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To visit the village

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"This way, please..."

Stretched on the hillside, the urban area of Conques shuts its church northwards and westwards in a circular arc. The original plan, from the Xth or the XIIth century, has been conserved in its broad lines, save the distortions caused by the driving of the secondary road through the town at the end of the XIXth century. Urban growth could have been carried out with the junction of two roads, perhaps pre-existing in the form of a Y : it is the heraldic pall (a Y with unequal arms) which appears on the arms of Conques near three shells. Firstly there was the Via Podensis, the pilgrimage road coming from Estaing which ran across the village lengthways between the old Fumouze Gate and the Vinzelle Gate, before reaching Figeac. This « High Street » (our current rue Emile Roudié) crops up with the street which goes down to the church, then crosses the Barry Gate under the name of "rue Charlemagne" and hurtles down the side as far as the «Roman» bridge over the Dourdou. It is linked up to Conques by the double row of old houses which constitute all along the rue Charlemagne, the main town suburb called Le Barry.

Saint Foy abbey-church was shut in southwards and eastwards by the monastery which accomodated the important benedictine community of Conques. Among its buildings, vanished or rebuilt at the end of the Middle Ages, it only remains a very stylish abbey chapel of flamboyant style which vaults are decorated with frescos ; it just has been restored and returned to cult.
As regards the roman cloister erected by the abbot Bégon III below the southern transept, the essentials were maintained in good order until 1830 when the departmental architect decided to raze it probably in order to avoid a too expensive restoration. There Prosper Mérimée arrived too late ! Eastwards, only two small arches opened on the old chapter house were spared as well as on the other side six gemeled openings under discharging arches - according to a layout similar to the church's galleries one - which put in contact the cloister's western gallery with the monks' refectory. The recent work achieved by the Historical Monuments, under the supervision of M. Fonquernie, architect-in-chief, have ended in the restoration of the cloister's area which was until then used as an ordinary presbytery garden. Under a thick layer of soil, the digging up of pieces of pavement as well as the foundation of the law wall which supports the inner colonnade allowed to reconstruct the four galleries' layout. Nowadays, both the rebuilt pavement and the reconstructed wall-chest perfectly suggest the roman cloister's layout (28 m x 26 m).
The latter had benefited from an ambitious decorative programme as shown by the capitals survivor of the disaster of 1830 which for the most part are marked with the very particular sign of the sculptors who worked in Bégon III's workshops. The smart sobriety of the ornamental bells decorated with curved bill sheets is the opposite of the juicy extravagance of the innumerable animal themes, whereas a world of warriors, acrobats or builders monks bring us back the society of the beginning of the XIIth century, by the side of angels.
But the major achievement was the reassembly and the restoration of the great monastic basin from pieces dismantled when the cloister was pulled down. Thanks to its material novelty, the dark-green serpentine coming from the Puech de Voll near Firmi, as well as its layout magnificence and sculpted decorations, this basin, unfortunately deprived of its central bowl, represents a monument unique of its kind in the whole monastic art.
The abbey-church and the cloister, which hold so many treasures fit exactly into an exceptional village and a marvellous setting. Unlike Saint Sernin of Toulouse and many other urban churches, Saint Foy benefits from the environment of a medieval village which has kept its authenticity through its cobbled streets, roman fountains, even its ordinary oven. The houses with wooden sides covered by high roofs in silver schist, the old pilgrims' hospice, the Humière castle, always crowd round the church thus creating an indissociable whole.
So, like the pilgrims of Compostela, modern tourists have still the privilege of crossing the town's gates opened in the preserved surrounding wall. Beyond the Barry Gate - that is beyond the village - they will hurtle down the Rue Charlemagne lined with old houses up to the «roman» humpback bridge which stretches across the Dourdou towards Aubin. By the Vinzelle Gate, where issued the Figeac way, they will be able to walk up to the top of the city walls. From up there, overlooking both the church and the village, they will admire on the horizon the wild conch closed by the tabular peneplane in the midst of which it has nestled.

Texts from Jean-Claude FAU Editions of Beffroi - Regional Council of Aveyron Translation from Valérie FABRE

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