Eure-et-Loir reveals itself through its pages of history, to be devoured all summer long

Eure-et-Loir, Chartres, and its unmissable icon, its cathedral. Beyond this stone vessel that has survived the centuries, the Chartrain writer Pascal LeRest took his pilgrim’s staff and his camera to go back in time.

Go back in time by leafing through the “pages of history” of this department, of this territory at the crossroads of the regions Ile-de-France, Centre-Loire Valley et Normandie. Pages of history and stories, known or not, which in any case often help to better understand the present or in any case to look at it in a new light.

A bedside book for the summer in Eure-et-Loir

The assiduous reader had left Pascal Le Rest, prolific author – a good forty books to his credit – passionate about history, with Unusual walks in his department of heart where he put his suitcases about thirty years ago.

He comes back with new ideas for walks, perhaps less anecdotal but still just as exciting where he simply invites us to go back in time always with a view combining history, ethnology, social sciences.

In a way, a pendant to the previous opus where we further explore the twists and turns of such and such an era, of such and such a character.

From Eure-et-Loir, Chartres Cathedral is the signal word that immediately comes to mind. Pascal Le Rest wants to go beyond this emblematic building and also beyond medieval times.

From Carnutes to Thibaut the cheater

So he pushes the cursor further back in time, to the time of the Carnutes et des Durocasses to largely evoke their influence and the still visible traces of oppidum or Neolithic ditches. The Gallic Wars takes place there. The capital city of the Carnutes is identified with its people becoming Chartres in the 13th century.

Following the assassination of an important chief by César, the carnutes will take revenge on the Romans and subjugated to Cenabum (Orleans) the commercial capital, open to other Celtic peoples including the Sénones. Mad with rage, Caesar devastates Cenabum.

These Eurelian lands are already coveted attics, settlements since the Neanderthals attest to this. Crucial, vital lands, to which Paris owes its prosperity which, for example, was the tragedy of Rome which could no longer feed 300,000 inhabitants. The Romans came to stock up in Beauce.

And for the wine, there was Dreux.

Pascal Le Rest goes back in time with a big detour around the history of Ledgarde de Vermandois and Thibaud the cheater who will become a count in a romantic way by placing Rotrou in Nogent. He will become the first Viscount of Nogent and his descendants the first Counts of Perche thanks to a subtly unearthed parchment from the 5th century.

Two colorful characters with illustrious descent since we find Eleanor of Aquitaine in particular.

Jean de Dunois rehabilitated

The author also gives pride of place to one of the great forgotten characters of history, Jean de Dunois, known as the Bastard, because the illegitimate son of the Duke of Orléans who nevertheless keeps the family afloat.

This companion of Joan of Arc shows the qualities of a leading strategist, a fighter, an ambassador who will allow the liberation of the legitimate sons of the Duke and will then become Jean de Dunois.

A character who will play an extremely important role with the sovereign Charles VII, almost the number 2 in France. What to embark in the alleys of Châteaudun and its royal chapel, one of the seven in France.

Epidemics

Pascal Le Rest could not ignore the episodes of epidemics in view of what we can currently go through with the Covid-19.

At the time of the bubonic plague in 1348, half of Europe was decimated and it would last until the 19th century!

We die more from epidemics than from wars. It is estimated that France has gone from eight to four million inhabitants, England from four to two!

Going back in time, eras, immersing oneself in these sometimes dark periods is also a way of understanding the places we live in, our territory, rooting ourselves in time and space.

And he admits that, the older he gets, the more he feeds this desire to better understand his environment, natural or man-made.

From the love story of the Duke of Saint-Simon to the crusade of Etienne de Blois up to the Second World War and Jean Moulin, the author examines these stories that shed light on our current world.

It is in this spirit that he looks at the transformations following the migration of populations and he gives pride of place to Dreux “which has always had a tradition of welcoming people. After the Algerian war, it was the second host city after Marseille. It was unfairly attacked on racism when it was one of the most generous cities, everything was fine when work, industry was going well.

You know what to take with you on your vacation!

█ Practical: Eure-et-Loir. Pages of History. By Pascal LeRest. 200 pages. €20. At Sutton editions.

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