Traces... By Antonin MARMOITON

I am fascinated by the history of where I live, but a little sad because its treasures are being forgotten…

I took these two pictures in Gimeau, the village next to mine, on 25/02/2015. It was cold, rainy and cloudy.

My village and all of the neighbouring villages are part of an area called ‘Brayaud’. Maupassant wrote his novel ‘Mont-Oriol’ here. He describes his time in ‘Enval’ (which was in reality Chatel Guyon, the ‘capital’ of my area).

These pictures are emblematic of my area: the Rozana source and an abandoned mansion. Water bottling is still an important activity here. From the 1890s to the 1960s, rich people came to live on our land and (thanks to the wealth generated from wine production) built big houses.

The two pictures offer a contrast: the colourful source symbolizing the past flowing into the present, versus bygone lives symbolized by the crumbling pile, in spooky black and white.

I think these two pictures show rather well the lost splendour of Brayaud country... They are also a reminder that a town (here, Chatel Guyon) should not be considered as totally separate from the rural environment which surrounds it! The big country houses that we have here are (were) the country residences of important people from the city, which goes to prove my point. Also, part of a town's wealth comes from (at least, used to come from) the countryside.