Tapers burn in the Collégiale St.-Ours.This was a rather plain one-row candelabra in the Collégiale Saint-Ours up in the old medieval section of the city of Loches.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Candles At Loches
Many of the churches one can wander into in France, Catholic as they are, will have votive or prayer candles of one style or another lit. Sometimes they're in red glass votive holders, other times they're in more ornately painted glass containers. But many times they will be simple tall tapers held in old iron candelabras.
Tapers burn in the Collégiale St.-Ours.
This was a rather plain one-row candelabra in the Collégiale Saint-Ours up in the old medieval section of the city of Loches.
Tapers burn in the Collégiale St.-Ours.This was a rather plain one-row candelabra in the Collégiale Saint-Ours up in the old medieval section of the city of Loches.
Beautiful photo. I love candles and we always have lots burning most evenings.
ReplyDeleteEvery time one of you writes about Loches, I think of the lively (and funny) discussion we had on Ken's blog about the pronunciation of Loches :))
ReplyDeleteAs for Val de LoirE vs Val dU Loir, since it doesn't seem that there is a clear grammatical explanation, I'm wondering if the du Loir expression might simply have developed as a way to distinguish between the two areas, when speaking, since saying Val de LoirE and Val de LoiR sounds the same.
Judy
Judy, la vallee de la Loire (feminin) and le val or la vallee du Loir (masculin). You wouldn't say la vallee de le Loir. It sounds better to say la vallee du Loir.
ReplyDeleteThat's not enough candles. How is anyone supposed to red by that little light?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteNadège, oui, je sais que l'on ne dirait jamais la vallée de le Loir (parce que de+le=du :))), mais ce que je demandais, c'était plutôt pourquoi on ajouterait l'article défini quand on parle du Loir (sans e), mais on ne met pas d'article du tout quand on dit le val de Loire... pourquoi pas le val de LA Loire. Tu vois? C'est ça ma question ;))
ReplyDeleteJudy
Even as a non-practicing Catholic, I still say a prayer & light a candle when I visit a church or catherdral. That is a very lovely photo.
ReplyDeletelovely
ReplyDeleteHow "Catholic" is France really?
jean, I buy little "chauffe-plat" candles by the hundreds.
ReplyDeletejudy, Ken says that there's a rule in French that with feminine nouns, the article is usually dropped. Les rois de France, not les rois de la France; but le président du Mexique, not le président de Mexique. Which would explain Val de Loire and Val du Loir.
nadege, right.
starman, good point!
stephen, thanks!
michael, it's officially catholic, but the people are pretty secular. France is the home of the enlightenment, after all. In fact, in a very timely example, France does not recognize religious marriages. French people must be married by an agent of the government (like a mayor) for a marriage to be legal. People can have church marriages, too, if they like, but without the civil marriage, it doesn't count in the eyes of the law.
There's very little open religiousity in France. But there is a large number of traditions that come out of Catholicism, like the saints' names and days, like the many holidays, etc. The church had a long and powerful reign.
Okay, Walt... but it wouldn't explain using the article with Vallée de la Loire! :)))
ReplyDeleteJudy
judy, well, that's because I screwed up my comment. It's not feminine nouns, it's feminine place names. And la Loire is not a place, it's a river. My bad.
ReplyDeleteAnother expression like Le Val de Loire that I can think of is La Baie de Somme. There must be others but I can't come up with any. Le Val de Loire is almost like a compound noun. It's a place name like Les Bouches-du-Rhône. When you say La Vallée de la Loire the focus is on the valley as a geographical feature and the river is explicitly named. It as if Le Val de Loire should be written Le Val-de-Loire.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I've seen the town of Montoire, on the Loir, called Montoire-sur-le-Loir, to distinguish the river from the one in place names like Chaumont-sur-Loire or Meung-sur-Loire. In fact, the Michelin atlas uses sur-le-Loir for Montoire.
I was just reading the Michelin guide for the Châteaux de la Loire (not de but de la) and it says that La Loire est une barrière météorologique efficace entre le Nord et le Sud de la France. Not de but de la. The expressions *Nord de France and *Sud de France don't really exist. Funny, isn't it?
I've been looking at Le Bon Usage but I haven't found a good explanation.
Judy, look at what Wikipedia French says about:
ReplyDeleteLe Val de Loire, tel qu'il a été inscrit en 2000 sur la liste du patrimoine mondial de l’UNESCO, désigne la partie de la vallée de la Loire située entre Sully-sur-Loire (dans le Loiret) et Chalonnes-sur-Loire (en Maine-et-Loire).
If you do a Google France search on Val de Loir and Val du Loir, you get a lot of hits on both. Same with Val de Cher and Val du Cher. I also saw Val-de-Loire written with hyphens on a Wikipedia page.
Ken and Walt and everyone, thanks so much :) I have a feeling that Ken kind of likes this grammatical digging as much as I do, so I hope that I'm not being a burden. Feel free to ignore my grammar questions any time :)) And, you know, Ken, I think that I do have a copy of Le Bon Usage, but it must be buried behind some other books on a bookshelf. I'm going to look for it again.
ReplyDeleteWhen I see something like this that I can't explain, I always try to get to the bottom of it because I KNOW that my students will ask.... and I hate not having an explanation!
Judy, there's always the "That's just the way it is!" explanation. Not satisfying, but often so true.
ReplyDeleteThe language is evolving?