FrenchKate

March 22: Old buildings, Auxerre

Also seen in Auxerre in September, 2018. A neglected building on 5 rue Martineau des Chesnez, proudly engraved with "Parrot et Fils."The building is a lovely example of classical architecture, so I would guess 18th century. Next to the rather worn signage of "Parrot & son" is a bricked up door--the stonework in France is always impressive.

The front of the building, with an attractive art deco storefront for Pimky. faces rue de Temple 

Parrot & Fils may have been merchants specializing in women's fashion, hats, and undergarments. The art deco advertisement is from 1905.

 

March 21, 2022: Céline Chollet is a productive artist

I found the watercolors of French artist Céline Chollet delightful. Looking at them was like a quick visit to France for me.

Here's her blog. She specializes in architectural images--exteriors, interiors--but has equal charm with horses and riders. She is a very productive, working artist. A search on Amazon turns up children's books, special orders, and she has a whole line of books illustrating different places in France. I was tickled to find the Château de Saint-Fargeau (one of my favorite memories) in this collection.

Here are a few of her charming images.

March 15, 2022: The historic library of the lycée Jacques Amyot

One of the wonderful things in France-I am sure it is also true in other European countries--are the architectural remnants of times past, beyond churches and chateaux--a room here, a store front there, a pharmacy, a workshop, a house, a painted ceiling, a wrought iron railing, a fragment of wall, a fireplace, a stables, a chateau, a dovecot, a garden...the list goes on...a sculpture, a path, a tree, a Roman theatre, arena, bath...many, many reminders of du temps perdu.

The lycée Jacques Amyot also has its treasures from the past. An 18th century library has survived there, full of old books, accessed by a grand staircase.Most of the school resembles schools worldwide--bright, colorful, cheerful--but this one corner is wonderfully historic.

The library was installed in the early 18th century by a prominent Jesuit, Guillaume Daubenton, (1648 - 1723), a former student of the school who wished to support the Jesuit school against the teachings of the Jansenist bishop of Auxerre, Charles de Caylus. (Jansenism is a whole different story, not for today.) The eighteen glass fronted bookcases were a gift from another cleric, Dom Livry, who donated not only books but the bookcases to store them. The collection bears a striking witness to four centuries of scholarship, covering topics literary and scientific, French and foreign, secular and religious.

I have learned more about the origins of the lycée Jacques Amyot. Originally, a school was housed in a small building nearby, and Jacques Amyot moved that school in 1584 to a much larger facility, the hôtel particulière that has housed it since.

So the building existed as a private residence, the hotêl St-Xiste. before the school was installed  I am guessing there is a relationship between Philippe St-Xiste, Chevalier, and his wife, Jeanne Gribou, who died in 1548, and this building but I haven't documented the relationship. I am puzzled about the story, however, because the design of the building is so 17th century. I have not--yet--been able to track down when the building was constructed.

March 14: Pi day

And why not? Pecan pie for pi day (3.14.2022)

Kate's Pecan Pie (adapted from her mother-in-law's recipe)

3 eggs, well beaten

1 cup sugar

1/4 c dark Karo syrup

1/4 cup maple syrup

1/4 cup light Karo syrup

1/2 tsp salt

2T vanilla

1 1/2 cups of pecans, toasted

Add all ingredients in order. Bake in unbaked pie shell at 400ºF for 10 minutes. Turn down the temperature to 350ºF, and bake 45 minutes longer, until internal temperature is 200º (or 185º depending on source.)

The crust is a whole 'nother dimension. I use a crust recipe given in an article about mock purple raspberry pie published  by journalist Megan McCardle in July 2021.

March 13, 2022: Lycée Jacques Amyot

It was two years ago today that my husband, sister and I decided to shelter at home for the two or three weeks needed to slow down the spread of coronovirus, and here we are, two years later, still mostly at home. Just under a million Americans have died--roughly .3% of the US population, vaccines and wearing masks have become political flash points, and an omicron variant is emerging in Europe. What a mess! I scarcely leave the house--though I hope I will go out more as the weather warms up--and one thing that has changed in the past two years is that I can no longer think of good reasons to go out. Travel to France? Not yet. Shopping? meh. Concerts? Theatre? Art museums? Restaurants? Maybe some day, but not yet. Strange, strange, strange. I assume that we are statistical, one household among millions of others, and I wonder what happens to a culture when millions of people choose to disengage. 

