Pontlevoy
Encyclopedia
Geography
Pontlevoy is a communeCommunes of France
The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...
in the Loir-et-Cher
Loir-et-Cher
Loir-et-Cher is a département in north-central France named after the rivers Loir and Cher.-History:Loir-et-Cher is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Orléanais and...
department of central France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
.
The village of Pontlevoy is 14 miles southwest of Blois
Blois
Blois is the capital of Loir-et-Cher department in central France, situated on the banks of the lower river Loire between Orléans and Tours.-History:...
, in the department of Loir-et-Cher
Loir-et-Cher
Loir-et-Cher is a département in north-central France named after the rivers Loir and Cher.-History:Loir-et-Cher is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Orléanais and...
, the eastern part of Touraine. It is a 20 minute drive from the chateaux of Amboise
Château d'Amboise
The royal Château at Amboise is a château located in Amboise, in the Indre-et-Loire département of the Loire Valley in France.-Origins and royal residence:...
, Cheverny
Château de Cheverny
The Château de Cheverny is located at Cheverny, in the département of Loir-et-Cher in the Loire Valley in France.-History:The lands were purchased by Henri Hurault, comte de Cheverny, a lieutenant-general and military treasurer for Louis XI, whose descendent the marquis de Vibraye is the present...
, Chaumont
Château de Chaumont
The Château de Chaumont is a French castle at Chaumont-sur-Loire, Loir-et-Cher, France.The first château-fort on this site between Blois and Amboise was a primitive fortress built by Eudes II, Count of Blois, in the 10th century with the purpose of protecting Blois from attacks from his feudal...
or Chenonceau
Château de Chenonceau
The Château de Chenonceau is a manor house near the small village of Chenonceaux, in the Indre-et-Loire département of the Loire Valley in France. It was built on the site of an old mill on the River Cher, sometime before its first mention in writing in the 11th century...
, and about an hour's drive from Azay-le-Rideau
Azay-le-Rideau
Azay-le-Rideau is a commune of the Indre-et-Loire department in central France.-Château:The château of Azay-le-Rideau was built from 1515 to 1527, one of the earliest French Renaissance châteaux...
, Loches
Loches
Loches is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department in central France.It is situated southeast of Tours by railway, on the left bank of the Indre River.-History:...
or Chambord. The summer is their tourist season. The French spoken in Touraine is said to be the purest in the country.
The medieval battle of Pontlevoy
Battle of Pontlevoy
The Battle of Pontlevoy was fought on 6 July 1016 between the forces of Fulk III of Anjou and Herbert I of Maine on one side and Odo II of Blois on the other...
took place in its neighbourhood.
History
Pontlevoy's main street, the Rue du Colonel Filloux, named after the colonel who is identified on the sign as a Humaniste et Technicien (1869-1957). Colonel Filloux perfected the 155-millimeter howitzerHowitzer
A howitzer is a type of artillery piece characterized by a relatively short barrel and the use of comparatively small propellant charges to propel projectiles at relatively high trajectories, with a steep angle of descent...
for the French army.
Most of the shops and houses were built between the 15th and 19th centuries. The architectural detail makes Pontlevoy charming: a crouching monkey carved in limestone on the cornice of a building on the Rue des Singes (Monkey Street), a sun over the doorway of the 17th-century Maison du Dauphin. According to legend, Louis XIV's grandson stayed there overnight.
The Rue de la Juiverie is the only remnant of the ancient Jewish community of Pontlevoy. Touraine
Touraine
The Touraine is one of the traditional provinces of France. Its capital was Tours. During the political reorganization of French territory in 1790, the Touraine was divided between the departments of Indre-et-Loire, :Loir-et-Cher and Indre.-Geography:...
was settled by Jews and Romans until their persecution and eventual expulsion from the region in 1306 caused by anti-Semitism.
Pontlevoy's abbey made the town an important commercial and cultural center. A local knight named Gelduin de Chaumont founded it in 1034 to fulfill a vow. It is believed that Gelduin's boat was caught in a storm on the way back from a Crusade in the Holy Land. He prayed to the Virgin for help, promising to build Her a church in Pontlevoy, which he held as a vassal of the Count of Blois. Allegedly, the Virgin dressed in white, appeared above the rolling deck and calmed the sea.
