Eglise de Bézu-Saint-Germain

A picturesque French stone church on the way to Reims from Paris. It almost feels like time stops in the sleepy town. Great for a quick stop and some pictures.

Owl monument passing for a road trip

The church of Bézu Saint-Germain of Romanesque origin dates from the 12th and 13th century. His boss is Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois, born in the 4th century, celebrated on July 31st. The village festival is the first weekend of August to celebrate Germain. Its square steeple, pierced by semicircular openings, rises above the square of the transept. Inside, 3 bells carried by a superb unsealed framework. It is composed of a nave, flanked by a single aisle to the south, a transept with a single cross on the same side, and a choir. The nave is separated from the aisle by three ogival arches. A floor made of joists and exposed beams covers the nave which is lit by Roman windows. The portal is Romanesque, it lost its covered porch during the 1914-1918 war. Woodwork covers the walls to a height of 2 meters. Under the whitewashing we can see paintings including a blazon found in many places. Inside, there is a 14th century stone statue of the Virgin holding Baby Jesus in her arms. Located on a high plateau of the old Brie champenoise south of Laon and Soissons, the village of Bézu-Saint-Germain has this interesting church of the twelfth and thirteenth century. The capped nave, originally unique, was endowed in the nineteenth century. of a collateral that led to the piercing of arches in the south wall. The north wall, undisturbed, has kept two narrow Romanesque semicircular windows. Between them, a wider window, slightly elevated, is posterior. The western facade has a Romanesque portal that must go back, like the nave, at the end of the twelfth century. Its sawtooth archivolt rests on palm-leaf capitals. The choir is formed by a straight span, vaulted on a cross of double-torus warheads, which supports a powerful bell tower, later modified in its high parts. Gemini bays, which illuminated the second level, remain only an example in the north. This bay communicates with the rectangular apse by a broken double-rolled arch falling on capitals topped with thick trenches in the north, while in the south the baskets are adorned with fantastic birds and a scene with several characters standing. In the apse, the doubleaux and the ogives are composed of a central torus in almond framed by two smaller tori. The hook capitals are decorated with leaves and palm leaves. All this set must be placed in the first half of the thirteenth century. Among the furniture, a Virgin and Child stone xiv s. is classified as a historical monument. In 1987, the totality of the roof requiring a complete repair, the French Art Safeguard granted an aid of 35 000 F.

Too bad it is not heated by freezing temperatures.