Last modified: 2015-04-25 by ivan sache
Keywords: fontenoy-la-joute |
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The municipality of Fontenoy-la-Joûte (281 inhabitants in 2011; 1,089 ha) is located 60 km south-east of Nancy and 10 km of Baccarat.
Ivan Sache, 15 June 2014
![[Flag]](../images/f/fr-54-fj.gif)
Flag of the Book village - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 June 2014
Fontenoy-la-Joûte was the third Book Village established in France, after Bécherel (Brittany; 1988) and Montoliou (Languedoc; 1990).
The local association Les amis du livre (The Book's Friends) decided
in 1994 to establish a Book Village in Lorraine, based on the model of
the Book Village of Redu (Belgium), established in 1984. Fontenoy-la-
Joûte was selected because the village is easily accessible by road
from several neighbouring towns and located close to the touristic
town of Baccarat; its starry pattern is suitable for the concentration
of shops, and there were several houses and barns available to house
the shops. Supported by the Mayor, Gabriel Neige, by the villagers and
by the other local associations the Book Village was established in
1996; it was directed until 1999 by Daniel Mengotti, a professor of
history and geography.
The Book Village of Fontenoy-la-Joûte (official website) currently includes 13 bookshops offering more than 800,000 second-hand books:
- À la Recherche du Livre Perdu, (In Search of the Lost Book), named for Marcel Proust's novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time);
- Le Chat Botté (Puss in Boots), named for Charles Perrault's tale;
- La Grange aux Livres (The Book Barn);
- Au bonheur du chineur (The Antique-Hunter's Delight);
- L'Étable (The Cowshed);
- La Forge 54, "54" being the number of the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle;
- Paragraphes;
- Nuit de Chine (China Night), named for a pun on a popular French
song of the 1950s and the second meaning of chine in French,
"antique-hunting";
- Génération Collection;
- Le Bleu Bleu (Blue Blue);
- Les Caractères, named for both the typographical characters and for Jean de la Bruyè:re's Caractères;
- Épicerie Culturelle (Cultural Grocery Store);
- La Porte Retrouvée (Finding the Door Again), succeeding a previous shop named La Porte Oubliée (The Forgotten Door), maybe a reference to the last section of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu , Le Temps Retrouv&ecute; (Finding Time Again).
The bookshops fly a flag that seems to have been specifically designed
for the Book Village. The flag (photo, photo, photo, photo, photo) is yellow with a red inverted pall
charged with three white fountains.
Yellow and red are the colours of Lorraine.
The inverted pall represents the map of the village, which was built
according to the typical, local starry pattern.
The fountains (French, fontaines) make the flag canting.
Ivan Sache, 15 June 2014