Rue Tracastel: Grasse’s history in miniature

If you walk along Grasse’s rue Droite (named rue Jean Ossola at the western entrance), you might stop at a bar/café called Croissant Rose without noticing the street behind it, rue Tracastel. Yet this street, of no more than 250 metres, and not very prepossessing in parts, encapsulates much of Grasse’s history – its historic defences, its access to water, its religious buildings, the development of the perfume industry, Grasse’s most eminent painter, an old boarding school and a prolonged act of heroism in World War 2.

The street was originally part of Grasse’s security. The name, according to a reconstructed map of fifteenth century Grasse, is a corruption of Carreria Retro Castellum, meaning ‘outside the castle’, because it was the defensive ditch (a fosse) directly below Grasse’s citadel of the Puy, which was surrounded by the first defensive wall.

Maquette of original settlement of Le Puy, showing the wall below the citadel where rue Tracastel runs today. Maison du Patrimoine, 22 rue de l'Oratoire

Even when the first wall was extended to cover the settlement to the north of the Puy, the fosse remained outside. Only when the walls were further extended in the early fourteenth century did the ancient fosse become a street inside the walls. If you look down Montée Tracastel and up the Travers Vauban you can see how strongly the original citadel was defended by a steep slope, with the fosse acting as extra deterrent.

Following the extension, rue Tracastel led to the town’s south eastern gate, Porte Saint Michel, while the Travers Vauban steps leading up to the Cathedral commemorate Louis XIV’s great military architect – Grasse was right on France’s borders in his time (1633-1707).

The town's water supply

It was all very well having strong defenses, but the availability of water was key to Grasse’s development, and rue Tracastel was, like all the old town streets, serviced by water from the Le Foux source. Today all that is visible is two nineteenth century fountains, but they are still connected to the town’s network of troughs and pipes running under and next to the streets. The smaller one of the two can be seen outside number 8. Here it is today, alongside a pre-First War image which rather indicates that rue Tracastel was much more populated at the time.

The more impressive fountain is at the bottom of the street next to the Mont de Piété and dates from 1829.

Mont de Piété

The Mont de Piété is one of only two religious establishments left in the street. It apparently was moved around the town before ending up here, and that might be why there is a misprint in the stonework, where de Piété (Piety) has been mis-carved as de Pitié (Pity)!

The perfume industry

Behind the rather dilapidated façade of no. 4 lies a classic example of how the perfume industry shaped the town. The building was originally part of a convent of Ursuline nuns, which was forcibly vacated and ‘nationalised’ during the Revolution. The process of enfleurage to extract essences from flowers needed labour and space. Re-purposed religious buildings, such as this one, were ideal, and so it was taken over in 1820 by the Niel family perfume business.

What distinguishes Niel was that, instead of moving out of the old town in the latter part of the nineteenth century as others did, the business was able to extend its premises from the 1870s onwards into new buildings, down the rue Barri at right angles to the ancient convent. Here's the rue Barri, running up from bd Fragonard, in 1905, with Niel's perfumery chimney visible (above the balustrade on the left of the picture):

Today, the chimney has gone, and there's a modern front with a bay window, which was part of enhancements made as late as the 1940s.

The site was still in use until the 1970s. Like all its peers, Jean Niel SAS eventually moved to new premises south of the town. It not only still exists and thrives, but does so under the management and control of direct descendants of the founder – you can see a summary of its history on its website here.

The old site is largely abandoned: last year it was the prime subject of an application by the town to create a new cultural centre, under a government scheme called "Réinventons nos cœurs de villes" ('Let's re-invent the hearts of our towns'), but the application was apparently unsuccessful. The difficulty is clearly what to do with such an enormous industrial edifice in the middle of Grasse's narrow streets.

And Jean Niel was not the only perfumier in rue Tracastel. In 1883, Warrick Brothers of London established a factory at number 48 in another religious building, in their case, a seminary.   If you google ‘Warrick Freres’, all kinds of perfume bottles come up – while London was their HQ, they also had a sales office in New York. Their building is best seen from the Place St Martin above it – what is now apartments was, as often in Grasse, the owners' residence incorporated into the factory, with a magnificent view across the Plan de Grasse.

Former Warrick Freres perfumery

Fragonard

Across from number 48, number 23 is where Grasse’s best known painter, Jean-Honore Fragonard, was born on 7th April 1732, as the commemorative plaque outside shows. More about him on my blog here.

The school

Not all the old Ursuline convent was incorporated into the Niel site. Seemingly abandoned for nearly a century, the garden and cloister and the buildings abutting the street at numbers 6 and 8 were reoccupied in 1901. Another religious order which still exists today, the Sisters of Saint Thomas of Villeneuve, moved in and you can see their chapel, behind a rather shamefully neglected carved door, at number 8.

Entrance to Jeanne d'Arc girls boarding school

The order's main work was the education of the young daughters of the poor, and they initiated a boarding school later known as Pensionnat St Jeanne, with its entrance at number 6. Behind the entrance, the old cloister and garden of the Ursuline nuns was the school's yard.

The site was only closed in 2018, when the school was transferred to a new building as part of the Institut Fénelon. There are several accounts on the internet from former pupils, who obviously remember their schooldays there with affection and respect.

Réseau Marcel

But a more poignant memorial has recently appeared outside number 6, reflecting an heroic episode in the school’s and indeed Grasse’s life. In 1943, after the armistice between Italy and the Allies, the Nazis occupied Grasse, placing the town’s Jewish population in deadly danger. Gestapo headquarters was less than 300 metres from rue Tracastel, just the other side of the Cours.

"In this place from 1943 to 1945, six Jewish girls were hidden and saved from deportation by the Marcel network".

You can find details about Réseau Marcel and its extraordinary Jewish, Catholic and Protestant leaders here (or in French, here). The six girls were given false names and survived, hidden amongst their Catholic peers, in the school.

The two Jewish principals, a Parisienne named Odette Rosenstock and a Syrian immigrant called Moussa Abadi, had the direct assistance of a Catholic priest and a Protestant pastor. They were aided by the active connivance of the Bishop of Nice. Odette Rosenstock survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Odette and Moussa married in 1959, and she killed herself in 1999, two years after his death.

According to a 2016 book (The Marcel Network, Fred Coleman, Potomac Books), Marcel saved 527 children from the Nazis. Today, there is still an association named Les Enfants et Amis Abadi ('The Abadi Children and Friends'), which was founded by one of the six girls who was hidden at Pensionnat St Jeanne.

Rue Tracastel is truly one of Grasse’s most historic streets, but its involvement with the Réseau Marcel must surely be its proudest moment.