Brangues: Paul Claudel's Château and the Crime Behind Le Rouge et le Noir
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France
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200
XP
+100 France
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1 day
Brangues: Paul Claudel's Château and the Crime Behind Le Rouge et le Noir
200 + 100 XP
Paul Claudel owned the château of Brangues, on the plain by the Rhône, from 1927 until his death in 1955. His grave is in the park, and the path to it is open all year, but the house itself only opens on a few days — at the Rencontres de Brangues each June, held there on his work, and on Heritage Days. In July 1827 a young seminarian fired two pistol shots at the mayor's wife in Brangues and then turned the gun on himself, missing both; he was guillotined in Grenoble in February 1828, and the story became Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir. The scandal was such that the church was pulled down and rebuilt.
Required Activities
1
of 5
Look at the château Paul Claudel bought in 1927 and kept until he died in 1955 from the one point of the grounds the public may use, and note what it is made of — a 14th-century core with an 18th-century house grafted on; the inside only opens on a few days a year, at the Rencontres in June and on Heritage Days
2
of 5
Follow the public path to Paul Claudel's grave in the park and read the epitaph he wrote for himself — here lie the ashes and the seed of Paul Claudel — then work out why a diplomat who spent his life abroad chose to be buried in a field in the Bas-Dauphiné
3
of 5
At the church of 1847, which replaced the one torn down after the shooting, find on the front the statues of Joan of Arc and Saint Peter that Eugène Berthet — great-nephew of the man who fired the shots — paid for in expiation, then go in and find the model of the château standing in the side chapel opposite the Virgin and Child
4
of 5
Go into the village exhibition space, open since 1998 and open through the warmer months, and find the part still given over to the two writers Brangues owns — Claudel, who lived here, and Stendhal, who never did but took the plot of Le Rouge et le Noir from the Berthet shooting
5
of 5
Walk out to the méandre du Saugey, a loop the Rhône abandoned and now a protected natural site, and read off the ground how far the river has shifted away from the village since Berthet's day
Look at the château Paul Claudel bought in 1927 and kept until he died in 1955 from the one point of the grounds the public may use, and note what it is made of — a 14th-century core with an 18th-century house grafted on; the inside only opens on a few days a year, at the Rencontres in June and on Heritage Days
Follow the public path to Paul Claudel's grave in the park and read the epitaph he wrote for himself — here lie the ashes and the seed of Paul Claudel — then work out why a diplomat who spent his life abroad chose to be buried in a field in the Bas-Dauphiné
At the church of 1847, which replaced the one torn down after the shooting, find on the front the statues of Joan of Arc and Saint Peter that Eugène Berthet — great-nephew of the man who fired the shots — paid for in expiation, then go in and find the model of the château standing in the side chapel opposite the Virgin and Child
Go into the village exhibition space, open since 1998 and open through the warmer months, and find the part still given over to the two writers Brangues owns — Claudel, who lived here, and Stendhal, who never did but took the plot of Le Rouge et le Noir from the Berthet shooting
Walk out to the méandre du Saugey, a loop the Rhône abandoned and now a protected natural site, and read off the ground how far the river has shifted away from the village since Berthet's day
Before you go
The Rencontres de Brangues run each June, in the week of the solstice, with the sessions at the château at the end of it. Claudel's daughter Renée Nantet founded them in 1972 with Jean-Louis Barrault and Jacqueline Veinstein, and after some years of interruption they are annual again.
The château is a private house: only the path to Paul Claudel's grave is open all year, the rest of the park is private, and the interior opens on a handful of days — the Rencontres in June and Heritage Days in September. The village exhibition space only opens in the warmer months. Book anything at the Rencontres well ahead; they run in the week of the summer solstice and the château sessions are at the end of it.
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Challenge Location
XP Breakdown
Challenge XP
200 XP
France country bonus
+100 XP
Potential total
300 XP
Country bonus earned on completion of your first challenge in France.
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