Weekend of the Patrimoine. The recently moved-into house of the Tea Together youth is up the road from the Abbaye of Dommartin, on the edge of their village at Tortefontaine. Always a lift of the spirits to pass the mighty stone gateway which has kept its twin overflowing cornucopias of fruit as topping on each side of the entrance. Even from the road, it’s clear that wars and revolutions have reduced what was a powerful self-contained world to shattered pieces. Today, though, that glimpse of what still lies beyond widens to become une vue totale. We get to walk in under the arch and around the demesne. Eighteenth century farm buildings, including the brasserie, the forge, the woodcutter’s hall, the pigeonnier – the dignified ruins of another grand stone gateway at the far end of the demesne – but the surprise is the wildly romantic grandiose ruins of the original eleventh century church, the shattered columns marking out a ground plan as large as a cathedral, the flint and stone walls reaching for the sky, all swagged with curtains of fern and ivy. Between the two stone portals, small groups of locals promenading under the old apple trees and discussing with lively interest the freshly revealed demesne.
