16 jan

One really has to love wedding cakes in order to appreciate the Saint Font Cathedral of Perigueux. Julie and I drove past it last week, on our way to find some paint for the iron fence here at Chassenat. We got a good look at it when we passed the river. It was as dramatic – in both senses of the word – as the photos had promised it to be.
Julie read about the history and highlights of Periguex in the car. Come to find out, Saint Font used to be a remarkable church, with the relics of one of the children that Herod killed. These must be some of the oldest relics in the catholic world. Something went wrong somewhere somehow. The architect who destroyed what was left of Periguex’ cathedral in the middle of the 19th century, is the same guy who a few years later destroyed the hill of Montmartre with buiding Sacre Coeur. It is terrible enough that these buildings were built in the first place, but why has no one in the past 170 years come up with the idea to tear these monstrosities down. Maybe Prince Charles likes them, but he has nothing to say about this area anymore, although the Perigord, just like most of Western France, was part of the English empire in the time that this cathedral was built.
We bought Claire a ticket to Madrid at the Perigueux train station, bended Claire’s arm a good deal for her to come and see the cathedral with us – we were all horrified – after which Julie and did some shopping and I went to go and have a look at Gallo Roman Perigueux.
I can not get impressed by ruins. Demolish it, or rebuild it. But get a little more practical use out of it than as an object for staring at by tourists like me. There was a part of a temple, which looked like an enormous heap of bricks to me. Than there was what was called an Arena, but which was nothing more than four or five heaps of bricks. Make a few good photos of it and get some practical use out of the spot. I never had thought of myself as a City planner, but in Periguex I realized there was a lot of need for the City planner in me.
I then went to see the ‘other Romanesque’ church in the city. This was the real one of course, although most of it was demolished through the ages and never rebuilt. I had some fun, in fact, in this Saint Etienne church. There are only two parts left of what seems to have been a much larger church in the past. One part was built at the end of the 11th century, the second part in the first half of the 12th century. The whole church is being redone in the 19th century. Although the stained glass windows are only good in their 19th century context – William Morris might have approved – the best thing that is done that not too much has been done by the 19th century recreation architects. The difference between the solemn 11th century columns and the graceful 12th century ones is an example in itself of the dynamic events that shaped the 12th century and reshaped the Western world.


Maybe everything got a little bit too fancy. That’s what Bernard of Clairvaux thought. A good thing he never saw the weddingcake imitation of the new Saint Font. He would not have been amused.