Day 50: Domremy-la-Pucelle to Saint Thiébault

September 28, 2024

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Our place last night had the feel of being old, and high quality, but we had no information on its actual age or history. We were in the outbuilding pictured below, but the main house looked approximately the same. Behind one of the doors in the photo, our bikes had a room to themselves, one that we could access at any time. We love that.

Our plan today was a little different than usual, in that we would start by going over to Jeanne d'Arc's house, which is open for visiting, and then to the adjacent large interpretation centre, Jeanne's church across the street, and the basilica built in her honour down the road.

But we could begin all this Joan stuff right at our place, which had a replica above the door of the replica of the first ever Joan statue - which is above the door of Joan's house. The actual first ever Joan statue is in the interpretation centre!

In the short distance from our place to Joan's, we passed by a flock of sheep. This is fitting, as she was a shepherdess.

One the way to Jeanne d'Arc's birth house.

A nice bridge, but not necessarily so old.

We are greeted by Joan, not wearing armor here at home.

This statue of Joan above the door, said to be the first ever, was installed in later years: " This statue dates to the transition between the 16th and 17th centuries and is a copy of the oldest surviving statue of Joan of Arc. In other words, the closest thing we have to a real image of the saint. It was based on a statue erected in the town of Orléans, which Joan famously saved to cement her reputation as the savior of France."

Similarly, the crests above the door are later additions: " Joan’s great grand-nephew Claude Du Lys added the outline around the front door of the carved tympanum in 1481; the date is visible in Roman numerals. Three shields bear a coat of arms in a characteristic Gothic design that was widespread in Lorraine until the 16th century. The middle shield features the arms of the Kingdom of France, three fleurs-de-lis. The left shield features three plowshares, as Claude was a farmer and probably honors the area’s agricultural heritage. The shield on the right shows the arms of Joan of Arc: a sword supporting the crown of France and two fleurs-de-lis. There are also two mottos in Latin; “Vive labeur,” a slogan honoring those who till the soil and, “Vive le roi Louis,” a reference to Louis XI, the son of Charles VII and King of France in Claude’s time."(atlasobscura.com)

Here is a representation of Joan's parents and four siblings. The parents warranted their own statues at the Joan basilica.

Out in the garden, this plaque identifies the spot where Joan got her mission from God.

Jumping ahead slightly to something from inside the interpretation centre, we see Joan's account of the mission from God thing:

The large interpretation centre that is now beside the birth house focusses on telling the story of Joan's birth and upbringing, the culture of the time, the chronology of the campaign against the English, resulting in the coronation of Charles VII in Reims, the subsequent capture, trial, and burning of Joan, and so forth. It also includes some material like that at Vaucouleurs - Joan in Commerce and popular culture.

The only thing, as you see in the photo below, the approach is through text on wall posters. We found this like having bought a book on Joan, only we were reading it from the wall. This soon also proved too much information for us.

There were rooms full of printed information on the walls. But this little bit from Wikipedia helped put a lot of things in focus for me: "During the Hundred Years' War, Charles VII inherited the throne of France under desperate circumstances. Forces of the Kingdom of England and the duke of Burgundy occupied Guyenne and northern France, including Paris, the capital and most populous city, and Reims, the city in which French kings were traditionally crowned. In addition, his father, Charles VI, had disinherited him in 1420 and recognized Henry V of England and his heirs as the legitimate successors to the French crown. At the same time, a civil war raged in France between the Armagnacs (supporters of the House of Valois) and the Burgundian party (supporters of the House of Valois-Burgundy, which was allied to the English).With his court removed to Bourges, south of the Loire river, Charles was disparagingly called the "King of Bourges", because the area around this city was one of the few remaining regions left to him. However, his political and military position improved dramatically with the emergence of Joan of Arc as a spiritual leader in France. Joan and Jean de Dunois led French troops to lift the sieges of Orléans and other strategic cities on the Loire river, and to crush the English at the Battle of Patay. With the local English troops dispersed, the people of Reims switched allegiance and opened their gates, which enabled the coronation of Charles VII at Reims Cathedral in 1429."

Aside from words, the interpretation centre did have some objects. For example:

An illuminated panel depicting an angel speaking to Joan.

A Brie cheese label, showing the Basilica.

The book that would have been the most use to us.

But this sort of demystifies the Hundred Years War, even if 1453-1337=116 years!

Could have been good for the kids. Except, who was Prince Philippe?

We left the Joan monument and went for a look at the church she attended. It's called Eglise St Remy.

Dodie had a discussion about the church (like, when would it open) with a man from Narbonne. He was here to see his grandmother, who lives in a remote village in the area.

