Saint-Maclou church
"Smoggy" Saint-Maclou ...
No, the British fog has not landed in Normandy ...
It is unintentionally that I got this photo.
When I took it, I held my cigarette between my fingers, not wanting to have it trivially "in the mouth" as my grandmothers would have said.
Victim in the past centuries of fires, the Saint-Maclou church found itself at that moment "smoky" because of me.
The result gives a mysterious, middle-aged "air" to today's Saint-Maclou church ...
No, I do not strew roses at my feet. My relatives know I'm incapable of it but, I like this quite involuntary effect!
When I came back to France, I was doing simultaneous translations for foreigners recently arrived in the country. They were swallowing the words of the trainer who kept talking about our "ruins".
I had to translate without intervening (translators were prohibited to). I wanted to hail her and tell her that we were envied our "ruins" (boohoo).
I would have liked to take them in front of the Saint-Maclou church and say to them: "This is one of our ruins!"
Yes, the Saint-Maclou church dates from the Middle Ages, flamboyant Gothic period.
If I am fascinated, "amazed" by the architecture of the churches, I am under the spell of that of Saint-Maclou, a work made of lace absolutely magical.
I love its color, its charm, its minutely carved sculptures.
If its interior is very austere, for my taste, the exterior is a celebration that I never get tired of. Never.
So let's enjoy the outdoors ..... my own way ....
One evening in the dark ...
 Saint Maclou church - RouenFrom Notre-Dame Cathedral, the bell tower of Saint-Maclou |  Saint Maclou church - Rouen"We're happy in the morning, we're hanged at night." -Voltaire / Charlot- |
|---|---|
 Saint Maclou church - Rouen"The evening of life brings its lamp with." -Joseph Joubert / Thoughts- |  Saint Maclou church - Rouen"Prayer must be the morning key and the evening lock." Owen Feltham |
 Saint Maclou church - Rouen"The words said in the morning do not have the same fate in the evening ." - French proverb- |  Saint Maclou church - Rouen“La servante soupire le matin et l'orphelin le soir.” -Proverbe estonien- |
 Saint Maclou church - Rouen"The best thing about Sunday is still Saturday night." -Gilbert Cesbron- |  Saint Maclou church - Rouen"It is with their morning lies that women make their evening truths." -Jean Giraudoux- |
I dreamt of seeing Saint-Malo and I saw Saint-Maclou dedicated to the Breton Saint -Malo ...
Of a remarkable lightness, of plan practically centered, it is the meeting of the influences of Normandy and the Paris region.
Part of the old stained glass windows has been preserved.
The doors are a remarkable work of Renaissance hutch *.
* Huchier : Name of the carpenters and sculptors-decorators on wood during part of the Middle Ages.
From Notre-Dame cathedral to Saint-Maclou church via Saint-Romain street
"The death of the soul is what the men of the century call progress. This destructive progress has come everywhere. Churches in cold countries have adopted stoves, carpets, armchairs. We get comfortable praying to God." -George Sand/Mademoiselle La Quintinie (1863)-
"Les églises ne sont-elles pas les dortoirs des vivants aussi bien que des morts." -Jonathan Swift/Opuscules humoristiques-
"Rancé frequented the churches, spending hours praying in these forgotten cabins on so many famous hills." -François-René de Chateaubriand/Vie de Rancé (1844)-
"The regulars of the six-hour mass came out one by one of the dark streets - pious fauna of the provincial churches." -François Mauriac/The Dress Pretext (1914)-
"I know that there are some who prefer the mills to the churches, and the bread of the body to that of the soul. To those, I have nothing to say to them." -Theophile Gautier/Mademoiselle de Maupin (1835)-
"Devoteed to the point of fanaticism, she moved in the churches most of her time." -Edmond Jaloux/Smokes in the Countryside (1918)-
"In mosques, you take off your shoes and keep your hat. In churches, you take off your hat and keep your shoes on. And after that, we're surprised that there are colds." -Philippe Geluck/The Cat Tour in 365 Days (2006)-
"I pointed out to the little prince that baobabs are not shrubs, but trees as big as churches, and that even if he carried with him a whole herd of elephants, this herd would not overcome a single baobab tree." -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry/Le Petit Prince (1943)-
My respects to the "huchiers" ...
