The bedroom of a World War I soldier has been left utterly untouched in his ex-home since his death from battle injuries more than a century ago.
Hubert Rochereau, second Lieutenant in a cavalry division, was just 21 when he died of his wounds in an English ambulance following a battle in a village named Loker in Flanders on April 26, 1918.
Hubert’s grieving parents, who were not even able to locate his corpse at that time decided to make his former bedroom a permanent shrine to cherish his memory.
Hubert was buried in an English cemetery and his family didn’t know where his grave was until four years after the end of the War.
The family was finally told of Hubert’s grave in 1922 and his body was repatriated to his home village Bélâbre’s graveyard near Poitiers in south-western France.
His bedroom, which is also the same room where he was born, is still in its actual condition, never touched after his demise and is a permanent memorial of the fallen soldier.
Goosebumps-inducing pictures of the room show Hubert’s military hat, covered in dust, on his bed and a military jacket is hanging in a corner.
Looking at the photos, you cannot believe that the resident of the room has never set foot in it for more than a century now.
On his table, facing the window, there are things like his pistol, a stirrup, and a smoking pipe and a seat is tucked under the table, awaiting the soldier to return, oblivious of the fact that he won’t.
On his bedside table, there are some discolored books, a vase with withered flowers and a candle. The side table also has a picture of a soldier in uniform and the French flags are hanging from poles propping out of the walls.
Hubert’s parents maintained the room exactly as he left it when he went for war.
When they bequeathed the property to Eugene Bridoux, a French General, in 1935, the agreement had a clause to make it sure that nothing in the room would be moved from its place for at least the next 500 years.
General Bridoux was appointed Secretary of the State by the Vichy Regime after France’s defeat in World War II.
By the end of the war, Bridoux fled to Franco’s Spain and lived there for the rest of his life till he died in 1955. Back home in France, he was sentenced to death in his absence and his property was taken by the government.
The house was then rented by a solicitor family and finally, General Bridoux’s granddaughter bought the property in the 1950s along with her husband Daniel Fabre. Fabre lived in the house until 2014.
Fabre and his wife decided to take down the brick wall that concealed the room to expose it to the world.
Laurent Laroche, the mayor of Bélâbre told in a statement to The Guardian in 2014 that Fabre and his family opened the room in the presence of the local authorities in the 1980’s and “said they intended to keep the promise made to keep the room untouched.”
“We cannot forget that it is a private property,” the mayor added. “Mr. Fabre has two daughters and we don’t know what they will do with it one day. Indeed, they are perfectly free to do whatever they want.”
The mayor did make his try to make the heirs of the property agree in preserving the room and making it a museum.
Daniel Fabre told L’Express in an interview that he was willing to maintain the room in its actual condition ‘not out of piety but out of respect’.
“A sense of responsibility and perhaps pride certainly haunted this family of soldiers, one of whose ancestors had served as house marshal under Napoleon,” Fabre said.
Hubert was born in 1896 and was honored with a Posthumous Croix for his valor in the war.
His parents put the medal on his bed before they left the place. Hubert was a part of the 15th Dragoons, a unit based in Libourne, near Bordeaux.
Replaced!