Categories: Alsace and Lorraine, Day-Trips from Paris, Off the Beaten Track in France
Discussed in this Episode
- Lorraine
- Grand Est
- Meurthe-et-Moselle department
- Art Nouveau
- Day-Trip from Paris
- Unesco World Heritage site
- Charlemagne
- Lothaire
- Emile Gallé
- Auguste and Antonin Daum
- Victor Prouvé
- Louis Majorelle
- Quiche Lorraine
- Baba au Rum
- Bouchées à la Reine
- Madeleines
- Prunes Mirabelles
THIS IS AN AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED TRANSCRIPT
Annie Sargent 0:00
Hello Elyse!
Elyse Rivin 0:02
Hello Annie!
Elyse Rivin 0:03
Bonjour, bonjour !
Elyse Rivin 0:03
Bonojour.
Annie Sargent 0:03
Ca va ?
Elyse Rivin 0:06
Ca va, ca va
Annie Sargent 0:07
OK. Today we’re talking about Nancy
Elyse Rivin 0:12
Nancy, not “Nancy”. I was thinking that there there’s Nice which is that not nice.
Elyse Rivin 0:20
And the there’s Nancy, which is not Nancy.
Annie Sargent 0:22
There’s probably others probably others like that to
Elyse Rivin 0:26
Nancy is a city in the region called Lorraine which is east of Paris
Annie Sargent 0:33
But the region technically now is called Grand Est, right? Yeah, well,
Elyse Rivin 0:39
you know, this is the new yeah nonsense the administrative nonsense of friends it’s like the region historically is the region of Lorraine just like if you go to the southeast, you go into the region that historically is still call it Provence. Yeah. The Dordogne and all of that and but yeah, technically administratively what happened was that the two parts that were the Alsatian parts which were several departments and then the three or four departments that were part of the Lohan have joined together at the hip
Elyse Rivin 1:19
to be called the same desk is
Elyse Rivin 1:23
the big the Big East
Elyse Rivin 1:24
sounds like the name of a Western but anyway the Big East yeah the Big West the Big East
Unknown Speaker 1:29
right because there’s
Unknown Speaker 1:31
that now season is Meurthe et Moselle, which is of course because there were two very beautiful rivers actually I think the Moselle is a little bit longer but they join up just a few kilometers outside of the city of non See
Elyse Rivin 1:46
also The so I was wondering if they both cross the city or if it’s just one of them know,
Elyse Rivin 1:50
they, they, if I remember correctly, it’s just on the outer edge of the city, okay, that they that they join up and don’t ask me exactly. The geographic thing about them, I know that the Moselle really is very long, and it goes up and out the Northwest the the the city of myths, which is
Elyse Rivin 2:11
about what 45 kilometers north of Nanci or 50 kilometers north is on one of them one, but but we’re Nancy is it’s the joining of the two
Elyse Rivin 2:24
Don’t worry people, they won’t be a quiz quiz. You can go you can go to Nancy or not. No,
Elyse Rivin 2:29
no, but but just just to locate it for people who have no idea. And I know that some people have actually asked about it, because it is known. And one of the things of course, we’ll talk about is the fact that it’s considered to be the home of
Elyse Rivin 2:42
Art Nouveau in in France, it’s one of the places where it began. And there’s a there’s some interesting historical information about why but but Nancy is actually a city Believe it or not, that gets 3 million visitors a year.
Elyse Rivin 2:55
It’s pretty it’s pretty pretty. And now I’ve never been so I don’t have a my own photo, right. And I put out a call on the website on the on the Facebook group to see if some people can give me some photos that I can use for this episode. Otherwise, I’ll just use photos that are public domain domain. And then of course, I think I sent you but if I didn’t have to, because I downloaded them some beautiful photos of some of the famous glassware and things that are part of the Art Nouveau that comes from there. But But Nancy is
Elyse Rivin 3:26
I live near there for a while, a number of years ago, but I visited it a lot.
Elyse Rivin 3:33
It’s a city that now is known. It’s a medium sized city to city of a little over 100,000 people within the greater Nancy’s almost 400,000. It’s the 20th city in France, but not bad. Not bad at all smaller than that. No, no, it’s it’s a decent sized city. And it’s got it’s a very cultural city. It has a very big prestigious university, surprisingly, 60,000 Studio all together with a part of the next being met because that’s actually a city that’s fairly close. And a lot of culture a lot a lot of cultural lot of music and Opera House. Yeah, they have an opera house. Yeah, it’s famous for being a place for for a long time going back, in fact, a couple of centuries for being a center of art and culture,
Elyse Rivin 4:18
right, because cities that size normally don’t have an opera house I’m surprised to see that
Elyse Rivin 4:22
Yeah, and it’s special in that way. And and so it has a very good reputation. Mm hmm. The weather in the area is not great. I was looking at the statistics yesterday it’s because it’s inland and it’s kind of in the basin so it’s it’s on the eastern side you have the votes mountains which are not very high they’re kind of like the you know, Appalachians a little bit. They’re good. They’re beautiful, very wonderful, thick forest. But on the end to the west, it’s a plane that leads you towards the champagne area and back into into Paris. So it gets cold in the winter and humid
Elyse Rivin 5:04
lovely. All the things that I
Elyse Rivin 5:06
love you and it gets hot and humid but not super hot in in the summer. Yeah, but it’s very very very green in the area. The whole region around there. Yeah, it’s very it’s very you will need any sprinklers. No, no, no, you don’t need sprinklers. And it’s very much little rolling hills and stuff like that. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s that kind of a land, you know, it’s now that there’s the bullet train. It’s a 90 minute ride from Paris. That’s nice. Which means you could literally actually go for a day and go back to Paris, it’s on the line that goes pear Strasbourg. So and it’s
Elyse Rivin 5:41
and it’s probably not every TGV that stops Now see,
Elyse Rivin 5:44
I would think they do if it is the direct line because it’s fairly important as a city so I unless
Elyse Rivin 5:50
you’d have to check on it. If you do that, obviously, you have to check
Elyse Rivin 5:54
but but I remember I at the time was living in the area. I actually did it by and by car going back and forth to Paris. So it’s 280 kilometers by car. So it’s, it’s a ride, it’s only 115 kilometers east to get the Strasbourg so it’s really the north eastern part of France. Yeah, it’s a region that is very much the part of that history of that whole part of France and Nancy, that has strong German influence, yes, not as much as Alsace, not not as much as Strasbourg, but it’s also connected to it. And it’s interesting, because so so Nancy is now a city that’s got a very, let’s put it this way, I’d say it’s a city that has very positive reputation in general for its activities for its culture, for the fact that it’s got these famous squares that are part of the world UNESCO heritage site with very beautiful architecture around them.
