.

The skulls of Louis XI and Charlotte de Savoie in a display case at Cléry

Near the entrance to the crypt where the skulls are displayed there's a stone plaque in the floor that bears the name Charles VIII and the year 1498. I wondered why it was there, but then I noticed a stone plaque on a nearby column that said (in old French): C'est le Cœur du Roi Charles huictiesme. (This is the heart of King Charles VIII.) I think that meant his heart is entombed under the plaque in the floor.


Notre Dame de Cléry has enormously high ceilings. My photos don't really give you a good idea how big and spacious the church really is.

Notre Dame de Cléry

Another thing you don't expect to see in such a big old church is a set of beautiful modern stained-glass windows. The colors were vivid, since the afternoon sun was bright and high in the sky. I think I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.