Frozen in time, bedroom of French soldier killed in 1918
The dust and cobwebs lie thick after nearly a century, but the memory of the French soldier who grew up in this bedroom - and who died in Belgium during the first world war - is today as vivid as the sunlight streaming through the window.
The dust and cobwebs lie thick after nearly a century, but the memory of the French soldier who grew up in this bedroom - and who died in Belgium during the first world war - is today as vivid as the sunlight streaming through the window.
Dragoons officer Hubert Rochereau's presence permeates the place. It emanates from photos and from the second lieutenant's various possessions - uniforms, riding trophies, books - frozen in time on the top floor of a large home in Belabre, a small village in central France.
The vivid vestiges of his short life are a testament to the grief his parents felt upon learning of the death of their only son on April 26, 1918, at the age of just 21.
So deep was their bereavement, that they sought to have his memory live on when they sold the house, stipulating in the deed of sale that his bedroom must go untouched for 500 years.
The current owner, Daniel Fabre, has observed their wishes. "It's not an act of devotion but of historic preservation," he says. But the clause itself "has no legal basis", he notes. "You can't keep something preserved that way for 500 years under French law."
Fabre, a 72-year-old retired civil servant, took over the large house after the death a decade ago of his wife, who had inherited it from her grandfather. He proudly shows off the small room where Rochereau was born, timeworn but remarkably intact.
Cobwebs stretch between a moth-eaten uniform jacket and a desk upon which lies the bric-a-brac that Rochereau collected, including an antique pistol, military manuals, a pipe and a tin of tobacco. Dust hangs in the air.
Yet the small single bed - covered by a lace spread, the soldier's military academy cap and his posthumous medals - looks as if it were just made.
Above it hangs a big sepia portrait of young Rochereau in military dress. A memory of the man who died in a British field hospital the day after being wounded when Germans overran his unit's position in Kimmelberg, a hill in West Flanders.
On the walls of the bedroom are artefacts from Rochereau's interest in things military, notably swords and bayonets. "I believe this is a German bayonet from the first world war," Fabre says, touching one blade. "The rest must date from Napoleon's time, or I don't know when."
Fabre, while respectful of the place, is not sentimental. There is no feeling of any attachment to the spectral occupant whose belongings he watches over.
His main concern is that his spacious residence not be overrun by tourists or war buffs. He has no plans to open the private memorial to the public, and even asks journalists not to provide images or details that could identify his property from the outside.
"I especially don't want to be invaded," he says. "Certainly not. After all, this is my home."