Elyse Rivin 6:55
And it has always been the capital this what once was a separate kingdom, the kingdom of law,
Elyse Rivin 7:05
which had a Duke and, you know, this is something I have no answer to, because I was thinking about this yesterday in Provence, and then in the south, there were separate kingdoms, and sometimes it was a Duke, like, in Provence, and sometimes it was account like, in the region amount to lose, but these are separate kingdoms, right? Why couldn’t they kings? I don’t know, this is a question I have no answer to their they will know that either they were called to do she, you know, the she do she so you have the one but there was one in Burgundy as well, a lot
Elyse Rivin 7:39
of these words. And some of these were richer than the King of France anyway. I mean, like bull version,
Elyse Rivin 7:45
he, he wanted to be king of France. Yeah. Yeah. So that was just one of those silly. Um, I don’t know the answer to that question. Kind of things like,
Elyse Rivin 7:54
Okay, if somebody knows out there, yeah, I don’t, I don’t know.
Elyse Rivin 7:57
I mean, these were all descendants. Anyway. So this a little, just a little background information. Lorraine is a fairly big area and not not as well. Now, of course, with this greater east, it includes the Alsatian area but in fact, stuff I didn’t know until I was doing some background information. The name Lohan comes from
Elyse Rivin 8:20
a word that is comes from the time of Charlemagne, believe it or not, and it was because the great grandson of Charlemagne, his name was loop there.
Elyse Rivin 8:31
Oh, yeah, I knew that. Yeah. And it and,
Elyse Rivin 8:34
you know, Charlemagne created this empire, which included all of what is now friends, and a good chunk of what is now Germany. And when he died, it was divided into three kingdoms. And when those three sons started fighting with each other, one of them got kicked out. And the other two, I don’t remember which two, divided it all up. And the one of the sun that got the eastern part friends, and what is now most of Western Germany,
Elyse Rivin 9:04
he had the same problem with his sons, typical, obviously. So by the time you get to the great grandson, which is in the what, in 900,
Elyse Rivin 9:16
there, they divided up into several, several smaller little kingdoms duties. And, and one of them is the kingdom run by this great grandson. They look there, and the word low tech lead the name lead to load the Anglo. Ok. And then if you follow it, I don’t know there’s this kind of like, we are derivation linguistically. And then it turns out that the way it started being pronounced sounds almost like law. Yeah, so basically, the name Lauren really comes from the name of the kingdom at the time, which is based on this great grandsons, which is a way of saying that it goes back very far. Yes, it goes back to the 1900s, which is really the beginning of a unified Western Europe kind of thing. And it was a separate kingdom. And, of course, it was dramatic. I mean, Charlemagne was basically German as, as we would know it now to tonic, you know, so whatever language they spoke, it was only later on with the influence of people from other regions, that it came to be this the language that we, of course, we everyone speaks there now, which, of course, is French, but the influence of the Germanic part certainly stays more in that part of France and than anywhere else, less so than analysis because I was so unlike Lauren wound up being taken back by pressure, and by the Germans several times in the last 200 years. And, and the people there were forced to go for being French to German, and back and forth. And in fact,
Elyse Rivin 10:57
one of the things that happened start at the end of the 19th century with the war in 18 7071
Elyse Rivin 11:04
with with pressure when they invaded France, and actually managed to get as far as Paris is that a lot of people from the Alsatian area fled and went to Lauren, I see. So a lot of the people that are in Nancy now
Elyse Rivin 11:21
are descendants of people who originally were far more dramatic, but who fled because they did not become want to become part of the Germanic Empire. They wanted to stay French. And it was an area that really got bounce back and forth a whole lot over the course of centuries, you know, and lots of fighting
Elyse Rivin 11:40
the Duca burgundy tried to take it there were all these other groups. It’s so complicated that I was having a hard time it kind of made my head spin reading about all the different Dukes and the different this isn’t that says that we’re trying to fight over this area. And interestingly enough, one of the reasons is because the land is very rich,
Elyse Rivin 11:59
it’s a so amazing for agriculture and minerals. I see agriculture to I have to say, having lived in that area for a year, I’ve never seen such fat cows,
Unknown Speaker 12:12
really, I mean, monster cheese, and a bunch of other cheeses that they’re made that come from the cows in that area. And they, the cows are happy there. Yeah, this is you. And I might not be because of the weather. Yes, the cows love it.
Unknown Speaker 12:27
They love it. You know,
Unknown Speaker 12:28
it is there’s so much for them to chew on. You would not believe it. Really? Yeah, I never seen such fat cows in my life.
