Les Duex Amantes de Connelles/The Two Lovers of Connelles
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| Two Lovers of Connelles-www.alvaradofrazier.com |
There are as many variations of the legend of the Two Lovers of Connelles as there are villagers. The main story remains the same.
Two young lovers involved in a forbidden love affair are forever eulogized in this sculpture and in the Chalk Mountains of Connelles.
These two young people were from different classes, some say the young woman was a princess, the young man a peasant. Others say he was the rich son of a lord and the girl a poor farmer’s daughter.
What is the same is that the parents forbade the young couple’s desire to marry. In the princess version, the King gave the young man a task: Carry my daughter up the steep mountainside on your back. If you make it to the top you may marry, if not, you do not have our blessing.
The young man carried his love on his back almost to the top of the mountain before he stumbled and fell, both of them tumbling to their death. The mountainside turned white, to chalk.
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| Chalk Mountain, Connelles |
Was this for the innocence of their pure love?
The question is pondered, no one knows that part of the story. But what is known is that young love is forever memorialized on that mountain.
Connelles War Cemetery: RAF Lieutenant
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| Connelles Cemetery-www.alvaradofrazier.com |
The sign on the iron gate, adjacent to the old stone church, reads, “For those who died for France.” A worn blue, white and red French flag gently waves over marble, stone, and gravel grave sites.
This is a community cemetery where everyone tends to the care of the sites whether they have a family member here or not. Water jugs, hand trowels, and bags of potting soil lean against a corner. Pink and red geraniums fill small graveside boxes, tiny cypress trees sprout besides headstones.
There are the ornate granite headstones and small crumbling ones, several listing births in the mid 1800’s, deaths in the very early 1900’s.
The mystery in this cemetery is this one:
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| Unknown RAF Lt.-www.alvaradofrazier.com |
Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the Free French Forces, announced the official end of World War II to the French people on May 8, 1945. Church bells rang to communicate and celebrate this message. It marked the end of a six-year war and the Nazi oppression in France, which resulted in millions of deaths.
This headstone tells us that R.L.F Day was a Defense Force Commander with the Royal Air Force as a flight Lieutenant. The emblem on the top shows the Queens crown. He did not have the opportunity to celebrate the end of the war.
The story is that his plane crashed in the green fields by the Seine. After wandering through the village, someone encountered the Lieutenant. Did a young woman find him? Did she or her family care for him and his injuries. It’s not known when he was born, where, or how long he lived, but he was buried in the Connelles cemetery after his death in 1944.
Lt. Day’s headstone and the area around it is kept very clean. Someone is taking good care of his resting place. Could it be the woman who fell in love with him?
Does your town have any romantic mysteries?
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