History (Translation by Virginie Ganivet) |
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Le Pin-la-Garenne: the hotel of la Croix d'Or in 1910 |
Why " Le Pin " ? Two explanations might be accepted. Both of them go back to the pre-catholic times. According to Abbot Villette, specialist in the origin of places' names, Le Pin would be the progressive reduction of latin espinatus, which means: place covered with thorns, bushes. As a consequence, it would come from the point of view of the village's first inhabitants on the small valley where they decided to settle. According to other sources, the name Le Pin would be the result of celtic worships in which nature is peopled by gods and godesses embodied in the moon, in rivers and in many important trees. The oak is of course the Druids' tree; the pine (le pin), though less famous, is also a sacred tree. Besides, many communes and localities in France are named "Le Pin", which shows that men have been interested in this tree for centuries. As any vegetal being, the tree finally died but not without giving up its name as a remembrance deeply "rooted" through generations. The springs worship probably also goes back up to this celtic period. As for them, springs carry on flowing and we are once again concerned: During the advent of Christianism, around the fifth or the sixth century, hermits and preachers used to denounce these worships and as they couldn't abolish them, they turned springs into prayer places dedicated to Saints. This is the reason why the fountain that supplies our drinking-water network is called Fontaine Saint-Ouen. In the end of the 9th century, owing to the same reasons, the castle's church became the parish church and was called Saint-Ouen du Pin. Then, for an unknown reason this time, the cult to Saint Ouen was given up for the benefit of Saint Barthélémy. The parish was therefore named Saint-Barthélémy du Pin. Until the end of the Ancien Régime (before 1789), letters were yet generally sent to the "parish of Le Pin, au Perche". Why " La Garenne " ? Though much more recent, this precision added to the name, established as we explained at the beginning of the 19th century, is also the origin of many questions. No document, no town-council register brings us the answer. It seems that the town council has never been asked about the choice of a new name. As far back as 1812, the town-hall's registers yet used the full name more and more often. Two explanations might be remembered to explain "la Garenne": - The choice of the locality La Garenne, located on the road that leads to Mauves, chosen at random by the Postal Administration, which doesn't seem really credible. - The other explanation deals with the landscape. At the beginning of the 19th century, where is now located the sports ground nearby the locality Le Champ de la Ville, was there a very thick wood named La Garenne, a hunting place that had been reserved to the lords of Le Pin and La Pellonière. Its high trees used to welcome the traveler coming from Mortagne. They appeared as a kind of shelter and landmark which might explain this choice. As we can see with Le Pin and La Garenne, the name of our village comes from the nature.
Nowadays crossed by D938 road, Le Pin's town-center is organized around this road built in the end of the 18th century. For the village, the realization of this long path from Mortagne to Bellême (between 1768 and 1785) represented an anticipated revolution. It situated indeed the village on a road destined for an important traffic, even at stagecoaches time. The general layout of the town center was deeply upset and it changed the ancestral organization of the housing, that had been gathered, since the first millenium, around three main places: the top of the town center called Le Champ de la Ville, the motte of Le Pin with its defensive installations and the Cour au Bourg. Situated in the highest part of the town center, the locality" Le Champ de la Ville" certainly comes from a "villa" of the Merovingian Period, that's to say a farm domain around which the arising village might have been organized. (Besides, the word "village" comes from "villa"). In the 9th century, during the Normand's invasion, a feodal motte, set at half-slope, substituted with its classic installations (keep, ditches, farmyard or "bayle", chapel etc...) for this primary structure. Then the lord of Le Pin, in order to attract inhabitants and above all craftsmen, certainly created the contemporary equivalent of our free zones nearby his castle. This constituated the "Cour au Bourg" which seems to have formed the first place. Towards this place converged the pathes of long ago going round the motte and its fortifications. In spite of the abandon of this place for the benefit of the castle of La Pellonnière (during the 12th or 13th century), the general organization of the town center remained unchanged. Rebuilt during the 16th century, the church, around which was located the graveyard, received a long and slender steeple, witness of the daily-life. The presbytery was close to the church and was completed from 1685 with a small secondary school. Apub and a inn named "La Pomme d'Or" used to contribute to the village's being welcoming, while the notaries, whose job was testified in the 16th century, could seal the deals properly confirmed by the share of the market-wine. Several meetings used to enliven the town-center during the year, included Saint Barthélémy's fair, which rights were collected by the Lord of Le Pin and La Pellonnière. A market was moreover organized every Sunday morning.
