Slow and steady wins the race

Eduard van Boxtel, the moving spirit behind Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne manages a database with buildings that are or might be Romanesque, but not all these building can be found on his website.

Is that tiny window high up a maybe a church window?

Entries in his database marked with a question mark do not appear on his site unless the question mark is replaced by a positve "yes, this is Romanesque", or "yes, this building really exists". Concerning a remark about Romanesque churches within our Postal Code area (71460, 34 communes, hence a multiple of 34 hamlets), I received an email from which I quote:

"Confrançon is also a question mark. I do not have a picture, but it has been described in the list of Alain Guerreau which I passed on to you earlier. He says :'it is a chapel comparable to Ougy, Chapelle', but I can't believe that. It is possibly a former church, now habitat. Maybe you can do something with this information?"

No, not really. We often drive through this hamlet, but we had never spotted anything church like. One day we drove through there slower than usual, and turned into the few side streets there are. At the edge of the village we saw a man and asked him whether he knew anything about a church in Cortevaix, but he referred us to the church in the commune of Cortevaix. We reported defeat to van Boxtel, and that was it. We thought...

Or maybe this one?

Until I was looking on the internet, in search of a completely different church. There I stumbled on the site Observatoire du Patrimoine Religieux, which mentioned quite a few churches of which the only entry I knew of came from van Boxtel. And Confrançon was mentioned here as well, making it more likely that we simply had missed this church.
And again, one fine day we drove through Confrançon, but this time we parked the car there and systematically walked down every street and alley in the village. The satellite picture shows that Confrançon may be small, but also that is has quite a few buildings. Extra difficulty was that OPR described the status of the church as a ruin, and that van Boxtel could not produce any other leads than he already had done. So we marched through the village, peeking over garden walls, avoiding barking and possibly biting dogs, hoping to find a heap of rubble, or even better, a few walls with at least some window openings....

The former church of Confrançon

We had investigated all the gardens and buildings in Confrançon, except for the last couple of houses along the D14 direction Cortevaix, when Sue literally at the one but last house in the top of the gable spotted a small window with what could well be a statue of the Virgin Mary, and when I, coming from the other side in the other gable spotted a bigger window opening with a round arch and a square window. Had we struck gold?
When I looked at the facade Sue had found, I saw another big door opening, also with a round arch. And while I was taking pictures, the owner came out, asking what we were looking for. She was curious and possibly a bit worried as well. However, when we told her that we were looking for the church of Confrançon, she confirmed that this was the former church. She had bought half the church, her neighbour owned the other half. She also told us that the old church bell was now displayed in the church of Cortevaix.
Who would still like to deny that slow and steady wins the race?

Practical information (courtesy of Eduard van Boxtel) :
Former church (habitat) Saint-? in Confrançon (Cortevaix), 12th century, 0*

For our own website, click here.

The bell of Confrançon in the church of Cortevaix