Day 49: Saint Mihiel to Domremy-la-Pucelle

September 27, 2024

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The story for the first part of today was wind, rain, and hills but at least I can report that it later reverted to just wind and hills!

Starting off, it felt like we were right back in the toughest parts of yesterday - the parts with that rain blasting against the rain hood. It was too bad, because the terrain really was beautiful. You can see it in the first two pictures below.

The reason I took the next photo was not to capture the lovely brown, or anything like that. Rather, I was being blasted by wind from over that bare land, and I wanted to record just how little opposition that wind had in reaching us.

Up ahead Dodie is gamely pedaling on. Your can see here how narrow the road is. That did not stop most drivers from barrelling along it. Not one single one ever slowed down one jot when passing us in either direction. Another interesting artifact in the photo, a scratch in my camera lens makes Dodie look like some heavenly apparition. I have always thought so too.

We reached a path beside the Meuse canal, and for a while it was great, with foliage cutting the wind. But some of that foliage tried too hard and fell across the path. There was nothing for it but to take off the packs and carry the bikes across.

Even a partially loaded e-bike is darn heavy. You have to grab it in the right spot.

We ended back on road, and back fighting wind and rain and traffic. We passed through many small towns, and though they had little or no commerce, they did at least offer temporary shelter from the wind. We were looking forward to reaching Commercy, where we could expect not only shelter but also a special bakery. Commercy is the home of the "Madeleine", which is an unassuming little cake, much beloved by the French.

We came off the canal and turned for Commercy centre. But we immediately were jockeying with a large number of vehicles trundling about. It's not that they were racing or careening , mind you, just there was always one trundling on your tail. Even more concerning were the semi-trailers that for some reason wanted to pass right through town. When one almost rolled over Dodie's toes, we took to the sidewalk.

We could cross at that crosswalk, maybe.

But quite quickly we did spot the object of our desires, the Madeleine bakery.

The sign below claims they have been making madeleines here in this square for over a century.

I expected to find a traditional bakery arrangement, with display cases full of madeleines from which we could choose a few. Instead everything was packaged in cellophane, and the cheapest of these bulk bags was 20 euros. We may like madeleines, but not that many! So we gave it a miss, and therefore can not report on what an original authentic madeleine tastes like!

I was confused to see these giant madeleines, made by St Michel biscuiterie. As far as I had known, St Michel was a biscuit factory in St Michel-Chef-Chef, along the Loire, and near to our friend from there - Michel. Michel always used to ply us with these cookies. But yes, a little research reveals that while indeed St Michel biscuits was established in St Michel-Chef-Chef in 1919 by Joseph Grellier, they moved into the madeleine business in Commercy in 1986. We soon passed their factory here, showing that it was all true. And clearly, the "original" madeleine bakery is also selling the St Michel variant, so they must have a deal.

We took this at the factory on the edge of town.

I came up with the idea that local bakeries in this area could carry either their own versions of authentic madeleines, or at least the St Michel variant. So in the next town, Euville, we pulled into the church square, which of course included a bakery.

The church in Euville - has twin towers!

and this bakery. The photo also shows what the town generally looked like.

No madeleines, but Dodie did not come out empty handed. These great coffee eclairs were also affordable.

Our next major stop was Vaucouleurs. Vaucouleurs struck me immediately as being neater and tidier than other villages we had been passing through.

But Vaucouleurs has a huge claim to fame. Joan of Arc was born and brought up in Domremy, 20 km from here. At the age of 16, in 1428, she made her way to Vaucouleurs and sought out Robert de Baudricourt, the local army commander. Joan made the case (like the Blues Brothers) that she was on a mission from God, to fend off the English siege of Orleans, see the Dauphin crowned, and so forth. The exact chronology of the whole thing is clearly beyond my schooling and pay grade! Joan did eventually convince de Baudricourt that she was legit, and she got sent from the "Porte de Paris" at Vaucouleurs in 1429 to go fight at Orleans. She also began calling herself "la Pucelle", meaning "the maiden" or virgin. I think she sort of styled herself the Virgin of Lorraine. Being a well known virgin would also help as she dealt with armies made up of men. Anyway, Domremy, where we ended the day, is officially named Domremy -La- Pucelle in recognition of this.

Vaucouleurs has this great Joan statue in front of city hall. A plaque says if was erected in 1951 but wrecked in some way in 1962 and redone in 1966.

Beside the city hall was a Joan museum. The sign on the door said it was open, but that you needed to apply at the Tourist Information to get in. This gave us a good idea. The wind and hills had taken a big toll, on Dodie's battery especially. So we went to the TI and arranged to see the museum, while bringing our most important stuff inside, and also charging batteries.

Our most valuable bags plus charger and batteries found a safe home and a much needed boost at the TI. If we need charging in future, this gives us the idea that searching out a TI could work.

The young man from the TI locked it up and walked us over to the museum, where he opened for us and then hung out in the museum office while we did our tour. There was a brief guide book for us:

The museum had a lot of Joan statues, and also covered various other aspects of Joan, like Joan in popular culture, in film, in commerce, in art, and so forth.

The statues made up the greatest part of the exhibit. There are of course thousands of these around - usually we see them in churches. Each portrays Joan in a slightly different way, though she usually has short hair, armor, a sword, a flag, and a horse. Here is a goodly selection:

Since Joan started out as a shepherdess, not all representations are military. Here she is in an ordinary dress:

And here is a poster, in which she has a sword, but no armor or horse:

The photo below shows a room in the museum with posters and stained glass, and not so much of statues.

Here is a look at that stained glass:

Something we found very intriguing was a poster for a modern movie, one that included John Malkovich, Faye Dunaway, Dustin Hoffman, and other modern era stars. It would be fun to track down and watch this.

Here is an 1890 poster advertising French actress Sarah Bernhardt in the role of Joan. I tracked this poster down - you can still buy a copy, for 1500 euros.

And you could sell me Joan of Arc Brie any time!

The boy from the TI also recommended we check out the nearby St Laurence's church. This did turn out to be beautiful, with extensive ceiling paintings and interesting stained glass.

Some (of course) Joan themed stained glass.

More stained glass:

Dodie lights a candle below the Joan glass.

Up some steps from the church was the "Port de Paris" from which Joan left for Orleans. I passed on walking up there, because I was eager to visit one last site in town...

The Port de Paris in Vaucouleurs is up beside this other church.

The other site I was after was a bakery, not with madeleines but with Jeannettes. Unfortunately they had just closed!

The stretch from Vaucouleurs to Domremy was truly beautiful, as you can see from the shots below. It was marred for us, though, by the forceful headwind, which had us concentrating on just keeping pedaling. The rolling hills too, were nice, but not so nice when your battery is threatening to peg out. Quite aside from that wind, we climbed 748 meters today, which is quite a lot.

Looking down from a high ridge, we spotted this chateau. Google Lens tags it the Château de Montbras.

Finally, we keep looking for raptors that are not buzzards - but everything here seems to be a buzzard (or maybe a kestrel). Here are some buzzards in flight:

Since we are staying in Domremy (La Pucelle), tomorrow we plan to walk over to Joan's house. That is, her birth house. It's very nearby our place.

Today's ride: 81 km (50 miles)
Total: 2,479 km (1,539 miles)

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Suzanne GibsonWhat an interesting day! So much to see. But I don't know how you can do so many kms and so much climbing in bad weather and with headwinds and still enjoy sightseeing! I am very impressed. Chapeau! I could never do it.
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