Listen to this story as read by the author.
One interpretation of the facts is that Jean-Michel Houvrée produced his most arresting art only after he had died.
Born in 1694 in Ariège-sur-Mentouin, a village a few kilometres north of Carcassone, to a moderately prosperous inn-owner and his wife, he was brought up a Catholic but embraced Jansenism in his early twenties. He was educated ... (read more)