French la Vie

A Little French Tuiles- History

Corey — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 11:00:07 +0000

Did you know how many tiles (tuiles, carreaux, malons, pottery…) my village produced in a year? Give a wild guess. A wilder guess! It is so shocking, that my exaggerating storytelling habits do not need to be expressed.

I still can’t believe it myself. If you walk around our village, you can still see the huge 4 old kilns. They stop producing many years ago, but they stand as massive evidence of how much tile was actually made here.

They say—and I absolutely love to tell this story—that these curved tuiles (tuiles are also the name of a cookie sold in French bakeries- they are shaped as a roof tile.., The myth stems from the sensual French nickname for the cookies, cuisses de nymphe), were originally shaped by molding clay over women’s thighs. But when you find out the real numbers, well you know that couldn’t be true. But it adds a charming twist go history.

(Though I always say that if any tiles were made on my thighs, they’d be incredibly valuable because I have such a chunky little thigh €€€€!)

The actual truth is that our village was turning out a mind-blowing 15 million tiles every single year!

Imagine trying to make 15 million tiles on human thighs—they wouldn’t have had any skin left. Instead, these millions of tiles were packed up, sent to the port of Marseille, where they were loaded onto ships as ballast, helping keep the vessels stable on long sea voyages before ending up on rooftops as far away as Mexico

The kilns are cold now but there was a time when my village was a rooftop of the world.

Halloween

Corey — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 11:00:16 +0000

How many trick-or-treaters did you have?

The street in front of our house has been completely torn up because of a broken water pipe. There are detour signs preventing cars from using the street, so I really didn’t expect to have many trick-or-treaters this year.

Halloween was never really a thing in France, but every year it seems to gain a little more popularity. Two years ago, I had over 200 trick-or-treaters!

Our little town held a Halloween party in the town square with lots of activities for the children. Around 4:30, everyone heads out to go from house to house collecting candy. Instead of saying “trick or treat,” the children simply say bonbons, which means “candies.” People of all ages participate in trick-or-treating here—even entire families go together.

This year, I had a little over 70 trick-or-treaters. And a ton of candy left over.

Every year for the last 20 years, I’ve written about Halloween. It’s a big deal with my mom. She always put on a party. Sadly, this year for the first time ever at 91, she hung up her witch’s hat, made me a little sad to think that tradition has ended.
If you’d like to read more regarding Halloween on my blog- there is a search engine on the top of my blog , tap in Halloween and you’ll see all my posts.

Comments

Happy Halloween! Amazed that you got that many trick or ... by Diogenes

Weekly Top Posts: 2026-11-01

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 04:00:01 GMT

Halloween, All Saints, All Souls and all everything

Corey — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 11:00:58 +0000

Comments

I love the quote from C.S. Lewis. Beautiful post. by Jan
Powerful post today. Thank you Corey! by Maureen Dauphinee
I love the CSLewis quote. I by Susanawee
Happy Halloween! Especially love the first two quotes. by Diogenes
The quote by C.S. Lewis gets me every. time. by Bev S.

French Toile de Jouy

Corey — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 11:00:49 +0000

Looking through a box at an antique textile shop that I love — a shop that has been around for as long as I’ve lived in France — my eyes caught an aubergine toile de Jouy. It was in a very tattered state, but I was immediately smitten. You could say it’s my Chanel.

Many textile collectors know that old quilts can hold extraordinary secrets. Like finding a painting beneath a painting, uncovering these fabrics is a painstaking process, carefully removing each layer to reveal a beauty preserved within.

In France, old quilts often carry a much longer history. People didn’t throw things away; when new materials were difficult to find, they used what they had, repairing and adding layers of fabrics to preserve what they had and needed.

This quilt had many layers, and someone had carefully picked it back, revealing this beautiful fragment — worn, fragile, and full of history. A quilt that kept warm generations as they slept. I wonder if anyone ever traced the image with their fingers, creating stories in their minds before drifting off.

I plan to hang it on a wall, although I don’t actually have a house with any space left on the walls. I have a feeling I’ll be covering my doors next.

Photo – Francine a textile collector who has had an incredible shop for over thirty with her family in Isle sur la Sorgue. I have visited their shop for years cxx