#Bagnères de Bigorre

[retrogeographie]

Bagnères-de-Bigorre, le centre médical.

[percehaies]

Bagnères-de-Bigorre

1855

[love-for-carnation]

Bouquet d'oeillets Blanche Odin (French, 1865–1957)

Blanche studied with watercolorist Madeleine Jeanne Lemaire in Paris, because art schools were closed to women. In 1902 she opened her own workshop. Blanche's works, especially still lifes, were a great success and were favorably assessed by critics and were exhibited in Parisian galleries. She has produced a body of work that is a reflection of France’s tradition in impressionism, and serves as an example of painting during the years between Post-Impressionism and Cubism. Her works are in the collection of the Musée Salies in Bagnères-de-Bigorre.

Other painter's works: https://www.artnet.com/artists/blanche-odin/

[de-gueules-au-lion-d-or]

Bagnères-de-Bigorre. Intérieur paysan en 1930.

[barbarapicci]

Streetart by Rémi Tournier @ Bagneres de Bigorre, France, for Ville de Bagnères-de-Bigorre

More pics at: https://barbarapicci.com/2023/12/06/streetart-remi-tournier-bagneres-de-bigorre-france/

[whatpandorasaw]

Dome of the observatory of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre under a starry sky, Bagnères-de-Bigorre, La Mongie, Hautes-Pyrénées, France

[claudehenrion]

Crac ! Boum ! Hue ! (etc...)

Surtout, ne me faites pas dire ce que je ne pense pas : ce titre n'est en rien une revendication de ma part. Non, je n'ai pas, comme Jacques Dutron avait la chance d'en avoir un dans sa jeunesse, ''un piège à filles, un truc tabou, Un joujou extra qui fait crac boum hue''... Et, hélas, ''Les filles ne tombent pas à mes genoux''. En revanche, dans mon immeuble parisien, un voisin a profité de ses vacances pour se lancer dans des travaux iso-hidalguesques. Je ne sais pas à quelles destructions sont destinés les bruits incroyables qui provoquent mon réveil depuis quelques matins, mais ses corps de métiers doivent se prendre pour des décathloniens... ou pour le ''truc'' de Dutron !

Si je vous raconte ça, c'est parce que grâce à une ''pub'' parue dans le quotidien gratuit ''20 minutes'' et transmise par Alain Rémond, de ''La Croix'', je suis tombé sur une proposition d'expérimenter une toute nouvelle technique dite ''de relaxation sonore'' : si je veux vraiment être enfin bien dans ma tête, dans mon corps, et partout ailleurs, il me faut absolument ''des vibrations sonores''. Question à 100 $ (US) : ''C'est grave, docteur ?''. La réponse est : on verra plus tard... car pour le moment, il semblerait que je manque dramatiquement de cette invention ''ultra-quelque chose '' et ''extra-pleine de trucs'', dont une sophrologue-spécialisée-en-relaxation-sonore vante les mérites indubitables (?) dans la dite pub. ''Ces massages sonores, affirme-t-elle sans faiblir, sont la base d'une science nouvelle, la (je cite) sonopuncture'' qui, si j'ai tout compris, serait exactement la même chose qu'une acupuncture dont l'aiguille serait remplacée par des sons (c'est un peu comme un coq au vin, qui serait fait avec des andouilles de vire et des tripes à la mode de Caen !).

''Les vibrations sonores –explique-t-elle-- se propagent à travers les os, et le cerveau est (donc ?) directement atteint sans effort'' (Questions : atteint où, par quoi, venant de qui ?). Le résultat est sans appel  : c'est épatant ! On est relaxé dans tous les sens, comme jamais. Et c'est pour qui, toutes ces merveilles ? Mais pour tout le monde, voyons ! Pour vous et pour votre belle-mère... ce qui m'a remis en mémoire une émission récente de FR3, sur le thermalisme : devant l'effondrement du nombre de gens intéressés par ce sport, la station de Bagnères-de-Bigorre a remplacé la fréquentation de ses sources chantantes par... des siestes interminables sur un lit sous lequel des abeilles (par milliers, par trilliers, par ruches entières) font vibrer leurs ailes... ce qui vous guérit de toutes les mêmes choses que ''les eaux'' jusque là (ça me fait penser aux belles-mères à cause de la possibilité d'une erreur d'aiguillage qui donnerait à ces hyménoptères pleins de piquant(s) l'envie de se tromper d'étage... et là, ''Bonjour les dégâts'' !).

