After having taken one of the pedestrian paths proposed on the small
place of the church,
take a break and discover this fabulous landscape of the Cisse valley.
During your break, let yourself be told the fascinating and real story of little
Magdelaine Auger.
Work by Suzor COTÉ, La Pastourelle, Musée des Beaux Arts, Montreal
The incredible destiny of Magdelaine Auger,
a little shepherdess born in Orchaise, on April 27, 1774, died, princess in Dubno
in Ukraine, in 1850.
Discover this intriguing story while admiring this beautiful valley of the Cisse.
In 1850, a former sovereign princess died in Germany. In her will, she declared that she was born in 1774 in Orchaise near Blois, and wanted to dispose of one third of her fortune to her descendants. The executor of the princess' will, faced with the refusal of the German administration, took personal steps and then turned to German Jews in Paris who in 1856 joined forces with the eminent lawyer Jules Favre. The following year, the lawyer went to Blois and then Orchaise and questioned old people, investigated and finally reconstructed, in part, his story, and what a story it was!
It is said that a young shepherdess of 14 years old, from the village of Orchaise, disappeared overnight without a trace. It was in October, because the young shepherdess had taken shelter from the west wind, from there she could see her sheep and the old bell tower of La Chaussée in the distance. That day, a brilliant carriage appeared on the road, preceded by two hunters. The shepherdess attracted by this convoy approached. From inside the carriage, an order was issued in an unknown language. The carriage stopped, the two valets dismounted hastily and took the young child away.
Farmers working at some distance from the place of abduction had noticed the carriage and its sudden stop in front of the house. Eventually it was learned that a rich foreigner was taking with him, from post to post, a young girl, almost a child, and that they had embarked in Nantes on a German ship bound for Hamburg.
Under the name of Mlle de Saint-Barthélemy, the rich foreigner entrusted her to a convent. She received a solid education and remained there until she was twenty years old. In 1794, the lord married her and made her a princess of a small sovereign state.
Thus the young shepherdess became a princess and never found her land again, but the memories she kept of her time spent here were very real!
If you are interested in this fascinating story, I invite you to discover the complete story on this link here: the town hall of Valencisse retransmits you the route and the studies carried out to reconstitute this incredible story.
translation by DeepL
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