A room with a view

Above: Looking out the "boudoir" window to the parc early one morning last week. Only the leaves of the plane tree in the left corner are starting to turn.

Chère amie, cher ami,

The mahogany armoire is a magnificent relic. Three bays wide, with a mirror embedded in the center door, it was ideal for storing every blanket, sheet, coat, and shoe in a household.

Ten years ago, a dear friend persuaded me to give it a home. It had belonged to her venerable mother-in-law, recently deceased.

The armoire was part of a way of life long since declined and vanished, of a time when every stocking was mended, every sweater elbow patched, dresses were cut down for children, curtains were cut down for dresses, and layers of clothing and piles of quilts took the place of central heating. The armoire had enclosed scrapbooks and stamp collections, pots of jam, shrimp nets and ski boots. It was the repository of fondest memory. And it had ever stood in her husband’s childhood home.

With unaccustomed firmness, my friend had informed him that the armoire must go.

“You have a château,” she said to me, pleadingly. She and her husband had three sons in a two-bedroom apartment in Paris. “And I will pay to have it delivered!”

Perhaps I could keep it for one of the children, I suggested. Hastily, she agreed.

“Where am I to put that?” demanded our gardien over the appareil, the telephone. The monumental object had arrived at the Chateau, accompanied by movers who had taken it apart and been instructed to carefully put it back together in its new home.

Imperiously, our gardien dismissed the movers. No need for strangers to intervene!

And for the next decade, the carcass of the armoire and its disassembled parts gathered dust and mildew in a storeroom on the top floor. The armoire de la belle-mère was as unneeded and unnecessary as a butter churn in a modern kitchen, and far bulkier.

It was while we were putting the new roof on the wings of the Chateau that I realized the storeroom had a higher calling. Besides the bedrooms, there aren’t too many intimate spaces in the Chateau. And the réserve, a wide, rectangular room at the top of the stairs at the end of the West wing, is like a spacious eerie. Windows look out to the south, west, and north, with views of the Chateau’s parc, the majestic plane trees of the cour d’entrée, the water-filled moat, the home pastures and the stables. It is private and remote, but you can look down and into the surrounding landscape. A bride could try on her dress here; friends could gather; you could be alone to write a letter or a book. You can feel free and unfettered. Or at least unbothered.

But there was no time then to start another project. The Farmhouse hadn’t been finished or decorated. The gardens – reduced to two rose beds beside the Chateau and tough, ancient fruit trees espaliered on walls -- were slowly being brought back. The Chateau kitchen cried out to be uncluttered, efficient, and pretty.

Last winter, with the Farmhouse finished and the kitchen underway, I started planning le boudoir, a room with a view, where one could get away from it all.

Although I am as fond of frou-frou as anyone, this space isn’t made that way. The walls and ceiling are half-timbered. The original oak beams were heft by hand. They are dark with age, dented, scraped, and gouged. On the floor are “tomettes,” hand-made hexagons of wood-fired, rose-orange clay. These were probably made in a nearby tuilerie for the Chateau when it was rebuilt in the 18th century.

Unlike the first two floors, with their smooth walls of plaster and floors of limestone pavement and oak parquet, the top floor was furnished in more modest style. On this floor, servants or impecunious relatives would have lived. Tomettes, sturdy, inexpensive, and a natural insulator, originally covered the entire 2ème étage.

The new boudoir probably wasn’t for storage back in the day. It was more likely part of an appartement for a family member. Or a sitting room for the multitude of servants who lived on the upper floors. Under the eaves, marked with Roman numerals, some of these servants’ rooms appear unchanged since the last coal scuttle was carried up four flights of stairs.

Times, like fashions, change. Les domestiques of today live in their own houses. Kinsfolk in distressed circumstances get jobs and pay rent. And the humble tomette, like the rough oak beam, has become a treasured decorative feature.

Centuries ago, the hand of a rural potter crushed and beat local clay to make the tomettes at Courtomer. Mixed with water, the pulverized clay made a thick paste to pour into molds. The kiln was fired with the wood from the seigneurial bois – in Courtomer’s case, probably the nearby bois d’Ecuenne, once part of the domain. After several days in high heat, the tomettes would cool and dry in le hâle, an airy shed that kept out the sun and rain. The technique had been introduced more than 2,000 years earlier by Roman colonists importing their crafts and building styles into conquered Gaul.

The tuilerie was long part of the diversified rural economy of France. Close to natural resources – clay, water, and wood – the work of a tuilier-briquetier fit into the quiet seasons of the agricultural year. The entire family, including women and children, could help.

At work in an 18th-century "tuilerie" making roof tiles and "tomettes." From Diderot's Encyclopédie des Arts et métiers. Diderot and his readers favored a less rustic and more production-oriented approach to traditional crafts.

