A SAINT, A CHANTEUSE
AND AN EMPEROR
Chatillon-Sur-Seine, Burgundy
Not
so well known as a travel or tour destination, one small country town
in France is the source if not the birth place of so many sides of French
religious, cultural and political, and mythic history, from the Crusades
to the 100 years war, Napolean and golden age of Paris night life. Located
about forty-minutes drive north-west of Dijon in the upper corner of
the
Cote d’Or region bordering Champagne, Chatillon-Sur-Seine, which
gets it’s name from the famed Paris river which bubbles from under
a rock not far from this modest village and flows under a small bridge
in the center of town.
Kiki
of Montparnass, singer, actress. model and artist in her own right
in
Paris’ golden age of the 20’s following WWI, was born as
Alice Prin in Chatillon-sur-Seine an illegitimate child, sent by her
grandmother
to Paris as a teenager where she began posing nude for famed painters
and sculptors and made herself into the toast of the town, one of the
early 20th century's most independent women and one of first movie stars
of the French cinema.
On
the other end of the scale in Chatillon-sur-Seine, at the top of a
hill
can
be found the Eglise Saint Vorles surrounded by the ruins of the old
city
fortress. Here was the religious school of the middle ages where St. Bernard of Clairvaux received his education from the priests
of St. Vorles in the early 12th Century. St. Bernard was the son of Burgundy
nobles who after joining the church became an auster cleric and author
who forswear wealth and images, is closely associated with the Knights
Templar (See Hugues
de Payns Museum) and was one of the
principal forces instigating the Second Crusade (see St Vorles and St Bernard's Milk Miracle).
The
church of Eglise St. Nicolas just below the old castle hill in the
Rue
Nicolas was built in the 11th Century, the present church was added to
in the 13th and 14th with ornate Gothic vaulted nave ceiling and a
series
of medieval period stained-glass widows of the saints, the resurrection
and a series of religious and medieval life images depicting costume
and
dress of the period. The church is also connected to the defeat of the
Burgundy dukes at the Battle of Agincort by Henry V, the funeral of
Philippe
the Fair’s young bride Michelle de France in the 15th Century,
and an unsuccessful peace negotiation with Napoleon in 1814-15 (See also Castellane
on Route Napoleon and Waterloo
Museums).
Chatillon-sur-Seine
can be reached by car from Troyes or Dijon about an hour. The Montbard TGV station
is 15 minutes. For an interesting stay nearby, La Roserie,
a former hunting lodge countryside
bed & breakfast dating from the 1700’s is located
20 kilometers away in Essoyes, Champagne where Renoir came
to paint. © Bargain
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SEE ALSO:
PARIS ELEGANCE ON A 3-STAR BUDGET
ROMANCE CASTLES OF BURGUNDY WINE REGION
DIJON - BURGUNDY WINE, MUSTARD N' GARGOYLES
