abandonment
English version (her name was Rosalie)
From her grocery store, when she was not discussing the weather with her customers, Rosalie enjoyed watching the children play across the street. As she got older, she would watch people from her upstairs window as they passed by. As time went on, there were fewer and fewer people down in the street, so Rosalie slowly passed away.
No one has taken over her store. Along with Rosalie, Fontenoy has also slowly deteriorated, now displaying broken windows, wild grass between the cobblestones… and cats reigning unchallenged around the empty streets.
Not far from the marina and mountain bike trails, a stone's throw from the castle and embroidery museum, one can find abandoned houses with locked doors and windows. In the backyards, Nature is slowly reclaiming its rights. That's Vôge, hit by unemployment and more and more deserted, you're now looking at…
Welcome to Fontenoy-le-Château … *
* This text is partly a fiction. Rosalie was actually very young in 2014, she had tried to revive the grocery store in Fontenoy-le-Château. But the empty streets, the abandoned houses, really exist. . . So do the cats !
Philippe Lhote, juin 2019
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