"Everyone would approach, wonder in the churches, without knowing each other." -Voltaire/The Century of Louis XIV (1739)-
"It's too easy to get into churches To dump all his dirt Facing the priest who in the grey light Close your eyes to better forgive us." -Jacques Brel/Grand Jacques, it's too easy (1955)-
"The little dauphin is sick, the little Daulphin is going to die. In all the churches of the kingdom, the Holy Sacrament remains exposed night and day and large candles burn for the healing of the royal child." -Alphonse Daudet/Letters from my mill (1866)-
"The walls of the old churches end up "taking" prayer like humidity, their vaults have resonated so long with the rustle of litany that one would catch the faith without even realizing it." -Paul Guimard/The Bad Times (1976) -
"Confuse times when museums become churches, and churches become museums." -Jean Cocteau/La Corrida du 1 May (1957)-
Stone beings ...
"Churches need faithful persons who feel guilty so as not to be in the grip of rebels who find themselves incredulous." -Claude Roy/The Seekers of God (1981)-
"God himself believes in publicity: he has put bells in churches." -Sacha Guitry-
"When you look at the number of churches and cathedrals, you think that God's greatest wealth is still the real estate heritage." -Patrick Sébastien/Notebook (2001)-
"We woud need huge, state-of-the-art churches flooded with sunshine." -Béatrix Beck/Leon Morin, priest (1952)-
How do we count our beautiful thirteenth-century churches? At least I wanted to talk about Notre Dame de Paris. But someone has marked this monument with such a lion's claw, that no one will now venture to touch it. It is his thing now, it is his fiefdom; it's Quasimodo's majorate. He built, next to the old cathedral, a cathedral of poetry, as firm as the foundations of the other, as high as its towers." -Jules Michelet/History of France-
"I who affect so much disgust for men, I am happy to resemble them in the essential actions of life. I love their churches, their paintings. I protest against the modern world, but I love its thin women." -Roger Nimier/The Blue Hussard (1950)-
"An eighteen-year-old girl who knew nothing about life and looked like the candles that were lit in churches: super simple, super pure and super white, but well lit. Yes, complete effusion inside..." -Anna Gavalda/Billie (2013)-
A sculpted work ...
"Fragments of the cross, I have seen many others, in other churches. If they were all authentic, Our Lord would not have been tortured on two cross-board boards, but on an entire forest." -Umberto Eco/The Name of the Rose (1980)-
"Why are churches closed at night when they are needed most? Sometimes I fell asleep on the floor, in front of the door. At my snoring, the pigeons could guess that I wasn't praying." -Frédéric Beigbeder/Help Forgiveness (2007)-
"If doing so were as easy as knowing what to do, the chapels would be churches and the cottages of the poor people of prince's palaces." -Jean Amadou/I will remember, this century (2000)-
"The one we love, we see her walking away naked. It is in a light dress, similar to those that once bloomed on Sundays under the porch of churches, on the floor of the balls. And yet she is naked -- like a star at the point of the day." -Christian Bobin/A little party dress (1991)-
"If it is, the roosters can read the time on the church steeple." -Sylvain Tesson/Aphorisms in the herbs and other words of the night (2011)-
"But it's been a long time since it's been dead, all that the old languages no longer get along in the countryside, any more than Latin in churches, and that the world, little by little, masons its shell with absurdity, mute and deaf uniformity." -The old woman with the rose bush/ Lionel-Edouard Martin-
"The churches emptied as the museums filled up." -Memoire year zero (2009)/Emmanuel Hoog-
"The preaching in churches does not mean that they can do without lightning rods." -The Mirror of soul / Georg Christoph Lichtenberg-
"I lost my freedom and ended up in this strange prison where the most difficult, apart from getting used to having nothing in my pockets and being treated like a dog that peed in a church, is boredom." -Part of the whole / Steve Toltz-
I never get tired of this beauty.
Always the same and each time different thanks to the play of lights that passes between its architectural laces.
“In every church there is always something wrong.”
-Jacques Prévert / Fatras -
From daybreak
In the early morning of a December day, there is like an air of the Middle Ages...
