The Saint-Ouen Abbey , located Place du Général de Gaulle, is one of the main monuments of the city of Rouen; its abbey church is a completed example of Gothic architecture in Normandy. At the decision of Prosper Mérimée , the abbey is the subject of a classification as historic monuments according to the list of 1840.
In 1800 , the City Hall moved into the former dormitory of the monks or "dormitorium" during the thirteenth century. The abbey home was demolished in 1816. The church itself, housed a factory at the time of the French Revolution , then it was returned to the Catholic worship without however becoming a parish church.
Today it is used for exhibitions and concerts.
It will have taken centuries for Saint-Ouen Abbey to appear to us as it is today. I will therefore not offend anyone and especially not those who wrote the story to speak of it as if I were the author.
I enjoyed reading the articles relating its construction, its evolution. Begun around 550, its style reflects the successive periods to be this unique and monumental abbey that can be admired today.
In a single building are found the Merovingian & Carolingian, Romanesque, Gothic so-called flamboyant and Renaissance periods ...
I leave it to the authors of the booklet of the Métropole de Rouen-Normandie to tell it here ... I prefer, for my part, to do it with photos.
I hope that one day, the abbey which suffers the throes of pollution, due to the intense traffic of this axis, will be "cleaned" to restore all its splendor.
"Same abbey, same dress." - German Proverbs-
"For truly honest men, and who have certain principles, the commandments of God have been abbreviated on the frontispiece of the abbey of Thelème: do as you wish." -Sebastien-Roch Nicolas /ChamfortMaximes and Thoughts, Characters and Anecdotes (1795)-
"Shame" replied Jealousy, "I am afraid of being betrayed, for Debauchery has become very powerful. It rules everywhere. Even in the abbey and cloister, Chastity is no longer safe." -The Roman de la Rose /Guillaume de Lorris-
"At the turn of the hollow path, a wooden door, in a stone frame, which an iron cross rises above: it is the entrance to the abbey." -André Suarès/Three Men: Pascal, Ibsen, Dostoyevsky (1913)-
"In the past, the guillotine was called the abbey of lift-to-regret, but since it was erected in the Roquette square and so that it would be of aplomb it was based on five slabs placed in the middle of the paving, it has been called "the abbey of five stones." -Maxime Du Camp/Paris, his organs, his functions, his life in the second half of the 19th century (1869-1875)-
"As for you, follow Mars, or love, or the prince; Come on, run, run; Stay in the provinces Take wife, abbey, job, government; People will talk about it, no doubt about it." -John of La FontaineFables (1668-1694), Book Third, I, the Meunier, His Son, and the Year
Monte-a-regret abbey: Echafaud (Vidocq). - Double allusion. - Like an abbey, the scaffold separates you from this low world, and it is with regret that we climb the steps." -Etienne Lorédan Larchey/The Eccentricities of Language (1865)-
"The abbey is very poor when the monks go to the acorns." -French proverbs-
"I don't study, for my part. In our abbey, we never study, for fear of mumps." -François Rabelais/Gargantua (1542)-
"Who argues a lot about religion has little faith." -The Dictionary of Danish Proverbs (1757)-
"There were girls who had virtue, health, fervor and a good vocation, but who were not rich enough to make in a rich abbey a vow of poverty." -Jean de La Bruyère/The Characters (1696)-
"The walls that were once abbeys are nothing more than caves, and the flows are nothing but sacks full of bad flour." -Dante/The Divine Comedy, Paradise (1321), XXII-
In Indochina, Vientiane's management has revised their growth forecasts in Laos... At the same time, in the abbeys, the credits have been revised to the abbess!" -Marc Hillman/Mots en Mêlée (2011)-
April 2019. It has been a long time since I had made a short trip through the Saint-Ouen abbey church and I wanted to take a walk in the garden of the Town hall which I had only crossed when I arrived in Rouen. A great opportunity to see the abbey church from every angle ... or almost.
Black
From Général de Gaulle's square, the stone is black, dirty with pollution. I hope one day to see it regain his radiance ...
"Shame" replied Jealousy, "I am afraid of being betrayed, for Debauchery has become very powerful. It rules everywhere. Even in the abbey and cloister, Chastity is no longer safe." -The Romance of the Rose / Guillaume de Lorris-
Monte-a-regret abbey: Echafaud (Vidocq). - Double allusion. - Like an abbey, the scaffold separates you from this low world, and it is with regret that we climb the steps." -Etienne Lorédan Larchey/The Eccentricities of Language (1865)-
"As for you, follow Mars, or love, or the prince; "Come on, come on, run; Stay in the provinces - Take wife, abbey, job, government; "People will talk about it, no doubt about it." -Jean de La Fontaine/Fables (1668-1694), Book Third, I, The Meunier, His Son, and the Year
"I don't study, for my part. In our abbey, we never study, for fear of mumps." -François Rabelais/Gargantua (1542), 39-
"There were girls who had virtue, health, fervor and a good vocation, but who were not rich enough to make in a rich abbey a vow of poverty." -Jean de La Bruyère/The Characters (1696)-
Bright
From the garden of the Town Hall, the abbey church is flamboyant, spared ...
