Rather than amend what I had written last night before going to bed, I reckoned that I would break with tradition and just quickly dash off a new page about Bouillon, for your entertainment and education.
You won’t see much in the photos because it was rather dark when I arrived and went darker still before I’d finished. But never mind.
Bouillon has a major claim to fame in that there is a huge castle, dating from the 10th Century with subsequent improvements, here in the town, up there behind those houses.
And I was so dismayed to see that the castle wasn’t illuminated. I would have expected to see it all brightly lit up, given its fame, especially as they have managed to illuminate those houses, But no such luck.
The castle is perched on a tall, prominent rock situated in a very tight meander of the River Semois and to reach it is quite a climb. It’s not for the faint-hearted and was an ideal defensive spot.
No-one is sure when the rock was first fortified, but a castle is definitely referred to in a letter in 988AD. It was slighted by Henry 111, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1045 but rebuilt shortly afterwards.
In 1082 it was inherited by its most famous owner, Godefroi de Bouillon.
However he sold it to the Prince-Bishops of Liège in 1095 for a sum believed to be 3 marks of gold and 1300 marks of silver in order that he would have funds to go off on the First Crusade.
And as we all know, went on to be the first ruler of the newly-conquered Jerusalem.
The castle, and the town which had grown up at its foot changed hands from then on, on occasions too numerous to list.
Its strategic position at the “entrance to the Ardennes” and “the gateway to France” had made it a key position on the ever-changing frontier in north-west Europe and it was never left in peace as marauding armies swarmed all over it.
It even fell into the hands of the La Tour d’Auvergne family from my neck of the woods on several occasions, but was almost always eventually restored to the Price-Bishops of Liège until their lands were definitely extinguished in 1795.
It was then absorbed by France, handed to the Netherlands by the Treaty of Paris of 1815 that ended the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, and became part of Belgium in the partition of 1830.
Its most famous modern inhabitant would be Leon Degrelle, a prominent and unrepentant Nazi collaborator who led a large body of Wallon Nazi collaborators and front-line SS troops during World War II and fled to Spain after the War.
It’s another one of these places that must have been absolutely magnificent 50 years ago, but cheap foreign travel has killed off much of the town like many other places in Northern Europe. There are several empty, abandoned hotels, shops and restaurants, and the good times have definitely gone.
But there’s still some kind of wealth here in the town with a few expensive hotels and restaurants that are way out of my reach.
But it did have a fritkot or three, one of which served falafel, so I was ok.
