By Patricia Thibaut and Nicolas Pelicioni
The cathedral of Limoges, photo by Patricia Thibaut
As a way to start, I think it would be more polite and personal if I introduced myself and told you what I’m doing today. I’m Jeanne Boncoeur and I’ve lived in Limoges for a long time, though I’m not from here. I’ve lived in many different French towns and cities. Some are small, like Saintes, where I was born, or even Pau, where I studied for my bachelor degree. More specifically, I moved to Pau because I wanted to study languages. Some places are big, like Bordeaux, where my daughter was born, or Lyon, where I taught English and French for 10 years.
Today I’m going to meet my friend, Zoé Lignères who is a native from here. She loves telling me the history of Limoges, and I like listening to her explanations. Coincidentally, she is a History teacher; we are colleagues teaching teenagers in the same high school.
Of course, I love my country and its diversity. Luckily, here we have everything that we need to be happy; beautiful landscapes, which include an Atlantic Ocean on the east view, fabulous beaches and the hot Mediterranean Sea on south; a wonderful countryside with small and beautiful villages where you can have a peaceful life; and even bustling cities where there is always something exciting happening.
I’ve found that, while on one hand, living in huge cities may be exhausting and sometimes frightening, on the other hand, living in small cities can sometimes be boring and isolating. Therefore, in 2014 I moved to Limoges, which is a medium-sized city in the South West of France. Here, we enjoy a mild climate and a green countryside. It has been a fair compromise since I have almost all the advantages of a big city and almost none of the drawbacks of a small town!
I first learnt from Zoé that the inhabitants here (or, more precisely, the limougeaud) are very welcoming and immensely proud of their traditions. They always remain faithful to a simple but genuine ways of life.
Zoé explained to me, she said that, “One of the stories about Limoges dates back to the Middle Ages! This is because in the Middle Ages, Limoges was a cultural and religious influential centre thanks to the Abbaye Saint Martial (for this reason many parents call their boys Martial, which is a very common surname) and people were devoted to religious tradition called le ostensions. Inspired by this history, we still celebrate a form of this tradition, called Les Ostensions Limousines’ today.”
For all of these reasons, I’m extremely proud to live here! As interested in history as I am, with Zoé’s help I have discovered some fascinating sides of French history and some very specific religious traditions. “It is curious, that the city is so deep-rooted in their history since it started at the end of the tenth century,” she explained to me, “To be precise, in 994 when there was a plague of ergot fungi toxicity at the end of harvest. It became so terrible that all of the bishops from the area decided to organise processions with Saint Martial’s corpse in a casket until the plague ended. They saw this as a miracle and decided to do it again, and that’s why every seven years they do these religious processions in Limoges and in some of its surrounding villages. The last one was celebrated in 2016.”
Recently, I also found out that this series of religious processions, called septennial ostensions, was included in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2013!
Though Limoges is not an eventless city, I’m also fond of my new peaceful way of life! There are many cultural events and also festivals during the summer time. What I like the most is what they call marchés de pays. These are small markets where local producers can sell their healthy and tasty products to the urban consumers. I’m fond of this very unique ambiance where everybody enjoys simple things that, to me, help build an authentic way of life.
I’ve just seen Zoé over there! Families are walking around fruit and vegetable stalls in this market. We are going to do some shopping together. Here you also have a big choice of cheese, wine, meat (Limousine cows are very famous for their tasty meat), delicatessen and freshly baked goods. It smells good everywhere and you feel like tasting and buying everything! Limoges can offer you many surprises and that’s why it’s quite touristic too. It seems I will have more to talk about later!
