Alexis Piron, Dijon (21), Côte-d'Or (21)

 I mentioned Alexis Piron (1689-1773) a few posts ago, but was interested to see a Rue Piron (dedicated to Alexis or his great-nephew Eugène, I wondered) in Dijon. Sure enough, this is the house where the poet Alexis was born: great to see another tribute to this forgotten writer.

Léon Tolstoï and Ivan Tourgueniev, Dijon (21), Côte-d'Or (21)

Or Leo Tolstoy and Ivan Turgenev in English. So, they stayed at Hôtel de La Cloche, Dijon (now with a 'Grand' added) between 9 and 14 March 1857. I can't find a narrative behind this, but if anyone can give me a link I'd appreciate it.

Eugène Piron, Dijon (21), La Côte-d'Or (21)

Another tribute in the Jardin Darcy. Sculptor Eugène Piron (1875-1928) was born in Dijon and died in Salon-de-Provence and was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1903. He sculpted many monuments, although perhaps the most interesting here is that of his bust to his fascinating great-uncle, the poet Alexis Piron in the Jardin de l'Arquebuse in Dijon, whose reputation for his youthful erotic Ode à Priape was to dog him for the rest of his life.

Alexis Piron by his great-nephew Eugène Piron.

Rachel Feinstein, Dijon (21), La Côte-d'Or (21)

 Rachel Feinstein's Puritan's Delight (2013). In front of this sculpture in the Jardin Darcy in Dijon is a plaque stating that Feinstein deliberately moves away from modernism to question and explore the history of eighteenth and nineteenth century European art. No social criticism or comment on the state of the modern world, but a 'rich, baroque, sophisticated iconography'. Uncluttered, monochrome, such as this example, a battered carriage with its wheel axles pointing upwards.

Henry Darcy, Dijon (21), La Côte-d'Or (21)

The Jardin Darcy is Dijon's first public garden, and dedicated to hydraulic engineer Henry Darcy (1803-58). On this site Darcy constructed a reservoir in 1838 to supply the city with drinking water. The architect Félix Vionnois built a neo-Renaissance garden here in 1880. Another tribute is the monument at the top of the garden by Émile Sagot, with its bust of Darcy.

Famously, Christian-Jaque's 1966 film La Seconde Vérité, starring Michèle Mercier and Robert Hossein, contains a scene shot here.

François Pompon in Dijon (21), La Côte-d'Or (21)

The polar bear by François Pompon in Le Jardin Darcy, Dijon, is a plastic copy of the original sculpted in 1922, and has been there since 1937. It was in fact Pompon's friend Henry Martinet who sculpted this, and he mentions how Pompon met the animal sculptor Rouillard, how Pompon sought to work against realism. 

Antoinette Quarré, Dijon (21), La Côte-d'Or (21)

Antoinette Quarré (not Carré as some have written) was a seamstress in Dijon and also a poet whom Lamartine praised but Flora Tristan hated. This tomb in the Grand Cimetière de Dijon (Les Péjoces) is a remarkable praise to her, containing strong words of appreciation from Lamartine, angels holding up her book, a profile medallion of her, and a notable plaque from her friends. This stone is almost a work of art in itself.

Flora Tristan, Dijon (21), La Côte-d'Or (21)

Flora Tristan (1803-1844), as this Allée named after her says, was a writer, a feminist and a, er, revolutionary. She has her eccentricities, though, and her Le Tour de France : Journal 1843-44 has some weird things in it. She visited Dijon from 18 to 24 April 1844, was in no way interested in seeing the sights, and was more interested in meeting intelligent workers. She'd expected to find a kindred spirit in the worker and poet Antoinette Quarré after Lamartine's good words of her, a great and beautiful 'girl of the people', full of physical and mental energy. But she found Quarré ugly, deformed, grotesque, and with red hair! She continued her search for like-minded people in Dijon with mixed reactions.

Angélique du Coudray, Dijon (21), La Côte-d'Or (21)

In Dijon I was surprised to find a street named after a midwife, although this was in the hospital area near Saint-Apollinaire: Angélique du Coudray (1714 (Wikipédia claims 1712) to 1794)), who was born in Clermont-Ferrand and died in Bordeaux. She was the first person to teach midwifery, and advocated it in place of the amateur practices which had previously been used. In 1759 she published L’Abrégé de l’Art des accouchements, her teaching manual which she updated in 1769 in an illustrated edition. In Le Musée de l'homme in Paris a facsimile of her model 'Machine de Madame du Coudray' is on display.

La Chouette, Dijon (21), La Côte-d'Or (21)

I won't go very far into this as it involves the 'T' word (one of my most hated: Tourism), although this is worthy of mention and is perhaps akin to such legends as the Lincoln imp: La Chouette (or the owl) of L'Église Notre-Dame de Dijon. I won't go into the many stories, but it's enough to say that the rubbing of the owl (if owl it is) is said to bring good luck if it's done with the left hand, a little like (say) rubbing Victor Noir's erection in Père-Lachaise or Montaigne's foot near the Sorbonne (with either hand, no matter, I believe). The owl, of course, is on Rue de la Chouette, and the tourist industry milks the legend by showing hundreds of owl triangles for its tourist circuit, which I obviously didn't do: you've only to see the owl tat (such as tote bags) in the souvenir shops and despair. (Oh, and it brings misfortune to rub the chouette while watching the nearby salamander, so be careful.)

La Chouette.

La Salamandre.

