This hugely impressive sculpture by Max Ernst is called Aux cracheurs, aux drôles, au génie and was made between 1967 and 1968. Here, he pays homage to Touraine – where he lived for ten years – and also to Leonardo de Vinci.* A plaque at the side of the sculpture speaks of hybrid creatures, half-animal and half-human. There are in fact ten sculptures, four in bronze and six in resin. At the top is the bird figure, the Grand Génie with its outspread wings. Under are turtles and frogs spitting into the water. Gloriously insane.
Le Grand Génie.La Grande grenouille (big frog).La Grande Tortue (big turtle).Two assistant frogs.
Dr Tony Shaw
Mainly the Obscure, and/or mainly 'Outsider' Literature
25 May 2022
Max Ernst in Amboise, Indre-et-Loire (37)
Gonzague Saint Bris in Amboise, Indre-et-Loire (37)
Gonzague Saint Bris (1948-2017) lies in the family plot in the Cimetière des Ursulines in Amboise. Among numerous publications he wrote several novels, a large number of historical works, and a large number of biographies. He died in a car accident in Saint-Hymer, where his partner Alice Bertheaume was driving and was found guilty of 'involuntary homicide', having driven when having an excess of alcohol in her blood: her sentence was six months prison with reprieve. Saint Bris was not wearing a seat belt.
24 May 2022
Boîte à lire in Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois, Indre-et-Loire (37)
Another boîte à lire, and quite an impressive one too. Pity I couldn't figure out how to open the latch on the lefthand side, but in spite of the large number of possibilities I didn't find anything to interest me anyway.
Boîte à lire in Saint-Épain, Indre-et-Loire (37)
Raymond Queneau in Saint-Épain, Indre-et-Loire (37)
En me rendant à Auteuil
je passais rue des Belles-Feuilles
lorsqu'il me fut donné de voir
vétues de robes améthystes
qui vantait le val de Loire
et ses produits nutritifs
sur des airs simples et naïfs
c'était une vraie chienlit
mais comme nous étions samedi
les gens d'une dent guillerette
croquaient tartines et rillettes
ah quel plaisir c'était de voir
les avisées et folles choristes
débiter aux gastronomistes
les bons produits du val de Loire
alors m'arrachant à regret
à ce spectacle croquignol
mon petit chemin coninuai
en sifflant un air espagnol'
21 May 2022
Le Moulin des Aigremonts, Bléré, Indre-et-Loire (37)
The Moulin des Aigremonts in Bléré was built in 1848 and was a 'moulin cavier': a building principally in the Anjou area having a 'cellar-like' structure containing the milling apparatus. A moulin cavier was originally built on a cellar, representing the double professions of the owner: miller and winemaker. This structure ('la masse') is beneath a conical piece of masonry ('le massereau') on which in turn rests the movable body ('la hucherolle') with sails ('ailes' (lit. 'wings')). Milling ceased in 1877 and although all parts remained in 1900, la masse, la hucherolle, and les ailes had gone by 1920.
In 2000 Régis Chauvel was passionately interested in re-building the windmill, and with the consent of La Municipalité the re-building took place between 2004 and 2007. Re-working, the mill was opened to the public in 2009. (These are Berton sails, named after their inventor Pierre Théophile Berton (1803-1861)).
20 May 2022
Boîte à lire, Draché, Indre-et-Loire (37)
A rather different boîte à lire in Draché, and interesting to find a book on Descartes (both the philosopher and the nearby village which is now named after him).
La Pierre Percée, Draché, Indre-et-Loire (37)
La Pierre Percée was erected between 2000 and 5000 years before Christ, perhaps for sun worship, perhaps for a female divinity. This is the largest megalith in Touraine and is also known as 'menhir des Arabes': in 732 a part of the battle of Poitiers took place in this region. It was classed as a 'monument historique' in 1911. Steps have been hollowed in the monument to enable hands to pass through it: once, young boys and girls in the area wishing to be married exchanged objects, bouquets of flowers or other things, through the hole to mark them being linked in a sacred act; on a more sinister note, human heads could be passed through it and be chopped off as a sacrifice.
Bunches of herbs were once picked from the foot of the menhir and attached to buildings to protect people and animals from evil spirits. New-born babies were passed through the orifice to protect them from illnesses, tubercular abcesses in particular. Rabelais mentions it in relation to Gargantua.
