Dear Friend,

«Quand Saint-Ambroise fait neiger, de huit jours froids gare au danger» was the dicton written on the slate blackboard at the bakery in Courtomer last Tuesday.

“When Saint Ambrose makes it snow, watch out for danger in the next 8 days.”

Last Tuesday, on the feast of Saint Ambrose, it didn’t snow near Courtomer. Danger came anyway.

In the night of December 7, a strange light glowed on the horizon. It was the reflection of flames consuming our neighbor's home, the ancient chateau of Aunay-les-bois.

Le comte de Romanet was watching the evening news, he told the firemen, when he heard odd sounds from an upstairs bedroom. In the long hours that followed, hundreds of years of family archives, pictures, objets, furniture…the material traces of toute une vie and toute une vie de famille vanished. As the fire brigade finally withdrew from the smoldering ruins at about 6 o’clock the following evening, only an external shell remained. Showers of red sparks still fluttered to the blackened ground.

Everyone, including myself, a mere neighbor, is stunned.

I first visited the chateau d’Aunay many years ago. There was much to bind our own Courtomer and Aunay together.

Going back a thousand years, Courtomer and Aunay were territorial strongholds of neighboring Norman seigneurs, both descendants of Viking raiders who had wrested the duchy of Normandy from the king of France in 911. By the year 1000, these enterprising Norsemen had thoroughly settled into their productive lands. The foundations of both stone castles, a Norman innovation, were laid by the mid-11th century.

Kinship and quarrels, the shared experience of Crusades to the Holy Land, the English invasions, noble rebellion and religious division, the Revolution and its aftermath, the German Occupation and the Battle of Normandy shaped a long relationship.

With charm and enthusiasm, Monsieur de Romanet showed us around the family seat. The four round towers at each corner of the heavy, square medieval donjon had been started in the Renaissance, the 1500s. The last two towers had finally been finished by the family in 1835. Atop each tower, the cupola was capped with a lanternon to let in light – and to let it shine out into the night.

Meanwhile, the steep roof that jutted upwards so surprisingly was the fashion of the 17th century. On the grounds was a Romanesque church dating from the 12th century. The family was buried here. Huge oak trees, already famous enough to be noted in a regional guide of 1879, grew in the park.

A carte postale from about the time that the comtesse de Pelet left Aunay (above) for chateau de Courtomer.

Inside, we admired the stately fireplace in the hall and the boiseries, or paneling, added in 1733. Although we raised our eyebrows ever so slightly at the disarray, we were impressed by the books, magazines and newspapers stacked beside the already full shelves of the library. We went back outside to admire vintage cars, including one that had transported General Eisenhower, sheltered in an old grange.

This chateau was not just a home, it was a reliquary and a depository. Generations of men, women and children had made collections, developed literary, scientific or more frivolous interests, added to portraits and photograph albums. They had planted saplings.

They had left behind the paraphernalia of their lives, and no one, apparently, ever felt the need to get rid of a single thing that had once held meaning. No one had emptied out this living archive to impress a visitor or to stage a real estate transaction.

There was a personal connection to Courtomer that drew me to Aunay as well.

Monsieur de Romanet’s maternal great-aunt, bred, born and reared at Chateau d’Aunay, was châtelaine of Courtomer. Married to the comte de Pelet in 1904, la comtesse Henriette Ruinart de Brimont used part of her personal fortune to purchase our Chateau de Courtomer. The descendants of the founding families had sold it on. Here, she and her husband Albert raised their four children. Comte Roger, her eldest son, inherited in his turn. Then, we had purchased it.

Monsieur de Romanet, as he showed us around, seemed to approve of our arrival at his great-aunt’s chateau. Courtomer had sunk into neglect over the lifetime of his cousin. Now, it would have another family to scratch their names in the soft plaster of its walls, to collect books and paintings, to plant trees for future generations. Someone to dredge the moat, repair the bridges, deadhead the roses, put on another slate roof.

These burdens fell from the shoulders of the comte de Romanet when the family’s chateau burned to the ground last week. But as Monsieur Marques, mayor of the commune of Aunay-les-bois put it, “même s’il s’agît d’un château privé, c’est un désastre pour notre patrimoine commun. C’est l’histoire de notre commune qui est touché.”

“Though this was a private estate, it is a tragedy for our common heritage. Our own history has been diminished.”

Wednesday morning, photo from Orne Hebdo

Saint Ambrose came of age at a time when civilization seemed to be coming to an end. Just a few years after his death in 393 A.D., Rome, center of the civilized world of the Western Hemisphere, was sacked by Visigoths, then by Vandals, and finally by the Ostrogoth army. The 1,000-year-old Roman Empire fell. Yet Ambrose wrote hymns, still sung today, that tell of hope and of his delight in the beauty of the world.

As I think of words of comfort, these lyrics come to mind from one of Ambrose’s most famous compositions, "Aurora jam spargit polum."

Dawn purples all the east with light;
Day o'er the earth is gliding bright…
Each evil dream of night, depart…
Let every ill that darkness brought
Beneath its shade, now come to naught…

And with these lines and a full heart, we remember the chateau d’Aunay-les-bois and its châtelain.

P.S. Next week, we will tell the final tale of Dame Guyonne, the rebellious châtelaine whose life and experiences mingled with those of the families at Courtomer and Aunay-les-bois.

P.P.S. Heather and Beatrice (info@chateaudecourtomer.com) will be happy to help you with your family vacation or holiday (2022 and onwards) gathering at the Chateau. They can help arrange and recommend expeditions and meals as well. Please feel free to call or write us.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Ashes and smoldering cinders still drift to the ground.