Gilles Raoux, assistant to the Museum of Bullfighting Cultures in Nîmes: “Nimeño II, an angel, a model”

It was in the callejon des arènes d’Arles, when he was part of the Heyral cavalry team, that Gilles Raoux last saw Nimeño II. It was in 1989, that fatal Sunday in September when the career of the maestro was crushed.

“From where I was when it was transported I said “Wake up, wake up, please” “, confides the one who, administrative assistant at the Museum of Bullfighting Cultures, has boundless admiration and attachment to Christian.

I was paralyzed, I thought: “Especially that he does not say anything to me!

Having, surrounded by his family, attended his first corrida sitting in the amphitheater, for Pentecost 1984, Gilles Raoux, leaving the arena, had only one sentence: “I want to be like the gentleman in blue and gold.” The costume that Christian Nimeño II wore, it is easy to understand. The story was only at its beginning. And the impact of this shock, nearly 40 years later, is not extinguished.

Enrolled in the bullfighting school, it was on the Caissargues track, a place that has become symbolic of French bullfighting, that Gilles continued his training, muleta in hand. A very different environment from the bedroom where, previously, towel attached to a stick, the first right hands had been drawn. And that’s where he finally met Nimeño II. “I was paralyzed, I thought:” Especially that he does not tell me anything! “And when one day he asked me to take the horns to do the toro, it was really huge.” “

“Every week I wrote to him”

Evoking the personality of the Nîmes maestro still upsets Gilles Raoux as much. “Christian? An angel and a model.” Deeply affected by the drama of Arles caused by the toro Pañolero, he carried a secret for a long time. That he delivers at the end of November, 30 years after the maestro’s disappearance. “From his stay at La Timone to his last days, every week I wrote to him. To tell him about everything. And one day at Caissargues, they brought me a muleta and one of his shirts”, he adds, broken by emotion.

For Gilles Raoux, at Cultures taurines, from the next Pentecost, his admiration for Nimeño II will know a new expression. A space, in a perimeter still to be determined, will be fitted out and permanently dedicated to the torero beloved by all. We can imagine the care he will bring, with the museum team, to the realization of this project.

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Homage to Nîmes: Nimeño II, meeting with the matador and with the man

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