Saint-Leu, Amiens, Somme (80)

There are many beautiful houses in Amiens, particularly in and around the Saint-Leu area. Here, they are slender, tall, Dutch-style houses, many of them family dwellings, a few rented out as holiday homes, and a some like this splendid ancient house in need of vital attention. This is a lovely town.

Marcel Sueur in Amiens, Somme (80)

 

Built in 1901, this house of monumental mason Marcel Sueur is on Rue Saint Maurice, opposite the Cimetière de la Madeleine. This was also Sueur's workshop. The sculpture in the centre is by Valentin Molliens (1868–1937) from Longpré-les-Amiens, and is a representation of Sueur's wife Andrée (née Largemain).

René Goblet in Amiens, Somme (80)

René Goblet (1828–1905) was a journalist and politician. In 1869, with Frédéric Petit and Jules Lardière, he founded the radical republican journal Le Progrès de la Somme. For a short time, between 1888 and 1889, he was minister for foreign affairs in Charles Floquet's government. This monument is dedicated to Goblet, is called La Conscience, and is sculpted by Jacques Perrin.

René Goblet's grave in the Cimetière de la Madeleine, Amiens.

Charles Dallery in Amiens, Somme (80)

Le square Montplaisir, Amiens. Charles Dallery (1754–1835), born in Amiens, was essentially an inventor of things mechanical. The son of an organ maker, he followed in his father's footsteps by making organs himself and repaired the organs for Amien's Notre-Dame cathedral. He also made high precision clocks and improved the functioning of the harp, although he wasn't recognised for it.

In 1780 he invented a steam machine with a tubular boiler. In 1803 he took out a patent as the first person to use a propellor on a steam ship.

However, his attempts to introduce a windmill with horizontally turning sails, according to his Wikipédia entry, resulted in him being nicknamed 'moulin de la folie', and the 'mad' and obviously severely wounded Dallery leaving Amiens for good. Dallery died in Jouy-en-Josas, where he is buried.

Jules Verne in Amiens (80) (continued)

The Boulevard Jules Verne about a kilometre south of the centre of Amiens was once called the Boulevard Longueville. At number 44 was Verne's other house, and as the plaque below states, this is where he died. It also says he lived here for fourteen years.

'JULES VERNE

VÉCUT 14 ANS

DANS CETTE MAISON

IL Y MOURUT

LE 24 MARS 1905'

Not far from Jules Verne's museum is this monument: a bust of Verne with children at the base reading his Voyages extraordinaires. It was sculpted in 1908 by Albert Roze a year after he enhanced Verne's tomb so extravagantly.

A number of Verne's works are engraved on the other side of the statue, plus a globe.

La Maison de Jules Verne in Amiens (80), Somme (80)

One of the relatively few Maisons des Illustres, of which Jules Verne's house in rue Charles-Dubois, Amiens, is one. It is a wonderful experience, and 'experience' is the word I prefer to use rather than 'visit', as this is a little beyond the normal author's house visit – as you might expect from such a character as Verne. My purpose is to give an impression through images, as opposed to showing an image and commenting on it, although I shall certainly do so where necessary. Amiens is very much Jules Verne, but this is purely my impression of his house.

François Schuiten added the sphère armillaire (or armillary sphere) to the tower in 2005, and the re-opening of the house was in the following year. The tromphe-l'oeil fresco is also his work:

On the ground floor, a bust by J. Szarwak made in about 1900.

The dining room.

The salon, with portraits of Verne and his wife Honorine.

The first floor is largely devoted to Verne's publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel.

Verne was a great lover of sailing, and this part of the second floor highlights this.

Verne's library and place of work.

Nellie Bly (whose grave I visited in NYC) is also included in the loft here.

A representation of Jules Verne on his deathbed.

A death mask of Verne.

From the top to the bottom of the staircase. A wonderful place.

Jules Verne in Le cimetière de La Madeleine, Amiens (80), Somme (80)

'Jules VERNE

NÉ À NANTES

LE 8 FÉVRIER 1828

DÉCÉDÉ À AMIENS

LE 24 MARS  1905

HONORINE ANNE HÉBE DE VIANE

SON ÉPOUSE 1829–1910'

Understandably the most popular grave in the cemetery, this is one of a number of sculptures here by Albert Roze, entitled 'Vers l'immortalité et l'éternelle jeunesse' ('Towards Immortality and Eternal Youth'). Verne's biographer Jean Jules-Verne (via his translator Roger Greaves), states that Verne's wish was to have a simple grave, which was originally the case. However, his son Michel is responsible for the ostentatious (but quite brilliant) update created two years later, showing a representation of the writer breaking free from his shroud and breaking the tomb lid, his outstretched arm and his face turned toward the sky.

