Honoré d'Urfé in Saint-Étienne-le-Molard (42), Loire (42)

Le Forez is an area in France which is largely in the Loire département, and is essentially rural. The Château de la Bâtie d'Urfé is in Forez in Saint-Étienne-le-Molard, where Honoré d'Urfé (1567-1625) lived for a time and where the area was the source of inspiration for what is his masterpiece, the first roman-fleuve: L'Astrée.

L'Astrée is a homage to his childhood home and surroundings and was published between 1607 and 1627, being a partly autobiographical pastoral love story of Astrée and Céladon (in turn rendered homage to by Éric Rohmer's film version of part of it): the director could hardly have even summed up a book which stretches to 5399 pages with 293 characters in twelve books. The book was read throughout Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. (And was in fact finished posthumously by the author's secretary Balthazar Baro.)

The novel, obviously known by academics, is still obscurely 'remembered' in the French word for green glazed porcelain: céladon, or 'celadon' in English. Unfortunately, because of a lack of time, we were unable to appreciate the château and its surroundings to anything like the extent it merits.

Éric Rohmer's Les Amours d'Astrée et de Céladon | The Romance of Astrea and Celadon (2007)

 

Astrée (1601-27), by Honoré d'Urfé (1567-1625), is the first roman-fleuve in the French language and contains 5399 pages. D'Urfé's secretary Balthazar Baro concluded the fourth part of it after d'Urfé's death, and added an extra section (1632-33). For some time it was held as a masterpiece, and greatly admired by many prominent writers, Madame de Sévigné among them, along with Jean-Jacques Rousseau who made a journey to La Forez to visit the area where the novel is set. Rohmer's film version of it is inevitably very loosely based on the novel. The main difference between the novel and the film is that d'Urfé's was set in the fifth century, Rohmer's film at the time of d'Urfe.

Astrée (Stéphanie Crayencour) and Céladon (Andy Gillet) are both young shepherds very much in love until Astrée is deceived into believing that Céladon has another lover, whereupon she tells him that she is finished with him and never wants to see him again.

Céladon then throws himself into the nearby River Lignon, although he is saved by the nymphs Galathée (Véronique Reymond), Léonide (Cécile Cassel) and Sylvie (Rosette) and taken to Galathée's castle to recuperate. Galathée has taken a romantic liking too him, although he insists that he's in love with Astrée, who now believes he's dead, although he can't communicate with her as she's told him she no longer wants to see him.

Céladon stubbornly goes into the woods to live a primitive existence, although he's frequently visited by Adamas (Serge Renko), the druid priest at the castle who is planning to help Céladon. Rohmer is given to Shakespearian influences, and this film – particularly with its hard-to-swallow mistaken identity – is perhaps his most Shakespearian. Nevertheless, with its theme of love and mistaken behaviour, coincidences, etc, it's very much in the vein of to many of Rohmer's former works, albeit set in a different period. Rohmer made this between the age of 87-8, and it was his final work.

Le Château de la Bâtie d'Urfé in Le Forez in Saint-Étienne-le-Molard is now a museum.