Vous allez me dire : quel lien avec ton voisin d'immeuble ? Mais voyons... dans le caractère relaxant et curatif du bruit ! Je veux parler du miracle de la ''sonothérapie'', dont je suis en mesure de mesurer à leur juste mesure les avantages (pour moi rigoureusement introuvables) et les inconvénients (dont je tiens la liste à votre disposition : elle n'entre pas dans les limites fixées par mon fournisseur d'espace !). Mais je peux vous dire que, depuis quelques jours, j'expérimente, à fond la caisse, les massages sonores, les voyages éponymes, la sono- et la -puncture et que, jusqu'à cet instant, cela ne marche pas avec ou sur moi. Mais alors... pas du tout !

En fait, si quelqu'un pouvait être intéressé par mon avis (ce qui est rarement le cas...), je dirais même que ça a un effet rigoureusement inverse : les perceuses et les marteaux-piqueurs semblent créer sur mon système nerveux des dégâts collatéraux qui me foutent un coup de vieux dont je n'avais absolument pas besoin. Je peux même vous dire que le seul fait d'entendre des murs d'habitude protecteurs se mettre à trembler comme un volcan en Islande, et menacer de s'écouler après s'être fissurés comme un hôpital à Gaza, m'angoisse et génère en moi des torrents de gros mots et d'insultes que je n'avais pas éructées depuis les années (à peu près trois, comme toute ma classe d'âge !) où je fréquentais assidûment l'institution militaire en tant que ''Maintenu''.

En fait, j'en ai même tiré une sorte de règle générale : ''Plus ça vibre, et plus je stresse !'', et plus je suis enveloppé, jeté, trimballé, secoué, violenté et j'en passe, dans une solitude généralement réservée aux coureurs de fond, pour paraphraser Alan Sillitoe (''The loneliness of the long distance runner'' –1959). Et, un peu comme les paysans français ou les habitants du Pas de Calais, j'ai une forte impression d'abandon, de ''trop, c'est trop'', et de ''personne ne m'aime''...

C'est d'ailleurs à cette impression d'abandon que vous devez cet édito encore plus ''déjanté'' que les autres : il fallait que je partage ma ''différence ressentie'' entre les textes qui circulent, en cette période où la folie sort de plus en plus souvent des asiles … et le ressenti, justement, d'un pauvre citoyen lambda confronté aux terribles réalités du siècle ! Pour un peu, je deviendrais sartrien (c'est vous dire combien je suis touché, en profondeur !), au point de penser que l'enfer, c'est le bruit des autres ! Bonne sieste et à demain, pour un sujet plus sérieux...

H-Cl.

[postcard-from-the-past]

Maintenon alley in Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Gascony region of southern France

French vintage postcard

[ravla]

[ENGLISH, french below] Meet me tomorrow in Bagnères-de-Bigorre to fill up on new drawings to color 🐰! ------------ [FRENCH] Retrouvez-moi demain à Bagnères-de-Bigorre pour faire le plein de nouveaux dessins à colorier 🐰!

[zehub]

Pyrénées : Un séisme enregistré au sud de Tarbes très fortement ressenti

Un séisme entre 4 et 4,7 s’est produit ce mardi à 11h23 à 9 km au sud de Tarbes et à l’est de Bagnères-de-Bigorre (Hautes-Pyrénées)

[nedsecondline]

Streetart – Rémi Tournier @ Bagneres de Bigorre, France

Title: LES PIERRES PRÉCIEUSES Location: Bagneres de Bigorre, France Artist: Rémi Tournier For: Ville de Bagnères-de-Bigorre Size: 12x9m Year: 2023 …Streetart – Rémi Tournier @ Bagneres de Bigorre, France

[percehaies]

Tour des Jacobins, Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Hautes-Pyrénées.

