I mentioned that I have a great job to do while in Dinan. It is to find and re-create one of the young TE Lawrence’s most original photographs. Where normally he took shots of castles and other medieval buildings, particularly if no postcards were available to buy, this image is very different. Its subject is a very peculiar church font and it is not surprising that liked it enough to use one of his photographic plates to catch it (it’s worth remembering that he had to carry tripod, camera and plates with him on his bicycle). The font is supported by an agonised imp...
Locating and re-photographing the young Lawrence’s images has brought about a few comic, not to mention slightly uncomfortable, moments. I have found myself at full stretch on an absurdly springy bough, under threat of falling into the Seine River, all to get a similar shot of Richard the Lionheart’s Chateau Gaillard, and then there were my attempts to catch an image of Gisors Castle. (Read about a near run-in with a tiger…). So I have learned to be wary… but I set off happily enough, with vague advice: “Oh, yes, I know that. It’s in the Basilique St Sauveur…” Ominous pause. “…I think.”
And what could go wrong? It is seven o’clock on a lovely summer’s evening, I have a map and a charming medieval walled town to explore. I head through the hurly burly of alleys and covered walkways to a section of walls overlooking the river and the ‘port’ by which I arrived. I feel free. It takes a moment to work out why: I have lost the constant companion of the woman’s voice on the Headwater cycling app with her logistical instructions.
I approach St Sauveur from the city walls and the ‘Jardin Anglais’ (a lawn, pretty much), and my heart sinks. The whole edifice is neatly wrapped in scaffolding and plastic sheeting. I can’t even find an entrance, let alone a photogenic imp. My mind races. What now? I have come all this way. Will I have to come back tomorrow morning and try to blag my way in past the foreman, further delaying my already delayed trip to Lehon Abbey? Surely they can’t stop you going into churches in France? This could take days…
Oh well. St Sauveur wasn’t a sure thing and there is another major church in Dinan. Perhaps the imp is in the Eglise St Malo… I stride back through the network of alleys and tiny squares where the inhabitants are relaxing, enjoying the evening air. The sun has disappeared behind the buildings but the flagstones are still radiating warmth. I shall join them when I can.
The Eglise St Malo sits on a rising section of cobbles and has a set of heavy double doors. I enter into hushed cool, and darkness: I must pause to let my vision adapt. And from the recesses of the ceiling, lit by the high windows, my eyesight gradually penetrates the chancel, nave and the pews ahead of me.
It is a gradual revelation, but from the gloom the font emerges, right in front of me, at the foot of a column: the fantastical stone demon, a fallen angel, I assume.
He is on his haunches, his shoulders and wings supporting a hexagonal bowl of holy water. Horns are matted into his hair and he is emaciated. His sunken eyes display defeat, although his expression also shows a shamed acceptance of the permanence of good and its triumph over evil – for this imp is a stone incarnation of evil suborned by good, a reflection of Christian order. He will be subjected forever to this mundane task, an agonising punishment for his impious, godless life: he shall offer spiritual sustenance to the faithful as they arrive in the house of God.
