Grim nursery rhyme

“French nursery rhymes usually have a grisly story behind them,” our guide said.

He was referring to the sad fate of Jean Petit, a surgeon from Villefranche-de-Rouergue, who was a leader of the Croquants, a rebellion against taxes and royal authority in 1643. After initial success, the rebel leaders were captured. Jean’s limbs were broken on the wheel in the main square for the edification of the Villefranchois.

This gave rise to the rhyme (comptine in French) ‘Jean Petit qui danse’, translated into French from the original Occitan. The verse enumerates the parts of Jean’s body, aiming to help children to learn to count (like the popular chanson ‘Alouette‘). It’s often combined with a dance, in which the dancers tap the parts of their body successively. The barbaric form of execution does not feature explicitly, so few people actually know the origin of the song.

Jean Petit qui danse (twice) 
De son bras il danse (twice) 
De son bras, bras, bras,  
Ainsi danse Jean Petit (twice)

This is one of the legion of things we learned about Villefranche when we took a guided tour a couple of days ago. We thought we knew the place, but I’m now brimming over with new info, so you’ll have to excuse me if this gets a bit long.

Favourite place

Villefranche in Aveyron is about 25 km from us. It’s one of my favourite places, but the centre is desolate today, having declined rapidly from a bustling rural centre. I’ll return to this.

The town lies on a geographical fault line dividing the granite of the Massif Central from the limestone of the causse. The Aveyron flows along this divide. The fault line was also rich in valuable minerals, such as silver and copper, which contributed to the town’s former prosperity.

People inhabited the area from early times, but the place took off when Alphonse de Poitiers, Comte de Toulouse, established a bastide town on the right bank of the Aveyron in 1252. He was the brother of King Louis IX, who was keen to strengthen royal authority in the region against the local lords, who had the opposite ambition. Hence, the town was meant to counter the power of Najac.

Bastide town

I’ve written in the past about bastide towns, of which more than 300 were established in Southwest France from the 12^th-14^th centuries. They aimed to stimulate economic development, colonise the wilder rural areas and, in many cases, enhance the power of the Crown. In some instances, though, prelates or nobles set up their own competing bastides, such as La Bastide-l’Evêque, not far from Villefranche.

The bastides’ layout was a grid pattern of streets with a large central square for markets and public spectacles. People settling in Villefranche received a central building plot, with further plots for cultivation outside the town. They were exonerated from taxes for several years.  We learned that a role of the consuls (elected governors) was to travel around the area marketing the advantages of moving to the town.

The consuls were elected for one year and could not stand again for a further three years. Each household had one vote, so widows could vote. In addition, women could own property, run businesses and manage their own financial affairs. Elections took place on 26^th December, when the turnout was likely to be higher, since everyone was at home for the Christmas festivities.

Aerial photos and the view from the top of the collégiale (cathedral) show that the centre of Villefranche has retained its 13^th-century grid layout almost intact. Few, if any, of the original timber-framed buildings now exist. A catastrophic fire broke out in the central square in the 16^th century and spread to much of the town, sweeping through the flimsy wooden buildings. While straight, narrow streets had advantages, they acted as wind tunnels, fanning the flames. Most of the houses around la Place Notre Dame date from the Renaissance.

We wandered around the alleys, some of which I had never set foot in, and our very knowledgeable guide explained aspects of the architecture.

Decline…and decline

Our guide said that he had deliberately not taken us up the rue de la République, one of the main streets leading to the square, because the number of empty shops is depressing. However, he acknowledged that this is something you can’t conceal from visitors.

Since our arrival in 1997, a combination of factors, including misguided urban planning, has transferred the soul of the place to out-of-town superstores along the main route into Villefranche. And they have no soul. The town council is, belatedly, trying to reverse the trend, but as our guide said, “We’re thirty years too late.”

Villefranche is not the only rural French town to suffer from this. As we walked around, I couldn’t help comparing the silent streets with how it must have been in the Middle Ages: the shouts of children playing in the streets, the ring of stonemasons’ mallets on the construction site of the collégiale, the cries and banter of traders and shopkeepers in the square, the general hubbub of a lot of people pressed into a small space. That had its disadvantages, too, since the plague spread like wildfire during its various visits, and public hygiene was a continual preoccupation of the consuls.

The collégiale

Construction began on the massive collégiale in 1260 but was not complete until the 16^th century. It’s 58m high. The original plan was to extend the clocher to 88m to compete with the cathedral in Rodez, which was 87m. Such was the rivalry between the episcopal and the temporal authorities. For several reasons, the extension never happened.

I’ve saved the best until last. There are two things you must see in the collégiale. The first is the view from the belltower, which we still haven’t done in our time here. This affords a fabulous panoramic view of the town, the market square and the surrounding countryside. In the summer, it’s open every day except Sunday for a fee of 3€.

The second is to look at the remarkable choir stalls behind the altar. Under each seat is a miséricorde, a wooden sculpture. These represent daily life, mythical beasts or grotesque characters. They were sculpted between 1473 and 1487 by André Sulpice. They are all the more extraordinary because the choir stalls were originally reserved for the town’s religious and civil authorities, so the congregation never saw them. Thankfully, their secular subject-matter protected them from destruction during the Revolution. These are rare in the region.  

I wish I’d had more time to study these, but some memorable ones are below. If you’re of a sensitive disposition, you might find the fourth one offensive.

If you don’t know Villefranche, please do visit the centre. The Thursday market is still one of the biggest and best in the region, but that’s not all there is to see. I can also recommend a Tourist Office guided tour, of which they offer several. It’s helpful to speak French, but many of the guides also speak English.

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