Unknown Speaker 12:38
But the land is also very rich in in, or Yeah, lots of iron, lots of minerals.
Unknown Speaker 12:46
And historically, Cole, which, of course, is more of the 18th and 19th century up until recently, though, there are no more coal mines in France. But they were up in that area. And the fact that they were coal mines, the fact that there was a lot of running water and a lot of forest made it conducive to being an area for me metallurgy, OK, OK, so it’s something that goes back centuries and centuries and centuries text the house and metals or the two things that made the area prosperous, starting way back in the Middle Ages. And, of course, that has to do with the land and the geography of it. And because it was that rich, and because it was kind of a, it’s not a flat plane, but it’s really kind of a buffer zone between the German Holy Roman Empire and all of these empires to the east. And then, of course, you have the King of France, who at the time was not such a big deal. And then, of course, you have the Duke of Brittany and all of the other things that eventually become the part of France. It was an area that was fought over enormously,
Unknown Speaker 14:00
and the battles and battles and battles I mean, starting in the 1500s in the 1600s, and it really makes your head spin. I mean, it’s, it’s unless, unless you’re a specialist in that part of, you know, time in history, right? It’s hard to know. But what happens is, the, the, the moment that which becomes really pertinent for for us is
Unknown Speaker 14:24
there, there’s actually a war between the king of sweat of Sweden, don’t ask me what his name is, I don’t remember
Unknown Speaker 14:34
excuse me,
Unknown Speaker 14:36
and
Unknown Speaker 14:38
the dramatic King and because there’s a stalemate, they decide for reasons that are strange and largely political, to take a descendant of the king of Poland whose family has been married with both the Germans and the sweet and to put him almost as a figurehead as the head of this region. Okay, and so what happens is that we get to the 1700s 18th
Unknown Speaker 15:10
century and all of a sudden there is a Polish man named Spanish Laos who is made king of lovin okay Duke learning to mix now starting to make sense, right? Yes, Duke of Lauren actually is I think his was officially his title. But he was supposed to be there basically, as a puppet to to take care of, you know, this, this truce that was set up between the dramatic Empire on the sweet tooth that that time controlled all of Northern Europe anyway, including what is now Denmark and all the rest. And it turns out that this man named status Laos was extremely cultivated
Unknown Speaker 15:50
the kingdoms of Poland at that time, like a like Russia in the
Unknown Speaker 15:58
end of the 17th century, beginning of at essentially we’re very, very Franco file. Mm hmm. So everyone spoke French France was the sum of culture and the refinement and so this man’s down this Laos he set up the first institutions of art and music and made Nazi his capital. Okay, which had been a medieval city for a very long time.
Unknown Speaker 16:25
Yeah. And there is that you is on the main Yes,
Unknown Speaker 16:29
yes. And it’s the good now it’s the good king Stanislaus show. I don’t think at the time they would have all said that, but you know, and then what happens to seal this alignment or association with France? Is that through a lot of machination and politics lo and behold, one of his two daughters, winds up winds up whoops, winds up becoming the wife of Louie, the 15th,
Unknown Speaker 17:01
which Louie the 15th, who is a king who winds up being king for a very long time who don’t forget is the great grandson of Louie the 14th. Yes, okay. He was originally supposed to marry the daughter of the king of Spain when he was 12 when she was six. Don’t laugh out there. Don’t be shocked. You know, they waited a long time before they actually had anything happen. But what happened was that for various reasons, which included the fact that they were worried because he, Louis the 15th was being taken care of by his mom. Yes. And by Richard Gere. Yes. Because he was a minor, right, right. And so there was a worry that if he didn’t get married very quickly, and we’re talking about the age of 1314 years old and have a child right away, he could be usurped by one of his first cousins, who was claiming the throne as well. And so what happened was, they sent this poor little girl who was six years old, back to Spain,
Unknown Speaker 18:08
and because at six there’s no way she could
Unknown Speaker 18:10
No, no, no, but you would have been what happens is that they would take people to the court and then have them brought up in the court in in I see in the years of waiting, so that it’s so strange. I mean, it’s just the
Unknown Speaker 18:25
right so if you if your daughter was to be the queen of friends, you sent her to France? Yes. Raised in the court. Exactly. Until she was a very exact okay.
Unknown Speaker 18:33
And this is what happened with all of them. With England, with France, with Spain with the Holy Roman Empire. I mean, this is what they did. So what happened was, they created a huge royal scandal in Europe, because they literally sent this little child back to Spain and they had to
Unknown Speaker 18:50
take too long,
Unknown Speaker 18:52
too much too long. too long. Yeah. So they needed somebody who literally could produce a child whether quickly and so at first they were as a suggestion of various different princesses and of course everybody who’s listened to any of these know by now that these are all cousins anyway, I mean, you know, we’re just talking about first, second or third degree but we’re still dealing with with family and someone suggests the this Daughter of Stanislaus, who is the Duke of low end But who is not considered to be as important in the lines of nobility as descendant of the King of Sweden or the Roman Empire and at first the counselors for Louie the 15th gum net Now, now, she’s not important enough, she’s not good enough. And the problem was, he was 14 and she was 2221 or 22.