Impressive
I feel so small in front of her
"Glorius"
It is the paradox of Renaissance men to be both runners and believers, lovers of fine parts and sumptuous masses, celebrating the vice of a satyr and representing on the same day a Virgin in grace. In short, cynical and obedient, grandiose and grotesque, free and respectful." -Contest for Paradise / Clélia Renucci-
"In prehistoric times, every time the Blessed Virgin appeared in the cave of Lourdes, she took a sledgehammer." -Short counter, birthday! (2007) by Jean-Marie Gourio-
"An angel passes "
On this cold morning in March, I spot this sculpture on the Saint-Maclou church, on the Eugène Dutuit street's side. I applaud the artist and the symbol. I don't see the religious symbol in it, I don't have enough references in this area, I see in it a symbol of tenderness, of friendship when we tell friends that they are angels, to a child who smiles at you when offering you daisies that he looks like an angel. I think of my nephew who one day moves me because he wants to speak to me on the phone, so I tell myself that he is the most beautiful angel on earth.
In fact, there is the artist's work and the interpretation that each of us can make of it.
"Barthélémy square"
"Where God has his Church, the Devil has his chapel." -English proverb -
"I am a moderate anticlerical, I love empty churches." -Guy Bedos -
"All debauched are saints who ignore they are." - Roger Fournier / The Circle of Arenas -
"There's no point in breaking down doors you can open." -Written/Arthur Honegger-
"A barrel of wine can perform more miracles than a church full of saints." -Italian proverb -
"Prayer begins where human abilities end." -Marian Anderson -
"Eugène Dutuit street"
... towers and detours...
Set of lights between arches and stone lace.
"Religion: a Sunday affair." - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg / The Mirror of the Soul -
"Every man is responsible for his religion." -Gandhi -
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." - Albert Einstein -
"Your daily life is your temple and your religion." -Khalil Gibran -
"Blasphemy is part of the popular religion." - Antonio Machado -
“Une société d'athées inventerait aussitôt une religion.” -Honoré de Balzac / Le catéchisme social -
"Molière street"
"The higher the bell tower, the higher the ringing." -French proverb -
"The only thing left in France of Catholicism is the sound of bells." - Eugène Pelletan -
"The bell says, "Prayer! And the anvil: Work!" -Victor Hugo / All lyre -
"God himself believes in advertising: he has put bells in churches." -Aurelien Scholl / The Spirit of the Boulevard --
"The days are made to ring one after the other like a volley of bells. It is the heart of man that serves as their clapper. If the heart is not there, the days are sad." -Louis Caron / The Foghorn -
"The bell itself doesn't always sound the same." -Serbian proverb-
"The church bell has not sounded since the armistice. The island has patriotism at half-mast." -The Bride of the Shadow (1985) / Jean Noli-
with a view on the Cathedral of Our Lady of Rouen passing in Martainville Street.
"Toward the sky"
"The sky is pretty as an angel." - Arthur Rimbaud / Feasts of Patience -
"Cul on the saddle, thoughts to heaven." -Sylvain Tesson / Small treatise on the vastness of the world -
"Heaven and earth are within us." -Gandhi -
"Heaven is the daily bread of the eyes." -Ralph Waldo Emerson -
"Rather a sky without gods than without clouds!" -Arno Schmidt / Leviathan -
"Coming back"
Monday, March 18 in the morning, I decided to return to the Saint-Maclou district which is one of my favorites. There are few people, the majority of the shops remain closed and the church still contains lots of surprises that I want to photograph. I am obviously more early than the priest who will not open the doors until 10.00 am, visiting the interior will be for another time.
"Morning Mystery"
Barthélémy square, light plays with me or with the great lady between shadows and light.
Impressive even around 8.00 am...
Surrounded by mystery through the games of shadows when the day dawns.
The mystery of this masterpiece remains...
She seems to be waking up...
In full light ...
"Up there"
Frontage
Up there the bell tower touches the sky ...
From the Passage of the high marriages
"Hide and seek"
Like a little girl that I am no longer, I amuse myself between the immense columns of the entrance which offer me a different spectacle from each place.
