April 13, 2012

Jean, Elise and I get up early and pack a lunch to make a day of it in the countryside. We have an ambitious itinerary: the Citadelle and the lion monument in Belfort, then the Le Corbusier chapel in the heights of Ronchamp, 100 kilometers from Besancon.

We travel beside the Doubs river, following its undulating course until the turnoff for Belfort, a town of about fifty-thousand inhabitants. The remnants of the gate to the old town walls slope up about fifteen feet, and the gate itself is quite narrow. In olden times everyone lived pressed together, for safety, because modern notions of privacy were as yet undreamed of, and because huddling together was the stuff of everyday life, whether at a fair or in a bed.

The Citadelle, like Besancon's, was designed to permit France's army to survey potential invaders from a far distance. To the purpose, it was built on a stretch of cliff that overlooks Belfort. It is known for a massive statue of a rampant lion looking in the direction of Germany, built after the Franco-Prussian war of 1871, if not to send a message to Germany after its seizure of Alsace-Lorraine, then to rally Franch-Comte's spirits, and that of other Frenchmen passing through.

Germany held Alsace-Lorraine until the end of the First World War, although many left after the Germany appropriation of the territory in 1871, exercising what is memorialized near the monument as L'Option Francaise: that is to say, the choice many made to flee Alsace-Lorraine rather than become German citizens. Indeed, when Franche-Comte became part of Occupied France, many escaped France, swimming across the Rhine to Switzerland. Elise's father was one of them, preferring to leave rather than fight his countrymen.

The statue was created by Bartholdi, the sculpture who also designed the Statue of Liberty, and it is made of a alternating brown and rose granite drawn from local quarries. Near the monument is also a plaque memorializing the contribution to the fight for France of a division of Polish foot soldiers who poured into Franche-Comte to fight for France in June 1940, six months after Poland fell to Hitler.

From La Citadelle we go to a little park in the middle of Belfort and have lunch. Elise has made a vegetarian lunch of rice salad, avocados, bread and cheese. We buy the bread in a local boulangerie along with an apple tart to have later. We drink the meal with a hot tea made of fresh thyme from Elise and Jean's garden.

It takes much longer to get to Le Corbusier's chapel at Ronchamp than it did to get to Belfort. We travel from Doubs, the department which includes Besancon, to Haute-Saone. We arrive at about four o-clock, and it is starting to rain. Nevertheless, it is worth the trip, as there are few people about, and the structure, whatever one thinks of Le Corbusier's architecture in general, is compelling.

There has been a chapel on the site since the late 18th century, and devotion to a statue of Mary, which has been given a special place in the chapel's wall, has been continuous since it was placed in the first chapel. Mass is said at the chapel once a week, on Sundays at eleven o'clock, although a large outdoor Mass is also said on August 15, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary to Heaven.

The outward structure looks like the prow of a gigantic steamship. It is situated on a height and is surrounded on all sides by panoramic views of valleys, hills and the Jura in the distance. Recently accommodations for a convent of Poor Clares from Besancon was established, designed to be coherent with Le Corbusier's design. While it is not permitted to descend to the lower level of the convent buildings, where the nuns live in individual cells that look out from the heights over the valley to the west, the library has glass walls from which we can see a sister working alone within. The nuns were involved in the design of the convent and can be seen in photos of the construction, conversing with the construction managers. They have an aerie to pray and meditate in that seems less convent than retreat house, but only because the buildings are modern, rather than traditional. The work that goes on there, however, is not too different from that at Mustair, which is almost one thousand years older.

The Le Corbusier chapel is actually several chapels in one: the outdoor area for Mass, and the interior chapels. Two of the inside chapels are built like silos, with ceilings that taper and end in a round vault. The main altar is simple and the cross could be mistaken for two planks laid perpendicular to each other rather than the foundational symbol of Christianity: there is nothing to reference Jesus anywhere. Yet the light streams in through small windows of varying dimensions, the windows stained glass designed by Le Corbusier. The windows actually remind me of some of Matisse's paper cutouts: some, in French, include phrases from the prayer called "The Hail, Mary":

Hail Mary, full of Grace,
The Lord Is with Thee
And Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God
Pray for us sinners
Now and at the Hour of our Death.

Although Le Corbusier took some liberties, having one window say "Marie brillante comme le soleil" --Mary, brilliant as the sun-- which corresponds to no possible translation into French of the prayer. Still, the overall effect in the chapel, which is unheated and made of poured concrete, is of a powerful stillness.