Unknown Speaker 19:43
Yeah, well, she
Unknown Speaker 19:44
was plenty ready to have a baby she was plenty ready to have a baby. And the reason she hadn’t yet been married off was because she was not important enough. And so what happened was, for various reasons that I’m not quite sure I understand completely, finally was decided that this is what what happened. So indeed, Louisa 15th wound up marrying, and I think the last name is pronounced Galician Scott, the daughter one of the two daughters of the Duke of law, and therefore the Duke of urban becomes his father in law. Yeah, and becomes a member by extension of the Royal French family. Sure, and Laurel, and at that point, becomes attached to the kingdom of France. And we are in the 1750s Okay, and then smack dab in the middle of the 18th century. And by virtue of becoming part of France has all the benefits of the richness of the Kingdom of France but also France can now take all of the riches out of the region of lovin and also makes it a nice buffer for them against the the Germans Yeah, so this is really the beginning of what we leave console, modern Nazi and low end because it turns out this man named status Laos who is more interested in art and culture and literature and science than in politics and war. He has
Unknown Speaker 21:12
these magnificent squares built
Unknown Speaker 21:15
that one of which is now this famous plus Stanislaus, with beautiful, beautiful buildings in classical mid 18th century classical style architecture around it with a famous statue that, by the way, is a rebuilt one because things were destroyed at the time of the revolution, and then build back up again. And Nancy becomes famous for its culture and for its art and for its refinement. So
Unknown Speaker 21:46
did they built this beautiful fence around?
Unknown Speaker 21:52
Yes,
Unknown Speaker 21:53
yes,
Unknown Speaker 21:54
yes, it was built then it was built in
Unknown Speaker 21:56
now the reality is a little bit like that the facade of Notre Dom unfortunately, a lot of what there is today was rebuilt in the middle of the 19th century. Yeah, because a lot of it was destroyed. Now, the buildings though, the city hall and several of the other magnificent buildings that are surround the main square plus 10 is those are the original, but some of them are not. I don’t know if it’s possible to tell the difference. To be honest. You
Unknown Speaker 22:25
know, if you’ve ever been to Versailles. Yeah, you know, how beautiful the gate Yeah, get into website. Yes, it’s that sort of thing. Yes, that’s even more over the top. I think
Unknown Speaker 22:36
it’s very over the top.
Annie Sargent 22:37
Yeah, the it’s, it’s this black wrought iron with roles. It’s gorgeous. It’s absolutely gorgeous picture on the website. It’s just gorgeous. And I’ve known about this plus, then he’s last my, you know, for as long as I can remember, even though I’ve never been right. But it’s one of the plazas in France that is being particularly good, right. In fact,
Unknown Speaker 23:00
it was first called the Royal square. And it wasn’t until the middle of the 19th century
Unknown Speaker 23:07
that it’s when started being called plus Dennis thousand honor of the Duke, the Polish Duke who, of course, brought all this in the the also one of the things that made Nazi really important was that it was established as a free zone. And what that meant was that there were very few taxes and because it was the it was no longer the Middle Ages, but there was still a vestige of the Middle Ages in the sense that you couldn’t decide to join a craft or be a trades person of a specific kind, unless you were allowed into the guild unless you had a specific kind of apprenticeship or training and the declared the area of Nancy and right around it a free zone to bring people in that could choose what they want to to do. And they didn’t have to go through this process. And in the end, it made it an extremely prosperous city. Yeah, so for a very long time, not it was known to be really a very, very wonderful place for all kinds of different crafts and trades people to go. And they were free to develop what they wanted to an end. So commerce was very, very important there,
Annie Sargent 24:22
right? Yeah, because a lot of the, and for some trades, it still works this way. In France, there are some professions where you have to have a specific diploma, yes, practice that profession. And, of course, it makes sense when it comes to doctors and right lawyers and people like that. But when it’s about a cook, or about a baker or something in France, you still have to have you can’t open a bakery, if you don’t have the diploma That’s right. Which you know, is kind of silly because you can be a perfectly good Baker without,
Unknown Speaker 24:54
but it’s true that Francis kind of obsessed by the diploma thing, ya know, I can defend it certainly as a guide. But I i understand that there are times when it’s, it’s really something that’s truly guide you the kind of tour guide that has the deployment. Yes. And there’s Brazilians out there who don’t don’t deploy my and they and that doesn’t mean they’re bad at it, it just means they don’t have the diploma, it means they don’t have the diploma. And they don’t have the background. But they sometimes learn it. You know, I mean, I think there’s also that it was a way of controlling quality for a long time, I think that’s what it was, of course, we still have what we call the guild’s that work on historical monuments, you have to put been a member of the companion right to, to work on his
Unknown Speaker 25:42
meal. So
Unknown Speaker 25:43
anyway, so so and then again, textiles, silk and tapestries became one of the main industries during this time. And, and it really is amazing because the history of Nazi is there are some parts of France and some cities in France, where you know, that there’s, I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like there’s a part of their history that has to do with misery and stuff like that Not announced, I mean, I’m sure that they had the plague go through there. And I’m sure that they weren’t, you know, not everyone was rich, but it’s a city that historically is associated with a certain kind of affluence and a certain kind of culture and it’s interesting how it’s been that way for such a very very very long time and and so what happens is Nazi however because it is the capital of Lauren really also becomes the victim of the wars in the sense that the war of 18 7071
Unknown Speaker 26:50
which was when the pressures invaded France and then you have annex ation by Germany have access. And so you have thousands of people fleeing West into the region on the other side of the mountains to learn in 1914,
Unknown Speaker 27:07
the same thing happens, you have a group of people who are actually given the choice to whether whether to stay and become French, or to go back to being German. And so there’s this flux of people back and forth, going both ways, very, very strange. But it’s starting in the 19th century, that industry serious industry develops in this area. And this is when you have the major development of coal mines, which are again, old mountains, like the Appalachians in the States, this is where you have cold, yeah, you know, the, the older the mountains, the more fossil fuel and things like that. And starting in the 1880s steel factories develop their because of all the iron ore that that isn’t in the area and their university, which was first created just about 30 years before the revolution in the 18th century, and was considered to be a new one at the time it gets shut down during the French Revolution, like most of the universities did, for a certain amount of time.