There was no question of removing our tomettes for something more luxurious underfoot. These were repositories of history.

For a moment, I considered painting the walls of the boudoir with the evocatively named “Sulking Room Pink” from the English paint-maker Farrow and Ball. But our boudoir is not for bouder, or sulking. Instead, as we explained in last week’s Letter, we prefer to think the word derives from “bower,” a private apartment in an aristocratic house. Anyway, the color, a deep moody mauve, clashed with the oak beams and the tomettes. Instead, I chose pearly white Stirabout, with hints of pink and grey. Some critics, even dear friends, cannot see that a Farrow and Ball color, at twice the price, is worth more than regular paint. But the pigments in these paints give life to the colored surface; they change throughout the day as sunlight waxes and wanes.

Monsieur Martyn, our homme à toutes mains, had begun to sporadically paint the future boudoir’s walls and woodwork last spring. Now, with summer’s gardening behind him, he finished up the job. He washed the windows. Our housekeeper and her sister scrubbed the tomettes.

In an earlier renovation, an electrician had avidly installed brass wall sconces, shaped like hunting horns, wherever he could find the space. This included the storeroom. I removed as many as possible. Once I order some lampshades, I thought to myself, the lighting will be pleasantly soft. The cynégétique will fade into the background. Meanwhile, I ordered two jute rugs from a maker in India to cover the seating areas of the floor. Curtains in stiff bronze silk, found in a trunk, were hung at the windows.

Eagerly anticipating the new boudoir, I had ordered a big sofa spilling over with cushions and a matching ottoman from the venerable French catalogue, La Redoute. This seemingly indestructible firm was founded in 1837 to make woolen goods. It began selling skeins of its own wool for knitting, with patterns, during La Grande Guerre. By the 1960s, it was one of the biggest mail-order catalogues for clothing and household goods in France. To get around postal strikes, it had its own package service and guaranteed 48-hour delivery. Since those happy, confident days, La Redoute has suffered all the ills of French manufacturing and retailing. It cut its labor force by two-thirds, was sold for a euro, and narrowly escaped bankruptcy at least twice. Nevertheless, two years ago, on the advice of a branchée friend in Paris, I found almost all the furniture and tableware for the Farmhouse on-line chez La Redoute. Another piece of French economic and social history to complete our new room with a view!

An image from La Redoute's catalogue in the 1960s; a French-made TV, chic dress, a snappy wristwatch could all be purchased here via mail order.

True to advertising, the sofa, cushions, and ottoman from La Redoute arrived on time. They had to wait in the cellar.

But finally, last week Monsieur Martyn could carry the sofa and then the ottoman up the stairs. I made several trips behind him, carrying the cushions.

We put the sofa and its ottoman at one end of the room facing the windows. Two 1970s armchairs, found eight years ago chez le brocanteur next to my old apartment in Paris, face them. In a mad moment at the end of the pandémie, I’d chosen to reupholster these capacious fauteuils in a jacquard from Métaphores found chez“Cousine Mimi,” the tapissière of Courtomer.

The pattern is called “Sismic,” meaning “seismic.” It was not a reasonable choice for someone with a château and a petite maison to furnish, roofs to repair, and renovations coming up at the guardian’s loge. But Métaphores is a marque française from the early 19th century. The quality and design of its fabrics is impeccable.

“Yes, that’s Métaphores,” sighed Cousine Mimi, stroking the corded weave with long, slender fingers. “It belongs to Hermès now.”

“I can pick it up in Paris for you next week.” Without a moment’s hesitation, I agreed.

Eh bien! It is to be hoped that our boudoir at Courtomer now fits the definition in our dictionnaire Littré, itself another 19th-century monument to French culture: “Cabinet élégant attenant à l'appartement d'une dame.”

An elegant room attached to the apartments of a lady.

As a crowning touch, last week Monsieur Boulay, the ébéniste, brought back the armoire. He had replaced missing pieces of veneer and restored the patina. Monsieur Martyn helped him carry the sections back up the twisting stairs to the new boudoir. It filled the wall at the other end of the room. The plinth and the couronne were pegged into place, the shelves and drawers slid in, the doors hung. Reflected in its gleaming mirror, the rain-washed autumn sky was a bright and happy blue.

Last September, the grandson of the armoire’s former owner was married at Courtomer. Unfortunately, the handsome object was not yet in its pride of place. But that was a mere detail; the young couple and their family will be back again soon. And the armoire will be waiting, repository of a family’s history as the tomettes, the old beams, the furnishings and the fabrics capture the story of the Chateau, its times, ourselves. Le French touch.

A bientôt, au Chateau,

www.chateaudecourtomer.com