Maison des Consuls
Although this is a secular
building - the oldest such in France - the carvings on it (except for
one) follow two standard 12th century Romanesque themes: sin and the
punishment of sin.
Redemption does not feature - since Justice does not concern itself
with redemption.
On the
left of the picture are Adam and Eve (close-up view on previous
page), symbolising the commission of sin.
On the
right of the picture above is the Emperor Justinian as law-giver, bearing
a staff surmounted by the Imperial Eagle and holding an inscription
which reads:
IMPERATORIAM MAIESTATEM NON SOLUM ARMIS DECORATAM SED
ETIAM EGIBUS OPORTET ESSE ARMATAM VT VTRVMQVE - It is meet
that his Imperial Majesty should be empowered not just by force of arms
by the force of Justice. This inscription underlies the purpose
of the edifice for civil and not religious use.
detail of Justinian's book, photographed
by Jacques Martin
However, the capitals along the façade are very similar to those
illustrating sins on churches.
The
capital on the extreme left shows mermaids, symbols of Luxury, Vanity
and Self-indulgence.
The same theme appears on the capital on the extreme right of the window,
though the two creatures in this instance are brandishing a fish,
which may be the timeless phallic symbol or the ICHTHEUS
symbol of redemption - or both.
The letters in the Greek word for fish (ichtheus) are a Greek acronym
for Jesus Christ,
Son of God, Saviour, which ties in with the Fishers of Men phrase
in the Gospels.
Other capitals show a sinful woman in the clutches of a monster - though
in the context of the Maison des Consuls it might be Justice
triumphing over Injustice;
a pair of mutual beard-pullers
(symbol of strife);
moustachioed
men being punished by eagles (symbols of divine retribution);
and more sinful women - this time their tresses (or artifical
hairpieces bought from nuns and the poor) being seized in the beaks
of long-necked eagles (symbol of righteousness and power).
These carvings are of
a high standard, especially that of Justinian (who resembles similar
sculptures of prophets at Moissac in the south of the same département,
and at Souillac (Lot).
If - as
seems very likely - the prestigious abbey, destroyed in the 16th century
by Protestants during the wars of religion, had carvings of similar
quality (and the exhibitionist corbel discussed on the previous page
would support this assumption), it must have been a treasure-house of
sculpture to match Moissac, one of the jewels of the Pilgrim Roads.
Another interesting Romanesque
fragment is close to the Maison des Consuls, at the corner of the rue
Valat and the rue Guilhem Peyré. A monster (representing Satan
or Hell) holds one end of a dead branch, while the other end is nibbled
by a hare (symbol of licentiousness and concupiscence).
Thus the Tree
of Life (or the possibility of everlasting life for each of us)
is destroyed by the sins of the flesh.
In the little (sadly-underfunded) museum
lodged in the Maison des Consuls on the Place de la Halle is
a rare Romanesque wooden panel depicting birds (representing the Holy
Spirit) amongst foliage (which often symbolises evil).
Also on the Place de la
Halle (number 33) is a series of corbels, mostly of Romanesque inspiration,
if not of 12th century date, two of which (photographed by Jacques
Martin) are pictured below.
The façade of No.33, place de la Halle...
...and a little bracket corbel of a tongue-sticking beast or demon to
the left of the arcade.
These
carvings suggest that there was a wealth of Romanesque corbels on the
destroyed abbey of Saint-Antonin - rivalling those of Mauriac or Aulnay-de-Saintonge
or even Cervatos in Northern Castile - from which later sculptors drew
their inspiration, or which they simply copied.
Rather later in their execution, North of the upside-down
exhibitionist corbel in the rue de l'Eglise, is a once-fine but now
very worn sandstone window of 16th century date.
On the right and left-hand
sides, possibly taken from the Abbey like so many of Saint-Antonin's
fragments. are a bashed microphallic male exhibitionist reminiscent
of a Renaissance putto, and what seems likely to have once been
a squatting female exhibitionist. Compare these with a similar (but
earlier) pair on the island of Iona.
At the far end of the rue de l'Eglise is this curious little carving.
This figure overlooks the
place du Buòc.
See also the superb sculptures of the
nearby fortified hilltop town of
Cordes-sur-Ciel.
More-pedestrian information on the little town of Saint-Antonin...
...can be found at www.saint-antonin-noble-val.com
A fauve view of Saint-Antonin from across the
river Aveyron in 1905
by Montauban painter Marcel-Lenoir.
The author's
house in Saint-Antonin is the oldest on the boulevard
(German: Bollwerk; English: bulwark)
which here, as throughout France and much of Western Europe in the 19th
century,
replaced city walls and defensive embankments.
