To spot the Portal of Saint-Martin, look just ahead for a grand, weathered stone archway with intricate carvings and columns, standing strikingly alone across a small patch of green, like the gateway to a secret garden.
Now, let’s drift back in time together-picture Épernay in the year 1540. Imagine a team of stone carvers, dust flying, chiseling away as they build a grand side entrance for the local abbey church. Above the arch they place a proud statue of Saint Martin on horseback-a real medieval superhero! It’s said the sculptor was probably Pierre Jacques, though honestly, I think he might have just enjoyed seeing his work watched over by a saint.
This arch stood cheerfully as the monks prayed and sang… until history went a bit sideways. In 1790, Épernay shook with change: the government abolished the old monastic vows, and suddenly monks became history themselves as they marched quietly out. Two years later, the grand old church behind this portal stopped echoing with hymns and started filling up with hay bales-it was used as a storage warehouse! Not exactly what the stone carvers had imagined.
But our plucky portal endured. When the vaults of the church collapsed in 1824-imagine the crash!-they built a new church nearby. The Portal of Saint-Martin was battered, losing even its statue, and then moved and set into a bell tower, peering out onto Saint-Martin Street. But wait, there’s more moving! In 1909, as the old abbey was finally torn down, the portal was shifted one more time, set up right here in the leafy square you see, facing Place Hugues-Plomb like a grand old storyteller.
Through revolutions, ruin, and relocations, this majestic portal survived, finally becoming one of France’s first historical monuments in 1840. So take a moment under this ancient arch and let your imagination walk you through centuries. Who knows-maybe the spirit of Saint Martin is still keeping an eye out, hoping his statue will someday come home! Now, onwards to our next adventure…