1840

[love-for-carnation]

Vase œillets Blanche Odin (1865-1957, French)

Blanche studied with watercolorist Madeleine Jeanne Lemaire in Paris, because art schools were closed to women. In 1902 she opened her own workshop. Blanche's works, especially still lifes, were a great success and were favorably assessed by critics and were exhibited in Parisian galleries. She has produced a body of work that is a reflection of France’s tradition in impressionism, and serves as an example of painting during the years between Post-Impressionism and Cubism. Her works are in the collection of the Musée Salies in Bagnères-de-Bigorre.

Other painter's works: https://www.artnet.com/artists/blanche-odin/

[lauthenticfrance]

La Mongie Ski Resort | Snowshoes hiking

Activity that combines fun, sport, and discovery. All winter, from the La Mongie Ski Resort, daily Snowshoes hiking to discover the treasures and dream landscapes.

The mountain in winter is not just skiing! The mountainside nature as soon as the snow is there… Fancy an activity that combines fun, sport and discovery? All winter, from the ski resort of La Mongie, daily snowshoe outings for half a day (morning and afternoon) or for the day, to discover the treasures and dream landscapes that the mountain conceals. With each walk you will discover an enchanting landscape! Places suitable for snowshoeing thanks to their gentle slopes and the treasures of the landscapes they conceal!

For children, the equipment is suitable and appropriate for a discovery of the activity from 5 years old. They will learn to play little trappers behind animal tracks … or even by venturing into igloo building! Before enjoying a good hot chocolate that I will be happy to offer you.

From 2 people, multiple possibilities in the country of your holidays. I offer you at your leisure, magnificent Nordic type hikes with easy snowshoeing, but also peaks with a little more sporty snowshoeing … With why not the waters of Aquensis, the balneo center of Bagnères de Bigorre to finish gently your day.

visit our site : https://www.lauthenticfrance.com/tour/snowshoes-hiking/

[impetuous-impulse]

Thank you so much, Josefa and @northernmariette! I've wanted to know about this for a while.

I'm glad to see that, despite his "lack of individuality", Hippolyte Larrey did not fade from posterity. Off the top of my head, he had relationships with Sarah Bernhardt's mother (if that aspect of her memoirs are to be trusted), as well as the (disputed) heroine of the Franco-Prussian War, Juliette Dodu. He was also in significant positions of power. Wellcome Collection, a museum in London, which owns some archival material on the Larreys, has this to say about Hippolyte:

Félix Hippolyte Larrey (1808-1895) was the son of Dominique Larrey, and inherited the title of Baron Larrey on his fathers death in 1842. He was chief medical officer of the army and physician to Napoléon III, and was elected president of the Académie de Médecine in 1863. As well as his medical work, Félix Larrey was the political representative for the town of Bagnères-de-Bigorre in south west France for a number of years.

The Wellcome Collection also has a photograph of him, previously misidentified as his father.

For those who can read French, the Assemblée-Nationale has compiled a few short biographies of his accolades.

As for Isaure, here is a portrait of her by the Larreys' close friend Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, now kept in the Louvre. She has a definite resemblance to her father.

I wondered if she ever managed to get married, so I did a bit of digging. In the book Les ministres des Finances de la Révolution française au Second Empire (I), a record of her maternal grandfather, René Leroulx-Delaville, states that she got married to a certain N... Perrier. As the Larreys had a property in Bièvres, an official website of one of its Bièvres' domains, Monteclin, has an article of Hippolyte that mentions Isaure was married without descendants. As the article's source is the book Bièvres et ses célébrités au 19e siècle (1988), published by the amateur society Amis de la Bibliothèque Nationale, it isn't academically rigorous, but I'm inclined to believe it unless proven otherwise. One hopes that the marriage was happy, at the very least.

