Celestine: Voices from a French Village

by Gillian Tindall

When Gillian Tindall discovered a cache of tightly folded letters in a deserted house in central France, recently emptied of 150 years of a family's possessions, she uncovered the obscure and moving life of one woman, Celestine Chaumette. This is Tindall's brilliantly original recreation of the vanished world of a French village.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, France, Biography, Travel, Historical

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Gillian Tindall began her career as a prize-winning novelist. She has continued to publish fiction but has also staked out an impressive territory in idiosyncratic non-fiction that is brilliantly evocative of place.

Her The Fields Beneath: The History of One London Village which first appeared thirty years ago, has rarely been out of print; nor has Celestine: Voices from a French Village, published in the mid 1990s and translated into several languages, for which she was decorated by the French government.

Well known for the quality of her writing and the meticulous nature of her research, Gillian is a master of miniaturist history. She lives with her husband in London.

Reviews

[Madeleine McDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Celestine Chaumette, the eligible daughter of an innkeeper, was born in 1844 and died in 1933. Inspired by old letters found in a deserted house, the author works outwards from the bare bones of Celestine's existence to produce a vivid picture of French rural life at a time of massive social change. Bad harvests lead to grain riots, the railways end the village's isolation, a school is built and schoolmasters come and go, young men are sent to war, tractors transform agriculture and people desert the village for city life. Yet the village is composed of individuals and the author combs local archives to investigate the lives of Celestine's cousins and connections. Well worth reading.

[Jeff Kraft · Rating 5 out of 5]

We all will be gone “like ghosts at cockcrow.” Will our lives be reduced to little more than a clutch of letters left behind by distant family? Ms. Tindall effortlessly conjures a lost 19th century rural world from her sleuthing that is at once magical and heartbreaking.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wish I could write like this.

[Irene Jenkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting look back at life in a French village.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The starting point is the discovery of some old letters left in a house in Central France, in the village of Chassignoles where the author had a second home. Working back and around the letters she fills in a large amount of social history, mainly of rural France at a time of social change (the mid to late 19th century and beyond). Definitely one for people who like historical geography and/or family history. At the end there is a short sensitive piece on issues raised by her own family's presence in the village - rural housing, second home ownership, part time residents - which she realises (as I suspect many do not) is not altogether a good thing. She doesn't mention the language as such but clearly she speaks it fluently whereas elsewhere incomers have been known to expect the locals to switch to English for them. An enjoyable book (I did lose track a bit of who was who in the past, but possibly the relationships were so complicated that that would have happened in real life too!)

[Esther O'Neill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought of giving this elegiac and loving tribute to a lost world four stars, then reconsidered. The discovery of a collection of love letters, all addressed to Celestine Chaumette, 1844 - 1933, inspired the author to research every details of a long dead woman's life, in a Loire village which seems to epitomise la France profonde, the countryside celebrated in the novels of George Sand. Even the humblest, little documented lives are touched by history. Recreating Celestine herself isn't possible. Little personal information survives, but Gillian Tindall evokes, perfectly, Celestine's world, in a region where, according to the tourist board, time continues to stand still. Spending one teenage summer in just such a village, I loved this book. Celestine came to me via the pandemic inspired book sharing of the village where I live. No review of mine could match Claire Harman's · The Innkeeper's Daughter · LRB 16 https://www.lrb.co.uk

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve picked up this book several time over the years, only to put it down for faster, more exciting reads, each times rereading opening. This time I was committed & will pass on to Robert et Patricia. I think Robert will, not sure if Patricia will. Robert will enjoy learning about this removed segment of French culture, and might recall some it as somewhat familiar. Even though it is an area of France south of Orleans & very rural, growing up in Metz will not be that much of a disadvantage. His grand mere from Strasbourg & who knows what other relatives!
Rather academic read for me, it harkens and does ties ver early french history together rather neatly, and,as promised, does a huge job of digging to tell this story. Koodos!

[Janet Mayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Tour de Force.
Beautifully written, meticulously researched. Gillian Tindall conjures up a picture if life in a French village over two centuries. The starting point is a collection of seven letters from suitors proposing marriage to a woman called Celestine which she discovers in an old case in an abandoned house. But using the memories of living villagers and local records the book shines a light on the country people who lived hidden lives in a world which she says, "changed more in the years between 1840 and 1930, or even 1914, than it did during the five centuries before". It explains a lot to me about France and its relationship with the countryside today.

[Darla Ebert · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story itself is compelling, however I could not get into it very deeply. The problem is probably with my own preferences in books. I had thought this would be more non-fiction than speculation. But there is enough of interesting French culture touched on to satisfy someone who is partial to books about France.

[Norma J. Engelberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A past explored

I was planning to give this book three stars but the last section deserved five stars so I compromised with four stars. Worth a read for those interested in lost histories.

[Janean · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book as informed my understanding of the villages of central France.

[Lynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book while I was in the Loire valley and, even though the region in this book is slightly farther south, I felt like I was right there. The life of the woman named Celestine provides a starting point for a pretty amazing exercise in historical research. I'm realizing now that I was totally jealous of this British woman who was lucky enough to live in this village AND to have the opportunity to pore over old documents for hours and hours in order to reconstruct the life of the village over several hundred years. Sunshine, old buildings, quiet gardens, dust...sigh.....

[Mariya]

NO