February 27th 1823. Ernest Renan was born in Tréguier
And also
The tops
Renan, Breton of Tréguier
Brittany, a mother and a sister
Renan, the philosopher, the writer and the historian... was born in Brittany! He was born in this house on February 27th 1823.
His father died when he was a kid. He grew up with his pious mother and his sister Henriette, a very clever girl, Renan’s soulmate.
He left Brittany to go to Paris, in 1845. He wanted to become a priest in Tréguier, but things changed...
He wanted to learn, above all, learn and write! Apply the religion? No! He wanted to study it, to dissect it as a science!
Click in Paris
He had to say goodbye to his mother and his beloved sister and entered in Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet’s seminary school in Paris.
There, he had a kind of click. He studied literature. As he was a very good student, he went to Saint-Sulpice school to study the Bible.
Renan could make researches on religions, Western and Eastern philosophies...
And finally, at 39 years old, he held his own chair in Collège de France. The ultimate consecration? Maybe...
He published his Vie de Jésus (Jesus’ Life) in 1863: a real bombshell, a scandal! He wrote "Jesus, this incomparable man"... Aaah, you miscreant! yelled the right-thinking.
Hatred!
Of course, Renan never forget his fatherland: he wrote about Brittany in Souvenirs d’enfance, L’âme Bretonne and La poésie des races Celtiques.
Renan told about his own death:
"Ah, si elle pouvait être au milieu du cloître (de la cathédrale de Tréguier, ndlr)! Mais le cloître c'est encore l'Eglise, et l'Eglise, bien à tort, ne veut pas de moi."
"Ah, I wish I could die in Tréguier cathedral's cloister. But the cloister is the Church itself, and the Church, wrongly, does not want someone like me."
Even after his death, Renan still bothered! Right-thinking would never leave him alone: do you know the story of the protest calvary?
The museum
Renan's house was transformed into a museum. Come on, let’s visit it!
Outside, the house has a nice little half-timbered façade. Overlooking the courtyard, an austere granite façade.
Inside, we can discover rooms where Renan spent his childhood: his bedroom with his little wooden desk and his bed; his study and his library (the exact copy of the one he had in the Collège de France, Paris).