No sooner have you arrived at La Roche-Guyon, a charming medieval village in the Vexin region about fifty kilometers northwest of Paris, than you are propelled back in time.
A "journey" from which it is difficult to recover as it is so rich and surprising.
Admiring the keep of this atypical castle, built in the 9th century on the side of a chalk cliff on the banks of the Seine, one thinks of the first images from the album
Le Piège diabolic
, by Edgar P. Jacobs.
And for good reason, it is here that the action of the ninth album of the adventures of Blake and Mortimer takes place.
Released in 1962, the story of the
Diabolical Trap
appeared in
Le Journal de Tintin
.
In this album, Professor Philip Mortimer is trapped in a time machine sabotaged by a mad scientist.
Propelled into the limbo of history, the bubbling "savanturier" explores the prehistoric Versin, stops at the castle in the Middle Ages, before setting off towards 5060 in a post-apocalyptic future, where the civilized world would have collapsed... dragging the spelling with him.
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The process of creating this adventure is exhibited at the château thanks to the know-how and erudition of Éric Dubois and Thierry Bellefroid.
Already responsible for the beautiful exhibition
"
Scientifiction
,
Blake and Mortimer at the Museum of Arts and Crafts", in 2019, the tandem took over all the places that can be visited
"without however entering into competition with the castle, because the goal has never was to hide the beauty of this place"
, they specify.
original boards
As soon as you enter, at the foot of the main grand staircase, against the backdrop of
Gounod
's Faust (Jacobs' favorite opera), you find yourself faced with colorful hangings drawn from the most beautiful images from this emblematic album.
“We wanted visitors to realize that they are entering not only a majestic castle, but also the setting of a story
,” explains Thierry Bellefroid.
These drapes are a good way to show the potential of the place.
On the first floor, three boxes also offer enlargements of Mortimer in full time travel.
By their expressiveness, their deliberately pop colors, these boxes have the beauty of a pictorial triptych, echoing the pop art of Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.
We wanted visitors to realize that they are not only entering a majestic castle, but also the setting of a story.
Thierry Bellefroid, journalist and comic book scriptwriter
Visitors then discover original plates from the album, enhanced by light boxes.
Several stages of creation are revealed: from the photographic reportage of Edgar P. Jacobs in La Roche-Guyon with his wife in the early 1960s to the development of the plates, tracings, sketches, inking and coloring with " coloring blueprints”.
“In the library room,
continues Thierry Bellefroid,
we found a rare interview with Edgar P. Jacobs at the RTBF in 1977 where the master appears at his drawing board speaking specifically about the development of this album.
It's quite moving."
The visit of the castle continues with the climb to the keep, where there is an enlargement of a medieval sequence with the identical reconstruction of the throne of Guy de La Roche, which allows young and old to have their photograph taken instead. of the lord of the castle!
At the top of the troglodyte staircase and the 250 steps that lead to the keep, you can admire the loops of the Seine, the village and the orchard below, so well ordered.
"This is where we better understand Jacobs' project,
reveals the curator of the exhibition,
because by scrutinizing the album, we realize that Edgar P. Jacobs drew this famous fourth loop of the Seine, in prehistory, in the Middle Ages and in the future.
The hero therefore evolves in one and the same place as he travels through time.
An olive twilight
The other highlight of the visit is undoubtedly the underground casemates, called "boves", which were transformed into an ammunition depot during the Second World War by Rommel, when he had installed his staff there in 1944. Dug into the cliff itself, it is accessed at the end of the visit.
In the underground passages of the castle there is an impressive reproduction of the time machine.
“This machine was made and then kept after an exhibition on Blake and Mortimer in 1997
, explains Maryvonne Grandfils, guide lecturer at the place.
It was restored in 2016 in order to erase its aging appearance with the help of students from the Le Corbusier vocational school in Cormeilles-en-Parisis.”
This life-size chronoscaphe, which spins on itself in a rather frightening olive twilight, is in a way the highlight of the show.
At the exit, dazzled by the light of day, we really have the feeling of coming back to the present time… Damned!
The legend of La Roche-Guyon would therefore be true: its castle allows you to travel through time.
Fortunately, visitors cannot get lost in the twists and turns of time like Mortimer.
All's well That ends well.
MachinaXion. Mortimer prisoner of time at the castle of La Roche-Guyon
, until November 27, 2022.
Château de la Roche-Guyon (95).
Tel.: 01 34 79 74 42. www.chateaudelarocheguyon.fr
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