2008 Letter from Troyes:Tuesday. We had heard from several sources that Troyes is worth seeing. After spending the first half day here—we drove from Langres in the morning-- we have to agree. The inner city is old – medieval to Renaissance – and although an interesting city, it’s not a real tourist trap. People live here in these ancient buildings. The shops that are on the first floor are real shops – clothing, beauty parlors, shoes, etc. as well as cafes, bistros, restaurants, etc.
We’re planning to stay at least two nights. On our first day, we oriented ourselves, visited two of the ten ancient churches in this town and then returned to the campground, in the usual state of exhaustion!
Every one of these churches apparently has its own wonders. Today we visited Ste. Madeleine’s to see the 14th century building and it’s beautiful stained glass windows. Apparently, medieval Troyes was noted for its windows – and rightly so. They are truly stunning. And the amazing stone curtain, known as a jube (raredos in England???). It looks for all the world like a fringed piece of fabric! It’s a definite Wow!
Equally interesting, though, is how the glass survived two world wars. Adelle made an attempt to ask about that, in French, of the only person in the church besides the tourists. Wonder of wonders, she spoke English, and she told us that they had removed all the glass panels and packed them away for the duration of the war. These are the originals and they date from the 13th century.
She also said that all the churches in France took their stained glass down – a statement that we believe is true because we’ve asked at other churches and got the same answer. She wanted to know which of the other churches we’ve seen, and when we said this was the first, she suggested St. Pantaleon so off we went. This church is "new" – 16th century. During the Revolution, when the Republic’s troops were busy tearing down statues and churches, many 16th century statues were hidden here - and they have remained. Its glass is a form we’d never seen before. Instead of bright colors, it uses a subdued brown outline of its subjects. This "grisaille" stained glass was very popular in the 16th century.
Tomorrow we’ll see the Cathedral. We also planned to visit the Vauluisant Museum, which concentrates on the Troyes school of stained glass and a long history of fabric manufacture. It is housed in a Renaissance building. However, two German fellows notice our license plate and we had a great conversation for about 20 minutes, mostly in French about all sorts of things but especially about how interesting Troyes is. They recommended a different museum specializing in handicrafts which they said was superb and unique in all the world. With a recommendation like that we probably will go to that, and see if we feel up to two small museums and a cathedral in one day. Continued......
