Dear Pere Noel.....

 

 

 

I am off to a HUGE brocante !!

  As it`s the last chance for many French dealers to sell before January there are usually some real bargains to be had. Some dealers have a bit of an "end of year" clear out and some real treasures "in the rough" can appear. My favourite kind of truffling!

Dear Pere Noel.......this is what I would like to find at the brocante:

Bronze ciel de lit bed canopies

 

Lots of pairs of silk chateau curtains with matching tassels

Crowns, crowns and more crowns.

Batches of faded florals preferably roses

A cherub chandelier with pale rose pink droppers

A couple of boudoir dolls

Rose bedecked hand worked quilts

Dowry linens with aristocratic crowns

 Hatboxes

Old vellum covered books preferably 18th century

 

Ex votos and reliquaries.

 Tiny silk shades with Marie Antoinette vignettes ( Like the ones I found at a brocante in Nimes and cannot get them out of my head 20 years later!!)

Mannequins with tiny waspie waists and bustle derrieres in old velvet with Paris embroidered on the front ( as if!!)

Period trims and passementeries in their original Paris store boxes.

Marie Antoinette silk slippers.

I have been a good girl all year ( with exception of the event where I pushed Miss Frou Frou into a really smelly and mouldy attic load of textiles to get me a tiny piece of faded floral that I could see sticking out and I told her it was character building)

 

A la prochaine mes belles wish me luck!!

Tutu......

So...who needs a Christmas tree when you can light up a tutu?!!

A demain mes belles
xxx

A little evening wear......

At 10pm last night I took a photograph of the wonderful moon above the chateau.....

It was such a beautiful soft glow......

We had been out to the village Christmas fayre and had just got home. We put the TV on and settled down for a little late night tipple and a film ...then PING!! A power cut!

We fumbled around in the dark to find the candles and soon the chateau took on a much more romantic yet silent air!

Then of course as we are so remote, we got to thinking " Is it just us or is it everyone?". If it us just us we need to get the French telephone directory out and use our best French to report the problem. If it is the whole village we know that one of our neighbours will have saved us.

The temptation to find out was too much so with Mark in his bath robe with bare legs and shoes and me in my PJ`s and slippers  we made our way out into the cold to the car. Sir Digbert was first in of course for the adventure!

 Our own village was in darkness except for a few dull candle lights in windows. We drove to the next village of Appeville on our right to find it ablaze with light and the church Christmas tree aglow. Beuzeville La Bastille on our left had a blazing crèche and lots of houses lit up.

As we returned home we saw a van with a flashing top light and saw it was the electricity repair team that had arrived already. We returned home and waited but we remained without power until 10am this morning.

There is nothing like an outing in your pyjamas to liven up a quiet night. Wow....do we know how to live it up here!!!

Bonne  weekend mes belles
xxxxx

An attic, full of dowry linen.......

I received a call yesterday from a lady asking whether I would be interested in buying some of her family's dowry linens. I had no idea what I would find; all I knew was that the "grandmere" had lived to be 100 years old and the linens had belonged to not only her but her mother too!

I sometimes dread house calls. The people I meet are always so wonderful and welcoming but if the items they want to sell are awful I feel very bad wriggling out of a purchase. I have sometimes come home with items I'd would ordinarily not have bought rather than say "non" !!

But yesterday was quite different;  a good treasure haul!! Madame had laid out all the finest fresh white embroidered linens on her table for me which of course I was more than happy to buy. The farmhouse was so beautiful too and was filled with rustic Normandie armoires and dressers that have been passed down through the generations.

As I was about to leave she told me she had a few more linens in the attic but she thought they were not what  I would want. PING!!!!!! On hearing that the Simply-Chateau ears stood up like a dingo!!

She asked her husband to open up the attic and I followed him up a rather old, rickety ladder; so rickety in fact that I stood on the ladder and just poked my head into the attic whilst 'monsieur' carried bags over for me to look at.

There were numerous bags full of monogrammed linen, metis, bleached and unbleached sheets and all look as if they had never been used.

And so....on this occasion I bought all that lot as well!!

