EUGENE VIOLLET-LE-DUC (1814-1879),
Col du Bonhomme (2,329 m - 7,641 ft)
France (Alpes)
In Le col du Bonhomme, le Cervin du Breuil, 1862, watercolor, Musée Lambinet Versailles, France
The mountain
The Col du Bonhomme (2,329 m - 7,641 ft) is a pass that connects the Val Montjoie to the Beaufortain. It is located between the Mount du Rocher du Bonhomme and the Aiguilles de Pennaz. It is one of the passes crossed on the hiking trail of the Tour du Mont Blanc near the refuge of the Col de la Croix du Bonhomme at 2,443 meters.
In 1355, following the Treaty of Paris, the Faucigny passed from the possession of the counts of Geneva to that of the county of Savoy and the Col du Bonhomme lost its status of frontier to become part of the "House of Savoy". On the night of the 27th of August, 1689, at Prangins, near Nyon, on the shore of Lake Geneva (Switzerland), about a thousand men try to go back to their Piedmont valley. In nine days they traveled 200 km by passing the massif of Mont Blanc by the Col du Bonhomme to reach Sibaud (Bobbio Pellice). This first trek, with quite a lot of victims, was called the "Glorious Retreat". Following the visit of the Emperor Napoleon III after the annexation of Savoy to France (1860), the path of the Col du Bonhomme is laid out (1861-1866). The free zone was subsequently reduced in 1919 by France at the end of the First World War by the Treaty of Versailles.
Nowadays, from the bottom of the Contamines-Montjoie valley, in Notre-Dame-de-la-Gorge, the climb takes from 2 to 3 hours, making it accessible to a large number of walkers. It can also be reached from Les Chapieux, the Gittaz dam and the Gittes crest path.
The artist
Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (not to be confused with the writer Violette Leduc) was a French architect and theorist, famous for his interpretive "restorations" of medieval buildings. But he was, as well, an excellent but less famous watercolorist, sketching quite a number of mountains and volcanoes all over Europe.
Born in Paris, he was a major Gothic Revival architect. His works were largely restorative and few of his independent building designs were ever realised. Strongly contrary to the prevailing Beaux-Arts architectural trend of his time, much of his design work was largely derided by his contemporaries. He was the architect hired to design the internal structure of the Statue of Liberty, but died before the project was completed.
During the early 1830s, a popular sentiment for the restoration of medieval buildings developed in France. Viollet-le-Duc, returning during 1835 from study in Italy, was commissioned by Prosper Mérimée to restore the Romanesque abbey of Vézelay. This work was the first of a long series of restorations; Viollet-le-Duc's restorations at Notre Dame de Paris with Jean-Baptiste Lassus brought him national attention. His other main works include Mont Saint-Michel, Carcassonne, Roquetaillade castle and Pierrefonds.
Viollet-le-Duc's "restorations" frequently combined historical fact with creative modification. For example, under his supervision, Notre Dame was not only cleaned and restored but also "updated", gaining its distinctive third tower (a type of flèche) in addition to other smaller changes. Another of his most famous restorations, the medieval fortified town of Carcassonne, was similarly enhanced, gaining atop each of its many wall towers a set of pointed roofs that are actually more typical of northern France. Many of these reconstructions were controversial. Viollet-le-duc wanted what he called ‘a condition of completeness' which never actually existed at any given time. This approach to restoration was particularly problematic when buildings survived in a mixture of styles. For instance, Viollet-le-Duc eliminated eighteenth-century additions to Notre Dame. Both his theory and his practice were strongly criticized on the grounds that only what had once been in place should be reconstructed. At the same time, in the cultural atmosphere of the Second Empire theory necessarily became diluted in practice: Viollet-le-Duc provided a Gothic reliquary for the relic of the Crown of Thorns at Notre-Dame in 1862, and yet Napoleon III also commissioned designs for a luxuriously appointed railway carriage from Viollet-le-Duc, in 14th-century Gothic style.
