Day trips by train
Tulle
‘Les gens de T(ulle) disent que’on pleure en y arrivant, et qu’on pleure en la quittant. C’est vrai pour beaucoup de fonctionnaires. Ils sont nommés à T(ulle)…’ 1
‘Tulle is above all a city of civil servants’ observed Denis Tillinac in his book: Spleen en Corrèze (1979). ‘Spleen: this beyond melancholy which tilts the pendulum towards reaction, in the exact sense of the term: in reaction against the trends of an era.’ He continues to describes his condition: ‘Nor to deny (…) its underlying anarchism, its convulsive refusal of modern gregariousness.’2 To return to the city of Tulle:
‘...must have many resources to make itself loved by the civil servant - because the civil servant, fundamentally, necessarily, is a stateless person, member of the great International of the bureaucracy …’.
To understand, and appreciate, Tulle you have to accept it is a departmental capital that is essentially governed by ‘Paris’ and for-fills the responsibilities of the state.
It receives tasks, responsibilities and budgets that have to be implemented by qualified civil servants living in what they perceive as an exile. An exile in space and time, ‘... it deprives me of the rhythm of contemporary life’ wrote Denis.
“… Along its murky river… Tomorrow will be yesterday, and my exile will be like Paradise Lost.’ The ‘perfect place to dream of Paris, or America’, America where they ‘burn the past like they burn gasoline ... We burn nothing, we save, we let Time sort out the useful and the useless, the solid and the inconsistent, the permanent and the ephemeral, certainties and randomness …’
Walking around Tulle one can not but start wondering if there is, at all, a plan to this? (And the short answer is: ‘No’ ). Pierre-Yves Roubert, revealed himself to be a bit of a Tillinac fan in his book Le Quart Sud-Ouest3 set against the backdrop of the city hall of Brive. He set much of the sequel Le piano-bar de Tulle, in Tulle. ‘Tulle sera le Sarlat du vingt-et-unième siècle’ (Tulle will be the Sarlat of the twenty-first century), he jokes. From the Lemouzi hotel in the center of town he is wondering the same thing:
‘I opened the window wide and observed Tulle, its river, its stepped streets, its hills. Where did the charm that emanated from the whole thing come from? I did not see any coherence in this juxtaposition of heterogeneous buildings, on irregular grounds which did not form a site, to the point that one could wonder why a city had been established here’.4
The comparison between Tulle and Brive from the perspective of the musician, is revealing:
‘In Brive, the people practically did not exist. There were classes, environments, neighborhoods, but little mixing, little unity…
In Tulle, if only because of the narrowness of the territory, identification with the city operated naturally. It’s difficult to escape the shadows of the administrative tower and the departmental hotel. And it’s not easy to work anywhere other than in a public service…
These modest and limited possibilities shaped a population that was ultimately united, with immigrants mingling without too many problems with the natives. Differences in social level tended to disappear in the face of the absence of choice...’5
This urge to compare Tulle and Brive is long running. In 1670, Alquié, writes in his travel guide Les délices de la France about Tulle: ‘This city is very poorly built and poorly located and even though there are very good spirits, a Prefecture and very little traffic, I don't think there was anyone who wants to live there…’ whiles Brive:
‘… on the contrary to this City (Tulle) that we have just seen, as much for its mood as for its climate and its situation. Because instead of the other being in a background, this one (Brive) is in a beautiful plain, abundant in all kinds of fruit, grain and wine. Instead of being in a boiling and quarrelsome mood, this one is gentle and peaceful. This one is witty, and thought to be a little simple: in a word, it is pleasant and seems to cry incessantly, is always laughing and cheerful.’6
Denis was a localier, a regional press journalist who does not work at the headquarters of his newspaper but from a local agency, writing the ‘local pages’ for La Dépêche du Midi. The localier is locally known, ‘when they see us walking down the street with our camera, people say, ‘Hey, the journalist from La Gazette. There must be an accident somewhere”. He later wrote:
‘... the antagonism between Tulle and Brive dates back to the Romans and borrows its weapons from geography. Twenty-seven kilometers separate the two localities, the same river bathes them but a geological faultline separates them: the Briviste country is in sandstone, the Tullist country in granite. Brive is already Latin, feminine and urban, open to modernity by the trains and roads that come from the four cardinal points. Tulle enclosed in its valleys, black, worker, rural and adept at whispering in isolation. It was in Tulle, not Brive, that Clouzot found the heroine for his Corbeau.
