In the middle of summer, the gentle coolness of the place invites you to sit down and contemplate the ten centuries of history of the small Romanesque church of Saint-Maurice d’Aubiac. Erected on the banks of the Garonne, in the town of Verdelais, in Gironde, the building has been patiently renovated by its owners Catherine and Jean-Philippe Leuret. Its long nave, its apse choir, its semi-dome vault, its three windows symbol of the Holy Trinity. All the simplicity and purity of Girondin Romanesque art are summed up here. Everything is there, except for four finely carved capitals that once adorned the facade. Subtracted from the gaze of the walker…
In the middle of summer, the gentle coolness of the place invites you to sit down and contemplate the ten centuries of history of the small Romanesque church of Saint-Maurice d’Aubiac. Erected on the banks of the Garonne, in the town of Verdelais, in Gironde, the building has been patiently renovated by its owners Catherine and Jean-Philippe Leuret. Its long nave, its apse choir, its semi-dome vault, its three windows symbol of the Holy Trinity. All the simplicity and purity of Girondin Romanesque art are summed up here. Everything is there, except for four finely sculpted capitals that once adorned the facade. Hidden from the gaze of walkers and pilgrims, they are now exhibited in New York, at The Cloisters museum.
The capitals of Saint-Maurice d’Aubiac are not the only rich elements of Romanesque architecture to have joined the banks of the Hudson River. The most striking local example is that of the neighboring former church of Notre-Dame du Bourg, in Langon, whose chapel was literally dismantled, transported and rebuilt to become one of the centerpieces of the Cloisters Museummedieval branch of the famous Metropolitan Museum of art.
Jean-Philippe and Catherine Leuret in front of their church where there is no trace of the carved capitals.
Jerome Jamet
For a fistful of dollars
“We saw our tents, with my wife, during a trip to New York in 1994 for a medical congress. And at the same time we saw those of Notre-Dame de Langon,” recalls Jean-Philippe Leuret. The retired endocrinologist, soon to be 94 years old, himself filled the niches from which the sculpted stones had been unsealed for a handful of dollars. Since 1970 the church has been in the Leuret family, the patina of time has done its work. And nothing lets guess that not so long ago, the facade with its Romanesque door, surmounted by two small recessed arches, was richly decorated.
The case dates back to the end of the Second World War. “In 1946, the then owner sold the marquees to the Americans. Legally, alas! says the venerable guardian of the place. Already, between the two wars, and even before, American collectors bought all they could of abandoned medieval religious heritage. These treasures ended up in the Cloisters Museum, funded by the Rockefeller family.
When the United States took an interest in the sculpted capitals of Aubiac, the small church to which the presbytery leaned had long since been neglected by the clergy due to the flooding of the Garonne. The set was even sold in 1831 to be transformed into a farm, with the church as a barn.
The eye of Léo Drouyn
In the middle of the 19th century, however, the delicate decorative elements did not escape the discerning eye of Léo Drouyn. The Girondin archaeologist artist conscientiously drew the details of the facade and gave a precise description of the sculptures published in the publication “Religious Architecture in the Middle Ages in the Gironde Department” (1845).
Drawing by Léo Drouyn, mid-19th century. We distinguish on the facade the four capitals still present. Léo Drouyn had fun drawing a cow sticking its head through the door to note that, from that time, the religious building had already been converted into a stable.
photo J.J.
“The first console, on the left, represents Adam and Eve, between which we can see the tree of forbidden fruit and the serpent that wraps it up,” writes Léo Drouyn. The serpent’s tail goes around Eve’s leg, rises and disappears… Adam with his left hand, supports the fig leaf which hides nudity, and seems to clutch his neck with his right hand. The other three represent a fight between two characters, a centaur or a sagittarius directing an arrow against a bird with a human head, or two superimposed birds, one of which seems to be holding a branch in its beak.
A photo, dated perhaps from the beginning of the 20th century, also attests to the presence of these four capitals. It was found in the collections of the Ethnographic Museum of Bordeaux University. But to truly see the work of the Girondin Benedictine monks of the year one thousand, you must now, and probably forever, cross the Atlantic.
Photograph of the Saint-Maurice d’Aubiac church at the beginning of the 20th century on which we can see the capitals carved on the facade. This photo is part of the collections of the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Bordeaux.
Reproduction Jean-Philippe Leuret
Little paradise on earth
Jean-Philippe and Catherine Leuret bought the church and its adjoining presbytery in 1970. The Romanesque church was then a cowshed. Access to the choir was walled up to make it a sheep barn. The couple from Bordeaux spent twenty years renovating the church themselves according to the rules of the art. The building was listed in the Directory of Historic Monuments in 1973. They also rehabilitated the presbytery into a country house. And the church resumes service for this Catholic family. Weddings and baptisms of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are celebrated there. Until the Covid crisis, the church also hosted exhibitions and concerts. But the now elderly couple preserve themselves in the tranquility of their little earthly paradise.
2023-07-30 14:50:02
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