Sud Ouest: "This Bordeaux man tells the story of Gironde through the coats of arms that adorn church windows".

François-Remi Roqueton and his zoom lens on the hunt for hidden details in Bordeaux's Saint-Andre Cathedral © Photo credit Gw B.

Over a period of six years, the art historian visited 650 churches and chapels, almost all of the département's heritage. What he found there tells " a poignant, forgotten local story ". Visitors," he explains, "often walk past the stained-glass windows without paying attention to the details. These include the hundreds of coats of arms and other coats of arms, on top of biblical figures and scenes.

François-Rémi Roqueton has catalogued almost 900 "escutcheons" referring to people, institutions (here, the City of Bordeaux) or even medieval corporations, illustrations of the neo-Gothic wave of the second half of the 19th century. Gw.B./"SO

" Zooming in with my camera, I discovered a whole bestiary of heraldry. And I asked myself: whose azure leopards, whose golden towers? Who are these people? Listing nearly 900 " ecus de lumière ", François-Rémi Roqueton uncovered " constants that form a rationalized, coherent ornamental system ". And the mark of a very particular era in the history of Christianity.

The dates of the coats of arms and the distribution of the people or institutions to which they refer. François-Rémi Roqueton

" In Gironde, medieval stained glass is very rare. Many were dismantled in the 17th and 18th centuries to let in light and facilitate the reading of Scripture. Then came the Revolution. But in the second half of the 19th century, the art of painted stained glass underwent a renaissance.

This neo-medieval wave was driven by prelate builders and donors " in a period of religious concord whose expression was a return to triumphant Gothic, a Gothic fantasy designed to win back the faithful and serve the glory of a regenerated cult ".

Many of these coats of arms refer to these prelates, such as Archbishop Donnet, " but also to the great donors who saw the opportunity to express their charity, a cardinal virtue, and, let's not be naïve, to show off their noble pride. I've dug through a number of Legitimist newspapers, which provide an insight into the psyche of a world living in paranoia about the return of the Republic, which horrified the great aristocrats. "

Coat of arms of the Calvimont and Baritault families, lower register of the Saint Louis stained glass window, Henri Feur workshop, 1900, Chapelle de l'Assomption Sainte Clotilde, Bordeaux.

François-Rémi Roqueton

The armorial stained-glass windows tell the story of Bordeaux's well-known donor families (Pichon de Longueville, Pontac ... ), some of which still exist. " It was very moving to meet their descendants. One of them even became the patron and protector of my research: Alain de Baritault du Carpia, whose coat of arms appears in the stained-glass windows of the Chapelle de l'Assomption. "

François-Rémi Roqueton made other unexpected encounters while immersing himself in the newspapers of the period. " It's a mine. I'm swarming with projects . One of them is the publication of " Pépites de la presse du XIXe siècle " by Éditions du Trésor, in March 2025. We can't wait to follow the guide.

This is the name of the lecture given by François-Rémi Roqueton on November 26, 2024 at 7pm at the Bordeaux Métropole archives, with the association Tout Art Faire.

Read the article on www.sudouest.fr

By Gwenaël Badets

Published November 24, 2024