Constructed after the supposed destruction of the castral motte of Le Pin, during the 12th or 13th century, La Pellonnière was first a fortified castle built on a square platform and circled by ditches. The very first layout of the buildings isn't known. The tradition says that a tower used as a keep, situated at the north-eastern corner, had remained in the Middle-Age. During the modern period, this tower was transformed and named "Le Pavillon". During the 15th century, a central room was built with its stairs-tower, in a style inspired by the Val-de-Loire. The castle and its domain already belonged to the family Du Grenier. In 1612, Loup du Grenier wedded Anne Martel, lady d'Oléron. Due to the domain and the property inherited in this island, he also became the "baron d'Oléron". His son, named René, received this title, and his grand-son, also named René (who died in 1699), , finally got the title of "marquis d'Oléron". This family made the castle more and more beautiful, as it is shown by the construction of the aisle. Initially, a gallery was on top of it, linking the central room to the "Pavillon", testified in several documents of the 18th century. In 1630, a dovecote was built by René du Grenier, which order-letter, written in 1629, is still in our possession.
In 1699, Anne de Maillé, Marquise d'Oléron and widow of René du Grenier, last of the name, had a chapel built behind the castle and not far from it, which has nowadays disappeared. This chapel was dedicated to Saint Anne and had a circular form. After the death of the Marquise d'Oléron in 1704, the seigniory became the property of her nephew, the Marquis de Bennehart, who sold the whole domain in 1713 to the Gersants, then to the Patu de Saint-Vincents. This last family carried on making the castle more pleasant in the end of the 18th and during the 19th family. They particularly transformed the gallery above the kitchens into a series of bedrooms served by a long corridor. On the 23th of August 1789 (the sixth of Fructidor Year 6), Nicole de Gersant married Jean-Baptiste Patu de Saint-Vincent, checker-adviser at the Counts Chamber, who is famous for his acquisition in the region of national properties. Maire (mayor) of Le Pin from1804 to 1834, he bequeathed the domain to his son, Cyrille Jules Patu de Saint-Vincent, husband of Pauline Hémant. Cyrille Jules Patu de Saint-Vincent ordered the construction, still on the right aisle, of the crenel tower built to do something with an old staircase and a water-supplying mechanism. After his death in 1867, La Pellonnière and its important land domain became the property of Isabelle de Hémant, his niece, who had married Georges Clair in 1866, in Le Pin's church. Georges Clair, Vicomte of La Rivière du Pré d'Auge, was maire of Le Pin from1870 to 1894. After the death of Ms. the Comtesse de la Rivière in 1928, Anne-Marie de La Rivière, last born of their four children, inherited the castle. Responding to her mother's wish, she donated the castle to the nuns of the Agneau de Dieu of Brest, in order to create an eucharistic center for prayer and recovery, which in fact turned into an old-people's home and convalescent home which is nowadays located in Le Pin's center. The castle is now the property of Alain Lautré and Gilles Alvarez. With the help of the association "Agapè, les Amis de La Pellonnière", chaired by Philippe Egasse, they carry on animating it and making people know the history of this important place of the Perche's patrimony. (Visit possible on ask) Program of the animations at the castle of La Pellonnière, see: Agapè, Les Amis de la Pellonnière
Le Pin's church, dedicated to Saint Barthélémy, is quite a composite building. The construction of two side aisles and a steeple, in the middle of the 19th century, gave it its comtemporary aspect, which cannot fail to surprise, first because of its many pinnacles of stone lined up along the roof that covers both the choir and the nave. This architectural grouping has in fact undergone successive mutations. These mutations have totally occulted the sanctuary of the 11th century built on the emplacement of an old castral chapel, which was built on the farmyard by the motte of Le Pin. According to some elements given in a judiciary report of the beginning of the 18th century, this first cult place would have been built on the hillside around the year 900 by a lord of Le Pin named Geoffroy de Couthril, thanks to a permission given by Pope Romain the First. From the roman building of the 11th century, in that time dedicated to Saint Ouen and given for its half to the priory of Saint-Martin du Vieux- Bellême by Gautier, lord of Le Pin, only remains the entrance gate protected for centuries by a narthex destroyed in 1838. From this moment, the gate was exposed to the bad weather and, in 1885, during a restauration attempt, was the victim of additions. These additions damaged the original purity of the archivolts. As for the choir, some traces of a roman apse were said to be still discernable in the 19th century.