Still, who is this N... Perrier? There are very few first common names that start with N in French. If he's not Nicolas, then he's probably Napoleon. Lo and behold, here's who we find in p. 302 of the Gazette médicale de Paris, Volume 30 (1859):

--Here is the composition of the health service of the Army of Italy [mobilised for the Second Italian War of Independence by Napoleon III]: M. Baron H. Larrey is named chief surgeon of the army; [...]. MM. Legouest, Bertrand, and Cazalas are attached to the general headquarters; MM. Méry and Napoléon Perrier to the ambulances of the Guard.

Is this Isaure's husband? The other figures are only mentioned by their surname, which makes this entry strange, but given that DJ and Hippolyte Larrey were military surgeons, it would make sense that Isaure also married one. A (unsourced) Genenet family tree also lists the mysterious Perrier as a "military surgeon, professor at the Val-de-Grâce Hospital" [for the instruction of the army], so there seems to be tentative corroboration.

Upsettingly, as mentioned by the official Bièvres website that also references Bièvres et ses célébrités, Isaure had already been interred in her father's tomb in 1853, in the section where the Marshals are buried. Seeing that her mother was only buried in the cemetery of Bièvres, Isaure may have had a closer relationship with her "tyrannical" father than one might expect. However, the remains of her father was transferred to Les Invalides in 1992. In the report on the transferral process, Isaure's remains are not mentioned at all. Further throwing Isaure's place of burial into suspicion is the report's mention of Hippolyte's coffin, which was also interred in DJ Larrey's tomb after Hippolyte's death in 1895. Was Isaure removed beforehand or simply not buried there? Conclusions are yet to be found.

Hope someone found these leaps-of-faith speculations entertaining, if not useful! For information on DJ Larrey's daily life instead his children's, reference Place à monsieur Larrey, chirurgien de la garde impériale by Jean Marchioni. Translations of its excerpts, which can be found under the tag place à monsieur larrey, are available on the wonderful @histoireettralala blog.

Larrey and his family

A while ago I came across a discussion about Dominique Larrey’s family life, in particular, about him treating his two children (daughter Isaure and son Hippolyte) rather badly. I hope people are still interested in the topic, as now we’ve rediscovered the book this bit of information came from. It’s a 1902 biography by one Paul Triaire, "Dominique Larrey et les campagnes de la Révolution et de l’Empire (1768-1842)". Just as a disclaimer, while I will cite some not so nice passages about Larrey, the overall tone of the book is very positive, if not outright adoring. As a matter of fact, I’ve come across a book review from 1902 that vehemently reproached the author of being too uncritical of his hero and of not – as we would say today – fact-checking his sources (often letters and texts by Larrey himself that the author took at face-value).

All credit for this goes to @northernmariette who found the book on Gallica first, I’m merely the translator (or rather, DeepL is, and I’m typing it down).

I had the impression on browsing the pages that Larrey was, as far as family matters are concerned, an extremely conservative man, and had probably always been. For example, he seems to have been very disappointed in Cairo on learning (from the one and only letter from his wife that made it to Egypt) that Madame Larrey had given birth to "only" a girl:

[…] This single letter filled him with a joy that was not unmixed. It informed him of the birth of a girl, instead of the boy, already named Hippolyte in advance, that he had been expecting. […] We shall see later that this daughter, whose arrival Larrey greeted so coldly, was, on the contrary - as is often the case - the delight and consolation of his life.

Unfortunately, we cannot ask daughter Isaure if this was also true the other way around.

And just to show the other extreme: When in 1809 he learned in Spain that Madame Larrey finally had given birth to the long awaited little Hippolyte, Larrey claims to have been so beside himself with joy that he ran from door to door and even tried to disturb King Joseph during his siesta in order to share the news.

At this time, in 1809, young Isaure (who must have been around ten) had already become her father’s preferred correspondent - apparently regardless of whether the topic was suitable or comprehensible for a child. Among other things, Larrey instructed his daughter about how to treat her mother during and after the pregnancy.

