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Superb castle in the Perche!

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The Saint-Eloi Saint-Jean-Baptiste church in Crécy-Couvé is currently being restored. The spire of its bell tower, which was leaning dangerously, has been dismantled and is currently stored in the church awaiting restoration.

Located on the banks of the Blaise River, southwest of Dreux in the prestigious Crécy-Couvé district, the Marquise de Pompadour's residence from 1746 to 1757, the seigneury of Saulnières came under the Marquise's ownership in 1754. Some remarkable elements of the church's furnishings are undoubtedly due to the generosity of this patron of the arts. The Saint-Pierre church, built on the heights of the commune of Saulnières, is believed to have originally been the church of a Benedictine convent, which ceded it to its inhabitants in 1571 after the sack of their place of worship in 1562, during the First Battle of Dreux. While the cartularies of Saint-Père, Beaulieu, and Belhomer mention the town from the first half of the 12th century, we have no documents on the church before its transfer to the commune. The building (34 m by 11.5 m), oriented, with a single nave of four bays extended by a choir bay, ends with a three-sided chevet extended along the axis by a sacristy. The walls are made of cobblestone and grison rubble, while the twelve buttresses are sandstone. The steeply pitched roof is covered with tiles, and, practically in its center, stands a bell tower with a hexagonal base crowned by a spire of the same shape. The western door is framed by two buttresses: it is surmounted by a rose window that probably dates from the 19th-century construction campaign. In the south wall, at the level of the first bay, a blocked, semicircular-arched entrance door suggests a Romanesque construction. From the second bay, light streams in generously through eight openings: semicircular arches for those in the nave and Gothic-style for the four choir bays; a fifth, axial, was blocked when the altarpiece was installed. The 16th-century stained-glass windows were destroyed during a bombing raid during the Second World War; only a few elements, listed as Historic Monuments, remain in the sacristy. The vault, covered with shingles, must have been painted, as evidenced by the hallmark decorated with black and white diamonds and chevrons, likely from the 16th century. The great simplicity of the architecture is offset by the relative richness of the furnishings. The late 15th-century stone statues representing Saint Barbara, a religious figure without attributes, and two angels from the same period constitute a fine example of Gothic sculpture, albeit lacking the two angels purchased in the early 20th century for the Louvre, where they are now on display. The choir's layout could date back to the time of Madame de Pompadour: the doors, open on either side of the central section, are surmounted by two painted and gilded wooden statues, Saint Peter and Saint Sebastian. The central section is crowned by God the Father, and the canvas depicts Saint Peter freed from his chains by an angel. A fragmentary funerary liter is still visible inside and outside. In 2003, the Sauvegarde de l'Art Français (French National Art Foundation) granted €10,000 in aid to help repair the structure and roof of the building, whose condition had been aggravated by the 1999 storm.

The Church of Saint-Éloi-Saint-Jean-Baptiste is believed to have originally been the chapel of the Château de Couvé, the first known mention of which dates back to 1215. This château belonged to the Abbey of Saint Père de Chartres. The layout of this chapel is currently unknown. Observing the architectural features of the current church allows us to place its construction between the 15th and 16th centuries. Improvement and modernization work were undertaken in the second half of the 18th century when Louis XV offered the Crécy estate to the Marquise de Pompadour: enlargement of the medieval windows, construction of an altarpiece forming a sacristy, a choir enclosure, and a gallery that could replace an older structure providing access to the attic. During this work, it is assumed that some of the bell tower's supports were removed to free up the nave and harmonize the interior spaces. After a prosperous period, the 19th and 20th centuries saw a slow deterioration of the building, despite some maintenance work being carried out on the roofs and other parts of the church that required it. It was only in 1901 that major work was undertaken, with the repair of the bell tower roof. This was followed in 1925 by work to consolidate the bell tower structures and repair the roofs of the western part of the nave. The bell tower and spire are tilting significantly to the south, linked to a failure of the old supports and the deterioration of the supporting structures, requiring urgent safety and restoration work.

Unfortunately, the church was not accessible when I visited (mid-September 2024). You could only look in through a gate and the dance of death depictions on the left side were not really visible. In front of them were transparencies with skeleton drawings. Maybe those were the depictions...

Of course there is the castle but the rest of the village is really worth a stop (church, wash house, half-timbered house, etc.)

This church has Saint Martin as patron or rather protector, chosen for his holiness, example of charity, faith and mercy. This charity he showed by offering half of his coat to a shivering poor man to warm him. His radiant faith as a hermit and monk, founder in Ligugé in 460 of the first monastic community in Gaul...