"In hide-and-seek, it hides so well that it is forgotten." -Jules Renard/Carrot Hair (1893)-
"Am I so changed that you cannot recognize in me a childhood comrade, with whom you have deigned to play hide-and-seek and go to truancy school?" -Charles Baudelaire/La Fanfarlo (1847)-
"See, the more serious the time, the more you play hide-and-seek with yourself." -Roger Martin du Gard/Les Thibault -
"Love must be read right away. It's not a game of hide-and-seek." -Bernard Giraudeau/The Swim Ladies (2009)-
"On holiday, the important elected official must play tarot with his family, tennis with his bodyguards and hide-and-seek with journalists who have sacrificed their holidays to describe his own." -Philippe Bouvard/Thousand and One Thoughts (2005)-
"By the small door"
From wood or stone, everything is sculpture.
"The essential language of the poem, the piece of music, the painting and the sculpture is the language of survival." -George Steiner/Real presences. The Arts of Meaning (1991)-
"Sunny memory, sculpture is sunny memory." -Miguel Angel Asturias/Claire Spring Vigil (1966)-
"It is not possible that a sculpture, a music that gives an emotion that one feels higher, purer, truer, does not correspond to a certain spiritual reality, or life would have no meaning." -Marcel Proust/In Search of Lost Time, The Prisoner (1923)-
"Vine leaf: Emblem of virility in the art of sculpture." -Gustave Flaubert/ Dictionary of Preconceived Ideas (1913)-
"One foot on the hard-working part of this fence and the other on the protrusion of this sculpture, he will be able to reach the room..." -Alfred Jarry/Love in Visits (1898)-
"Who are you?"
"The bastards, the saints, I've never seen one. Nothing is all black or all white, it is the grey that wins. Men and their souls are the same... You're a gray soul, beautifully gray, like all of us." -Philippe Claudel/The Grey Souls (2003)-
"Alas! this is the unfathomable law of destiny: as soon as a man is intelligent, either he is a drunkard or he makes faces to scare away all the saints of paradise." -Nikolai Gogol/The Revizor (1836), The Governor-
Where does laziness end, where does contemplation begin? That is an interesting question. To answer them might well belittle great saints to the rank of vulgar slee. -Jean Dutourd/Doucin (1955)-
"In Ireland, sometimes fools are mistaken for saints." -William Trevor/Coup du fate (1995)-
"Until proven innocent, saints must always be considered guilty." -Eric Blair, known as George Orwell/Essays, Articles and Letters (1968)-
"To the church with the saints and to the tavern with the gluttons." -Dante/The Divine Comedy, Hell (1314)-
"Imagine"
OnMartainville street, I discover two gargoyles that I like. A lot. They make me laugh and it's not usually the primary purpose of these often scary creatures. I wonder if the sculptors of that time wanted to have fun, making caricature before the hour. Who could have seen them then in this tangle of stone lace, sculptures and other ornaments ?! They left a funny trace of their passage, somehow signed the buildingwith hammers and stone scissors .
The first reminds me of a happy Walt-Disney character, a bit like Baloo with his legendary bonhomie from the "Jungle Book". As for the second, it looks like a naughty grandpa who has laughed from height for centuries.
"Men are only men. Little Brother, and their chatter is like the babble of the frogs in the pond." -The Jungle Book (1899)/Rudyard Kipling-
"One lost, ten found. Ugly as you are, you won't have a hard time picking up a rascal." -Zazie in the metro/ Raymond Queneau-
"If the rascals knew all the advantages of virtue, they would become virtuous by naughtiness." -Friday or the limbo of the Pacific/Michel Tournier-
"More seriously"
"Gargoyle. Rainwater drain pipe on the eaves of medieval buildings, usually in the grotesque and caricatured form of a personal enemy of the architect or building owner." -Ambrose Bierce-
"Reality confronts each other easily, when the ruthless gargoyles of the imagination disappear." -Jean Beaudry / Mamba-
"Will I see her little gargoyle figure, styled to the eyebrows of one of those "fashionable" caps she made herself!" -Sidonie Gabrielle Colette/The Wanderer (1910)-
"Stone imps Vomit their waters on us Poor mortals It's vulgar gargoyles Would we doubt that That it belongs To lead the ball" -Jacques Herman-
A gargoyle (from the Latin garg-, throat, and the old French ghoul, mouth) is, in the field of architecture, a protruding part of a gutter intended to drain rainwater some distance from the walls. This type of carved work, usually in stone, is often decorated with an animal or human figure typical of romanesque and then especially Gothic grotesque art.