[...] One has to look at the letters he wrote, not to his wife, whom he did not want to worry, but to his nine-year-old daughter Isaure, who became his confidante. It was an extraordinary peculiarity of Larrey's character that he had such a way with this child. He obviously lacked the faculty of discerning the ages, and his recommendations were of the kind that are usually addressed only to a grown-up. By the same mental transposition, he was later to send his son, a young schoolboy of six or seven, his "Mémoires et campagnes" (Memoirs and Campaigns), instead of the short stories we are accustomed to having children read. However, these strange methods of early education did not prevent his daughter from becoming an accomplished woman, and his son from one day becoming one of the most distinguished men of his time. He sent Isaure detailed instructions on her mother's hygiene, bed rest, diet and finally the baptism. The child, who was to be a boy - Larrey did not even intend to consider the possibility to the contrary - was to be called Félix-Hippolyte. [...]

This sounds all a little weird, but surely not extraordinary for the time. Apparently, the real problems only started after the Empire, with Larrey now staying home, with his family. Over whom he dominated rather severely. Severly enough, in fact, for the author to use the word "tyrannique", tyrannical.

It seems at first sight, from what we know of his character and the tenderness he showed towards his wife and children, that he must have been completely happy to live among them. He had always hated the extended separations that had kept him away from his family for so long and so often, and he had long wished for peace. In all his letters to his wife from the farthest corners of the world, from the banks of the Sprée, the Danube, the Elbe and the Niemen, he expressed his ardent desire to be reunited with her and to live peacefully as a family. [...] However, it does not appear that he enjoyed this longed-for reunion with his wife and children, as one might think. [...] He had difficulty adjusting to the demands of family life, which was so new to him, where a woman's wishes and desires had to be taken into account, as well as the many delicate conditions of raising children, and, without realising it, he brought the authoritarian aspects of camp life into his home. With his wife, the sweet and charming Laville, whom he had adored and whom he still loved, - but in his own way, - with Isaure, a charming child who had been his correspondent during the last campaign and who had become a beautiful and charming young girl, he was imperious and domineering. He was no less tyrannical and authoritarian with his son, this Hippolyte whose birth he had so ardently wished for, who was to become the joy and pride of his old age and who bore so proudly the heavy heritage of his father's name. [...] His daughter Isaure suffered the most from this despotic yoke. In 1815, she was at the peak of her youth and beauty. [...] Many suitors sought her hand in marriage. This went on for a long time, because Larrey, jealous of his daughter's affection, could find no suitor worthy of her and eliminated them all one by one.

Followed by a longer story about one of her suitors, Antoine Clot aka Clot-Bey, a French physician who would become important for the modernisation and the development of a medical service in Egypt during to 1830s and 1840s. Larrey seems to have originally estimated this man greatly, but immediately dismissed him on realizing that he and Isaure had taken a liking to each other. This story must have caused a bit of a stir as it is also eluded to in an eloge after Hippolyte Larrey’s death.

If Larrey's hand was too forceful for his daughter, it fell no less heavily on his son. But this was a man's education, and its rigour had fewer drawbacks. It is even probable that Hippolyte Larrey owed to this inflexible and authoritarian education, but imbued with the lofty ideas which had governed the entire life of the surgeon of the Grande Armée, a large part of his solid qualities and, in particular, the uprightness and elevation of character, the delicacy of conscience, the spirit of justice, the unalterable feelings of honour and loyalty, which like his father he possessed to a high degree and which made him one of the most remarkable men of his generation. However, this restrictive upbringing had its drawbacks, and it must have robbed him of some of his individuality. It is remarkable that it was by abusing the prodigious originality of his temperament that Larrey attenuated that of his son. This was perhaps not a misfortune; the times were indeed very different, and the dominating energy, the absolute will, the tenacity and the almost superhuman fortitude that Larrey had first shown during the wars of the Revolution and the Empire, could not have been used under the peaceful regimes of the Restoration and the July government.

This lack of individuality in Hippolyte Larrey also is hinted at in the same eloge.

So, that’s the story. I am still of the opinion that of all those men whose entire lives were spent in war, not a single one returned without harm.

But hey, Larrey for once seems to have been the opposite of a henpecked husband, quite contrary to all the marshals 😁.

[fs-vacances]

Petite maison de montagne à 1 km du village d'Asque, calame et tranquilité dans les Hautes Pyrénées