28 February 2005

A trip to the Chateau de Moyen links past, present

We arrived in Moyen, located in the Alsace region of France near the German border, longing for a rest. The drive along a beautiful tree-lined road provided constant scenes of old stone houses and barns off in the distance.

As if on cue, a babbling brook snaked up beside us, keeping the road and us company as the miles drifted past.  At first glance, Moyen was disappointing. The ancient stone houses were small, and the town seemed as if it wasn't sure whether it was a town or not.

Our home for the next few days (called a "gite"... which is pretty much a French bed-and-breakfast without the breakfast) was an ancient house with the bare basics. Just a couple of beds and an old country kitchen ... nothing to write home about. I felt a little disappointed in the rooms, but I was anxious to set out on foot to discover the tiny town.

Our first discovery (surprisingly) turned out to be one of the most remarkable places I've ever visited. On our way to the bakery (we were in France after all, so we had to pick up our daily loaf of fresh-baked bread) we noticed a sign for the "Chateau de Moyen" so we decided to hike up the dusty dirt road to see what was at the top.

On top of a hill, high above the town and overlooking the Vallee de la Mortagne, we found what looked like, at first glance, a very messy archeological site dating from the 15th century. We later learned it had once served as the home of the Catholic bishop of Metz.

Back then, bishops were really rich guys. They had families (although I don't think they were married), ruled like kings, levied and collected taxes ... and spent those taxes on their chateaus and lavish parties.

The main building, which took 10 years to rebuild out of the ruins (that darn Richelou decided to demolish most of the chateaus during the French Revolution to keep the local poor folks from having any place to gather to protect themselves) serves as a museum for the area. The director, Yves Richez, proudly showed us through the rooms, each holding artifacts from the site and the village below. He introduced us to the students (French, Polish and Dutch) who were volunteering their time to rebuild stone walls.

Mr. Richez was the man with the vision for this place. Years ago he gazed upon this hill ... nothing but mountains of stones and rubble, and then set off to convince the town, the local government and the national guys to give money to rebuild this monumental project. He continues to have such great enthusiasm for the project... even though he is clear that the restoration project will last longer than his lifetime.

My mom always said, "If you are going to do something, then do it right!" and the Chateau de Moyen is an example of what it takes to realize a dream. I think it would be difficult for most of us to look at a pile of rubble and think that we could turn it back into a huge glorious series of buildings that would tell the rich story of this once-powerful region.

We left the ruin with Mr. Richez's gift of a beautiful etching of the chateau as it looked in the 18th century. We felt we had discovered something important. At the bottom of the hill we stopped at the town spring to take a drink of cool water. This is the place, even today where many people come for drinking water, filling plastic and glass bottles and toting them up the hill.

France is like that sometimes. The line between the past and the present is a fragile thing. Three centuries ago, the people of this village worked to repair the chateau at the top of the hill. They walked to the spring in the center of town to drink from its waters.

I thought about those generations that have made this tiny village their home for centuries. I drank from the cool waters of the fountain and then, like their grandfathers and their grandfathers before them, I took the hand of those I love and walked in search of a loaf of fresh baked bread.