"Behind the gate, a door"
"Only the secret heart survives." -Howard Butten-
"Secret excites veneration." -Baltasar Gracian y Morales-
"My soul has its secret, my life has its mystery." -Alexis-Félix Arvers-
"Death, that secret that will belong to everyone." -Claude Aveline-
"No one keeps a secret like a child." -Victor Hugo / Les Misérables-
"Forgetting is the great secret of strong and creative existences." - Honoré de Balzac / César Birotteau-
"Giving a soul to everything is the secret of the elders." -Stendhal / Journal-
"On the side of the Parish hall"
"It takes poor people to make a real parish. Without the poor, the banquet of heaven would not be complete." -Normand Rousseau / In the shadow of the blackboards-
"The tears of the parish praise the parish priest." -"Il pianto del popolo , è il panegirico del parroco."/ Italian proverbs-
"When one leads the poor man to the ground, the great bell of the parish is deaf." -"Pa gasser ar paour d'an douar kloc'h arm ar bars so bouzar"/Proverbs Breton-
"Everyone preaches for his parish." -French proverb-
"Who takes woman takes parish." -English proverb-
"He would have this new little triumph with his parishioners, whom we respected above all, because he was perhaps, despite his age, the most muscular man in the country. These slight innocent vanities were his greatest pleasure." -Guy de Maupassant/The Unnecessary Beauty (1890)-
"He enters the confessional where the priest washes the souls of all the parishioners. It's all over the place. Black water comes out of it. The sacristan the sponge. The bedeau empties the buckets. The parishioners come out all white." -Alexandre Vialatte/The Behring Strait Mushrooms (1988)-
"The more singers there are in a church, the more it is to be presumed that the parishioners are not devotees." -Gustave Flaubert/Correspondence-
"He threw on sunday from the top of his pulpit of the sonons to his parishioners." -Maurice Chappaz/Portrait of the Valaisans: in legend and truth (1976)-
"Claire fontaine"
Many statues suffered from the erosion, weather and throes of the Second World War.
The fountain is located at the corner of Martainville Street and Bartholomew's Square.
The stained glass windows are protected by mesh.
"Always higher"
"Man may not live up to his essence." -Alexis Philonenko-
"The height of pride is measured by the depth of contempt." -André Gide / Journal-
"Moral rigour and height of thought overlap like beasts." - Pierre Desproges / Drawer Fund
"The higher you get, the farther you see." -Chinese proverb-
"The body grows by gaining height. The spirit grows by losing height." - Christian Bobin / The Very Low
"It is very rare for a living person to live up to the dead he will make." -Philippe Bosser / La chanterelle-
"Revelation"
No, religion was not suddenly revealed to me, I was finally able to enter the church to visit it. April 8, 2019 is a day to be then set in stone, ...
"Tightrope walker"
If the construction of the current church began in 1434, the arch of glory in the Baroque style dates from the 18th century.
"Glory is the sun of the dead." - Honored by Balzac / The Search for the Absolute -
"When glory comes, the memory goes away." - French proverb -
"To conquer without peril one triumphs without glory." -Pierre Corneille / Le Cid-
"Posthumous glory does not warm the coffins." - Jean-Claude Harvey / The man who goes... -
"Wealth and glory drive away memory." -Modern Greek proverb-
"No path of flowers leads to glory." - Jean de La Fontaine / The Two Raiders and the Talisman -
"Colors"
Few old stained glass windows have survived and those that can be observed are often mixed with modern elements. Note, however, the 16th century Jessé tree above the north gate, with a Jessé sitting according to a habit born in Flanders, and above the southern portal, a Crucifixion. (sic)
"People are like stained glass windows. They shine as bright as it is sunny, but when darkness comes, their beauty only appears if they are illuminated from within." -Elisabeth Kubler-Ross -
"To live is to go shopping and meet an angel who does not know his name, to open a book and suddenly find himself in a forest at the foot of emerald green stained glass, to look out the window and to see the missing, the too sensitive." -Christian Bobin/The Slowness That Blooms, The World of Religions, September 1, 2011-
"I don't understand the abandonment of the stained glass window that awoke and fell asleep with the day. Art preferred light, but the stained glass window animated by the morning erased by the evening brought creation into the church of the faithful." -André MALRAUX-
