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  Marigny
St-Theodule (St Theodore)
 

The spire tiles appear dull here, but shine in bright sunlight.

Unusually, not cruciform. There's a Romanesque church in there somewhere. The rather sombre sanctuary.
Queen of Heaven facing the church from the square. 15th century St Theodule. Looking west.
St Theodule (detail)

  Marigny is a long, comfortable village that straggles along the northern shore of lac de Chalain. Because of this, it has more than its fair share of holiday homes, some of them built in the horrible international hacienda style; but generally it is a pretty place, and still largely agricultural. As the village slopes upwards, so the fields give way to forests, and there are some stunning walks up towards Fontenu.

St Theodule sits at the western end of the village above the road to Doucier. Rather unusually for this area, it isn't cruciform, and although the general air is of a 19th century church in the Romanesque style, I felt that what I was seeing was largely a restoration with many surviving original features. The little chancel appears to be a later addition, but beneath the skin of plastered walls inside there seem to be the bones of a Romanesque church.

The tower is plastered and shingled, and if the steeple is a little unusual it does still have the wet-look glazed tiles familiar from other churches in the area.

On many visits I have never found the church locked, and on a hot day you step into a coolness of stone and dark wood. The burgundy wall at the back of the sanctuary is a little startling, especially with such a stark crucifix on it, but the altar is a simple modern one, and you get the impression that, like the rest of this area, Marigny embraced Vatican II whole-heartedly.

There is a very curious painted statue to the north of the chancel arch. At first sight you might think it a crude 19th century plaster cast; in fact, it is a wooden medieval image of St Theodule, rescued from the church at the time of the French Revolution by a local family, the Humberts, who are buried in profusion up the hill in Fontenu. It was returned to the church in 1994, possibly as part of the 50th Anniversary of liberation celebrations. The overpainting might be considered unfortunate, but of course it is merely a centuries-old tradition.

Although Marigny is quite a big place, it only has one bar and no shops. This is partly because there is a publicly-accessible supermarket and restaurant down in the lakeside holiday village, but also because Doucier is just around the lake. Curiously, a signpost in the village square tells you that Doucier is 5 km away, but when you reach the bottom road 100m further on the distance is given as 3km. The second sign is the correct one; perhaps the first sign was a cunning attempt by Marigny's buisinessmen to ensure that custom didn't go elsewhere; if so, I am afraid that it has failed.

St Theodule, Marigny, is at the western end of the village which is on the D27 between Doucier and Crotenay.