Sunday treasure with a bit of history....

Bonjour mes belles,

As promised I am back to tell you about the last treasure that we found and why it has an interesting history.

We left the lovely warm hall and stepped outside and  it stated to snow. Hence the poor vendors of the bread and pastries were offering special prices so that they would return to their warm house.

Directly in front of us was the religious wall hanging that you see in the photo above and in the photo below.

I commented to French Boyfriend that there was something familiar about it, despite it having camels which are not local to France but I saw quite a few when I loved in Dubai.

French Boyfriend asks the couple that are selling the wall hanging if they know the history surrounding Charles de Foulcauld and the connection with this area. They are intrigued but say they do not know anything about him.....the story goes something like this.....  


Few people outside the Roman Catholic church will have heard of Charles de Foucauld, who was the inspiration for the religious order of the Little Brothers of Jesus, often referred to as "worker priests" – priests who live in the poorer areas of cities, usually employed in blue collar jobs and sharing the lives of the poor. 

His life was in some ways similar to that of St. Francis of Assisi, in that he came from a prosperous family and then turned to a life of extreme poverty. 

He and his young sister were left orphans when he was aged just 6 years old and his sister 3 years old.

His parents died one after the other and they were then cared for by their grandmother,for only a year as they were all out walking one day when some cows scared her and she had a heart attack and died.

Charles de Foucauld's spiritual route was perhaps more dislocated than that of St. Francis, in that he began as a Trappist monk, then went to Nazareth, where he worked as a servant for the Poor Clares, and finally moved to a hermitage in the Algerian desert, where he spent the last fifteen years of his life among the Tuareg. 

The Dordogne connection: Château de Bridoire
 
Charles de Foucauld's connection with the Dordogne is, above all, with the Château de Bridoire, which belonged to the de Foucauld family from 1806 to 1938, and which Charles de Foucauld visited on many occasions, even celebrating Mass in the chapel when he became a priest.

Chateau Bridoire is a favourite of ours as French Boyfriend's friend's were the owners after the Foucauld familyso he has fabulous memories of the time he spent there when he was a child. 

The new owners are restoring the chateau back to its former glory after  being closed for over 20 years, in which time the chateau was vandalised and many of the original features stolen.

If you have a chance to visit the Chateau which opens again at the end of April, you will even see something that we sold to the new owners and I will give you a clue......it is hanging in the Grand Salon and has a fab French feel to it.

And to think that the story started with seeing an intriguing wall hanging displayed on the side of a car on a snowy Sunday morning a few kilometers from our house....hence you know why I love treasure hunting as there is always a tale behind the object.

.....tres bonne semaine à tous, Leeann x