"A monk is the standard of chastity." - Maurice Chapelan / Main Courante -
"The monk on the run does not escape his monastery." - Chinese proverb -
"The monk's job is to see his thoughts coming from afar." - The Fathers of the Desert -
"What is a monk, if not a single man?" -Marie-Madeleine Davy / Medieval Initiation-
"The garment is so far from making the monk, that often, out of pride, he takes it off." -Marguerite of Navarre / Thoughts of the Queen of Navarre -
"Challenge the ox from the front, the mule from behind, and the monk on all sides." -Miguel de Cervantes / The New Copies-
"I wrote a novel that fits in one sentence! This is the life of a monk told by himself: He was a faith... mine." -Raymond Devos -
"Less dogmas, less arguments; less arguments, less misfortune." - Voltaire / Treaty on Tolerance, 1763 -
The passage
I'm going to enter for the first time what I call "the passage" ...
"Life: passage on earth. Death: passage underground." - Jicka -
"Men are birds of passage." - William Shakespeare-
"A thought is an idea of passage." - Pythagoras -
"If life is only a passage, on this passage at least sow flowers." -Michel de Montaigne -
"The important thing is to be just passing through." - Eugène Dabit -
"Life is a passage, the world is a concert hall. We go in, we watch, we go out." -Democrite / Sentences -
View on the square of General de Gaulle, a.k.a , square of the Town Hall.
Behind the gates of the passage
"I have dreamt of a book that would be opened as one pushes the gate of an abandoned garden." -Christian Bobin/The Man-Joy (2012)-
"She was motionless, her face crushed against the gate, with the same smile spread and tense." -Albert Camus/The Stranger (1942)-
"You don't know on which side of the gate is the dream." -Erin Morgenstern/The Circus of Dreams (2012)-
At the doors
One enters the building through the portal of the Marmousets which closes the south arm of the transept. The ribs of the vault fall on two large dying keys. The lower parts of the right-footed and central trumeau are carved from forty quadlobed medallions tracing the life of Saint-Ouen, the statue of which can be found on the trumeau. The eardrum is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. (sic)
"Give me a museum and I'll fill it." -Pablo Picasso-
"Painting can be learned in museums." -Pierre-Auguste Renoir-
"In France, we make great museums, not big projects." -François Guiter-
"The world's greatest museums contain only loot." -Frédéric Dard-
Between two gardens
"The rose is a garden where trees are hiding." - Djalal-Eddine Roumi -
"Come to the garden, I'd like my roses to see you." - Richard Brinsley Sheridan -
"You have thrown the stones from your garden into the garden of others, and, to add to it, you have demolished some of your wall." - Jules Renard / Journal 1893 to 1898 -
"A book is like a garden that you carry in your pocket." - Gladys Taber -
"He grows more things in a garden than we have sown." - Proverb Serbo-Croate-
"Mysterious garden from my distant childhood, Bewitched Kingdom lost in the distance." - Fernanda de Castro / Old Garden -
"My body is a garden, my will is its gardener." - William Shakespeare -
You can see the gardens of the Town Hall, formerly called "The Gardens of the Abbey" , in the link below.
Stunning
"Deep thought requires height." -Stanislaw Jerzy Lec / New dishevelled thoughts -
"Moral rigour and height of thought overlap like beasts." - Pierre Desproges / Drawer Fund -
"The height of pride is measured by the depth of contempt." -André Gide / Journal 1889-1939 -
"It is very rare for a living person to live up to the dead he will make." - Philippe Bosser / La chanterelle-
"God is not up to the task. He's not even in the phone book." - Tristan Tzara / Seven Dada-
"Nostalgia? It comes when the present is not up to the promises of the past." -Neil Bissondath / All these worlds in her
In details
"The two colors of the soul of angels are red and blue. Red for negative, violent feelings, such as fear or hatred, blue for positive feelings, such as joy and love..." -The color of the soul of angels / Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian-
"It doesn't matter what happiness is when you don't have joy!" -Journal (1935 edition)/ Jules Renard-
"Then he welcomed Death as an old friend whom he followed with joy and, like equals, they left this life together." -The tales of beedle the bard / J. K. Rowling-
"All those who have not had a mother must be complained, for their spirit is sad and their joy is bitter." -... Paul Bourget (1906 edition) / Paul Bourget-
"To defeat without peril one triumphs, in reality, without joy." -Until in our arms/ Alice Zenite-
"You have to die, beautiful , or be mine! To be the priest! Be at the apostate! Be the murderer! From that night, do you hear that? Will! Joy! Will! Kiss me, crazy! The grave or my bed!" -Notre-Dame de Paris/ Victor Hugo-
Stained glass
when the light sleeps
what are you doing stained glass
I star with open wings
butterflies
I shine the sparks
eyelids
I rock the hand that welds
Dreams of tomorrow
I soothe the pain of the eyes
before they chisel
What are you glassmaker
when the light sleeps?
I wait for the silence of dawn
the morning border
I watch the embers
melting lead like water
I shake my name
in silk ink
I feel the sun going through
the color of the heart.
-Gilles Bourdeau-.
You can click on the image to find yourself at the Town Hall and its gardens
Toward the sky
Memories
See the swallow go,
She flees by wing,
But always comes back faithful,
At its nest,
As soon as winters the cold is over.
The man, according to his desire,
Wandering walks his life
By the memory followed
From these places
Where his childhood smiles, where his ancestors sleep.
And then, when he feels that age
Freezed his great courage,
He regrets them and, wiser,
Come and get
Quiet happiness near its old bell tower.
-Guy de Maupassant-
(Rouen, 1869)