The mining village of Faymoreau, at the northern border of the poitevin marsh, is the witness of the life of a small community of minors. What fascinates me in this resort, it is that it enables us to plunge ourselves into history to understand the life, work, joys, sufferings, in short, the daily life of these people. The well maintained mining cottages, the rebuilding of the mine with video support, the working tools, video of miners and their wives, are an effective means of discovering a page of the modern history.

You’ll be astonished by the sobriety and simplicity of these workers, who hint at a certain fraternity. It is learned there, for example, that several groups of nationals of other European countries lived in harmony in the village: Germans, Russians, Italians, etc . At the end, I felt gratitude towards these workers: without their daily sacrifice to extract coal, we wouldn’t have computers and wind turbines today.

There is an artistic beauty, too: the small chapel decorated since 2001 with nineteen stained glasses, carried out by the contemporary artist Carmelo Zagari, son of a miner. The whole of the canopies constitutes a single table which can be read as a large book of images. Exceptional work which mixes portraits of the miners, colors and spirituality, in homage to these brave men and to the danger of their lives, in the entrails of the ground.