After the war, all the church's stained glass windows were blown out. All except the two Renaissance windows in La Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, which had been removed - what a happy coincidence! - just before the hostilities. For years, the openings were blocked with boards, with two major drawbacks: the church was plunged into darkness, and it was no longer protected against humidity. This situation was a godsend for swallows and bats, who found shelter in the monument.
Then came the time for restoration. And it took a long time. Started in 1949, it was finished in 1975. The cost was considerable because 20 stained glass windows had to be redone.
But how can this be done without precise documentary sources? It should be noted that, with the exception of a few Renaissance windows, the windows in place before the 1944 explosion dated from the Second Empire.
There are no cartoons from the period, few or no photos (except for a few black and white photos of the choir, nothing for the side chapels). It is therefore necessary to approach the iconography of churches built around the same time and to be inspired by their drawings. The cartoonist painter proposes a project and the architects are the decision-makers.
The first order was made to the master glassmakers of the House of LORIN of Chartres, with the cardboard artist Jean-Claude RIQUEUR. A proposal made to the Commission des Monuments Historiques was debated on December 23, 1949, we reproduce the full report:
Rapporteur: Mr. Verrier
The question, which arises in Vétheuil for the replacement of the stained glasses destroyed by the war and which will arise in many buildings, is to know if one must or if one can try to make execute, even for churches as important a vast set of stained glasses with characters whose high cost price will allow only an execution on a very long lapse of time or if one must study simpler stained glasses where the geometrical elements will enter for an important part while comprising figurative representations which the clergy and the faithful claim, will cost appreciably less expensive and will be able consequently to be carried out before too long times.
M. Verrier believes that in many cases one must adopt this last solution. It is moreover that in the past prevailed in times of poverty like ours, during the Hundred Years War, for example where one did not hesitate in a church like Saint-Ouen of Rouen to close by economy the immense windows of the building by stained glasses where the grisailles and the simple architectures enter for a great part and where the characters are reduced to a zone which is hardly the ¼ of the height of the windows.
The project of Mr. Lorin provides in the choir of the church of Vétheuil which is the twelfth century of geometric stained glass except for the window axis which includes a figure whose dominant red and blue color should be appropriate in such an architecture, the rapporteur, however, believes that the tones a little too clear and slightly lurid should be reviewed in the execution.
In the windows of the sixteenth century, large figures, often isolated, where the yellow dominates as it should in an architecture of that time, on very light funds, bluish, grayish, yellowish, etc. ... of a very sober and regular geometry.
The reporter ends his presentation by making known that the cost price of these stained glass windows comes out to about 20 000 Francs the m2, that is to say hardly the double of what would cost an impersonal, banal, monotonous diamond and finally annoying for the building. The clergy proposes to bring a substantial participation to the realization of this work.
Mrs. de Maillé formulates reservations on the presented project. In her opinion, it would be advisable not to make stained glass windows with characters but only geometrical windows. We are not qualified, she thinks, to judge the quality of the stained glasses which are presented to us and we risk in a few years to be very strongly criticized; also it would be preferable to adopt very prudent solutions and to make only simple stained glasses with geometrical figures.
Mr. Verrier does not share this point of view at all. He also points out that the faithful are asking for stained glass windows with characters and that if we do not accede to their desire, we will not be able to oppose the realization of stained glass windows that may be bad or at least not suitable for the character of the building and that the clergy will have done with donations.
The Commission agrees with the opinion expressed by the rapporteur. It agrees with the principle of seeking a simple and inexpensive formula in the present circumstances, which nevertheless avoids the establishment of diamond-shaped windows.
Mr. Lorin's project is also approved with the reservations formulated by Mr. Verrier in his report.
The master stained glass artist François LORIN began the replacement of the choir windows in 1953.
Continuing the restoration of the stained glass windows in the 1970s, the master glass artist Michel DURAND was called upon to create most of the lower side windows as well as the two windows on the western façade.
It is largely thanks to the action of Abbot LEMAIRE, who was the parish priest of Vétheuil from 1913 to 1972, that we owe the restoration of the stained glass windows. From 1955 to 1961, ten stained glass windows were restored and the last one was installed a few years after the abbot's death in 1972. It should be noted that the abbots who were in office in Vétheuil, were aware of the richness of the heritage of the church and invested to protect it.
To hasten the replacement of all the stained glass windows, Abbé Lemaire appealed to all the parishioners and was able to contribute to the financing in a very important way. In recognition of this, his name was inscribed on one of the stained glass windows, the one facing east in the north crosspiece.
From December 1955 to April 1960, nine stained glass windows were restored and a tenth was ordered by Father Lemaire. The stained glass window in the second south chapel was paid for in full by the Secordel family. The name of the donor family is inscribed at the bottom of the window.
The last stained glass window (east window of the south cross) was installed in 1975, three years after the death of Abbé Lemaire. The second to last window and the last window are the work of the master glass artist DURAND.
To learn more about Maison LORIN, click here
The workshop of the stained glass master Michel DURAND, which was located in Orly and was very active during the post-war period and until the 1990s no longer exists. All the archives have been kept at the Médiathèque du Patrimoine.