But back to rue du lycée Jacques Amyot in Auxerre...I may not be planning to travel to France in the foreseeable future, but I can still scour the internet. I have mentioned the mansions at 2 and 11, but the star of the rue is definitely the eponymous school, Lycée du Jacques Amyot. 

Wikipedia--and a little brochure I picked up when we visited Auxerre in 2018--provide some useful background about the school. Founded as a "college" in 1584 by Jacques Amyot, Bishop of Auxerre (a humanist who translated the works of Plutarch), it was run by the Jesuits until the Jesuits were kicked out of France in 1762. For a few years, it was run by the Benedictines from the Abbey of Saint-Germain., then, in 1777, it became a royal military school at Louis XIV's command. After the Revolution, in 1802, it became a boy's school supervised by the municipality of Auxerre. The name, Lycée Jacques Amyot, was given in 1936 when it became Auxerre's first high school. Most of the buildings--certainly those visible from rue de Lycée Jacques Amyot--date to the second half of the  17th century. It has been listed as a historic monument since 1994.

Interesting factoid: According to L'Express, n 2015, Lycée Jacques Amyot ranked 6th out of 9 at the departmental level in terms of teaching quality, and 1,579th at the national level. The ranking is based on three criteria: the baccalaureate success rate, the proportion of first year students who obtain the baccalaureate having completed the last two years of their schooling in the establishment, and the added value (calculated from the social origin of the pupils, their age and their results for the national patent certificate.) I don't know if that is good.middling or poor, honestly. 

The first image here is a watercolor by a French artist, Céline Chollet, and I want to give her full credit. She specializes in ancient architecture and wonderful interiors, and I like her work.

The second image is one that I took when we were there in 2018. Much of the building is under restoration, so I had to peek in where I could.

The third and fourth photos are from wikipedia commons, quite frequently found on the internet.

 

March 11: Places in France

Next door, at 2 rue Lycée Jacques Amyot, is a grand hotel particuliere, Hotel Leclerc de Fourolles, constructed in 1673 for Jacques Nigot, an entrepreneur who made his fortune building coaches. Louis XIV spent a night in this hotel in 1675.  In 1869, the hotel was given to the sisters of the congregation of Nevers who founded a home for abandoned girls. It was registered as an historic monument in 2001, and now it is cut up into apartments.. This history--private residence to religious institution to apartments--is a very familiar trajectory for these old mansions. 

I found a rental notice for a 2 bedrooms apartment (now rented at €440 a month) that has one of the bulls-eye window so it must be in the attic.

March 10: Places in France

This house is 11 rue du lycée Jacques Amyot in Auxerre. We passed it while we explored the city in September, 2018, and I was struck both by its classical lines and setting and its neglected air. I stuck my camera through a closed gate to get this photo.

It is the sort of hotel particuliére one finds in every city of a certain size in France, built, I'd guess, in the 17th or early 18th century by some noble or wealthy bourgeois. Not grand enough to be listed, but wonderful in its own way. It is sandwiched between the much grander Hotel Leclerc de Fourolles and the lycée du Jacques Amyot, a prestigious secondary school founded in 1584.

The aerial view shows that the property was once larger, but about 25% on the right side has been given over for a road.

Today I find an organization, Acadelis (a management consulting firm) listed at the 11 rue du lycée Jacques Amyot address.

 

March 9: Places in France

It is unfair to compare the Louis XIV scuipted by Marc Arcis--who was working from some kind of drawing--to Bernini's live model. Arcis was a first rate sculptor as shown by these two busts of prominent Toulousains, both members of a family  who held an important and honorable place in the history of Toulouse--producing doctors, lawyers, bishops, capitouls and parlementaires between the mid-15th century until at least the 18th.

I was curious to see if I could track down their home in Toulouse. A family so prominent had to have accommodations to match, and indeed--thanks to Jules Chalande's encyclopedic documenting of every building in old Toulouse--I was able to find something on rue des Marchands.

The Hôtel de Bertier is so vast that it isn't easy to screenshot on google. According to Jules Chalande (c1920) it was possibly built in early 16th century by Denis Bertier, seigneur de Pechbonieu,  capitoul in 1507-1508. However, according to Wikipedia, it was possibly built in the late 15th century by Denis's grandfather, Guillaume, capitoul in 1464-1465.