In the beginning of the 16th century, the nave was rebuilt and topped, probably in the same period, by a steeple that dominated the ridgepole of the roof above the main entrance. The upper gable, underlined with pitches, ornated by a flaming window, is a remain more or less intact of this period. It has, on each side of the gate's vault, two sculpted stones representing animals. On the right, it is a lion, attribute of the Du Greniers' who have given a very long lineage of Lords of Le Pin and La Pellonnière. On the left, the animal seems to be a wolf (loup). It might be the personnal emblem of Loup du Grenier, Lord of Le Pin and La Pellonnière, who became Lord of Saint-André de Dolus and Saint-Pierre in 1612, after marrying Anne Martel, daughter of Anne de Pons, lady d'Oléron. The title of Marquis d'Oléron (title of courtesy) remained then linked to this family until René du Grenier (grand-son of Loup du Grenier), who died without descendants. The chapel of the brothers of the Charity seems to have been built , on the nothern side, in this same 17th century. This chapel had its private entrance giving onto the graveyard (room nowadays formed by the place Robert-Drouin). This door is still visible when observing the observing the exterior wall from the place. In 1704, René du Grenier's widow, Anne de Maillé, Marquise d'Oléron and lady of Le Pin, donated by testament a sum of 700 livres in order to build a contre-table inthe church's choir. It is the actual master-altar and its reredos. A sum of 300 livres was also given by the donor for the realisation of two small lateral altars. At first dedicated to the Virgin and Saint Barbe, they were erected slatwise, on the limit of the choir and the nave, according to a disposition still visible in several churches of the Perche (Saint-Germain de la Coudre, Saint-Mard de Réno, Marcilly, etc…). During the extensions of the 19th century, these altars were moved to the extremities of the side-aisles, where they nowadays form the altars of the Sacré-Cœur and Saint Joseph. In 1744, emanations coming from the ground imposed a momentary banning of the cult that was trasferred to Eperrais, a parish close to Le Pin. The burials in the church became rarer and rarer until they were purely and simply prohibited. Then, the nave and the choir were paved. According to the tradition, the first Lords of Le Pin and La Pellonnière are buried under the choir. At the beginning of the 19th century, Jean-Baptiste Patu de Saint-Vincent, husband of Nicole Le Conte de Gersant, lady of Le Pin, had also a chapel built. This chapel, known as the chapel " of the castle " , was dedicated to Saint Louis (on the left of the choir). In 1768, the construction of the long path from Mortagne to Bellême entailed the creation, on the southern side, of an embankment with an important declivity ( more than three meters between the church and the new road). It seems that it has provoked a weakening of the building.
