A Forgotten Heroine: Joan Orliac of Amboise
Pavilion (Left): Home of Joan Orliac
If the name rings a bell you would be right.
Born Anne Joan Laporte she used her second name and her mother’s maiden name because it sounded like Joan of Arc, her heroine.
Three minutes out of town* eagle eyed motorists may spot a sad old building squatting forlornly among the weeds, partially hidden by a forbidding wall. If they can be bothered to investigate they can read a plaque saying that it was once an Entrance Pavilion to the astonishing Palace of Chanteloup. It is known locally as La Grille d’ Orée (The Golden Grid/Grill - not to be confused with the cemetery of that name)
For bookworms the fainter, smaller paragraph below the less than inspiring statement is far more interesting. It says that the writer Joan Orliac left this building and her effects to Amboise.
Looking at it today it’s hard to believe that anyone lived here. Judging from the state of the building, the town has not honoured her memory.
This is her story.
Joan/Jeanne/Jehanne was born in 1883 in a new garrison town, Compiègne, not far from Paris. Her father was a soldier. Her mother was an aristocrat who suffered from depression.
Joan couldn’t wait to escape the suffocating gloomy atmosphere. When she left her convent boarding school and came into a small inheritance from her great aunt, she headed for Paris with aspirations of being a playwright. She was twenty years old. This was the era of the famous Belle Époque.
Her talent found early success. She sent her book François Villon to the novelist Pierre Loti for his opinion. He replied: ‘Received Villon...It's more than great, it's stunning to have been written by a little girl. Thanks for letting me know about it’.
Joan turned her book into a play which was so successful it was put on again the following year. By the time she was thirty, she was a well known, much sought after, popular Parisienne. She was elected a member of the literary critics union, took up winter sports, sword fencing and horse riding.
Apollinaire wrote to her: ‘You have a very clear and not edgy talent on which I congratulate you by declaring me your admirer’.
All very pleasing. But. She hated socialising. By nature, a loner, she fantasised about finding somewhere to live in the country with easy access to Paris. Apart from her plays, her income came from editing magazines and writing for major daily newspapers.
The story goes that in 1913, when she accepted an invitation to stay with friends in the countryside near Amboise, she fell, as so many do, under the spell of the Loire Valley.
One day, wanting to put flowers on the grave of a writer she admired, Paul Louis Courier, in the cemetery at Veretz, she borrowed a car and chauffeur from her hosts.
On the way home, the car broke down.
Leaving the driver with his head under the bonnet, Joan went for a walk. She came across a For Sale notice on a wall covered in wisteria. Behind it was an old pavilion. She, as so many of us do with houses, fell in love with it.
A month later she was the proud owner of one room with a fireplace connected to a mezzanine with a bewitching view of the Chanteloup Pagoda.
Remains of the home of Joan Orliac
She said ‘….The view that unfolds on the horizon is immense. Long towers of the Saint-Gatien cathedral in Tours to those, powerful, massive, towers of the castle in Amboise, it embraces the banks and islands of the royal river which digs its bed in pink mists...The sky above extends its dome to infinity veiled in silver. The softness of the landscape adds to its majesty...Everything here vibrates with a glorious past’.
And so began her passion, obsession even, with what remained of the romantic crumbling vast estate of Chanteloup built by the duke of Choiseul in 1761. Joan never stopped writing about the history of the vanished palace.
In Tours, where she had given one of her famous lectures on the old ruin her host told her ‘ [You are from The] ... School of the Loire of which we are all disciples. You have obeyed the call of the land of Tours which brought you here ’.
The last owner of Chanteloup was drowning in debts incurred by his son so sold it to wreckers in 1823. Joan explored what remained of the orchard, vineyards, flowerbeds, cellars, farm and gardens overgrown with brambles.
She surrounded her new home with potted geraniums, laid a lawn, created a vegetable garden and planted fruit trees.
Needing more space, she had an extension built. She managed to find an ancient iron gate for the entrance and planted lime trees to form an arch over the path leading to her door which opened on to a cheerful living room filled with memorabilia dedicated to Chanteloup. She covered the old stone walls with canvas for warmth and to keep out draughts and painted all the woodwork white. On either side of the ancient fireplace were portraits of the Duke and the Duchess of Choiseul.
She left a lively description of the Duke. ‘ …The seduction he exercised is absolutely inexplicable. He is small, the head is round, the forehead broad and receding, ginger hair...the strabismus (crossed eyes) disturbs the gaze. The lip is thick, sensual, ironic….He has a little belly … ‘
Above a midnight blue velvet couch were paintings of the old gardens of Chanteloup.
Her first historical novel was awarded a prize from the French Academy.
She wrote best selling biographies of the almost forgotten Joan of Arc, Anne de Beaujeu and royal mistresses Diane de Poitiers and Agnes Sorel**
In 1932, Joan received the Legion of Honour.
She travelled a lot, invited to give lectures in Morocco and all over the United States and Canada. She divided her time between her apartment on rue de l' Université in Paris and her home in Chanteloup.
During WWII she was trapped in Paris for the whole of the German occupation. After suffering the humiliation her books were out of step with the times. The French did not want to be reminded of its glorious past.
As the years went by Joan became isolated and eccentric. One local wrote: ‘In the forest of Chanteloup, you must have seen J. d' Orliac draped in her pilgrim's cape, felt hat pulled down, cane forward, whistling her dog….’
Her Obituary was damning: ‘She died in 1974, old and sick, in need, loneliness and oblivion after bequeathing to the city of Amboise her pavilion and forty works of art, conditionally that the Golden Gate becomes a small museum. The city of Amboise accepts the bequest but will never respect the last wishes of the deceased. Most of objects have disappeared or are dormant — sometimes rot —in the museums of the region...The pavilion, this monument of our architectural and cultural heritage, never maintained since the death of Jehanne d' Orliac...victim of the disengagement of the municipality of Amboise, and now indifferent authority’.
Indifferent to twenty plays, three well received collections of poetry, fourteen novels and twelve historical novels about Chanteloup.
Ancient Egyptians (perhaps modern ones too) believed that when anyone says someone’s name, that person is alive which is why pharaohs ordered his predecessor’s name to be erased from memorials.
In 1984 George Orwell, passionate about heritage, used a crystal paper weight and cream laid notepaper as a symbol of a forgotten history.
Joan Orliac dedicated her life to keeping the memory of Château Chanteloup alive.
Who will keep hers?
Let Joan have the last word.
‘Nothing is lost if only one heart knows how to remember’.
* Google maps location: goo.gl/maps/mQw9Qbi7Uwj1AYZU8
** Pamela Shields, equally fascinated by the forgotten, also wrote about them in Out of the Shadows: The Ladies of Royal Chateau Amboise.
Post by Pamela (BA History of Art), Photography by Mark.
Out of the Shadows
The Ladies of Royal Chateau Amboise
eBook, Paperback and Hardback