Nearby the church, a statue that probably portrays Marianne, and Joan. Marianne is the female form used to symbolise opposition to monarchy, and the French Republic. Since Joan was clearly a monarchist, what is this statue all about?

Also nearby, a Joan restaurant for which we read some good reviews.

and a Joan hotel, that could have been fun to stay at.

Inside the church now, there was mainly latter day Joan oriented stained glass.

We then took off across the Meuse, looking for the Joan basilica. The photo is misleading, because we had to turn around and follow this side of the river!

A km or two away, is the Jeanne d'Arc basilica.

The basilical had some dramatic statuary outside:

As basilica's go, this one was not really all that great. Certainly not as compared to the one for Ste Therese in Lisieux. (There is a slight chance I did not find the main part, as entry was complicated.)

The paintings along the walls illustrated events in Joan's career.

The captions below the paintings tell it all.

Outside, Joan's father looks on. There is a matching statue for her mother.

We left Domremy very late for us: 10:30, and got on with the serious business of getting to our next stop. As in past days, the landscapes have been gorgeous green, rolling hills. But of course we were also contending with being on road, with the often reckless French drivers.

A break came as we ran into a new, if short, greenway leading to Neufchateau. The call it the Voie Verte Ouest Vosgien. It features fanciful chivalry figures, on bikes.

The trail surface was great, and the route saved us a few kms.

We got in to Neufchateau easily on the voie verte, but soon took a wrong turn and got more of a tour of town than we wanted. There were a lot of one way narrow streets, and our GPS track unfortunately was made for the reverse direction.

That's the main (Jeanne d'Arc) square up there, but the street ends in steps!

It was all sort of picturesque, in a crumbly white way.

With this one way street (against us), the steps of the houses issue directly into the roadway. That would be a slightly nerve wracking way to live.

At last we were back in the open countryside. This region really is beautiful. It's the western side of the Vosges mountains - a range we focussed on when riding by the east facing slopes, that support the Alsace wine region.

We passed through village after village. Each had a church, almost none had a bakery. They need to readjust priorities!

The route took us from the valley of the Meuse into the valley of the Mouzon, a tributary. Both rivers are about the same, small, size here.

The ever alert Dodie spotted a red shape in the distance. The Nikon P950 brings it in reach of us mortals:

Pompierre, Somerecourt, the towns rolled by in the beautiful landscape. Eventually we had to climb out of the Mouzon valley and back to the Meuse. You can see that spike in the elevation profile at the top of this page.

We finally approached Saint Thiebault, and the town just alongside it, Bourmont. Bourmont is high on a hill, and used to be fortified. At first we thought we would have to climb it, but our spot was mercifully not up there.

There were a couple of bakeries and groceries in this area, but since this is France on a Saturday afternoon, they were all (each and every one) resting up by being closed, for when they need to rest up by being closed on Sunday. Ok, to be fair, some would open late on Sunday morning, and one would open later this evening for a bit. None of that helped us, as we looked at being short of food, today and tomorrow.

Dodie piped up "Hey, what about those automatic pizza kiosks - keep an eye open for one". Dodie is good on spotting birds, and foxes, apparently, but bakeries and apparently pizza kiosks are my area. I spotted one in minutes.

The illustrations on the kiosks look very good, and I was hopeful our 25 euros for two would be well spent.

We spent some time figuring out how to carry two pizzas on the bikes, without turning them to mush by being carried vertically. We did get it figured, and now could have worked in pizza delivery with our bikes. We found our chambre d'hotes, which of course had no one in attendance, despite it being the time specified by Booking. We called the phone number on the door and only got a message machine. But Dodie spotted a hotel across the street, and flounced off to get us in there. The hotel turned out to be the same management as the chambre d'hotes, so this at least brought someone to set us up at the original spot. As usual, after the initial traumas, chambre d'hote offers a lot of space, and the often have features like an accessible kitchen. That was the case here, so all was well.

We also had a nice back garden, but of course we are always too tired to relax in a thing like that.

And the pizza? Well the actual ingredients were ok, but the crust - as so often is the case - was soggy and underdone on the bottom. I put the thing in the oven that we had access to, and did cook the top properly, but soggy was still the order of the day. We are not really complaining, though. We will have to rely on the other one, to have anything to eat tomorrow - Sunday morning.

Today's ride: 47 km (29 miles)
Total: 2,526 km (1,569 miles)

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Karen PoretThe whole shebang about Joan is really something! Thank you for the stories which were more than we thought we wanted to know but glad to know anyway!
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2 weeks ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesPoor Joan. She really was a child of her times. It is sad that for most, if not all, of human history war has been such a major force and "warriors" have been so glorified.
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2 weeks ago