Roll your eyes. Because, years later, the prospect of razing the Premonstratensians still figures in the chapter of absurd ideas. “But at the time it was voted by the city council”, slips Mireille Myotte, president of the Friends of Premonstratensians. This Sunday, the association has blown out its fifty candles.
“Golden wedding anniversary” that they carry in their genes, this mobilization at the origin of the rescue of this jewel of Mussipont architecture. We are at the end of the Second World War. The abbey that had been transformed into a hospital was bombed. She is just a shadow of herself. Especially the library. “Of the 24,000 incunabula, only three have been found,” says Mmyself Miotte.
So, when the hour of reckoning has come, with the war reparations paid by Germany, the city council intends to raze what remains of the abbey to the ground, to rebuild a modern hospital. Not to mention the mobilization of André Grandpierre, MM. Pensive and Gouvy. “They were three influential figures of the time, who launched a mobilization and found funds. In the end, the council decided to rebuild the hospital on the other side, where it is today ”.
In 1964 the project for a cultural center was born. To find a new destiny for the abbey. “There was a first donation. Well almost. A neighbor wanted to offer the fountain in the square courtyard, in exchange for the reconstruction of a wall. He was not Orthodox. So, it was the Friends association that managed it “, Mireille Myotte slips.
Since then, with 160 members, the association has carried out projects. Always under the good care of the abbey. The rescue of the Prémontrés choir will undoubtedly remain one of the most significant. When you build a library, it takes shape book after book for years.
“This year we will devote our funds to repairing the abbey church door. This still represents a budget of 20,000 euros “, says the president of the Amici. Memberships, a contribution from the city or the organization of refreshments on the occasion of the regional truffle festival, for example, make it possible to raise these funds.
This earned an award for this volunteer: this Sunday the Leszynczki ensemble from Nancy gave a concert in the abbey. Everyone remembered that she could have been shaved …