(The capitoul position ran in the family. Simon Bertier, Guillaume's son and Denis's father, was capitoul in 1490.)

The house has been much modified over the centuries. The Bertier family sold it in 1670, and it was split into several buildings in 1777. Today it has been cut up into apartments.

Almost nothing remains of the medieval house. However, capitouls had the privilege of a building a tower--a true vanity project--and the medieval Bertier family home had one that was 20m high. The tower has been absorbed into the structure of the building but evidently, its circular staircase still accesses its upper stories. 

The facade was much changed in the 19th century when rue de Metz was cut. The Virebent mascaron decorating the entrance dates from that period. 

 

 

 

March 7: More Marc Arcis

Marc Arcis was asked to sculpt a bust of King Louis XIV for the Salle des Illustres in 1674. Done in clay, the bust is in the musée des Augustins.

A famous bust --done in marble--of Louis XIV was done in 1666 by Italian sculptor, Gian Lorenzo Bernini--whom wikipedia describes as "the dominant figure in baroque sculpture." Bernini visited France and the royal court in 1665. Done from life--the king sat at least 13 times for the artist--this bust has been called the "grandest piece of portraiture of the Baroque age."

The creation of the Bernini bust was documented in detail by a French courtier, Paul Fréart de Chantelou, who befriended Bernini during his stay in France. First, there was a search of severals days to find a suitable block of marble. Then-Bernini did drawings and made small clay models of the king, and Bernini's pupil, Guilio Cartari, did the initial carving of the marble block (he would later do much of the drapery work). After these preliminaries, Bernini worked during sittings with the king; it took forty days to complete the work.

Bernini's son and biographer, Domenico Bernini, noted the artistic arguments that convinced the king to sit for such a long time. Bernini "preferred to work from Truth (i.e. real life) rather than rely on the unnecessary imaginative extras that creep in when working from sketches. Equally, Bernini wanted to see the king in motion, sitting and talking in such as way that Bernini could capture all his characteristics. In addition to the sittings, Bernini also observed the king in other activities: playing tennis, resting after lunch, or simply walking around court." This careful attention to the living man was motivated by Bernini's artistic goal: “mere resemblance is inadequate. One must express what goes on in the heads of heroes.” 

I have to tip my hat to Bernini. Even though Bernini was working in marble, and both Arcis and Bernini portray the king as noble, proud, puissant, it seems to me that Bernini's approach somehow captures an individual liveliness about Louis XIV.  His face is recognizable and distinctive, and the figure seems about to move. In contrast, the Marc Arcis bust, though extremely accomplished, seems stylized, stiff, perhaps affected by "those imaginative extras that creep in when working from sketches."  The Bernini bust is considered a masterpiece for a reason.

March 6: Marc Arcis (1650 - 1739)

The sculptor Marc Arcis--who created the bust of Pèire Godolin in 1677 for the Salle des Illustres in Toulouse (the bust that appears to be the model for Alexandre Falguière's 1898 fountain)--was born in Mouzens, a tiny village about 30 miles from Toulouse, on January 1, 1650. He was the son and the grandson of masons--skilled trades seem to have been passed from father to son in the pre-industrial society--and he kept it in the family by marrying the daughter of a sculptor. Both he and his younger brother, Jean, became sculptors. His teachers were the painter Jean-Pierre Rivalz and the sculptor Gervais Drouet, both of whom had studied in Rome, and Arcis's art--like other sculptors of the baroque period --was inspired by ancient Roman statuary, with vividly expressed emotions and exceptional realism.

He lived in Toulouse for much of his life, but he also spent ten years in Paris, contributing to Versailles among other works, and from 1690 he split his time between the two cities.

I am most familiar with his portrait busts--such as the bust of Pèire Godolin; the Musée des Augustins has a very nice collection of these, some--maybe all--were created for the Salle des Illustres in 1677 and donated to the museum in 1982.

Image 1) Arcis's own self-portrait

Image 2) A portrait of Arcis by his student, Antoine Rivalz (son of Arcis's own teacher, Pierre)

Image 3) A portrait bust in clay of Auger Bertier, the personal doctor of Catherine de Medici, c 1677.

Image 4) portrait bust of Philippe de Bertier, (died 1611) president of the Toulouse parlement.