Chapels on Hills

Across France, from the Sacré Coeur in Paris to St-Michel de l'Aguille in Le Puy, churches large and small perch on high ground. In Alsace-Lorraine, Susie and I visited two sites with chapels on hills. As is sometimes the case, the less spectacular building is the more interesting.

The village of Dabo, about 20 miles west of Strasbourg, lies below a dramatic sandstone rock. On this rock stands the Chapelle Saint-Léon, which was built in 1889, roughly contemporaneous with the Sacré Coeur. I think the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War saw the rise of a nationalistic Catholicism, and these churches, like the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Lourdes, consecrated in 1876, reflect that movement.

From the Dabo rock, you can see for miles across the Vosges.

The chapel of Mont St-Pierre, located about 12 miles east of Metz, is much less grandiose. Indeed, the Mont St-Pierre itself, while certainly a high spot in its topography, stretches the definition of "mont."

But its history goes back centuries; in fact, there may have been a Roman temple on this spot. For centuries, there was a large church here that served as the parish church for the handful of villages in the area. The church was linked to the Benedictine monks of the St-Pierre-aux-Nonnains monastery in Metz--a building that itself was built in the Third Century as a Roman basilica. As the surrounding villages built their own churches, the St-Pierre church lost its purpose. The church was razed in 1854, and the commemorative chapel was built in 1865. The Mont St-Pierre also has a monument remembering French, American and Polish forces who fought in World War II.

Even if the Mont St-Pierre is not the most rugged of peaks, it still offers beautiful views of the Lorraine countryside.

Textures

Sarrebourg

The Vosges du Nord

This wraps up my series of posts on our visit to the Vosges du Nord and the lower country to the west. The posts included:

• An introduction to the Northern Vosges Mountains
• Exploring the city of Sarreguemines
• Visiting Sarreguemines's museums of faience
  
• Climbing to the Chateau de Schoeneck
• Visiting Meisenthal's historical sites of glassmaking
• Reliving history at the Bitche citadel
• Learning about the preparation for and aftermath of World War II in the area around the Vosges du Nord

World War II, Before and After, Below the Vosges

The rolling landscape west of the Vosges du Nord contains hard reminders of the tragedy of World War II, both from before the war and in its aftermath. As you drive the back roads, you encounter the earthen and concrete ruins of the Maginot Line, France's defensive system from the inter-war period. Some of the fortifications, like at Simserhof, are large, complex, well-preserved, and have extensive guided tours. Others are individual bunkers or pillboxes, just lying there alongside the road. Susie and stopped to explore the small set of fortifications at Macheren.

One odd part of this defensive system was the Ligne Maginot Aquatique, a complex of fortifications, dams, reservoirs, dikes and ponds designed to create floods that would bar invasion.

The Ligne Maginot Aquatique was part of the Sarre sector (as in Sarrebourg, Sarreguemines, ...); you can see it at the center of this map, numbered as sector 13, represented as an area of water. It covered the border between the well-defended areas around Metz and Lauter.


Along with the concrete structures, the remnants of the Maginot Line at Macheren include earthworks such as zig-zag ditches running between the bunkers. Macheren is at the west end of the recently designated Route de la Ligne Maginot Aquatique. The bunkers, so plainly for war, now contrast with the gentle countryside of the Moselle. At the start of World War II, though, this land was soaked in blood.

As odd as the strategy of the Ligne Maginot Aquatique seems to us now, it was precisely in the Sarre sector, 18 kilometers long, that French forces won their only battle against the German invasion. On June 14, 1940, these soldiers defeated the German army in an awful battle that ended with 700 French and 1200 Germans dead. June 14 was also the day that Paris fell to the Wehrmacht. The French resistance at the Ligne Maginot Aquatique had been successful but futile. The government of Marechal Petain signed the armistice of surrender on June 22.

The aftermath of the war I find even more sobering. French and German military cemeteries from World War I were already scattered across the countryside. The American dead of World War II from fighting in Alsace and Lorraine are buried in the Lorraine American Cemetery, just north of St-Avold. They were killed while driving German forces from Metz toward the Siegfried Line and the Rhine River. The American soldiers commemorated at the Bitche citadel would be buried here. More Americans servicemen and women lie here than even in Normandy; the final resting place for 10,489 Americans, the Lorraine American Cemetery is the largest American military cemetery of the Second World War.

The cemetery's memorial includes a ceramic mural depicting the fighting. I realized that Susie and I had visited many of the places on this map, some right around Metz, not knowing that they were battlefields.

