Pont de Charenton

Dear Mother,

When Janice says, "I'd like you to take one of your fancy lenses and shoot something for me," I know it is time to spring into action, no questions asked.  The other day, she asked me to "take one of my fancy lenses" and shoot some photos of the Charenton bridge which is but a five minute walk from the Centre Mennonite de Paris.

This nondescript bridge has four lanes for traffic plus additional ramps and lanes for vehicles entering and leaving.  By now the banks of the River Marne (just before it flows in the River Seine 1 km later) have been well fortified with stone walls which control the water so that walkways and bike ways can run along the river for miles.  Traffic is heavy and constant, and that is the point of this blog entry.

The Charenton Bridge has been a point of crossing and entry since Roman times.  The bridge was mentioned by name in the 7th-century Life of St Merri.  Because of its strategic importance to Paris, numerous battles were fought over the bridge during the Hundred Years War.

Today's version is apparently the 19th bridge to have been built at Charenton since Roman times.  Versions of this bridge have of course been crossed by traffic communicating between the Alsace (and Montbéliard) and Paris.  Anybody immigrating from those regions to America would most likely have gone via Paris, partly because so many roads led to Paris, as they and trains still do.  So Janice's ancestors would likely have crossed the River Marne at Charenton on their trek to America.  We have not yet learned whether they then walked or took boat from Paris to Le Harvre, the French port from which they set sail for America.

When you cross today's Pont de Charenton, there are signs pointing the way to Charenton and to St Maurice.  However, these two suburbs (6.8 kms from the centre of Paris) were originally one, Charenton-Saint-Maurice.  The green sign points to Maisons Alfort, where the French Mennonites extensively renovated a beautiful residence in the late 1980s for foreign Christian students, many from Africa.  However, the local government eventually requisitioned that property, along with others, in order to build an enormous complex of apartments, so the dorm was leveled, much to our consternation.

As you leave the Pont de Charenton and head into Paris, one of the ways to go until recently was to turn left and ascend the hill via the Rue de Paris, formerly the chemin de Paris, along which shops and eating places sprang up in the 1600s.  We enjoy walking on this narrow street, especially now that it is increasingly pedestrian.  Once you reach the top of the hill, the road becomes a major '4-lane plus parking and very wide sidewalks' kind of road.

So it is interesting to think that, quite possibly, at least some ancestors crossed the River Marne on the Pont de Charenton, just minutes from the present Centre Mennonite de Paris.

Between the Centre Mennonite de Paris and the Pont de Charenton, only 168 of my strides from the Centre, is a plaque which reads, 

Here was raised, 

from 1607 to 1685, 

[what] was called the Temple of Charenton,

the sole place of worship permitted by the Edict of Nantes 

to the Protestants of Paris. 

This reminds us that at one time, Protestants were not allowed to worship within Paris itself but had to leave the city, initially going about 10 km from it, but later they were allowed to build a Temple closer, about 6.8 km from Paris in this small suburb across the Bois [Woods] de Vincennes.  Some Huguenots traveled from the city by boat on the River Seine, reportedly singing Psalms on the way.  One informative site (in English) on the Charenton Temple shows woodcuts of the church and also the old Charenton Bridge.  The first Temple was burned down during a riot in 1621.  Construction began on the second Temple in 1623.  It accommodated 4,000 worshipers and was the largest Temple in France.  This Temple was then destroyed in November of 1685 when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes and expelled the French Calvinists (Huguenots).  The Anabaptists were expelled by Louis XIV in 1712.

Not all Protestants ("Protesters") were alike.  Neal showed me an article by Eric W. Frugé, "Mennonites and Protestantism in the Loire Valley" (The Mennonite Quarterly Review, 1991, 192ff.)  A National Synod of Reformed Churches held at the Temple de Charenton in 1644 provided a formula on what to do when non-Reformed people seek to be baptized into the Reformed Church.

Formula

of Baptism

for those who

are converted to the Christian Faith 

from among the Pagans, Jews, and Muslims,

and the Anabaptists, 

who have not been [appropriately] baptized.

So, either the Calvinists were admitting Anabaptists into their churches or were preparing to do so, just in case. 

I just made a simple lunch, which Janice ate before setting aside her book cataloging and heading to a place near the Tour Eiffel but just across the River Seine, where she hopes to see an exhibition on "La ville fertile, vers une nature urbaine" on growing all sorts of things in the city and city landscaping.  We are doing well, our recent three-day trip to the north was just great, but we are painfully aware that this year's visit will end all too soon.

With love from us both,
Evan