Bernay

Bernay was built round its Abbey, whose 11th-century romanesque church is one of the oldest buildings in Normandy. The 16th-century abbey buildings now house the Musée des Beaux-Arts, some of whose sculptures would startle the old monks if they were to return, Bernay is also an antiques centre, and occasionally houses the Salon du Meuble Normand. See the bottom of this page for an article on the subject.

It must have been the wedding of the year - the year 1830, that is. 
When a prosperous Norman farmer married off his daughter, 
he was expected to provide her with the best of everything. 
The list of goods a bride was bringing to her marriage was read out 
from the Town Hall steps before the wedding, and her father's standing 
in the community depended on a long and detailed list.

Traditionally, two items of furniture were given away with a bride; 
an Armoire and a Buffet. The Armoire was a linen-press, a handsome, 
imposing piece destined to dominate the bedroom. The Buffet, 
matching in detail but daintier, more feminine, was a sideboard; 
narrower above the waist than below, it had separate doors for 
top and bottom halves and would be the pride of the kitchen. 

At this wedding, the furniture was of the very best. 
Rich oak from the forests of the Perche was embellished with 
ornamental brass from the coppersmiths of Villedieu-les-Poˆles. 
And the carving had been specially done in Vire, where there was 
a school for wood-carvers. Every detail had a meaning; 
ribbons, hearts and pearls festooned the framework, while the central 
panels were decorated with garden tools - the groom was a gardener - 
entwined with grapes, symbolic of the intoxication of passion. 
These were the works of master hands.

Such pieces of furniture are handed down in families, from mother 
to daughter; and so were these for a hundred years; but alas, in France 
after 1918, a million girls were destined to go husbandless, 
and many an heirloom found its way onto the market. Our matching pieces, 
themselves still handsome, still young, were sold and sold again. 
For fifty years they wandered together across France until in 1970 
they reached Besançon, hard by the Swiss border and four hundred miles 
from home. And here, where their tradition was unknown and unrespected, 
they were parted. Amazingly, we can know all this, because in France 
the history of a valuable item travels with it, on official paper 
and stamped by notaries at each sale. Two separate buyers took our 
loving couple away; the armoire to the North, the buffet South and West 
into Burgundy.

Once a year in the East of Normandy, the town of Bernay plays host to the Salon du Meuble Normand. Antique dealers from the region 
vie with each other to produce the finest examples of buffets, armoires, beds and tables. To find the best of Norman furniture, 
they are prepared to travel all over France. One of these dealers, hunting in the North of France, came across a superb armoire in the 
style of Vire, with deep, crisp carving and brass embellishments; and the organiser of the salon, on a visit to Burgundy, discovered 
a deep red-gold buffet created by the hand of a master.

I found the pair of them side by side in the old Abbey church of Bernay, golden wood in front of honeyed stone, where they had been 
bought, once again, by a single buyer for a price somewhere in the region of £10,000. They are splendid things, with a warmth and charm 
which I know it is fanciful to attribute to their reunion. Their condition is perfect; they might have been made yesterday, except that they 
probably couldn't have been made yesterday; and I trust the new owner will leave them to her daughter, and she to hers, the way it was 
always intended; and that Armoire and Buffet, in the best tradition of such stories, will live happily ever after.