Wartime ‘Shew’ at the chateau

Another $1 postcard in a New England antique shop may offer a mystery, or maybe just a story.       

Also known as Le Pin-au-Haras, this early 18th-Century chateau 35 miles southeast of Caen was designed by Robert de Cotte, architect to King Louis XV and successor to the great Jules Hardouin-Mansart, builder of much of Versailles. The complex was the first royal stud farm, created to breed horses for the French army, and was called the equine Versailles.

This postcard, however, dates from 1944, clearly sometime after D-Day, when British troops pushed south from the Normandy beachhead. The area must have been secured enough for the Tommies to safely watch a film at the chateau.

Sadly, the card was never addressed, never sent. But writing in ink, the soldier “went to a Shew in here and seen Bing Crosby in Going My Way.’’ The movie won seven Oscars, including for Best Picture and best song, “Swinging on a Star.’’ It’s star-studded cast and the New York City setting must have offered quite a contrast with war-torn France.

Providence-based architecture writer William Morgan searches for the larger story in the small detail.  His books include The Cape Cod Cottage and Academia: Collegiate Gothic Architecture in the United States.