Brive-la-Frimeuse (show-off), Tulle-la-Rugueuse (rough): half-sisters of Correze, but not of the same bed, and who since the dawn of time have looked at each other and challenged each other.’7
Having read most of Tillinac’s books, reading Spleen en Corrèze made us curious about Tulle. To the extend to disregard the generally dismissive advice. And with several direct trains a day connecting Terrasson and Tulle… what stopped us?
‘... while attending the inauguration of the new gendarmerie. I met the usual bunch there: the prefect and the secretary general, the mayor of Tulle and two deputies, the prosecutor, the president of the Chamber de Commerce, the Commissioner of General Information… The same people, and a few others, meet in all the ceremonies, wines of honor, commemorations, inaugurations. The localiers are also there, by necessity with a notepad and a camera’.
Time to take our notepad and camera and explore Tulle. First impression did not disappoint, the train station (1) is located at half an hours walk from the ‘historic center’ and the mismatch of buildings is impressive. End 1900’s buildings line the street and recall the Belle Époque when the railroad arrived. The modern Médiathèque Intercommunale Eric Rohmer looks actually good, some 60s/70s concrete blocks a little less.
Tulle is constructed on the banks of the Corrèze river in a narrow valley. So space is limited and the shortest routes perpendicular the river are often stairways up the steep hillside. The highlight was a huge high-rise Cité administrative Jean Montalat (9) complete with podium and pedestrian bridges. A city within the city. It would not raise an eyebrow in any of the new towns on Hong Kong, but smack in the middle of Tulle…
Reaching the historic center we walked the heritage trail that starts at the Church of Saint Jean (2), towards a cluster of medieval buildings surrounding the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Tulle (4) with its cloister. The cloister museum had an interesting exhibition ‘Poincts en suspension’ by artist Annie Bascoul. More on ‘poinct de Tulle’ (needle-point lace) and the Association Diffusion Renouveau Poinct Tulle in a follow-up post.
Worth a mention are the Hôtel Lauthonie (3) and the Maison Loyac. We explored the neighborhood a bit and were surprised to find an (abandoned) Belgium Consulate. Looking for information I came across a La Montagne article8 online explaining how a Mr. Vackier had ran a hardware-store in Tulle since 1906, occupies himself with Belgium refugees during the first world war and by 1931 received the title of vice-councilor by royal appointment. By 1940 he found his loyalties split between king Léopold III’s surrender to Nazi-Germany, and the Belgium government’s decision to go into exile.
Here the story gets an intriguing twist when the Belgium King decides that Tulle, initially part of non occupied (Vinchy) France, would be a good place to shelter his three children from the war. So princes (and future kings) Boudewijn and Albert arrive, together with their sister princess Charlotte, an aunt of the king finds refuge joining a religious order in nearby Aubazine. As a thanks for his good care of the children Mr. Vackier receives the title ‘consul de Belgique à titre personnel’ in 1946, with jurisdiction over the three departments of the Limousin. A title he holds-onto till his death in 1962.
‘Wearing a proud mustache, laden with distinctions and driving through the streets of Tulle with a big black car, a Chambord or a Versailles with plates from the diplomatic corps’.
The rest of the heritage trail passes the Church of Saint Pierre (5), the tour d’Alverge (6) and the municipal Theater (1899) (7) once know as the Théâtre des Sept Collines in reference to the geography of the town. Looking up the hillsides you are surrounded by government buildings, schools and services. A good selection of restaurants in town make it an interesting day out. We smiled leaving, maybe it was the nice weather, maybe we left in time...
This post continues as Day trips by train: Tulle (II poinct de Tulle).
‘The people of T(ulle) say that you cry when you get there, and you cry when you leave. This is true for a lot of public servants. They are appointed to T(ulle) ... ’
Tillinac D., 1979. Spleen en Corrèze. Éditions des autres, Les Localiers. ISBN 2 7305 0031 6
Tillinac D., 1992. Le Retour de d’Artagnan. Éditions de La Table Ronde. ISBN 2 7103 0523 2
Roubert P-Y., 1997. Le Quart Sud-Ouest, Une année pleine dans un pays béni des dieux. Écritures. ISBN 2 9510997 0 3
Roubert P-Y., 1999. Le piano-bar de Tulle. Écritures. ISBN 2 9510997 8 9
Roubert P-Y., 1999. Le piano-bar de Tulle. Écritures. ISBN: 2 9510997 8 9
Alquié, F-S d', 1670. Les délices de la France, avec une description des provinces et des villes du royaume. Tombe, 2. As accessed through: https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb30014087f
Tillinac D., 1993. Rugby blues. Éditions de La Table Ronde. ISBN 2-7103-0553-4
Albinet A., 2015. Comment le plus tulliste des Belges a ouvert un consulat dans sa ville d’adoption ? In: La Montagne, 29/07/2015.