After an early start of coffee and porridge and whilst skies remain bright and blue the open road beckoned. Today we pointed the car in a northwards direction and hoped for the best. Heading out of Ribérac we turned towards the Charente and border country. Keeping a watchful eye on the road for patches of black ice etc we gingerly negotiated up hill and down dale along with lots of twisty turny. After half an hour or so we came across the very appropriately named village of Charmant on the D123.
Charmant on a cold mid-December day
It rested nestled in the folds of the soft surrounding hills displaying its very lovely and individual church spire, which naturally enough dominates. All was quiet on this mid-December day. Maybe the locals were bracing themselves for the fast approaching Fête de Noel. After a brief stop at an Aire de Repos situated by a local stream where we partook of several mugs of hot chocolate poured from the 'thermo' we got on the road again. Some minutes later we were struck by the sight of a very large, white looking building that held authority over the hillside to our left. We thought at this point that it looked like a factory from the 30's, long and low with metal framed windows. We were wrong.
Château de la Mercerie
The building drew us onwards and upwards. Turning off the main road we climbed a short incline dotted with many Italian cypress trees. The building immediatley gave the impression of one with an uncertain future and one where neither voices rang out nor where fires any longer crackled. The signs were clear enough 'Access Interdit'. One realised one was perhaps veiwing somebody's folly; something had quite clearly got out of hand in the ego department. It was also very clear that vast amounts of money had been lavished on the tons and tons of cut and dressed stone which was almost overwhelming.
After some research it seems that Château de la Mercerie was the joint project of the two brothers, Raymond and Alphonse Rethoré. In 1924 they were residing in the left hand 19th century 'petit manoir'.
The château showing the 19c 'petit manoir' on the left
In the 1930's the brothers embarked on the enlargement of the existing château. Raymond was at that time studying medicine but he soon gave this up and begun pursuing a career in architecture. It seems that Château de la Mercerie was his test bed and money no object. It is immense. As if the exteriror was not impressive enough the interior had to reflect this scale. The château was crammed full of Italian masters and all sorts of marble statuary.
Raymond became mayor of the adjoining village of Magnac Lavallette situated less that a kilometre from the chateau, in 1932.
The village where Raymond Rethoré became mayor in 1932
Eventually, in 1970, the inevitable happened and the money ran out so all work on the agrandissement project stopped.
In 1983 Alphonse died, followed by his brother Raymond in 1986. Their legacy, besides the obvious beauty of the building was an administrative nightmare leaving huge unpaid tax bills. None of this has put off the present owner, an antiques dealer from Paris named M. Bernard Steinitz, who bravely bought the place in 1988. He seems to have adopted a 'holding action' for in all that time he has not granted any access to the public, who I am sure would be truly interested in what has been created here. For the future there are hopes for the building and its 50 hectares of surrounding countryside to be converted into something for the artistic community. I can think of no better place to come to either find artistic inspiration and creativety or just imbibe the atmosphere that leaks from this forgotten château up on the border.
Some of the beautiful Italian cypress trees which line the road up to the chateau
No comments:
Post a Comment