In 2024 > Jeanne TARA
In 2018 > BEN – C’est écrit dans la Bible
One cannot talk about the village of Les Pontets without mentioning the local child, “the philosopher of Pontets”, Théodore Jouffroy, born in Les Pontets in 1796. Member of Parliament for Pontarlier from 1831 to 1839, brilliant academic, he taught philosophy in the most prestigious French schools, at the Faculty of Letters in Paris, then at the École Normale and the Collège de France. Today little known, even forgotten, he was nevertheless in his time a personality recognized by his peers: Ernest Renan spoke of “the beautiful pages of this desperate philosopher” and Sainte-Beuve emphasized “intelligence to an excellent degree, intelligence in that it is broad, deep and collected, perfectly clear and clarified… by Mr. Jouffroy”. In fragile health, exhausted by his duties, he died in Paris in 1841 at 45 years of age.
The Pontets church, placed under the name of the Visitation of Notre-Dame, and located in the enclosure of the old cemetery, was built in 1845 on the site of an old chapel.
The bell tower-porch, topped by a roof with a polygonal spire flanked by four pinnacles, opens onto a nave extended by an apse choir. The four bays of the nave are separated from the aisles by columns with cylindrical shafts on which groined vaults rest. Semi-circular stained glass windows illuminate the aisles and the choir. Wooden paneling covers the walls of the choir and the aisles.
We can note the presence of interesting furniture coming partly from the old building: a Christ on the cross (17th century), a preaching pulpit of which only the panels of the tank remain, a painting of the Virgin and Child known as the Rosary, a 1850 copy of a painting by Murillo made by the painter Desaugiers, the sacristy furniture, a second Christ on the cross, two gilded wooden statues (Saint Joseph and the ‘Immaculate Conception). There is no altarpiece in the choir or on the side aisles.
Text by Joël GUIRAUD
GPS : 46,719791 / 6,172172