❝ It was the end of summer, entrance to golden September and misty autumn. And last weekend was also the Journées du Patrimoine in France, when we turn to the misty past… ❞
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❝ « Deauville! Que de m’as-tu vu!” exclaimed Clementine, as Michel piloted the Thunderbird along the river Touques. Deauville sits along the south back of the river, and its sister seaside colony, Trouville, a quieter, more sedate station balneaire, is on the other... ❞
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❝ One night, after we had been installed in our leaky, freezing château for almost a year, and had seen spring flourish, summer‘s golden gaze come and go, and autumn pass into early winter, I lay awake staring into the darkness and listening to the wind blow the rain against the windows… ❞
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❝ C’est la rentrée ! Autumn begins to slant the rays of morning sun, touching the stubble in the fields with gold, enriching the bright colors of garden flowers, and reddening the glossy coats of the cattle in the pastures. ❞
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❝ It was so hot last week, there were pictures of the thermometer in the local newspaper. Rouen, the capital of Normandy, measured the hottest day on record – more than 100 degrees!… ❞
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❝ "Tout va bien au Chateau, Madame la Marquise!" was Madame Francine’s tart reply. « Everything’s fine at the Chateau, Madame the Marquise!”… ❞
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❝ When a provincial comes into Paris, no moment goes unmeasured and unspent. The tenderness of the morning’s light on the creamy buildings…the rosy fingers of dawn upon the grey rooftops…❞
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❝ Lights move back and forth across the fields behind the Chateau until the wee hours of the morning, as huge machines cut and thresh golden sheaves of ripe wheat. They start again at daybreak… ❞
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❝ Pascal is an anesthesiologist. But Henry didn’t even ask him if he missed his old life in Paris. Pascal was too busy trying to keep a little calf away from its mother’s udder, as he squirted the last drop from her left rear teat into the shiny stainless-steel bucket. When Henry was little, we kept a small herd of Jersey milk cows… ❞
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❝ “That window is off center,” scolded Monsieur Xavier, testily. We were up on the roof of the Chateau, surveying the ongoing replacement… ❞
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❝ From the moment he accepted the challenge, our guardian and homme à tout faire (handyman) Monsieur Xavier was smitten. It was as if the restoration of the Farmhouse was the renovation of his own life. He was unabashed by the prospect of turning the moldering -- indeed perilous -- structure into a livable home... ❞
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❝Our challenge, as you may recall, was to preserve and enhance the authentic historic details of the Maison de la Ferme. But to make it comfortable and chic!❞
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It was an ambitious undertaking from the start, testing his ingenuity and building skills, his command of matériel and men. It involved big, load-bearing structural repairs. It drew upon the arts of masonry and plumbing, electricity and carpentry.
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“What’s Turgot doing here?” asked my husband, standing stock still in front of a portrait of a
cheerful-looking man in a thickly curled wig.
It was a sunny spring day, and we were visiting the Chateau de Courtomer. The edifice was
then on the market for the second time in its long history.
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