There are many legends of Bonvouloir, here is one we think has a ring of truth. First published October 2015 A medieval knight, not old but exhausted by years of 12th century combat, rode through the forest of Andaines towards home. Hugues, Seigneur de Tessé was tired. Tired of losing good friends in
Orne
All our posts from the Orne region.
The mild mannered murderer, from Alençon
First published November 2015 Murderer and fraud Edme Samuel Castaing was born in 1789, during the turbulent years of the French Revolution but in Alençon, a prosperous country town that experienced little in the way of revolutionary disorder. Edme’s childhood was relatively undisturbed. His family was comfortably bourgeois and as far as
The trouble with historians, at the Manoir d’Argentelles
The Gacé girl who became a Paris queen; La Dame aux Camélias
First published 2016/07/02 Within this imposing fortress at Gacé, is a small unexpected homage. A museum dedicated to a local girl whose short life was filled with passion, fame, tragedy and horror. In Gacé, Rose-Alphonsine Plessis worked in an umbrella factory. As Marie Duplessis, she was the courtesan queen of Paris, for a
Falling down in the Orne; a tale of friendship and murder
First published 2015 Home to Parisian bankers, international golf hotel and Normandy residence of a British criminal who once joined the Queen on the Sunday Times ‘Rich List’. This is possibly the most unnerving postcard match to make the pages of Normandy Then and Now. When we couldn’t find the location