Unknown Speaker 28:19
And because of that the intellectuals fled to other parts of France. And so by the time they actually try to reopen it, which is in the 1840s, 1850s,
Unknown Speaker 28:30
they have to recruit people and bring them back to create this new university again. And the first two schools that they open up there are, which are actually still very, very well known in France, or their school of medicine and pharmacy.
Unknown Speaker 28:45
And then they have a school of engineering from mines, which makes sense when you consider what is in the area. Sure. And then they bring back of the Opera House, and they bring back the arts and the letters. And since the middle of the 19th century, the University there has been flourished. However, what happens again, is that World War to World War Two, the Germans take over Nazi and all of the area before they had west towards Paris. And so all of these people, you can really imagine how awful it must be for four generations of people who’ve been battered back and forth between the German part and the French part, and then suffering war and persecution at the same time. And there’s a fairly important Jewish population in aus s, and in Lauren, all of them, they have to fleet
Unknown Speaker 29:34
and then the people are taken into forced labor in the rent. And because Lauren a little kind of the same way that to lose in the southwest has a certain spirit of resistance, believe it or not, the intellectuals of the university and the intellectuals and the doctors and the lawyers and the people of the city of Nancy put up such a resistance that the University of Nazi is the only university in the history of France to receive the Legion of Honor for bravery as an entity. Wow, because they saved people all the time, because they protected people, they save people and the police force, the civil police force of Nazi is the only police force of any important city in France during World War Two to have been known to save people,
Annie Sargent 30:31
right? Because most of the time in most of France, when the Germans would call on French police to go do their dirty work. And a lot of police departments did it compliant. They said, well, they’re the people in charge, we’re going to do it, right.
Unknown Speaker 30:47
Yeah. So. So that’s part of the prestige, let’s say, a history of Nazi. Now, one of the other reasons why nasi is famous. And one of the reasons people go there is because it is the home of or one of the homes in Europe of what is called Art Nouveau. Now, how does that work?
Unknown Speaker 31:08
Cool. Well, they have a, they have
Unknown Speaker 31:09
a school that was cool, it was actually called, they called the Nazi Mm hmm. It’s now more easily referred to as the Art Nouveau school. But it’s official title was the liquid. The Nazi
Unknown Speaker 31:22
Art Nouveau is a movement that was a crafts movement, as opposed to a fine arts movement, and began in the 1890s. And it was begun in the area of Nancy and Lauren, for exactly this reason, that historically, it was an area that had lots of glass work, lots of metal work, lots of textile work, and the purpose of the School of Nazi which was founded by some very famous people, if you know anything about the history of decorative arts, I’ll mention a couple of them in a minute was to
Unknown Speaker 31:58
valor in English. I can’t remember anymore. How do you say that eyes and obviously, Valerie’s a
Unknown Speaker 32:04
tune to improve to to, to make more
Unknown Speaker 32:07
prestigious, I guess would say, make more prestigious the the crafts and the arts connected to industry. Okay. Okay. So this is far from a school of painting and sculpture. This is not what we’re talking about. This is about fine furniture pieces, unique pieces made out of crystal or blown glass, textiles, middle work, even architecture, everything that is a combination of artistic work and industry in the sense of crafts. And and so that is the function and the purpose of this school of called they called the Nazi and the movement, which I’m sure most people in their minds they can imagine is based on vegetation and lines that are curves. Yeah. Why? Well, partly because people were kind of tired of the classical rigid architecture that had been really what was the most important sure in the 18th century. Yeah, at the beginning of the 19th century, and also
Unknown Speaker 33:12
the 19th century, which is kind of a you know, we are time I think we’ve mentioned it a few times. It’s a kind of a time of pseudo everything. So you ever just like read, copying Gothic architecture, re copying Romanesque Byzantine, there was like they were looking for something new and nobody could figure out what they wanted to do. And then all of a sudden, these crafts people who were kind of tired of all of these other things, they started talking about going back to nature, which is part of a very kind of big romantic movement and searching for inspiration in plants and in nature. And this is the inspiration which is why when you see posters or pieces of gorgeous glasswork or furniture, everything has curves, yes, and the windows on the houses of the Art Nouveau movement have gorgeous curves on them. And I I don’t know how they do that. Oh, it’s just it’s beautiful. It’s just absolutely. And of course, the idea was to create unique individual pieces that then could be reproduced on mass by industry. So there’s this very social context involved in this whole thing of the new moment. And so two or three of the people that are the most famous two of them. One is a man named Louis galley, right who was in fact I was doing some more reading about him yesterday and boy would I have loved to have met him he sounds like just the most amazing person sorry Amy galley and then another who wound up creating a factory for the making of crystal and hand and blown glass and furniture and extended beyond two other things there’s also Antonin dome who became famous for his magnificent glass and crystal were and then two people who were famous for their friend ensure and architecture and that is one named a man named Victor movie movie movie. Who’s
Unknown Speaker 35:09
here who’s furniture is in the off, say, in our selection of Art Nouveau. You see the beautiful pieces made out of fine would together discovery word. Yeah, everyone, and early measure have. And we measure it was an architect who made many of the houses that are still
Unknown Speaker 35:28
standing in two of the neighborhoods of Nancy, where you can see the gorgeous curbs around the windows, the curbs around the doors, so do they
Unknown Speaker 35:35
have like, hold neighborhoods built like
Unknown Speaker 35:37
two neighborhoods that are there to neighborhood still left one is called so grouped as a you are up at, okay,
Unknown Speaker 35:46