As I have previously said of the strikingly similar grave of symbolist poet and novelist Georges Rodenbach (1855–98) in the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, Charlotte Besnard (1854–1931) sculpted it and Albert Roze was inspired by it to create this addition to the grave of Jules Verne.

Jean Jules-Verne: Jules Verne (1973; trans. and adapted by Roger Greaves 1976)

Jean Jules-Verne, the only surviving child of the marriage between Jeanne and Michel Verne (who was Jules Verne's only child), only knew his grandfather for twelve years, although (failing other candidates) he must certainly be one of the best people to give a first-person biographical account of his knowledge of Jules Verne. But as Jean Jules-Verne spent his working life in the legal profession, I'm a little sceptical about his qualifications to talk about the quality of the books of Jules Verne, and furthermore this is a translated work, which to some extent complicates things.

But then, translation of a 'non-fictional' book (if that means much) is surely preferable, and much less dubious, than a translation of a work of fiction? Usually, yes, although I refuse to mention any more of my obsession with Howard Parshley's almost criminal interference with Simone de Beauvor's Le deuxième sexe. Mercifully, Roger Greaves's book has no resemblance to that horrific monster. This is a considered, developed, and apparently generally well-written text: if some of the time it reads a little clunkily, that may well be because that's the way people used to speak.

It isn't my purpose here to speak of the author's impressions of Jules Verne's more famous works, such as  Voyage au centre de la terre (1864) (Journey to the Centre of the Earth), Vingt mille lieues sous la mer (1870) (Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea), or Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingt jours (1873) (Around the World in Eighty Days).

No, what I found most interesting was the obscure L'Île à hélice (1895) (trans. as both The Floating Island and Propellor Island), which appears in part to predict the internet, and I love the idea of reading a (fictional, still) work in chocolate print on rice paper which can be eaten after reading, and available in formats for readers with either diarrhoea or constipation.

Also fascinating, I found, was the reference to Verne's Le Rayon Vert (1882), which immediately got me thinking (quite correctly) of any possible relationship between this book and Éric Rohmer's film of the same name (1986).

And then there's the posthumous Les Naufragés du Jonathan (1909) (The Survivors of the Jonathan), in which an anarchist is forced (paradoxically) to take the lead.

Occasionally I don't understand how Jean Jules-Verne arrives at a conclusion – how, for instance, can he possibly interpret Jules Verne's opinion of Johann David Wyss's Swiss Family Robinson as an implication of weakness on the basis of the flimsy information we're given here? Or does the fault lie in the translation of Jules-Verne's text?

Whatever the faults, here we have a somewhat dysfunctional family, with a wayward son (Michel) and dull wife (Honorine), ruled over by a failed stockbroker with a passion for sailing, an apparent passion for an unnamed mistress in Asnières, but an obsession for a hobby (writing) which brings him in a lot of money. And surprisingly, perhaps, Jules Verne was definitely a kind of anarchist.

A venerable book on a man about whom no doubt much more research has been done in later years, but I shall discover that in time.

Jules Verne and Georges Rodenbach: Graves

Once again my thanks to Dr Rowena Edlin-White, this time for sending me a scan of a postcard she discovered in a flea market in Brussels: this shot is of the tomb of Jules Verne (1828–1905) in the Cimetière de La Madeleine in Amiens (80), depicting Verne breaking out of his shroud and looking towards heaven. It very strongly reminded me of the grave of symbolist poet and novelist Georges Rodenbach  (1855–98) in the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, Paris:

Surely there has to be a link between the two? Yes, indeed there is. I discovered an essay on the sculptor of Rodenbach's tomb: 'Charlotte Besnard (1854–1931) : être femme sculpteur et épouse d’artiste en vogue, au tournant du XXe siècle' by Hélène Moreau-Sionneau. (Charlotte was the wife of artist Albert Besnard (1849-1934)). Moreau-Sionneau writes that Besnard sculpted the Rodenbach grave, on which was an inscription of a few now completely illegible lines of his poetry addressed to the Lord and praying for an after-life in literature. This tomb inspired Albert Roze (1861–1952) – commissioned by the Verne family – to sculpt the later grave, which is titled Towards Immortality and Everlasting Youth (Vers l’immortalité et l’éternelle jeunesse). Roze, with the aid of Verne's death mask, completed his work in 1907.