Then the obligatory sit with a café and a homemade gateau whilst I looked at her family photographs and old wartime postcards sent from her grandpere to her grandmere in the early 1900s. The café was followed with a petite liqueur- there is no point refusing at this point as it always falls on deaf ears and I suppose it is a Normandie thing!!!

She showed me a photograph of herself in 1946 when she was just a small girl standing next to a tiny donkey foal and she was wearing a dress made out of parachute silk! How I wanted to get my phone out and photograph it for you to see!!!

I left with rosy cheeks, a couple of gateaux recipies and a car filled with treasure.

If only it was that easy every time!

I shall start listing some of the haul this evening, and over the coming days.

Bonne weekend mes belles.

xxxxxxxxxx

Opera Tales.....

It is amazing how some of the treasures I have truffled out in the past seem to stick in my mind and intertwine with my life. About 9 years ago a local house clearer sold me several things which had belonged to a 19th century Opera singer, Bianca Donadio - pictured above in 1877. Sadly the items had simply been dumped along with a host of other items in house clearance boxes.

This was long before my first trip to Venice  - and before my Venice addiction took hold! I discovered however that Miss Donadio, once described as a 'prima donna soprano', had sung at the "Fenice" opera house in Venice and was captivated by the city and the beautiful opera house decorations.

 I knew little about her but managed to find out that she had sung at the Theatre Italien in Nice in 1881. As she took to the stage there was a huge explosion and the theatre burst into flames. I have found this description of the incident:

  "The worst enemy of an opera house is fire. These dramatic fires are sometimes laden with tragic irony when gruesome death greets those who have come seeking pleasure. In 1881 at the Théâtre Royale in Nice an eager audience awaited Bianca Donadio as Lucia de Lammermoor. The first act curtain fell not to brightly illuminated scenery but to a raging fire on stage that quickly engulfed the auditorium. Fifty-nine bodies of an estimated 200-400 victims were recovered, mostly those sitting in the poulailler (pigeon roost)".


 The fire was so fierce that within an hour the theatre was reduced to the ground and 59 people had died in the flames. Bianca took this as a bad omen and decided that she would never sing in public again.

I have also found this very detailed news report of the fire on this link

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=CHP18810512.2.22


On our last trip to Venice I wanted to visit the newly refurbished Fenice theatre where Bianca had sung. This wonderful theatre had been completely destroyed by fire in 1996 - the second time the theatre had caught fire.

At a cost of 90 million euros teams of master craftsmen worked to recreate its splendour. We booked to see two performances; Carmen on one day followed by Madame Butterfly the next. I could hardly pay attention to what was happening on stage as I gazed around at the decoration; it  was magnificent. I think these pictures say it all!!

 

 

 

 

As we sat there I could imagine Bianca on stage, her beautiful solo voice filling the whole place. Having handled her costumes , her silver hairbrushes and her silk shoes I felt quite guilty for having sold them although I did know that they had gone to a very deserving home. I wished I had kept them to donate to the newly decorated Fenice.

I almost feel that having had the privilege of handling some of her personal effects before passing them on and then having visited the Fenice myself that she had not been totally forgotten.

Aa prochaine mes belles

xxxx

Venice in a bottle...

Whilst in Venice we visited this amazing art installation. It seems to have captured Venice in a bottle.

 

 

Double click on the picture to enlarge it.

How I wish I could have brought Venice home with me in a bottle to gaze at that reflection and be instantly transported back to the lagoon.

A la prochaine mes belles
xxx

News from the chateau......

I feel a little guilty! I  have ignored my blog for a while. Since I joined the rest of the world with a new up-to-the- minute phone I discovered how easy it is to email instant photographs and put comments on my 'Facebook' page about what I am listing or buying around the brocantes. Then I realise that not everyone visits Facebook!

Today we set of at 6am for what is probably the last brocante of the year. It was bitterly cold and the sellers were few and far between but I did find a few treasures. I had my "little" eyes on and came home with some finds that I shall list this week.

 

 

Miss Frou Frou and Mr Frou Frou stopped by this afternoon on her way to the ferry en route to the UK to stand the fair at Kempton Park in London. I looked at their van loaded to the gunnels with treasures  - and I realised she has turned into me, 30 years ago!!!

