Model of the tower of Saint Michel church in Bordeaux - Lot 153

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Lot n° 153
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2000 - 3000 EUR
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Model of the tower of Saint Michel church in Bordeaux - Lot 153
Model of the tower of Saint Michel church in Bordeaux Painted wood. Circa 1850 Dimensions: Tower height: 60 cm H. with base: 65 cm This rare model made by a Bordeaux craftsman represents the tower of Saint Michel church as it looked in the first half of the 19th century, after the terrible hurricane of 1768 that sent the bells tumbling down the tower. In 1818, what was left of the spire was razed to the ground, and in 1823 the tower became a state telegraph station, in operation until 1853. This optical telegraph system invented by Claude Chappe (1763-1805) transmits a coded message via a system of articulated arms linked by ropes. It was the first intangible system for transmitting information - a state telegraph station. During his visit to Bordeaux in 1843, Victor Hugo described the Saint Michel tower as follows: "I was looking at the campanile next to the church, topped by a telegraph. It was once a superb spire, three hundred feet high. Now it's a tower of the strangest and most original appearance. For anyone who doesn't know that lightning struck this spire in 1768 and brought it crashing down in a fire that simultaneously devoured the church's roof structure, there's quite a problem with this enormous tower, which looks both military and ecclesiastical, rough as a dungeon and ornate as a bell tower. There are no wind shades on the upper bays. There are no bells, chimes, gongs, hammers or clocks. The tower, though still crowned by an eight-sided, eight-gabled block, is crude and truncated at the top. It looks decapitated and dead. The wind and daylight pass through its long, windowless, mullionless ogives as if through large bones. It's no longer a steeple; it's the skeleton of a steeple. What a poem this Saint-Michel tower is! What a contrast and what a lesson! On its ridge, in the light and the sun, in the midst of the azure sky, in the eyes of the busy crowd swarming through the streets, a telegraph gesticulating and scrambling like Pasquin on his trestle, tells and details in minute detail all the poverties of the day's history and the politics of the quarter-hour". A similar copy of this model is in the Musée d'Aquitaine's collections, following a donation made in 2007 by the Association des Amis du Musée d'Aquitaine, but our copy presents Chappe's telegraph in its entirety.
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