Pauline REIG-ROUGIER
Captain ROUGIER and Pauline
on a honeymoon trip to Rome
General ROUGIER
Pauline RED
great portrait at Paulette
Pauline Reig's letter to Claude, for her marriage. She was very old and sick, living in Toulouse
died in 1956, at 97 years
Married to Louis ROUGIER,
And Claude's grandmother
39
High
Port-Sales, in the large house of Castellane Square, Pauline REIG he was married at the age of 21 in 1880, Louis ROUGIERCaptain of the Genius.
(This house in Castellane Square came back as a half-wayway to Pauline. Her daughter Louise, who managed these family properties, turned her into an apartment and then sold her. Later she became the gendarmerie barracks in Port Vendres. Claude and Yves saw this gendarmerie around 1980 before it was demolished.
Travel - Pilgrimage in 1978 to Port-Vendres, cradle of the Vilar-Reig family, with Grannie, Claude and Yves
(details)
The Reig family vault at Port Vendres Cemetery
Pauline was happy to tell her memories to her granddaughter Claude.
"For my grandmother who was immobilized from 82 years (she died at 97 years of age) by a fracture of the femur neck in 1950, (à
Gerde, where the ROUGIER clan was on vacation near Bigorre bagners, in Aunt Henriette's house). - At the time, doctors recommended immobility and, of course, the welding of bones was hurting and it was over to be able to walk - she gladly told her memories joyfully, but when she was alone, she lamented herself aloud and spent a lot of time saying her rosary.
She had retained her Catalan accent, although it was more "chic" to speak "pointed" i.e. without accent, - like the Parisians. She was raised to the Sacred Heart and understood Catalan without having really spoken.
She told us about her youth in Port Vendres. For her there were those who were lucky and those who didn't. To tell the truth, there were 11 children in the Reig family and everyone had their own destiny. She remembered the big house in Castellane Square and the bad blows they made up, they had climbed to the roof to ring the bell St. Michael and my friends... by going down, what a beating! And above all, there were weddings and we had been more or less lucky.
This was how she found "her man" (for Port-Vendres was and is only a town). There was a garrison of genius, charged with building forts and making a strategic road - the Montlouis road - (we never know if there was a war with the Spaniards...), and some young officers - very transplanted of course - . These gentlemen were looking for the ladies who were going to Mass, because it was the great exit of the well educated girls. And Pauline, who had had typhoid fever, suddenly reappeared. She was amazed in the military environment of this young lady, whom she had never seen before, and Louis ROUGIER (Captain) asked for her in marriage.
In 2 letters dated 11 February and 1 March 1980, dated from Nice, addressed by Louis Rougier to his elder brother Felix, he speaks of Pauline with whom he has just married, of a ball in Nice and of his honeymoon in Rome. See the transcripts of these interesting letters.
Nice 11/2/80My dear Felix, We have just spent more than pleasantly the 8 days of carnival in Nice. A beautiful sun has favored us until Tuesday, unfortunately a wave that still lasted disturbed the last day of the feast; we attended the ball ??? Monday; after much hesitation, Pauline defeated her timidity and decided to please me, to accompany me to the circle, on the express condition that we would stay there only until 1 am; at 3 o'clock I could not bring her out and at 5 1/2 o'clock in the morning she was dancing her last waltz.
I found here an English agency that organizes trips to Italy, with circular tickets and hotel coupons. For the sum of 320F (go and go) that I had to spend according to the agreed program, I have a circular ticket that allows me to go to Genoa, Pisa, Rome, Naples, Bologna, Venice, Milan, Turin; it is therefore this route that I will follow by pressing a little more to return to the beginning of March; I may spend 2 or 3 more days, but I am comforted that I will not soon have the opportunity to make such a trip.
If you want to write, address Continental Hotel in Rome, so that your letter arrives before next Wednesday, otherwise wait for my return so that the correspondence doesn't follow me too long.
Pauline is doing very well so far, she joins me in wishing Thérèse and the whole family all the happiness you have?
All yours Louis Rougier
Nice on 1ir
March 1880
My dear Felix, yesterday we arrived in Nice, leading the last part of the trip by Florence, Venice, Milan, we are not too tired, and will return to Port Vendres, in good hygienic conditions, because the small days that we will do to get there will rest us completely.