Among his restorations were:
- Churches :
Notre-Dame in Paris, Abbey of the Mont Saint-Michel, Basilica of St. Mary Magdalene in Vézelay, St. Martin in Clamecy, Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, Basilica of St. Denis near Paris, St. Louis in Poissy, Notre-Dame in Semur-en-Auxois, Basilica of St. Nazarius and St. Celsus in Carcasonne, Basilica of St. Sernin in Toulouse, Notre-Dame in Lausanne (Switzerland).
Town halls:
- Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val, Narbonne
Castles:
- Château de Roquetaillade in Bordeaux, Château de Pierrefonds, Fortified city of Carcassonne, Château de Coucy, Antoing in Belgium, Château de Vincennes in Paris.
When monuments was to much damaged, he sometimes obtain from the emperor Napoleon III the permission to entirely rebuilt it, like he did in Avignon with the Popes ramparts all around the city.
Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (not to be confused with the writer Violette Leduc) was a French architect and theorist, famous for his interpretive "restorations" of medieval buildings. But he was, as well, an excellent but less famous watercolorist, sketching quite a number of mountains and volcanoes all over Europe.
Born in Paris, he was a major Gothic Revival architect. His works were largely restorative and few of his independent building designs were ever realised. Strongly contrary to the prevailing Beaux-Arts architectural trend of his time, much of his design work was largely derided by his contemporaries. He was the architect hired to design the internal structure of the Statue of Liberty, but died before the project was completed.
During the early 1830s, a popular sentiment for the restoration of medieval buildings developed in France. Viollet-le-Duc, returning during 1835 from study in Italy, was commissioned by Prosper Mérimée to restore the Romanesque abbey of Vézelay. This work was the first of a long series of restorations; Viollet-le-Duc's restorations at Notre Dame de Paris with Jean-Baptiste Lassus brought him national attention. His other main works include Mont Saint-Michel, Carcassonne, Roquetaillade castle and Pierrefonds.
Viollet-le-Duc's "restorations" frequently combined historical fact with creative modification. For example, under his supervision, Notre Dame was not only cleaned and restored but also "updated", gaining its distinctive third tower (a type of flèche) in addition to other smaller changes. Another of his most famous restorations, the medieval fortified town of Carcassonne, was similarly enhanced, gaining atop each of its many wall towers a set of pointed roofs that are actually more typical of northern France. Many of these reconstructions were controversial. Viollet-le-duc wanted what he called ‘a condition of completeness' which never actually existed at any given time. This approach to restoration was particularly problematic when buildings survived in a mixture of styles. For instance, Viollet-le-Duc eliminated eighteenth-century additions to Notre Dame. Both his theory and his practice were strongly criticized on the grounds that only what had once been in place should be reconstructed. At the same time, in the cultural atmosphere of the Second Empire theory necessarily became diluted in practice: Viollet-le-Duc provided a Gothic reliquary for the relic of the Crown of Thorns at Notre-Dame in 1862, and yet Napoleon III also commissioned designs for a luxuriously appointed railway carriage from Viollet-le-Duc, in 14th-century Gothic style.
Among his restorations were:
- Churches :
Notre-Dame in Paris, Abbey of the Mont Saint-Michel, Basilica of St. Mary Magdalene in Vézelay, St. Martin in Clamecy, Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, Basilica of St. Denis near Paris, St. Louis in Poissy, Notre-Dame in Semur-en-Auxois, Basilica of St. Nazarius and St. Celsus in Carcasonne, Basilica of St. Sernin in Toulouse, Notre-Dame in Lausanne (Switzerland).
Town halls:
- Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val, Narbonne
Castles:
- Château de Roquetaillade in Bordeaux, Château de Pierrefonds, Fortified city of Carcassonne, Château de Coucy, Antoing in Belgium, Château de Vincennes in Paris.
When monuments was to much damaged, he sometimes obtain from the emperor Napoleon III the permission to entirely rebuilt it, like he did in Avignon with the Popes ramparts all around the city.