The cemetery comforts in its serenity and calm but chills in its scope and finality. We were fortunate enough to talk with the cemetery's assistant superintendent, an American who clearly thinks deeply about the fallen with whose care he is entrusted.





The memorial, mostly quite simple, has a tall statue of Saint Avold over the door.










In the interior, you can see the maps of France and Alsace-Lorraine on the wall to the left. Toward the back wall are the tablets of the Ten Commandments and a cross on an altar. And above the altar are figures representing the eternal struggle for freedom. The central figure stands, I think, for the soldiers in the cemetery. And to his sides are religious and military heroes, of history and myth: King David, Emperor Constantine, King Arthur, George Washington.

Another aftermath of the war makes its self apparent, if more subtly, as you drive through the region's villages: abandoned synagogues. Before the war, many of the villages had substantial Jewish populations. They built synagogues, often in the Moorish style then current, and often next to or across the street from city hall. Jewish life was, I gather, a regular part of village life. After the war, these Jewish communities had been destroyed, like most of their synagogues. Many people were deported and killed during the war, and after the war the survivors moved away or died.

In some cases, Jews in Lorraine villages rebuilt their synagogues. The synagogue in Foulquemont, destroyed by the Nazis, was rebuilt in 1962 in a contemporary style. But the community died out, and the synagogue was closed in 2005. It remains abandoned and unused.

Pont-a-Mousson

For an afternoon's excursion, Susie and I drove to the town of Pont-a-Mousson, which is about 30 kilometers south--that is to say upstream on the Moselle--of Metz. The city was founded in 1250, and there has been a bridge across the river at this point since the Middle Ages, although the present bridge is a replacement after heavy damage in World War II.

The center of town is the Place Duroc. The Hotel de Ville, seen at right, anchors this triangular space of Renaissance buildings, almost all of which have conserved their arcades.

The best-known of the Renaissance buildings in Pont-a-Mousson is the Maison des Sept Péchés Capitau, at the right.

You can see the Seven Deadly Sins on the story above the arcade.

Many places in Lorraine have memorials dedicated to American forces that liberated the region in World War II. A building around the corner from the Place Duroc has a plaque that commemorates the liberation of Pont-a-Mousson by the U.S. Army's 80th Infantry Division.

As explained in a nice French/English bilingual pamphlet, the Hotel de Ville was built just before the French revolution, replacing a structure from around 1580 that had been destroyed by fire. While the exterior is in the relatively simple style of Louis XVI, the interior has some highly ornate rooms. Foremost among these is the Grand Salon, with decoration on Greek mythological themes.

The adjacent, much smaller Marriage Hall, where the town's civil marriages are performed, has elaborate woodwork and, in particular, three Aubusson tapestries depicting the life of Alexander the Great, based on sketches by Lebrun.


In the part of Pont-a-Mousson on the other side of the Moselle is the Abbaye de Prémontrés, an extensive 18th-Century monastery that now serves as a cultural and conference center.

The abbey's neoclassical buildings include a church whose facade faces the street. The church's interior, in keeping with religious thought of the period, is luminous, thanks to its enormous windows of lightly colored glass.

The church forms one side of the abbey's cloister; the other three sides are arcaded wings of the abbey's main building.




The arcades have been glassed in, which makes them habitable in winter while still promoting a sensation of light.








The abbey has three noted staircases, of which this one, the Square Staircase, is the grandest.

The Abbaye de Prémontrés stands right along the east bank of the Moselle, with colonnaded wings and gardens that border the river, affording beautiful views back to the center of Pont-a-Mousson.

The Moselle River in Metz

From its source in the Vosges Mountains on its way to its confluence with the Rhine, the Moselle passes through the city of Metz. In fact, in Metz the river forks into multiple streams, with the main branch well west of the center of the city and smaller branches running close to the cathedral. Here are a few pictures of the Moselle in Metz.

Just before reaching the center of Metz, a branch of the Moselle widens to form the Lac aux Cygnes (Swan Lake!).

Near the center of the city, one branch of the Moselle divides the Ile Chambiere and the Ile du Petit Saulcy, site of the New Temple.

Throwing bread attracts plenty of swans.

As the Moselle reaches through the heart of Metz, it passes by the Cathedrale Saint-Etienne and the houses that cling to its western flank.

At the north point of the Ile du Petit Saulcy, two branches of the Moselle rejoin as the waters continue their journey to the Rhine.