We were favored by a very good weather to make our excursion, the beautiful sky of Italy (and this is not a vain word) flooded us with its beautiful rays, except for a day of rain in Rome, we had only beautiful spring days.
We did our best to visit the most interesting ancient and modern monuments, but unfortunately there were so many, and as long as we could easily have spent six months to see the cities we only visited; we stopped especially in Rome and Naples, a trip to Vesuvius gave us plenty of fatigue, the most beautiful glance that one could dream of; the volcano is still a little erupting; the burning lava flows on the side of the mountain, forming a flood of fire quite similar to a melted cast; One can use a mould that an industrialist makes available to travellers for reward to make a medal of memory of the volcano.
The large crater vomits its flames and vapours strong enough to make it impossible to risk at the top, and see the background of the funnel, but we can offer this spectacle to the little crater, swallowing many sulphurous vapors and burning its shoes in the ashes.
On the same day we visited Pompeii; excavations continue, but a large part of the city is already discovered; houses (or at least walls), internal arrangements, paintings are very well preserved; looking closely at certain details, one can only imagine this whole date back to 18 centuries; unfortunately all the really beautiful rooms that were discovered were transported to the museum of Naples; it would have been preferable for the tourist to see them gathered in Pompeii even in a museum built for this purpose.
In Rome we were able to have an audience of Pope Leo XIII who did not give it as easily as his predecessor; the objects carried were nevertheless blessed by him.
While I was traveling Rome Naples and back, two letters arrived in Rome were sent back to Naples, then returned to Rome where they went astray: despite my claims I didn't have them; I assumed there was one of you, and one of my mother-in-law; if I am in the real world, you will probably tell me if yours contained interesting things to know.
You don't see the expenses that you have to make for visit important monuments In Italy, we have to keep our hands on the pocket and give it every minute, so my budget is over 1000 francs, tell me in your next letter if you can provide them against receipt as the previous one to be up to level at the beginning.
Pauline tells me to convey her friendships to you and to Thérèse and Raphael, Valentine, Ferdinand and Antoine whom she will later know must not be forgotten.
My best wishes for everyone LouisRougier
Answer me to Port Vendres, I'll be there on the 4th.
Attached a photograph (probably the one reproduced above)
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"The young couple lived (in Port Vendres) a kind of white house mid-coast towards the cemetery (it was a dwelling of office). : - Nice guard., Batna In 1895, Louis left for the Sudan) Pauline did not follow him and first moved to Port-Vendres, then in 1900 to Sceaux at 48, rue de Bagneux, where his children could be educated, Lakanal High School for Mauritius, the Legion of Honor in Saint-Denis for Louise and Lucie boarders).
In 1906, they met again in Montpellier and then in Versailles. " Montpellier for my father (he was 13 years old) was a wonderful memory. His father was already a general, he was coming back from Sudan.."
" Grand Mother said, "and for the seventh, I was crying, I was crying" - it was the Benjamin Maurice, born 12 years after the eldest Felix. Today we misrepresent what was for a woman of many maternitys."
Pauline became a widow at 52 years old, in 1910, a few months after her daughter's marriage. From Versailles, where there was a fairly large train (my grandfather was the commander of arms in the city), she left the beautiful apartment of her husband's general, 41 rue d'Angivilliers, and moved more simply to Paris, rue Sarrette, near the Porte d'Orléans, Louise to the Legion of Honour, Maurice at the Lycée Lakanal. Louise married in 1916. he divorced and joined her, as well as Mauritius on his return from Morocco (1921) until 1927, the date of his marriage.
In 1927, she and Lucie and her little Paulette returned to Toulouse, where she settled until her death, cared for by her daughter Lucie.
At the time when she was valid, she came to see Maurice and her family (Claude sséen remembers), quite long in Dijon, then in Bourg-en-Bresse. She had become an old lady very deaf, vaulted, with terrible rheumatisms in her feet. Claude and I were seeing her in Toulouse, leaving for Algeria in October 54.
His grave is in Lyon, at the cemetery of St.-Cyr-au-Mont-d-Or, with his husband and the families of Félix and Henri ROUGIER and their descendants. Back to home