Adélaide Bauche (1797-1869)

Adélaïde Bauche was born in Rouen in 1797 to a Norman bourgeois family, and her father bought a property in Esteville in 1813. Being very devout, she wished to become a nun at the age of 20 , but a painful thought assailed her because she became aware of all she should be forced to leave starting with the village of Esteville.

When, three years later, she took the priest of Esteville Thomas Mascot as her confessor, the latter talked her out of it.

She had to go to Esteville during the Holy Week of 1841 and discovered the charm of the countryside, the freshness, the fervor of the many inhabitants practicing their faith. The village became her refuge.

From 1862 she settled there permanently and visited neighbors, feeling more at ease among her family, friends and in the parish.

Throughout her life, she kept a diary from which valuable information could be drawn about life in Rouen in the 19th century.

From her diary we have information about the visit of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1810 when she noted that the emperor "took care not to fraternize with the people who were waiting for him in expectation, instead, he became involved with the local elite" or the inauguration of Saint Sever station in 1843 with the parade of the various corporations of the city preceded by banners or her trip to Algeria in 1856-57.

When her sister Louise died in 1833 at the age of 31, she devised for her nephews Eugene and Raymond Magnier a plan of maternal education recorded in a book published in 1843. "Your excellent mother, whose death deprived you in such a tender age, had wished that I would support her efforts to train your young hearts in virtue."

She died in June 1869 at the age of 72 and was buried in the Esteville churchyard.

On her grave Raymond Magnier, her nephew, has this verse of the Gospel written:

"Optiman partem elegit, quae non auferetur ab ea" (She chose the best part, the one that will not be taken from her).

Part of the churchyard and her grave were destroyed by the Germans in 1940.

Raymond Magnier, a lawyer at the Paris Court of Appeal, was the mayor of Esteville from 1876 to 1884 and from 1888 to 1892.