The lowest
part, stonebuilt, with a separate entrance on the street to the right,
might date from the 16th century. Up to just after the second world
war it was used to stable a few of the horses of farmers come to Saint-Antonin
for the Sunday market.
The first (stone and brick) floor of the four-storey, triangular house
dates from the late 17th century,
and the half-timbered top two storeys were added in the 18th century..
The kitchen features a charming rustic fireplace nearly two metres wide,
which fills the apex of the triangle on the first floor.
Below
is the view from the upper window pictured above - to the Roc or Rochers
d'Anglars,
the most northerly of the cliffs which form the Gorges d'Aveyron.
The view
from my front door, however, is directly across to an ugly secondary-school
built at the worst period of Western architecture: the 1970s, when 'new'
(i.e. shoddy)
materials were used (mostly to 'cut corners'), storeys were added with
no thought
to skylines or sympathy with surroundings, and depressing flights of
steps in hideous
concrete terrazzo. Such buildings sometimes won prizes. And designs
even more grotesque still do.
The ugliest
edifice in Saint-Antonin (even uglier than the late
19th century church)
is further notable for the hideous fruit of local nepotism
in the form of a totally-meaningless, now-decaying, and universally
reviled bit of 'modern' (i.e. rip-off') sculpture which looks as if
a gross child
had started to build pan-pipes in a scrapyard, then changed her mind
after the second pipe and decided on a bit of Gallic whimsy before going
off to strangle cats.
The perpetrator of this insult to the inhabitants was the architect's
daughter,
scandalously well-paid for her crime against art.
The subsequent planting of a few trees has done nothing to soften the
school's
totalitarian brutism.
click here
for a curious tour of Saint-Antonin, missing much of the best
Doors
and doorways 
of Saint-Antonin
Click for slide-show of doors and doorways in Saint-Antonin
The most exciting thing to do at Saint-Antonin.
click the panel to see a selection of the decorated
and modified Easter Eggs of the Fourth Annual Eggfest.
Prehistoric
sites near Saint-Antonin:
Dolmens
de Saint-Antonin >
Roussayrolles
>
Saint-Cirq
>
Septfonds
>
Vaour,
Verdier
(Sainte-Cécile),
Vieux
>
Decorated
cave of la Magdaleine des Albis
>
'Le Chemin des Neuf Pierres' suggests that a stone-row
once stood in Saint-Antonin's Wagnerian amphitheatre,
overlooked by some of the tombs on the
plateaux above.
Alignments
are not unknown in Rouergue...
go to another of my websites
hunting opportunities in the area
The
English 'Bobs':
Saint-Antonin
was occupied by the English for about 40 of the Hundred Years
War between the (Anglo-Norman) Plantagenets and the (French) Valois
in the 14th century.
From then until the mid-19th century the English were notorious
in Europe for their violent, insolent and uncontrolled behaviour.
The Victorian period (roughly 1860 to 1960) was the exception,
when an excess of puritan "respectability" turned English
unpleasantness inward.
But
it has turned outwards again, and in the dreadful summer 'holiday'
season, even a small and charming town like Saint-Antonin can
become unpleasant at night, with English 'Bobs' (as they are
charmingly known) binge-drinking in the local cafés and
beating up anyone who attempts to quieten them, as I bloodily
and painfully discovered at the Café de la Halle, unhampered
by French restriction.
These
Yobs (as they are charmingly known in English) are encouraged
in the name of Tourism,
that baleful god of Consumption...in both senses of the word...
In
July and August, therefore, I retreat from the heat to the pleasantly
cool, quiet and remote Irish countryside - and leave Saint-Antonin
to the profitable invasion of the beauty-snatchers.
|
From the Bulletin d'Informations Municipales de Saint-Antonin,
January 2007
the first and last verses of a satirical poem in Occitan doggerel, dating
from the end of the 19th century,
LA VILA DE SENT-ANTONIN
|
La vila de Sent-Antonin
Renomada per son vin
A sos quartiers e sas carrièras
Coma n'i a pas otres sus tèrra....
...E pel jardin qualqu'un disiá
Qu'i volián far un casino
E, qu'a la plaça dels cagaires
I volián metre les aigaires.
|
Saint-Antonin, that worthy town,
Produces wine of high renown,
And has streets and neighbourhoods
Like no others in the world...
...In our fine Spa's pleasure garden
They want to build a new casino.
So where the locals have a shite
The sick will gamble through the night.
|
The plan for a casino was dropped. The elegant little
Spa, built in the garden
of the ancient monastery,
did not survive the closure of the railway, and is rarely used for local
events.
The wine must have been pretty bad to have been superseded by Algerian
vin ordinaire...