How I used to love standing the fairs, come rain or shine! I loved the buzz; I loved meeting clients face to face; I loved the travelling;  I even loved sleeping in the back of the van whilst travelling! For one moment I felt really envious.

After they drove away I walked back inside - into our lounge with a blazing log fire, sat down and checked my auctions online - and decided that  standing in the freezing cold at Kempton Park at 4am was not for me after all!
But good luck out there Miss Frou Frou!! She is definitely a chip off the "not so" old block.

The beautiful letters of the World War II romance ( see my previous blog a few weeks ago)  are proving a hard task for the wonderful lady translating them. Some of the writing is almost impossible to read but the fact that she can actually decipher them is simply divine and I promise I shall let you read them too soon.

Last week I had a wonderful lunch with the Countess Deauville at her country chateau. She spends her days between the chateau and her Paris apartment and does some amazing charity work. We lunched by her log fire in the petite informal cuisine overlooking the walled garden. She met her husband the Count some 30 years ago in a whirlwind romance in Monaco - and I am always desperate for her to repeat the tale to me time and time again. She must think me quite mad.

And excuse me.....[fanfare of trumpets]...you are reading the blog of someone who supplied a batch of antique hat veil lace to the Disney production team working on the new Cinderella film. When it does finally hit the screens I shall be too busy trying to spot my lace to enjoy the film!

Charles, le Baron du Breuil, has been fighting weasels again as you can see by his ear! He simply will not give in until he catches one. If I knew where he was finding them I would try and stop his antics.

So...............may your week be filled with Fabulous fripperies...

........textile treasures......

 

and sheer delight!!!

 

A la prochaine mes belles
xxxx

J`adore............

I am having a secret love affair.......not with Henri who delivers la Poste

 

and not with Serge from the patisserie....

 

 

or with Olivier who is the waiter in my favourite café......

It`s nothing as simple as that!!

I am in "Grand Amour" with a textile box I truffled at the brocante last weekend....

Covered in delicieux faded floral cotton with rose filled baskets tied with a ribbon bow...

it has a beautiful vignette on canvas on the lid.The colours are so soft and gentle.

Mademoiselle has fallen asleep in her boudoir with her song bird in its cage still on her lap...

a white cat sneaks through the window hoping to get his paws on a feast.

The inner is lined with silk.....

and there is a long silk ribbon tie.

Sorry monsieurs but you do not even come close!!!

A la prochaine mes belles

xxxxx

A box of treasures............

 

 

I am constantly amazed at what I truffle out whilst

rummaging around in boxes at street brocantes here.

 

 

 

Lying at the bottom of one box I was looking through recently was a small wooden post box. It had the usual sealing wax on the outside and I knew that they were usually used to post items of value, eg. jewellery.

 

The address label alone (which had been 'sealed' onto the box with red wax) immediately intrigued me. It was  addressed to a Monsieur Muteau, the 'ancient premier president de la cour de Dijon",  the railway label showed it had come from Besancon. I noticed that it had what looked like a few old letters folded up inside - but I didn't actually look at them in detail until I got home. But what a surprise I had when I did so! 

 

 

 

There were 5 letters in all - all hand-written in beautiful italic-scrolled writing of the period - and wrapped in some felt, right at the bottom of the box was  a small tablet of marble with an inscription in latin on it.

 

 

What on earth could it all mean?

 

 

 

 

I have been unable to translate all the letters but have been able to determine the following:

 

Letter 1:  Dated 6 April 1867, it is from the office of the Archbishop of Besancon to a Monsieur MUTEAU . In it the bishop says he is greatly impressed by what he has seen of  Monsieur Muteau's work  [M. Muteau appears to have worked in the office of the 'Premier President honoraire' at the 'Cour Imperiale de Dijon'] and, in gratitude, is asking him to accept a gift. That gift is the marble tablet which, the bishop states, had originally been given to him by Pope Pious IX - who had given his permission for the tablet to be handed on.  He says " the tablet is not only a unique piece of antique marble; more than that it is an original piece of a foundation stone  - which I would like you to have at your home".

 

Letters 2 and 3: - both dated 11 April 1869 - are written by M. MUTEAU. One  addressed to  'Eminence';  the other addressed to

'Saint Pere' - which I believe may have been to the Pope himself.