"To the colorful glows that the stained glass windows let filter, all this magnificence of this oriental tale, shimmer, shimmer, sparkle in the darkness." -Pierre LOTI-
"If, from the square one looks in the church, everything is dark and obscure ... But get inside!!!! " -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe-
"Between stones and light"
"I'm more like of the evening or of the night. I love the end of the day, this moment of transition between two states, when the sun plans to set: the light declines, softens, its shadows are drawn, the noises change, animals wake up." -Jean-Pierre Marielle/The Great
"I love him so much, sometimes. It's like living in a sphere of light, an aura that coats us both and moves with us. In those moments, we are eternal." -Gilles Leroy/Alabama Song (2007)-
"As for me, I only wake up to life, And the light and the twilight make me believe To the goodness still possible in this world." -David Diop/Pilon-blowers-
"We are photosensitive beings. The same landscape transports us or leaves us indifferent depending on the quality of light that bathes it. Joy is more easily accompanied by glorious- luminous days." -Belinda Cannone/Wondering-
"Today, I thus re-establish the definition of the Revolution: A great light put at the service of great justice." -Victor Hugo/Post-Scriptum of my life-
"In the light we read, in the darkness we speak." -Alberto Manguel/The Library, at Night (2006)-
"Yes, it is very late; I just turned off the lamp to let the light of the night into my room." -Marcelle Sauvageot/Leave Me
"He dies slowly the one who avoids passion and its whirlwind of emotions those that restore light to the eyes and repair wounded hearts." -Martha Medeiros/He dies slowly, "A Morte Devagar" , Muere lentamente-
"The light plays with the gold that one dares not to burst into tears." -Elie Delamare-Deboutteville/The Dream is not what is missing (2016)-
"Respect"
When I discover the interior, the height of the columns, these huge alleys, it is not to religion that I think of, no. My respect goes to these men who helped build this church. To these men of yesteryear gone by who did not have the today'smeans to build and who nevertheless contributed to this masterpiece. How many died? ...Respect.
"Blasphemous words should be made meaningful Remaking a bleeding heart to those who no longer have it Those who don't cry for a beautiful story Do they deserve the sky devolved to them?" -Louis Aragon/Nymphée-
"Just as there is an old scholar in the villages who preserves its history, in the companies an old documentalist who keeps the archives, there was an old tourist in the campsite who kept the images of it." -Michel Bussi/Time is murder-
"Between them, anyway, it's stronger than a love story. It is a story of life, a thick and generous slice of friendship, brimming with cream and butter, where love, the one that ends badly in general, has no place. Between them, nothing will ever end." -Aurélie Valognes/Little luck-
"The present envelops the past, and in the past the whole story has been made by the males." -Simone de Beauvoir/The Second Sex (1949)-
"I sing the songs of the outlaws that people loved and those that people hated. I sing any song that has been made by the common people and that tells a little story, a small part of our great history of this country, yes, or that says part of the history of the world." -Woody Guthrie/This machine kills fascists-
"For a story to be convincing, we have to recreate the atmosphere. It's not easy: it takes a lot of words and letters to fix reality." -Marcel Pagnol/Notes on Laughter (1947)-
"Modern"
Today's modern will be tomorrow's history...
"In a word, for all modernity to be worthy of becoming antiquity, the mysterious beauty that human life unintentionally puts into it must have been extracted from it." -The Painter of Modern Life /Baudelaire-
"There is only true modernity when rooted in tradition." - Bruno Gollnisch-
"Maestro, music!"
The Renaissance organ, whose qualities are both plastic and sound are recognized. His buffet is by Nicolas Castile.
The staircase that leads to the organ is dated from 1518 to 1520.
"The organs, the trembling lights, the priest's gestures brought him back to the land of his childhood and Christmas Masses: only at the time when he was really happy since he did not yet wonder if he was." -Gilbert Cesbron/It's Later Than You Think (1958)-
"Which saint to devote yourself to?!"
