Porte Dijeaux

Porte Dijeaux in Bordeaux carries a name nobody can agree on, tangled between a vanished Jewish quarter on the hill above and a garbled Latin word for Jupiter's gate. The guide follows the eighteenth-century intendant Tourny's demolition of the old fortified gate, and the small crew of named craftsmen, architect André Portier, builder Voisin and sculptor Claude-Clair Francin, who raised its replacement in pale Frontenac limestone. It traces the coats of arms, crowns and cornucopias Francin carved into the stone, and lingers on one detail nobody ever explained.