there are two neighborhoods where people go to walk the streets and take a look at some of these because these are the original buildings made at the very beginning of the whole Art Nouveau movement. And so the first president of the School of Nazi was a meal galley, yeah, but he was also this is why kind of like him, he was very
Unknown Speaker 36:08
politically engaged. So that he was he wanted to create a world where the workers had good salaries, good conditions, he he and his wife who was a designer for him that worked with him in this in the equal the Nazi and in his factory. They took political positions, they were friends with Victor Hugo and people like that they had positions that were fairly unpopular in a Nazi that was otherwise very conservative politically. For instance, they defend the dry food
Unknown Speaker 36:44
during the affair of Dr. First thing, Kevin Kevin Rogers. And apparently what happened was that towards the end of his life, because he didn’t die very old. He was 58 when he died, which was a 1904 people started did shunning their work, and they refuse to buy it because they didn’t agree with their politics. Because they were fairly advanced in their attitudes towards politics. They were much more inclusive, let’s put it that we would call it more like that, I think today than anything else. But they were the inspiration for the whole idea of what Art Nouveau was. Now the move itself only lasted officially really from 1892 1909
Unknown Speaker 37:27
why 1909, I’m not really sure because the School of Nazi once a new gallery died. It was Victor purvey, who took over until the school continued and it actually still exists as a decorative arts school you can go and actually study at the School of Nazi but
Unknown Speaker 37:51
what happened was that more or less by
Unknown Speaker 37:55
what was originally Art Nouveau with all of these curlicues and curves and start to become a guest to excessive started getting cleaner and we’re wound up becoming Art Deco right and Art Deco. If you look at the area of Trocadero and Paris or places like that, suddenly, you see that we’re dealing with far more symmetrical straight line. Yeah, with a little bit of massive or like a little bit of curve, but much more massive, straight line, and very simple than the opposite of ornate, which is what the Art Nouveau movement was all about. But it’s interesting that Art Nouveau was called something different. There were six or seven different countries in Western Europe, that all developed the same philosophy of art. And each each each of these countries called it something different. Haha. So in France is called Art Nouveau. But there was the same thing in Prague and Czechoslovakia at the time was Czechoslovakia. Yeah, and Belgium, in England, in Scotland, in Germany, in each of these countries, not insane. I didn’t exist in Spain. But in each of these countries, there was a similar movement, there was a lot of communication between these different crafts people and artists. And you can see that a certain similarity not always in the style what they did, but each country called it something slightly different. But it was exactly the same time period and the same movement, right. And
Unknown Speaker 39:26
we’ve done a, an episode about
Unknown Speaker 39:31
Yeah, I can’t remember what the number I don’t remember that I put a link to it in the show notes.
Unknown Speaker 39:36
But but but it’s really fascinating to see the the two Art Nouveau neighborhoods are then so route and sadly
Unknown Speaker 39:46
and you there, you can walk through the streets. I don’t I remember it. But I don’t. I couldn’t say if I knew exactly how big these neighborhoods are. They’re not that big naughty, isn’t that the Old City Center is that big anyway, but it’s very beautiful to walk around and just see all of these buildings. And of course the School of Nanci exists and also there’s a very, very, very beautiful Museum of Fine Arts. Hmm, very beautiful, not that big, but filled with wonderful work. That is, of course, more painting and sculpture that was inspired by the same movements plus of course, more historical older paintings and then some more recent but very very interesting work very beautiful place. So between the Art Nouveau parts of town and the three squares the plus Dennis Laos the plaster like Kathy year and the plaster Lally on some, all three of those which are gorgeous classical squares with beautiful buildings around them. As you mentioned before classical architectures more or less simple with three levels of windows, but on the top of these very decorative curlicue pieces they couldn’t get over the just like the wrought iron work which is absolutely fabulous and there’s a small part of old town that is still medieval very very small okay with a gate medieval gate and the bell tower and a few other pieces like that because the original sounds
Unknown Speaker 41:16
like a lovely place to visit just for a day
Unknown Speaker 41:19
Oh it’s really beautiful I think
Annie Sargent 41:20
that the while you’re talking I’m thinking I can’t remember the name of the person but one of the listeners did an episode with me where she mentions taking the train for a day or two yeah and back
Unknown Speaker 41:35
again if you stick around until after our conversation I’ll add these two episode numbers because I can remember many
Unknown Speaker 41:44
no but it’s very it really is lovely and then and then just as a way of finishing up talking about Nazi and know and we have the few dishes or foods that are associated
Unknown Speaker 41:57
with no you’re talking the food I
Unknown Speaker 42:00
can tell that one this is not one country you know you have to go a little bit west to champagne or you have to go east to as as to get your wine but not very far you can do that and a half an hour of actually pretty much going over the hills in two hours so but but of course the first thing that comes to mind uh huh is key
Unknown Speaker 42:19
key show
Unknown Speaker 42:21
all of these dishes were made for this wonderful Duke sadness Laos and his court
Unknown Speaker 42:26
What do you call them study slouch is standing Stanislas standard Slauson
Unknown Speaker 42:31
A u s
Unknown Speaker 42:34
in French you might be Stanislas with no maybe but
Unknown Speaker 42:37
it’s yeah you’re speaking English speaking English and polish
Unknown Speaker 42:43
I think that’s a
Unknown Speaker 42:45
Quiche Lorraine which of course is a basic he’s at a comment about the word quiche because I know that it happens that now in the states we call any savory tart a quiche and in France you say quiche people assume it’s quiche look ahead
Unknown Speaker 43:03
yes it’s going to have eggs and make a cream and you’re right and
Unknown Speaker 43:10
and grated cheese and other kinds of savory tarts are not called quiche love and
Unknown Speaker 43:15
know they’re called dot size that Sally right?
