Raymond had “a bundle of dough” in his bank account, and he didn’t know what to do with it. When Christian Chevallier, the mayor of La Chapelle-sur-Aveyron (Loiret), came to see him at the retirement home to tell him about the advanced deterioration of the village church, the old man did not take long to to decide : “I give you a million”, he launched to his visitor. One million euros, cash and non-taxable.
At the time, Christian Chevallier had a hard time believing it. He was not the only one. On receiving their invitation to discuss the subject, the members of the municipal council asked the mayor if he ” [ne s’était] not mistaken by one or two zeros”. The same astonishment at the local office of the Public Treasury, which hastened to telephone the secretary of the town hall, during November, to verify that there had been no ” mistake “ seeing the jackpot arrive on the account of the small town (650 inhabitants).
Aged 89, Raymond is neither a winner of the Loto nor one of those rich squires who bought a forest and a castle in this corner of the Gâtinais. A former farmer, the pensioner has nothing, either, of an enlightened Catholic. Built at the end of the XIe century, the church of Saint-Loup-et-Saint-Roch is just “its” bell tower. It was under her roof that he was baptized and made his first communion; under his roof, also, that the funerals of his parents and those of his older brother, Roger, who died in 2020, were celebrated.
The “roof” in question has been in bad shape for a long time. The tenons and mortises sag, the framework squeals. Four years ago, a net had to be stretched over the central nave in order to protect the parishioners from the plasterboards that come off the vault. “Everything will fall apart one day, dread the mayor. I don’t want that to happen under my mandate. » He had an estimate made for the work. Its amount (1.2 million euros) is far too high for the municipality’s annual investment budget (138,000 euros). “Raymond is my saviour”bows the chosen one.
A life “virtually self-sufficient”
A million euros in savings is a lot compared to a peasant’s life. Raymond inherited twice: the first time from his parents, the second time from Roger. Single without children, the two brothers ran the family farm until their retirement, twenty-five years ago, before renting their land (63 hectares) as tenant farming. They had animals (cows, sheep) and grew cereals and beets. Above all, they lived frugally: “Almost self-sufficient, as their parents had accustomed them to living”says Christian Chevallier. “We only spent what we had to spend: a little food and equipment, that’s all”remembers Raymond, referring to the only “big buy” consented during their professional activity: “A combine harvester. A small. »
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