Reopening of Pierre Loti’s house: a restored palace

This house is an immobile liner where Pierre Loti (1850-1923) transforms each piece into a cabin “overflowing with objects, sums up Claude Stefani, curator of the municipal museums of Rochefort (Charente-Maritime). As during his trips, when he organized his cabin in real artistic installation. »»

His real name Julien Viaud, the writer, first a naval officer, begins to navigate at 17 years old. Twelve years later, he published his first novel, Aziyadé. Between his trips – he will visit 28 countries -, Pierre Loti stopped in Rochefort where he bought the family home in 1871. Thanks to the money from his books, he will modify it tirelessly, according to his eclectic tastes: Turkish lounge, Chinese room and Japanese pagoda are neighboring with a Renaissance room and another medieval.

“Loti is not a collector,” says Claude Stefani. He accumulates exotic objects that remind him of places, moments. He composes a decor where he will play in the theater. The author of Icelandic fisherman and Ramuntcho Often disguises himself and invites his friends from the Parisian gratin to astonishing costume celebrations.

“There is also a desire for social revenge in him, because his father was unfairly accused of embezzlement of funds,” added the conservative. This desire to dream of your life, to surround yourself with memories to conjure the passage of time, testifies to the anxiety of the writer. Is it not in his room with a monacal decor that the real loti is revealed? Behind the disguise, we guess a sober soldier, inconsolable of the loss of his older brother, tortured to have lost faith, in search of a moment of suspended happiness.