Even today the monument retains its fascination, and I was naturally curious to open the glass container partly hidden in a recess and read some of the good luck messages.
Éolienne Bollée, Sorigny, Indre-et-Loire (37)
The éolienne Bollée is named after its inventor Ernest-Sylvain Bollée (1814-1891), and is a wind pump which served to pump water. About 350 examples were constructed between 1872 and 1933, of which about eighty can still be seen. This example in Sorigny was used to supply water to the municipal lavoir until the 1960s. It was dismantled and scrapped, although in 2015 Sorigny Patrimoine decided to reintroduce another of the same kind, which they obtained from Saint Gervais-la-Forêt near Blois. It took eighteen months to repair.
19 May 2022
Tête de l'Île de Pâques, Chambray-lès-Tours, Indre-et-Loire (37)
At the side of a lake in Chambray-lès-Tours is a structure inspired by the moai on Easter Island. On our map it's listed as a 'rocher d'escalade', although the general title now seems to be 'Tête de l'Île de Pâques', which seems logical. Although it's equipped with all the means for climbing, a notice within the circle in which the statue exists reveals that it is only to be used by authorised people. And one website claims that climbing is strictly forbidden (suggesting by anyone). I can find little information about its history, although it seems to date from 1989 after winning a competition, and the tallest point is seventeen metres. I can find no mention of the person who constructed it, and nor can I find any information on the much smaller structure near it.
18 May 2022
René de Buxeuil, Descartes, Indre-et-Loire (37)
René Boylesve in Descartes, Indre-et-Loire (37)
The writer René Boylesvre (1867-1926) was born René Tardiveau on the same street as Descartes, which in 1867 wasn't named after Descartes but called Rue Saint-Lazare. Boylesvre became a member of the Académie Française in 1918: a plaque says that his most noted books are L'Enfant à la Balustrade, La Becquée and La Leçon d'amour dans un parc.
René Descartes in Descartes, Indre-et-Loire (37)
17 May 2022
Boîte à lire, Véretz, Indre-et-Loire (37)
An interesting boîte à lire (here called niche à livres), by the church in Véretz, in the shadow of the white mulberry tree, and quite well stocked. I couldn't resist picking up Queneau's Pierrot mon ami.
Eugène Bizeau and Anne Bizeau, Véretz, Indre-et-Loire (37)
The anarchist writer Eugène Bizeau (1883-1989) and equally anarchist Anne Bizeau (1882-1973) share this grave, under Anne's statue of a seated naked woman (made by Charles Correia), which resembles Rodin's Le Penseur and is turned towards the Bizeau house on Rue Chaude.
Paul-Louis Courier in La Forêt de Larçay and Véretz, Indre-et-Loire (37)
I still have a number of posts to write on the Nantes area, although I thought it important to include some of our more recent visits. Near the centre of the Forêt de Larçay is a memorial to the writer Paul-Louis Courier (1772-1825), which reads:
'Although born in Paris, Paul-Louis Courier spent his youth in Cinq-Mars-la-Pile, near Langeais. At a very early age he showed great enthusiasm for the Greek language. He became one of the best Hellenists of his time and associated with the most erudite people. He served for seventeen years as an officer in the artillery and left the Napoleonic army after Wagram. Married to Herminie Clavier in 1814, he bought the Forêt de Larçay on 16 December of the following year; he settled in Véretz in April 1818.
'The excesses of the Restauration led him to write several incendiary pamphlets.
'He was assassinated here by his gamekeeper, who manipulated other servants. It is quite possible to believe that this crime had political ramifications.
'This monument was erected in 1828 at the expense of his widow.' (My translation.)
This monument omits a number of things, such as Courier's problems with the neighbours using the wood from his trees for warmth, why the gamekeeper killed him, and his relationship with his wife, but so much has been written on the subject that it would be redundant to add anything.
The grave of Paul-Louis Courier in Véretz.This monument was made in 1878 following plans by archictect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc and was due to be on Paul-Louis Courier's grave, but the elder son Paul-Étienne objected to this. It was inagurated in Véretz by the river Cher in 1878, to great ceremony, boats on the Cher, fireworks, etc. It is dedicated to the 'champion du bon sens et de la liberté'.