The Great History of the Manor Bouchove Part 2: The Pearl on the River Meuse

By Pith Schure

We live in a house in the centre of a small village. With its stately façades and turret, the villagers sweetly call it châtelet. Before us, French noblesse have stayed in it, gentry with impressive estates in France. During dozens of holiday trips, we have located and documented all of it. But that didn't give any answer to the question: How to present it in a digestible… no, in a captivating manner?
How to abridge the centuries and how to connect the turbulent history of Europe with everyday life in the village?
For that purpose, I introduced a family of estate stewards employed by the Masters of Bouchove. After all, masters come and go, but stewards stay. Besides clerks, marketers and a villain.
Thus I got a story line and could start processing the numerous bits and pieces of information into three volumes that describe the rich history of Bouchove.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Mar 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781528955874

Pith Schure

The author was born in Maastricht, Netherlands, before WW2. After secondary school, he moved to Wageningen to study at the Wageningen Agricultural University. That laid the basis for working in two dozen countries all over the world in the company of his wife, who gave him two girls and a boy. In 1968, he purchased a châtelet in the village of Bokhoven, that inspired him to take up local history, laying the basis for this historical novel. He stopped working in 2009 and sold the châtelet to move with his wife to a penthouse.

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About the Author

With his wife, Mieke, he traversed France in search of the noblesse with ties to Bouchove, Viavia. He managed to visit numerous castles where the Bouchove noblesse had lived, lodged, hunted and made love. With her charm, Mieke supported him in social contacts and proved indispensable as photographer.

Coming home, all info was ordered. With a keen eye for exciting details, Internet was consulted. Also, he built up a database of pictures and maps that he modelled to his needs and to meet copyright rules.

All this for the development of a historic novel with true data and enriched with adventure and romance to make it pleasant reading.

Dedication

After ten years’ life in the tropics, my wife, our children and myself settled back in the village we had already lived in to find out the châtelet we had fallen in love for earlier was for sale.

Having paid the stiff price asked for, we found it in a terrible state. Instead of getting broke by hiring a contractor, we undertook to do the majority of the work on our own, I as the designer and carpenter, my wife and the two teenage girls for the cleaning, painting and other odd jobs, and our ten-year-old son for escaping on his bike if I hadn’t stopped him for assisting me. For specialised work, I hired of course plumbers, electricians, a mason and roof layer.

To my wife, children and those having given guidance.

Copyright Information

Copyright © Pith Schure (2019)

The right of Pith Schure to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781788488631 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781788488938 (Kindle e-book)

ISBN 9781528955874 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2019)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

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Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

Foreword:

As a small village on the Brabant side of the River Meuse, Bouchove is as pleasant as many other places. But the beauty of its church, the memories of the castle remains and the splendour of the surrounding monuments are silent witnesses of an eventful past.

With a small village in the big world, the beginning has been made with a record on the past of Bouchove in an accessible manner. The story begins with the Earl of Bouchove being trapped by the French Revolution. That forces him to swap his lavish life in France for northern regions. Classy ladies and gentlemen in his entourage are reluctantly joining him, forced by a threatening patriot. On their way to Bouchove, this bear of a man turns up again and again. While the count moves further up north, some members of his entourage stay behind. In the wake of all the turbulent events, the inhabitants of Bouchove have to go through dangerous moments climaxing with a cowardly murder.

From there on, The Pearl on the River Meuse expands further.

Chapter 1: Bouchove in a Democratising World

Saturday, January 4, 1800

The day before the village goes to church, in De Valk the mirror is carefully removed from the wall behind the bar, turned a quarter and placed upright in the corner of the taproom, so that two-way light falls on it. Then, a picture on the wall is removed so as not to offend the barber from Amelroy, for he is the one who cuts, trims and shaves hair in the afternoon.

1

‘Look, here the Mayor comes in too!’ Diligently, a chair close to the barber is cleared for him, but as an able governor, Hendrik Calff waves any preferential treatment away to take the last seat in the row. He is in no hurry, and this way he will be hearing things.

As always, when men who can afford the luxury of a cut or shave are together, the conversation turns to politics. The elders take the opportunity to show off with their knowledge on that matter, while the younger ones take it readily in.

‘We were just talking about the news that the wind is blowing from another angle. What do you think of it, Mr Mayor?’

‘Yes, what can I say? Of what I heard, Bouchove has been sold for a high price to the Batavian Republic and also tomorrow, our annexation by France comes to an end. There is certainly no reason for panic,’ he obligatorily adds as a qualified statesman.

‘You know that you can always count on us. If we have to give those Frenchmen a good beating…’

‘I haven’t seen no Frenchman around in the past five years.’