Dominique Labauvie, Dijon (21), La Côte-d'Or (21)

We missed a number of things on our first visit to Dijon, in our crazy rush to get photos of the glyptodon highlighted in Éric Chevillard's hilarious Démolir Nisard.  Dominique Labauvie's Le Champ de feu (1992) was apparently 'Commissioned by the Ministry of Justice, France for the Courthouse of the City of Dijon'.

Jean-Philippe Rameau in Dijon, (Côte-d'Or (21))

On Boulevard Georges Clemenceau, a statue of Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), who was a composer and music theorist born in Dijon. He is thought of as one of the greatest musicians and is particularly noted for his opera-ballet Les Indes galantes (1735).

Alexis Piron in Dijon, (Côte-d'Or (21))

'ALEXIS PIRON

POÈTE SATIRIQUE

1689 - 1773'

Also in the Jardin de l'Arquebuse in Dijon is Piron's bust. He was a playwright as well as a poet  and a man of undoubted brillance and quick wit, although his first published work, an erotic poem written about the age of twenty – Ode à Priape (1710) – was to dog him throughout his life and prevent him from being elected to the Académie française. His self-composed, self-denigrating epitaph is rather harsh:

'Ci-gît Piron

qui ne fut rien,

Pas même académicien'.

Aloysius Bertrand in Dijon, (Côte-d'Or (21))

Louis Jacques Napoléon Bertrand, or Aloysius Bertrand (1807-41) was a poet, playwright and journalist considered as the inventor of the prose poem. He is most noted as the author of Gaspard de la nuit (1842). He spent much of his life in Dijon, although he died in Paris and is buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse. His bust in Le Jardin de l'Arquebuse in Dijon contains a quotation from Gaspard: 'J'étais un jour assis a l'écart dans le jardin de l'Arquebuse'.

Christine O'Loughlin in Dijon, (Côte-d'Or (21))

Like a wood shaving, this Copeau de trottoir (1991) by Christine O'Loughlin, as if a shaving from the street pavement, has an unusual presence here.

Antoinette Quarré in Dijon, (Côte-d'Or (21))

Antoinette Suzanne Quarré (1813-47) was a working-class poet who was born in Recey-sur-Ource (Côte-d'Or) and died in Dijon. She was a linen maid in Dijon of poor health, and a story handed down tells that she learned to read from Voltaire's Zaïre. Receiving lessons from M. de Belloguet, she leaned towards poetry and published several works in verse and in prose (particularly in Le Journal des Demoiselles). An elegy on Marie d'Orléans gave her a mention in the Société des lettres et des arts de Seine-et-Oise in 1839. She sent her verses to Lamartine, who in 1838 responded by a poem, 'À une jeune fille poète', which he included in Recueillements poétiques. Encouraged by friends she published a collection of poetry in 1843, although she died of heart failure in 1847.

Gloria Friedmann in Dijon, (Côte-d'Or (21))

Gloria Friedmann (born in 1950) constructed this piece, Le Compteur du temps, in 2020, in which the times of several places around the world can be seen. The message at the bottom of the sculpture states that what really counts is one's own time, that inside us at this precise moment, and that we should take advantage of it. We shouldn't forget that it's not time which passes, but us who pass in time.

Boîtes à lire in Dijon, (Côte-d'Or (21))

Three Boîtes à lire (of 49!) here in Dijon (called Boîtes à livres in both French and Braille!). Disappointingly, both the first (in a way out-of-the-way spot in the Jardin de l'Arquebuse) and the second (in the bustling Place de République) had almost no books: people collecting, or lack of interest? Who can tell, but the third had a quite a number. I was devastated that neither Gibert Joseph nor Fnac in the town had a copy of the brilliant Éric Chevillard's latest Minuit novel Monotobio, I mean, the guy lives here: very quietly, almost in secret, but everyone knows! Or not. I digress.

So, Dijon encourages reading, and to prove it this Boîte à lire is just one of the 49 in the town itself and the outskirts. OK, I'd come across one weird one which was locked up (Varennes-le-Grand) due to Covid-19, but this is the first one with a warning I'd encountered. It advises taking all precautionary measures: the wearing of gloves and the washing of hands when books are either left or taken, and to put any books taken 'in quarantine' between five and eight days. No comment.

Glyptodon in Dijon, (Côte-d'Or (21))

The glyptodon (same word in French) is no longer extant, although it was a herbivorous mammal which appeared in South America about 1.8 million years ago, and became extinct about 11,500 years ago. Its carapace consisted of thousands of bony plates, obviously important to its protection. Its head and tail also consisted of bony substances. It weighed more than a tonne and its closest existing neighbour is the armadillo.

This specimen is in fact the star of Dijon's Muséum d'histoire naturelle. It was Léonard Nodot (1802-59) who founded the museum and was its first director. Vice-admiral Dupotet had brought back 2000 skeletal fragments of the animal from South America, left them to the town of Dijon, and Nodot patiently reconstructed the glyptodon from what there was. This was at a time when very little was known of the glyptodon by naturalists and Nodot's work was to be of great help to researchers.

Éric Chevillard is much concerned with self-protection, particularly in the non-human animal kingdom (analogies, of course), and his novel Démolir Nisard | Demolishing Nisard (2006) is where I first learned of the (former) existence of the glyptodon. In this novel the narrator's hatred for Désiré Nisard slightly gives way to his appreciation of Nodot. As I say in that post:

'There is a positive to the negative, and as Nisard is 'demolished', then the narrator suggests that Léonard Nodot, the founder of the Muséum d'histoire naturelle in Dijon (where Chevillard lives) should be 'resurrected'. The narrator particularly enjoys visiting the museum to see the 'resurrection' of the prehistoric gigantic armadillo there, the glyptodon.'