Abbé Prévost Tour, Pt. 1 – Daryl Lee, Photographer

The spring semester of 2016 I took a course at UNM entitled “The Novel”, which was a study of 18th century French Novels. During this semester I was especially captivated my a man who wrote under the name Abbé Prevost; I won’t bore you with his full name. Today he is famous for one novel, Manon Lescaut. This novel was made into a ballet soon after its release, and from there into three operas, the most enduring of which was that of Puccini, and another ballet. The first ballet also formed the backdrop for a full chapter in Stendhal’s landmark The Red and the Black. But I confess: what really caught my eye was the name of the series of novels of which Manon Lescaut was the final installation. The series was entitled Memoires and Adventures of a Man of Quality who has retired from the world. In my class presentation on the life of Abbé Prévost I told the class that that was how I wanted to be known after I retire. Since the presentation was in French, I was most satisfied when my classmates actually laughed. Well, it turns out that after his ordination, our priest, not yet famous as a writer of worldly books, was assigned to several abbeys in succession as part of his training, and most of these abbeys are within an easy drive of Louviers. Today we visited our first two.

The first was Jumiéges, just west of Rouen. Sadly, the abbey today lies in ruins, a result of the French Revolution and the decision by the revolutionary (anti-religion) leaders that it would make a great rock quarry. It was eventually rescued and preservation is underway, but restoration is quite out of the question, as you’re about to see.

The Facade. You can just see a bit of the scaffolding to the right. The work seems to be limited to preserving what structure remains, rather than to rebuilding.

The Nave, the central part of the sanctuary. I wonder how our Abbé would feel about the open look. You can see in the facing of the wall opposite where the ceiling would have been.

Looking back into the nave from the garden behind the abbey. I could have sat there for hours, in the shade on this day with temperatures soaring into the high 80s. (I can just feel the empathy from all my Albuquerque readers!)

This must have been a magnificent building in its prime. This view from the rear corner of the property captures a sense of the complexity of the structure.

The gatehouse has been converted into the information center and gift shop.

And when you’re in need of some intellectual stimulation, how about a game of les échecs?

We moved on from Jumiéges to Bec-Hellouin, not far southwest of Jumiéges. (We’re heading generally in a circle, counterclockwise starting from about 11:00). The first challenge was getting across the Seine.

This little ferry has a capacity of ten cars our size, if you pack ’em in really snug. The crossing takes only two minutes, so even though it’s small by Port Bolivar Ferry standards (the only ferry I knew about growing up), it moves very quickly.

That’s our little rented Citroen on the left. The Citroen that’s on my bucket list to rent is this one:

The 2CV (stands for “two horse power”); if you think VW Beetle when you see it, just be aware that they hit the market at the same time. And they are just as beloved by their owners and cared for with as much love and affection.

When we arrived at Bec-Hellouin… Well, we didn’t quite arrive AT Bec-Hellouin. We arrived at the Foire pour Tout down the road from the village of Bec-Hellouin. As nearly as I can tell, the term means “Fair for all”; think “free for all”, but of course nothing was free. It was great. To get to the monastery, you had to walk through about a mile of this:

We stopped halfway along, had a sausage sub (for me) and a hamburger sub (for Anita) for lunch and, properly refreshed, made our way to the monastery. It was in much better condition than Jumiéges and appeared to be still active and, consequently, mostly shut off from the outside world.

The Abbé would be pleased that his work goes on.

On the way back to Louviers, we stumbled upon a local exhibit of a still-functioning windmill, old French style:

If you look closely you can see that the cloth on the vanes is furled, so the vanes aren’t turning. We seemed to be just about two weeks early, as there will be a medieval festival there the first weekend in August. Hmmmmm….

We’ll pick up the rest of the abbe’s abbeys this week. Stay tuned.