Geldiun endowed the abbey with enough revenue for Benedictine monks to build a huge church, dedicated to the White Virgin. From the east, it looks like a complete Gothic cathedral with flying buttresses and trefoil stone tracery in the windows of the radiating chapels. There is a gravel courtyard where it the nave
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...
should be.
The church was almost completely destroyed during the Hundred Years' War. The monks rebuilt the apse and choir but couldn't afford to replace the rest. Inside, on the wall behind the altar, there is a little 11th-century statue of the White Virgin with her Child in her arms. The child leans against her left shoulder. She presses his left hand to her heart. The naif
Naif
Naif is a locality in Deira side of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It is a commercial and residential locality. Considering the nearby localities, Naif is larger in size. It is one of the oldest localities. The residents of this locality are mainly South Asians....
style indicates it was done by a local mason rather than a professional sculptor. The monks ran a hospital here, with a sanctuary for lepers, until the 16th century. But by 1623, when Cardinal Richelieu was named abbot, the monks had abandoned their vows and the buildings were in ruins.
Richelieu repaired them and brought in six Benedictine
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
monks from St. Maur. They started a seminary for the sons of the nobility and the rich bourgeoisie. Students came even from England. In 1776, Louis XVI turned the school into one of the 12 royal military academies of France; a huge cedar of Lebanon in the courtyard was planted in honor of his accession to the throne.
In the 19th century after The Revolution, the college became a private, secular institution, proud of its conservative tradition producing famous scholars, provincial officials, priests and soldiers. It was a boarding school; some families moved to Pontlevoy to be near their sons. They built large, elegant houses with steep, slate roofs, walled gardens and spiked wrought-iron fences that still grace the town. The huge 18th-century building - three stories high with a mansard roof - resembles those government ministry buildings around the Palais Bourbon
Palais Bourbon
The Palais Bourbon, , a palace located on the left bank of the Seine, across from the Place de la Concorde, Paris , is the seat of the French National Assembly, the lower legislative chamber of the French government.-History:...
in Paris. The college closed for a period of time after the Second World War.
The previous owner of the abbey and the college was the Marquis du Vibraye, a descendant of Gelduin, allowed Pontlevoy to open a municipal museum on the third floor. The first two rooms displayed a collection of 19th- and early 20th- century cards advertising Poulain Chocolates
Chocolat Poulain
Chocolat Poulain is one of the oldest chocolate brands in France. It is known particularly for its bars of eating and cooking chocolate, as well as its Poulain Orange product, which is a chocolate drink mix...
. The company, founded by Auguste Poulain, who was born in Pontlevoy in 1815, is still a major manufacturer in Blois. Poulain was a pioneer of modern advertising. Each year his company issued a new series of brightly colored cards commemorating notable men (including Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
) with flowers and illustrations of fairy tales. They were collected and traded throughout Touraine
Touraine
The Touraine is one of the traditional provinces of France. Its capital was Tours. During the political reorganization of French territory in 1790, the Touraine was divided between the departments of Indre-et-Loire, :Loir-et-Cher and Indre.-Geography:...
in the 19th century.
Between 1902 and 1963, Louis Clergeau, a local watchmaker, and his daughter took more than 10,000 photographs of life in Pontlevoy. The museum also highlighted their work. The Clergeau collection is as remarkable a picture of French life as the work of the photographer Jacques H. Lartigue.
In the 1980’s there was a Museum of Heavy Trucks at the Abbey which was a project of the former mayor, Mr. Maffre. It included about 40 vehicles. Mr. Maffre's pride: a 1935 electric delivery van from the Poulain factory; a Deux Dion Bouton, from 1918, the oldest truck in the collection, and an American G.M.C. used by the Swiss army in 1942.
Pontlevoy is about five miles from the Cher River, which up to November 1942 was the dividing line between occupied and unoccupied France. Pontlevoy was occupied, many refugees were hidden there.
Pontlevoy's memorial to all its dead from World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and II is behind a green iron fence on the Route de Montrichard
Montrichard
Montrichard is a town and commune in the Loir-et-Cher département, in France.-Geography:The town lies on the north bank of the Cher river. south of Blois, west of Vierzon and east of Tours...
, On the four sides of the monument are the names of 81 men, listed year by year, who were killed in 1914-18 and 10 others, who died in 1939-45. In World War I Pontlevoy lost about 10 percent of its population.
On the corner of the Avenue Malingie and the Route de Montrichard, Pontlevoy has erected a small concrete cenotaph commemorating its martyrs and victims of Nazism from 1939 to 45.