"We erected cathedrals, arrows to touch the stars, Said monumental prayers, What could be done better?" -Francis Cabrel/ The Cork Oak-
"Men are trainee angels." - Victor Hugo / Facts and Beliefs -
"All debauched are saints who ignore they are." -Roger Fournier/The Arena Circle (1982)-
Where does laziness end, where does contemplation begin? That is an interesting question. To answer them might well belittle great saints to the rank of vulgar slee. -Jean Dutourd-
"My experience, Johnny, has shown me that ninety-five per cent of people are larvae, one per cent of saints, one per cent of bastards. The remaining three per cent are people who do their best." -Stephen King/Dead Zone (1979)-
"There have been saints who have loved God in believing that they loved only men, and even poets who have had genius in believing that they only sing the beloved woman." -Zoé Oldenburg/The Awakened of Life (1956)-
"Silence is the greatest persecution, never the saints have been silent." -Blaise Pascal/Thoughts (1670)-
"Goetz: I don't care about the devil! He receives the souls, but he is not the one who damns them. I deign to deal only with God, monsters and saints belong only to him." -Jean-Paul Sartre/The Devil and the Good God (1951)-
"Until proven innocent, saints must always be considered guilty." -Eric Blair, known as George Orwell/Essays, Articles and Letters (1968)-l
"In memoriam"
"If you have to be fair to others, you have to be true to yourself, it is a tribute that the honest man must pay for his own dignity." -Reveries of the lonely walker (1782) / Jean-Jacques Rousseau-
"Satire against the wicked is not abhorrent, it is, in the eyes of every wise man, a tribute to virtue." -Comedies (1859 edition) / Aristophanes-
"Hypocrisy is the mask of virtue; it is the affectation of piety, or virtues that one does not have. Hypocrisy says Mr. De la Rochefoucauld, is a tribute that vice renders to virtue." -Philosophical dictionary /Voltaire-
"Sparkling"
"If life is ever worth living, dear Socrates, it is when man contemplates beauty in himself." -The Banquet, speech by Diotime/ Plato-
"Don't judge what is not accomplished... And what is, I add, is finally in style." -The Kabbalist of Prague / Marek Halter-
"If beauty promises happiness, it is often imperfection that keeps the promise." -Steps on the sand /Remy of Gourmont-
"I cry for Narcissus because every time he leaned on my shores, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, the reflection of my own beauty." -The alchemist / Paulo Coelho-
"I always find humans at the best and worst of themselves. I see their beauty and ugliness, and I wonder how the same thing can bring one and the other together." -The book thief / Markus Zusak-
The nod illuminates the face. Refusal gives him beauty." -Hypnosties (1946 edition) / René Char-
"Empty"
"Pain is emptiness." -Jean-Paul Sartre / Situations -
"See, even emptiness is indispensable." - Olivier Lockert /Hypnose-
"Knock Knock"
The doors are a remarkable work of Renaissance hutch. They are dated from the years 1552-1556.
"You can help me, you can open for me the doors of the house of death, for love always accompanies you and love is stronger than death." -Oscar Wilde/The Phantom of Canterville and other short stories (1891)-
"As the doors closed around me, my heart opened more and more." -Lisa See/The Peony Pavilion (2008)-
"The doors of old houses, like those of old hearts, are the most welcoming." -Augusta Amiel-Lapeyre/Wild Thoughts (1923)-
"Luxurious"
"Religion, this luxury of the poor..." -Alice Parizeau / The activists -
"Luxury is not a pleasure, but pleasure is a luxury." - Francis Picabia / Le Pilhaou Thibaou - July 1921-
"Luxury is the bread of those who live off brioche." -André Suarès / Here is the man-
"Every man has the priceless luxury of uttering his first and last word." -Theodore Koenig -
"Republics end in luxury; monarchies in poverty." - Montesquieu / From the spirit of the laws -
"Sit down !"
Are church chairs still filling up? On concert evenings, certainly, on Mass days, I am not so sure. It seems to me that even the smallest church will always have too many chairs at a time when many have lost faith.
As for me, I have lost nothing having never had it ... nothing dramatic therefore ... I just like to see these chairs which harmoniously fill the space and play with the light and the shadows of the churches.
"The chair is always sitting." -Achille Chavée / Decoctions-
"If Christ had died on an electric chair, all the little Christians would wear a small gold chair around their neck." - Serge Gainsbourg / Liberation - November 1981-
"Once I'm safe, no matter what else: an attic, a strap bed, a straw chair, a table and something to write, that's enough for me." - Victor Hugo / Things seen-
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