Unknown Speaker 43:19
But if you go states or talk to an American, they will say what kind of fish do you have today? And there it is. I see. Okay, so the word quiche has become this kind of generic term for any savory tart right as opposed to just teach love it
Unknown Speaker 43:34
okay yeah. In France is still still Kesha right okay
Unknown Speaker 43:37
so these key stuff and baba baba
Unknown Speaker 43:43
it was invented for him delicious he must have had a sweet tooth
Unknown Speaker 43:47
yeah this is like a really it’s like a sponge cake with a hole in the middle and would run in and
Unknown Speaker 43:55
there’s a bit of a pastry cream to maybe but but it’s a it’s a raised Yo it’s a little bit like the it’s a raised away think the Bob Oh it’s it’s
Unknown Speaker 44:05
like a sponge cake
Unknown Speaker 44:06
but I think it’s made with bread yeast I think could but anyway it’s soaked in rum yeah I love it. Some people don’t like that because they don’t like pastries with alcohol without calm I will happen to
Unknown Speaker 44:16
you like that I haven’t had one in so long oh
Unknown Speaker 44:19
yeah but and lamb Madeline Madeline. From there to it was also all of these things were invented in the middle of the 18th century for the court of the Duke Stanislas
Unknown Speaker 44:33
I see so Madeleine was invented for yes
Unknown Speaker 44:35
and the Madeleine
Unknown Speaker 44:37
who is it that invented you know
Unknown Speaker 44:38
i don’t know i don’t know the name of the cook okay I probably his name of a cook somewhere and if those people out there who don’t know what a Madeline is. And of course, it’s improved. If you haven’t read your
Unknown Speaker 44:50
who has read their post. Actually. Yes. It’s a wonderful little cake that’s in the form of a shell.
Unknown Speaker 44:57
Yeah, it’s
Unknown Speaker 44:58
a shell with a little ratio. Middle of the race bump in the middle. But it’s this wonderful kind of kind of like a light version of a pound cake.
Unknown Speaker 45:07
It’s much lighter and love metal. And
Unknown Speaker 45:09
I just love them now. I think I’d actually have Madeline over a nice job. Oh, yeah. Yes. And the last of these bushy do La
Unknown Speaker 45:18
la la
Unknown Speaker 45:20
do see a market come bullshit.
Unknown Speaker 45:24
Yeah. Well, somebody who doesn’t know
Unknown Speaker 45:27
which. There are many bloggers out there who talk about friends. But this was on TV. I don’t know. I don’t know
Unknown Speaker 45:33
this. But.
Unknown Speaker 45:35
So what we have is what a flaky pastry cup filled with basically,
Unknown Speaker 45:45
I think traditionally meat and mushrooms in a cream sauce. I think that’s the truth. So you and mushrooms. And
Annie Sargent 45:50
so in my family my mother made Mashallah. Hannah, but it was with a a beef and mushroom and green Olive sauce. Right. But that was my version of it. I don’t know. There must be. I mean, you could probably fill this up with
Unknown Speaker 46:09
a separate we do the only canal canal canal. Do young. Yes. Yes. Within
Unknown Speaker 46:15
the thing. The common denominator seems to be a sauce.
Unknown Speaker 46:18
Yeah, it’s usually a white sauce
Unknown Speaker 46:21
served as a first course, I believe.
Unknown Speaker 46:24
Yes. In fancy restaurants. But my mother made it as a main as a main dish. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 46:29
yeah. I certainly never made anything like it. Because
Annie Sargent 46:31
it would take you a long time to make that for you know, it’s a it’s like a puff puff pastry puff pastry up, right. But it? Yeah, it’s shaped like a cup. And in France, you can buy it. Yeah, any grocery store will have it. It’s it’s pretty common food. But it’s what you put in it by an over it. That’s delicious.
Unknown Speaker 46:50
Did your mom actually make the pastry?
Unknown Speaker 46:52
No, no, no. She always bought it she just bought that would be a lot of work. Yeah, it would be a lot of work.
Unknown Speaker 46:57
But those are just some of the things that actually originate from there
Unknown Speaker 47:00
all those me rebel
Unknown Speaker 47:02
Mirabella which is of course, yeah, the it’s a tiny little
Unknown Speaker 47:09
tiny, little
Unknown Speaker 47:12
tiny, tiny little yellow plum. Yeah, that grows there. And then on the other side, and I was asked which is where it’s made actually into a liquor but it’s totally delicious and so you get the title Mirabelle which is just wonderful to Oh yeah, that’s good too. And then if you stay Nancy,
Unknown Speaker 47:30
it’s actually a good place to stay. If you want to have a day or two to go explore the voltage mountains. Hmm, now the Motown sound good height. So wonderful hikes there. I did this a lot while I was living in that area, they’re not very high. It’s very beautiful, dense forest. A lot of evergreen tree fires, lakes, lots of hikes
Unknown Speaker 47:53
really very in the winter there’s some cross country skiing
Unknown Speaker 47:57
I would bet
Unknown Speaker 47:57
that their local tourism board would probably have like developed hikes and carry and you know walking paths that you can do and all that
Unknown Speaker 48:09
it’s a very it’s very very beautiful there are a couple of places where they are old castles in the forest but mostly it’s just a it’s a region if you are familiar with
Unknown Speaker 48:19
some of the Northern Appalachian region says can pick as you get into Pennsylvania or even upstate New York I mean it’s not quite that cold but it’s very similar it’s all rounded mountains is very very beautiful turns gorgeous colors in the fall I bet it does really beautiful so from the village mountains you have the Lorraine area with small cities around that circle around Nazi and then if you go east you get to
Unknown Speaker 48:49
access Do you happen to know what the main industry is there now?
