The "Association des amis de l'oeuvre de l'Abbé Fouré" is active in documenting life and works of Adolphe-Julien Fouré. A research by Françoise Genty, member of the association, has revealed a number of english publications about the abbot, dating from the early years of the 20th century.

Here is a fragment from R. Brooks Popham, Hither and Thither, London (W.J. Ham.Smith), 1912, pp 285-288, in which the author relates his impressions of a visit to the site.

Translated into french by Françoise Genty, this text has also been republished in the weblog les grigris de Sophie, june 16, 2012

R. Brooks Popham, "The hermit of Rotheneuf !"

Hermits usually have a certain fascination for the run of people; they go and hunt them up when in their vicinity, talk to them, learn their history, look upon them as peculiarly eccentric and abnormal beings, and, finally, contribute towards the maintenance of these curious "sohtaries", going away well pleased with the experience they have gained by their informal call.

In many cases the hermits live far from an eremitic life, and can sustain themselves in some degree of comfort and ease by the peculiar choice of their self-imposed calling. You expect to find an unkempt old man with flowing locks, and long patriarchal beard, leaning on a staff, and living in a disorderly cabin, but being the supposed possessor of untold wealth ; curt, top, in manner, resenting all intrusion, and foregoing the life of an ordinary individual, performing this mental feat of endurance in his solitary seclusion.

But hermits differ.

This one, on the Brittany shores, is far from an unkempt, unshaven man with a belligerent attitude, although living alone in his own peculiar way. His face strong, and his appearance manly, in priest's garb, is prepossessing, and he is more than usually interesting by his genial manners and the curious life he has led — carving the rocks persistently for years with the most unique and grotesque figures conceivable.

Thirty long years has this man -an educated man- seen peculiar designs in the rocks that slope down gradually to the seashore, and so has chiselled out these imaginary figures into marked designs, designs of the most -shall I be rude enough to say- inartistic, ugly, and weird forms the mind could possibly invent.

But this is where the interest and originality come in.

Thirty odd years of continual and well-nigh daily toil, and hard toil at that ! — and the result ? Curious, very curious perhaps, is a just judgment on his works, especially when reflecting on the lapse of time spent on ornamenting over so vast an area of the beautiful rugged rocks placed there by Nature, and the more so when we dwell upon the fact that it comes from a cultured mind originally intended for the Church : upon this last point,however, I speak under correction. The reason he dedicated his life to this extraordinary occupation I failed to gather, but there the fact remains, and the hermit of Rotheneuf dearly loves his work and finds comfort in it. Naturally, all sorts of ideas cross the mind ; was it a love affair, an early unsuccessful matrimonial life, a failure in some particular venture resulting in the renunciation of his worldly goods and friends and all ? This is but conjecture, and the cause of his strange life and habits seem known to himself alone.

He can be seen going to and fro from his home in the quiet little village of Rotheneuf, or mallet and chisel in hand, hard at his labours hammering the steep and rugged inclines not very far distant from his home.

When approaching the seashore you can hear the ring of his tools, which guides you to his whereabouts. If seen, as is mostly usual, in the daytime, except by nomads who are about at all times, the collection of carvings, the tortured faces and figures of his imagination, can be studied closely and are not so weird perhaps as if seen at night.

Some are posing on an artificial wall, upright to waist like a bust on a pedestal ; others, supine as in death ; some, alto-relievo ; still others, large or pygmean. But there is a predominant expression of feature all round, likened to a cut and painted cocoanut with the shell and fibre intact, so often observed in fruiterer's shops.

There is the squint-eyed giant of fairyland tales, and others of pantomimic gesture ; a soul-sick Datto chief in frowning meditation, or a Japanese, even, with the look of hara-kiri on his face ! Some Atlantes-like, bearing the weight of the rock above them on their shoulders, or others projecting Uke a human gargoyle from the roof of a noble edifice.

Pathways and little walls are made between the varied groups. But the weirdness of the sight is rendered more acute at night time, in a profound silence broken only by the rippling of the waves on the moon whitened rocks and the seashore below ; the light, filtering through nooks and crannies on the rugged surface, streaking and splashing the features of those grotesque figures making them pallid, faint, and deathlike, and the little gnomes and devils resemble, more than ever, beings of a central world.

The scene is haggard with the grim and soulless sights of this heathendom ; the quiet adds to the effect, but the hermit sculptor often pursues his studies undisturbed — by the light of the moon — alone in his solitary glory.

Follow round the pathways of his eerie churchyard of grim goblins,

"Like one that on a lonesome road

Doth walk in fear and dread"

Mischievous little deities are peering round at you from many a corner, but don't look too long ; it will haunt you if you are timid, for 'tis "a sight to dream of — not to tell ! " And so it goes on.

The garden entrance to the hermit's house in the village is shut off by a high wall, which is quite a little battlement parapet in shape with embrasures, and six large heads adorn this rampartlike wall, and five smaller ones are perched up in the openings — the insignia of the occupant.

Hermit ! of the solitary rocks— we like you, "hail fellow well met" as you are with all, and soon again as the summer falls more gazing tourist folk will stare at you and your works, and place French coin in the little box to help you through the dreary winter months to follow.

What strange and curious beings one meets in life!

added to OEE-texts june 2012