‘You mean you haven’t seen any Frenchman in the past five years,’ the headmaster corrects him, ‘and then, I am telling my pupils those Batavians were also no pleasant folks.’

‘That’s what all the headmasters before your arrival told the men here. ’Remember for always as from now, Bouchove has traditionally been a Manor under the protection of the Prince Bishop of Liège, but the French Revolution has messed up everything, and as from tomorrow, those from above the Great Rivers are in charge.’

‘But you will turn everything into the right direction, huh Mayor?’

‘I say only this, that I am saying nothing.’

‘Well said, Mayor. You probably know more, but speech is silver, and discretion is gold.’

‘My lips are sealed,’ the Mayor concludes.

Monday, January 6, 1800

Hendrik Calff is a busy man, as everybody knows. In addition to the full-time job his farm brings about, as the Mayor of Bouchove, he wants to be informed about everything. Hendrik can handle all that because he knows how to put others to work. So, it happens that he is present in De Valk by the time the stagecoach must arrive. With a glass in front of himself, he can see through the windows all what is happening outside as far as the harbour on one and De Roskam on the other side.

2

He observes how De Coen and De Duun are wildly gesturing to each other on their yard adjacent to the port. Fortunately, he can only see the brothers and not hear them. Look, the stagecoach from’s-Hertogenbosch turns up around the corner to come to a halt right in front of De Valk. Riet appears to handily capture the bundle of mail that the coachman throws to her. She helps the only passenger to get off. Who is he again? Youthful but balding.

Before he is able to dig up the answer out of his memory, Hendrik sees Mademoiselle Larose rushing out of De Roskam and coming over here. But what is she doing now? She goes on her knees in front of the gentleman and puts her arms around his legs.

‘I know,’ Luc responds softly and pointing to the boy that came after her, ‘And who do we have here, what’s your name, boy?’

‘Luc, monsieur.’

Wednesday, March 19, 1800

The discovery that he has a son gives Luc the balance he has been looking forward to during the years spent in solitude. Suddenly, everything falls into place. Larose is like a mother for his Luc, and it is obvious that they both stay in De Roskam, where Jenneke van Dure has taken care of them after the incident.

In De Toorn, which had remained empty all that time, he found on his desk a closed envelope addressed to Marianne. In the letter, a joyful Bonne Charlotte reveals the birth of her first child in Paderborn. The fruit of love conceived in exile, he concludes.

The very day they had prepared the house for Luc, and every afternoon, Larose is coming over with junior to clean the house and prepare dinner. The two Lucs don’t need much time to become Daddy and my boy for one another. The farmers are reminded of their obligations and thus revenues are coming in again. After deducting Luc’s share and expenditures, a modest balance is paid into the account of the Count at Van Lanschot every month.

~~~~~

Today, Larose has arrived without Junior because guests are expected. The Mayor and Aldermen call first and take a seat at the table. The two armchairs are left for Luc and the guest from outside.

At exactly eleven o’clock, the coach of the Commissioner of the Dommel drives up. Luc walks out to assist him in getting off and to welcome him. A courteous greeting with Latin and French in it follows.

‘So that’s how they measure one another,’ Larose concludes while letting them in, ‘It is amice before and confrère after.’ Then she will make them notice her too, whereupon she starts to talk in such rapid French that even Luc cannot keep up with it.

Meanwhile, Calff exhales a silent sigh of relief. If the two can get along that well, his future is also secured. He might lack the necessary importance, this is the time to show his skills in administration, ‘On behalf of the 250 citizens, I welcome you in this municipality Bouchove. It may be the smallest among the ceded countries, but it has the greatest history and I can assure you of the decency of the people. Let that be said.’

Visibly impressed by this introduction, the Commissioner asks if Mr Mayor and Aldermen—au fond—are prepared to continue their work under the new administration. Well, the gentlemen did.

~~~~~

Monday, July 14, 1800

Hunters are an early folk, and so they have to, because the game is early in the morning too. Then they are coming out of their holes in search for food and drink, to retire after. To celebrate the eleventh anniversary of the Revolution, The Bear has invited some dozens people from the Hunger Burgt for a hunting party on the territory of Bouchove.

After they install themselves hungry and thirsty on the site of the former castle ground. Then the game is displayed and cut up to proudly declare that it has been a good catch. It has been such a good hunt that it can be celebrated with the entire village, so The Bear lets trumpeting around that the villagers are welcome. And indeed, it doesn’t take long or the Bootlicker shows up, but otherwise, no other Bouchove people report.

With a fine sense of potential sensitivities out of the past, The Bear has not called on De Valk for drinks and services, but himself taken care of the provisions. Treating guests well is highly