The extensions works of the 19th century After the Revolution and the Empire, the population growth became so important ( 1090 inhabitants in Le Pin in 1808, 1335 in 1845 !) that the construction council had not choice but to think of making extensions so as to welcome the faithful, who were more and more numerous. These works began in 1826, at Jules Patu de Saint-Vincent's, Jean-Baptiste Patu de Saint-Vincent, request. The chapel of Saint Louis and the chapel of the Charity were then integrated in a northern aisle. In order to make the nave stronger, a southern-aisle was added with its basement and double-steps, under which an elegant Louis XIII door had to give onto a crypt. The making of the crypt, which foresaw a staircase getting directly to the church's choir, remained unfinished. The demolition of the ex-steeple and the construstion of the new tower, laterally flanked still with the aim of reinforcing the structure, began at the same time, in 1838, not without provoking many contestations from the municipal council. Jules Patu de Saint-Vincent, being the president of the Construction finally managed to impose his views (but it is true that HE financed the works !) . His artistic conceptions (some people might be tempted to say " pretentions "), mixing curiously romantism and Italian Renaissance, made him admire the Milanese Dome. It is said that it is from a trip to Lombardia that he brought back the idea of embellishing the side-aisles' roofing with these pinnacles, that try to take up to the sky this church that is now very different from its primary shape. He also had a huge sacristy built. Specialist of Gregorian Chant (he is the author of an initiation book), he installed in the gallery a small organ which has nowadays disappeared. Out of service and too much deteriorated, the instrument couldn't be restaured by the commune, so it was sold to a group of young enthusiasts who managed to repair it, and recently start it up again in the gallery of La Ferté-Vidame's church (Eure-et-Loir). In 1880, while the transfer of the graveyard to his actual emplacement was being planned, the surroundings on the road-side were reinforced by a retaining wall and two steps separated by a platform, which was the guarantee of quite a successful highlighting of the main entrance.
In 1940, the sacrity, victim of a looting, was burnt down. During the demolition, a roman window was discovered in the flat chevet. It had probably been walled up during the installation of the altarpiece donated by the Marquise d'Oléron. A new and smaller sacristy was rebuilt after the Liberation (in 1948), particularly thanks to some donations made by the descendants of Robert Drouin, yhe canadian emigrant of the 17th century. Consequently, each period contributed to the edification of this sanctuary. Even if the most important works, realized at Jules Patu de Saint-Vincent's request, have sometimes been criticized, yhey, at least, give a real originality to this prayer place that has welcomed so many generations of men and women. This is the reason why Le Pin la Garenne's church is worth being seen and, inwardly, discovered, for it keeps recalling a badly-known communal history.
Robert Drouin, pioneer of the New France
Robert Drouin was christened in Saint Barthelemy du Pin's church on the 6th of August 1607. He was the 7th child of Robert Drouin's second marriage. Robert Drouin father was a tile maker and used to live at the place called " Jugué ", nowadays called " La Tuilerie " (the tilery), near the locality of the Alliotères, situated on the path going from Mortagne to Bellême ( replaced with the actual road in the end of the 18th century).
Robert Drouin's mother was named Marie Dubois. Robert Drouin father and Marie Dubois had 10 children in all. Robert Drouin son sailed for the New-France in 1634. Barthélémy Lemoine, his cousin, who came from Le Pin too (christening on the 7th of June 1597), already married to Marie Roux, also joined the crossing. Both of them belonged to the first emigration wave, gone with Robert Giffard. Robert Drouin first entered the sevice of the Jesuits as a brickmaker, and then got, at the end of his three-years commitment contract, a concession on the coast of Beaupré, on the west bank of the rivière aux Chiens. On the 27th of July 1636, in Robert Giffard'shouse in Beauport, he wedded Anne Cloutier, daughter of Zacarie Cloutier and Saincte Dupont, who both came from Mortagne and were emigrants in New-France too. Three daughters were born of this union. Witness at the marriage, his cousin Barthélémy Lemoine finally prefered to go come back to France (he died on the 16th of November 1669). After Anne Cloutier's death on the 4th of February 1648, Robert Drouin got married for the second time on the 29th of September 1649, with Marie Chapelier who gave him eight children. All the Drouins, Derouins or Drouyns of North-America are part of his descendants. Robert Drouin died on the 1st of June 1685 in Château-Richer. He was 77 years old. Nowadays, many descendants of the ancestor Robert come and visit Le Pin, where their roots are.
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