 

The former states that he has received from Le Cardinal Mathieu [who was the Archbishop of Besancon] the title:

"Commandeur de L'ordre de Pie IX"  which " his holiness had deigned to award him" - and the letter goes on to thank his eminence for the part he played in  the 'ordre' being granted.

 

The latter is  to 'Saint Pere' -  and thanks 'his holiness'  for 'crowning my long life as a magistrate with the title of "Commandeur de son Ordre de Pie IX".

 

Letter 4: Dated 9 August 1869, this letter , I think, is written by the wife of M. Muteau to the Archbishop informing him that her husband  " is no longer with us", mentioning great pain he was in on 6 Aout.

Unfortunately the writing is so 'squiggly' that I cannot decipher any more of it!

 

Letter 5: Dated 19 August 1870 this letter is from the office of the Archbishop of Besancon, as before,  which is addressed to M. Muteau's wife. In it he explains to her that, before his death, her husband had written two letters - one to the Pope, the other to  Cardinal Antonelli; that these letters, he told her,  were  "above all for the Pope to see to whom M. Muteau had sought absolution for some criticism...a serious comment about religion which I had still not been seen to do" - and that he was enclosing copies of both the letters [namely letters  2 and 3 above] "as an interesting memento for the family".

 

 

 

The marble tablet referred to in the first letter measures 4.5" x 3" (11 x 7.5 cms) and is 12 mm thick.

Inscribed on the top is:

 

"FRAGMENTUM LAPIDIS E CALLIXTI COEMETERIO AMOTI

AN. XXII SACRI PRINCIPATUS

PII. IX  PONT.MAX"

 

This roughly translates as:

 

"A small slab of stone removed from the Callixti cemetery.

In the 22nd year of the sacred  government

Pious IX Pontifex maximus"

 

 

I think there is a fascinating story here, but do I simply do not have the time to investigate it further.

 

I shall leave that pleasure to the new owner!!

 

A prochaine mes belles

xxxx

 

Morning Maam.....

For those who do not read my facebook page this is what I was up to last weekend!

We took the ferry across to the UK to attend the annual Remembrance Day service at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, central London on Sunday. Mark is permitted to march at the ceremony being a veteran of the Falklands War - and he was suited  and booted for the occasion The weather was perfect;  a wonderful crisp but sunny Winter morning.

Whilst Mark and some 10,000 other ex-service personnel gathered on Horse Guards Parade  I walked up the Mall to Buckingham Palace to see what was happening. Most members of the Royal Family attend the Remembrance Service - and a huge crowd had already assembled in the hope of seeing them all as they left the palace.

Quite by chance I became an unofficial tour guide for a group of French tourists who had no idea what was actually going on that morning; they were standing at the palace hoping to see the 'Changing of the Guard'.  Instead they were treated to a running commentary by me of which 'royals' were leaving the palace  ( which they insisted on calling 'Buckingham Chateau!) en route for Whitehall.

I explained that the Queen and Prince Philip would soon leave for the ceremony.........

....and pointed out to them the lowering of the Queen's Standard on top of the palace as she left. With all 'royals' seen I walked back up through St James Park to watch the service. And who did I see first whilst standing at the railings but.........................

                                                    Boris Johnson the Mayor of London


......................Boris walking the route.Get out of the way Boris; you are blocking my view!! And then, a little later who should appear from a side building but.................

.......HRH Princess Anne. She was walking up to take her position on the dais on Horse Guards ready to take the salute as the columns of veterans marched past her.  

I heard them before I saw them --- and then the band came into view around the corner and marching towards me.

And behind the band came the first column of veterans - and then they just kept coming and coming!

Veterans of the Gurkha rifles...some Royal Marines including, clearly, a proud Scottish one! Now....where was Mark.......?

The sight of the famous Chelsea pensioners is always an amazing and uplifting one. Most if not all of them over 75 years , some in their 80s and yet, despite their age, marching in time. I could hear their Sgt Major encouraging them: "come on lads, almost there. Keep going. Left right, left right." Very humbling to see them, I can tell you.
Ah..........at last. Was this the Falklands Veterans group coming up?

Yes............it was.  Can you spot my "moustachioed, bespectacled monsieur?".

A la prochaine mes belles
xx