As they do every year, the Friends of La Martinerie (“Les Amis de la Martinerie”) took part in the 2026 European Heritage Days using their standard format: guided tours in the morning and afternoon on both Saturday and Sunday. Sunday’s program also featured a lecture, followed, for attendees, by a tour of the “Maison départementale de la mémoire militaire” (Departmental Military Heritage Center). Visitor numbers totaled 105, matching the figure from 2025.
With valuable assistance from local historian Didier Dubant, the Friends of La Martinerie devised a military-themed approach to link the military heritage museum with the 150th anniversary of the passing of George Sand, by focusing on her father.
In the early 1800s, Maurice Dupin de Francueil, George Sand’s father, was stationed at the Camp de Montreuil (part of the larger Camp de Boulogne) as an aide-de-camp to General Dupont de l’Etang. Around thirty letters he wrote between 1803 and 1805 to his mother, Marie-Aurore de Saxe, and his wife, Sophie (who had remained at Nohant), were held in the Paris City Library but had never been published. That has now been rectified thanks to their transcription by Frédéric Lemaire, a researcher at INRAP.
An exhibition featuring photographs of these letters is currently on display at the museum and will run until December of this year. Martin, our civic service volunteer, will handle the presentation every Wednesday.
Once again, our volunteers stepped up; thanks to Bruno, Didier, Dominique, Frédéric, Jean-Jacques, Martin, Michel, Philippe, and Roland, as well as several spouses, Claudie, Francine, Marie-Claude, and Sylviane.
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Photo credit: Jean-Jacques Bérenguier