Unknown Speaker 48:53
Well, to be truthful, the main industries are gone that is used to be missing heavily heavily heavily mines and textiles yeah there are still crystal and ceramics made in the area
Unknown Speaker 49:09
the it’s one of the few things that have stayed in the area so for instance the dome factories which are dome is magnificent for crystal and glass now that’s do mmm Do you m o D Oh you
Unknown Speaker 49:23
Yeah no, no,
Unknown Speaker 49:25
no
Unknown Speaker 49:26
dum dum dum dum dum
Unknown Speaker 49:28
they still exist Oh I thought it was done Baccarat is an area to okay because it’s the crystal so I mean, it’s of course crystal. The difference between crystal glasses crystal has led in it
Unknown Speaker 49:42
there’s a little bit of textile but not very much. Even when I was living there. It was kind of sad to see the small towns kind of if you go away from Nancy and more into the foothills of the ocean it’s kind of a little bit like parts of eastern Pennsylvania where there used to be a lot of industry and it’s kind of close not anymore so you have now of course service industry far more
Unknown Speaker 50:06
tourism which is very important for the version for the whole region and agriculture as well but in terms of industry in the sense that we understand the term it’s mostly now connected to glass crystal and the little bit still of textiles there’s some tapestry working in the area the mines are all gone oh yeah oh god
Unknown Speaker 50:28
I don’t think we have a single mine
Unknown Speaker 50:30
do the steel factories are all gone yeah salute to salute right exactly so so and that of course all happened I bite after world war two Really? Yes, pretty much dissolved after a couple of decades. So I think the service industries that really taken up for instance Nancy is kind of it’s the capital of the area so it has all of the things including the university and hospital and all of that if you go to a small town nearby which is actually where I lived which is called AP now which is a city of 50, 55,000
Unknown Speaker 51:08
people
Unknown Speaker 51:10
it’s it’s it’s got a two year university program where after what you have to go to Nancy or further away yeah it’s got a couple of you know schools it’s got a small but nice little Art Museum but it’s a small town did you
Unknown Speaker 51:27
end up there anyway
Unknown Speaker 51:28
Fulbright
Unknown Speaker 51:31
Fulbright. Nice.
Unknown Speaker 51:33
Yeah, you’re smart woman. Yeah, it wasn’t bad, except the weather was atrocious. He went on at the end of August this is this is this is only other side of the this is this is south of of Nancy, so it’s about 60, I think 60 about 60 kilometers south of Nanci and it’s more into the forest area. So it’s kind of like in a little bit of a Corvette. So it’s a little bit of a battle and it’s surrounded by really exquisite land. I mean, the forest there are beautiful, a lot of people would go mushroom hunting. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 52:11
Also, there are places in the forest there were there are signs and not only sometimes not signs about things that are left from World War One, because there was a lot of fighting in that area during World War One. But it’s,
Unknown Speaker 52:25
it’s to do anything more to do anything more either culturally, or even to go to big stores and stuff like that. You have to kind of go up to Nazi which is a sophisticated,
Unknown Speaker 52:38
yeah, because it’d be nice. It was just too small, too small, you know, city girl,
Unknown Speaker 52:44
girl, you
Unknown Speaker 52:44
know, I mean, it was the music was nice, actually. It was a nice and also there’s a actually a small but very interesting art school in an AP now, but but you have two or three cities like that one is San Diego, which is really in
Unknown Speaker 53:00
as you said, de de da de I eat with it. So yeah, okay. Never heard of it.
Unknown Speaker 53:07
Right.
Unknown Speaker 53:10
Remote. I think it’s called remote or something like that. There are small towns that are 10, 15,000
Unknown Speaker 53:17
people he announced soon. superficial. So
Unknown Speaker 53:21
it’s kind of the same sizes. That would be but it feels much or at least when I was there. I felt much smaller. Yeah. Then Then I’ll be because it’s surrounded really by forest and pasture land.
Unknown Speaker 53:33
Yeah, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 53:35
But but it’s a it’s a region that is very beautiful to both visit the towns and also explore going hiking and there’s lots of lakes and lots of things like that. So in the summertime, it’s wonderful.
Unknown Speaker 53:47
Yeah, when the weather is good, it’s
Unknown Speaker 53:49
good. So that’s basically, you know, the lower end. I mean, you get further east, you go into Alsace, if you go north, you get into the northern part of Moselle in the city of Mets. And eventually you get to Luxembourg far away, right, right. So we’re really talking about the northeast corner of friends, but
Unknown Speaker 54:05
it’s cool that you can go on the TV and just do it as a date.
Unknown Speaker 54:09
Yes, it’s absolutely wonderful. probably would have to
Unknown Speaker 54:11
get up early in the morning. Yeah, you wouldn’t get home till do back to the hotel to 10 or something pm but still do and do it in the day and do it
Unknown Speaker 54:18
or you can do it I mean, you know, we both done we’ve, you know, we’ve done podcast about stuff book which of course, it’s absolutely fabulous and a huge and much, much bigger city but nasi is worth a stop, whether you’re staying in Strasbourg or whether you’re staying in Paris, either on the way or literally, you know, make it like grants. You know, these are both places that are great for a day.
Unknown Speaker 54:39
Yes. So you could go like from Paris, you could get your hands and then to Nancy, and then just husband and back to Paris. Yeah, but not an all in one day. No, no, one day. No, no, that would take three days. It would take three days, but it’d be a great little circuit. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 54:52
Excellent. Thank you, Alice. You are quite welcome.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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Episode PageCategories: Alsace and Lorraine, Day-Trips from Paris, Off the Beaten Track in France