Tomb of Agnes Sorel
the Gisant of Agnès Sorel placed at Loches knew a not very common destiny, made tribulations that few monuments knew.
According to the use of the 15th century, as she died close to Jumièges, its body was divided between this abbey which collected its heart and the Collégiale Saint-Bear with Loches. It is under the terms of the will of the late one which bequeathed most of its goods to the monks of collegial the Saint-Bear, that those accepted the body embaumé of Agnes, admirably capped, and vêtu with simplicity and without jewel.
An artist was charged by Charles VII, very éploré, to carve a monument of a great elegance. We are unaware of who was this artist; the historians hesitate between Michel Colombe with which one owes the children of the cathedral of Turns that it carved for Anne of Brittany, and Jacques Morel, another sculptor of the time. Perhaps it is about the work of an unknown artist. It does not remain about it less than this tomb curiously points out the monuments drawn by Jean Fouquet.
The vicissitudes which the tomb knew discourage from clearing up this mystery.
Description of the tomb
This monument is extremely known around Loches. It is a statue of Albâtre lengthened on a broad base of black Marbre, of which some faces carry inscriptions carved in these being completed Middle Ages and whose formerly gilded Gothic letters say:
“ noble Cy gist damoyselle Agnès Seurelle in her alive rams of Beaulté, Roquesserière, Issouldun and the piteous Vernon-on-Seine towards all people and who largely donnoit of its goods to the eglyses and the poor which trespassa IXe day of February the year of grace MCCCCXLIX, priies God for delle blade. Amen ”
In the beginning, the head was surmounted by a blazing Gothic Dais of style, being detached on black marble plate sealed a perpendicular to the lid.
The representation of Agnes shows a calm, serene face and very young person. She is vêtue of a Surcot bordered of hermine and its hair is girded of a crown meaning the title of duchess that the king Charles VII, had decreed to him, but that she had refused, probably not to poke the jealousies and the resentments of which she was the object at the court of Charles.
The cushion or square on which the head is pressed is supported by two angels and the many folds of the skirt recover part of the body of the two sheep which point out its first name symbolically.
Tribulations of the tomb
The monument was the object of degradations during its many displacements.
Original installation
In accordance with the last wills of the Lady of Beauty, its skin, deposited in triple coffin of oak, Lead, and still of Oak, surmounted of its lying of alabaster, was installed in the middle of the chorus of collegial the Saint-Bear of Loaches.
But as of the reign of Louis XI, the canons, forgetting the gifts of their bienfaitrice, required of the son of Charles VII, the displacement of the Mausolée, under pretext that this one obstructed them in the celebration of the worship.
Louis XI, who however hated the favorite one of his father, refused the authorization because the canons had inherited part of the goods Agnes and had committed themselves saying Messe S for the rest of its heart.
During a few centuries, the tomb of Agnes did not move, and the canons had to put up with it. Their request was reiterated under Louis XV, which, as refused to him as the lying one of the Lady of Beauty was moved. The king registered his hand in the margin of the letter by which the canons propose the displacement of the tomb in an additional vault: “Nothing, to leave the tomb where it is”
It is Louis XVI which, in 1777, with its kindness and its indulgence usual, authorizes the transfer in the nave. With the permission of the archbishop of Turns, one loosens the monument, which gives on a vault containing the three coffins. The not broken up remainders, a Teeth in perfect state and fair hair ashed, capped braid some in the back and crimped on the top, are removed and transferred from it in a ballot box (in fact a simple stoneware pot). The whole is given solemnly in the tomb which one rebuilt on the right of the chorus.
Revolution and Empire
In 1793, during the Revolution, the tomb is profaned. The ballot box is thrown in the cemetery of the garden of the current presbytery and will be recovered by conventional Pocholle, while the monument, will be dismounted, broken by the soldiers, is, after their passage, stored in sure place.
Under the First Empire, the general of Pommereul, beautiful spirit which is interested in the History and the Letters, and which wants to wipe the insults received by Agnès, sends the remains to Paris, the fact of restoring by the Beauvallet sculptor, and undertakes to place the tomb in a kind of Cul-de-basse-fosse, narrow and obscure part with the enormous walls, located at the foot of the keep which overhangs the city and which is connected to the pinion of the castle.
The door of the new sanctuary is surmounted by a pediment decorated with the worms of Voltaire: “I am Agnès, lives France and Love”. Monseigneur de Barral, archbishop of Turns, benefit from the departure of the general prefect and the arrival of his successor, Mr. Lambert to make remove the worms that Pommereul had composed by taking too much a little of freedom with the history.
Of 1805 with 1970, the lying one remains in its basement, subjected to the increasingly enthusiastic and many admiration of the visitors who per million come to pay homage to the one of the characters more attaching history. But these many visits make run a new risk to the tomb and in 1970, on the authorities of those which estimate rightly that this masterpiece would be more in its place, better visible and protected from the risks of degradation, in the royal home of the castle of Loches, one decides the transfer which takes place on March 4th, 1970.
Ultimate voyage
In this end of the year 2004, the general advice of Indre-et-Loire decided to restore the respect of the last wills of Agnes Sorel: to rest for eternity in collegial the Saint-Bear of Loaches. After this long wandering, the remainders of the Lady of Beauty will find the collegial one in spring 2005.
Scientific examinations
September 28th, 2004, the mausoleum which is since March 1970 in the royal home, was open to recover the ballot box and to carry out taking away at ends of scientific studies. The operation was supervised by Dr Philippe Charlier, person in charge of the anthropological and paleopathologic studies with the CHRU of Lille.
The goal of these studies is to know if the bones contained in the ballot box belong well to Agnès Sorel. Various displacements and the profanation which took place during the Revolution, caused interrogations. The investigations should also enable us to answer many interrogations:
- Which is it the real cause of the death of Agnes Sorel, died in layer of a “flow of belly” or it was poisoned?
- And in which year was it born?
April 2nd, 2005 the remainders of Agnes Sorel, after 5 months of studies, were redeposited in their tomb, reinstall in the nave of left of Collegial the Saint Bear of Loaches. A religious ceremony, was celebrated on this occasion by the Moreau Father, clean Loaches, in the presence of personalities (among which Monseigneur the duke of Orleans, the Prince of Bourbon Parma, Stephan Bern, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, Marc Pommereau, Jean Jacques Descamps, Pascal Dubrisay, and of good of other local personalities). At the conclusion of the ceremony the lying one was redeposited on the tomb then sealed with this one.
This return to Collegial makes it possible the lady of beauty to rest in peace in the building where it was buried with its request, more than 200 years after its tomb was profaned by revolutionists.
The studies showed:
- That it is indeed in all probability Agnes Sorel: coherent age, three pregnancies, reconstitution of the face seeming to correspond to the portrait of its lying…
- That she died following an intoxication with the mercury without one being able to say if that were accidental or voluntary (treatments containing mercury salts were usual at that time).
See too
Agnes Sorel
External bonds
- to see its genealogy on the site geneanet samlap
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