In Ansouis, a camera-ready French Provençal village crowned by a majestic medieval castle, the residents insist they are tired of talking about the bridge. And yet the bridge is the only thing anyone seems to talk about.
A modest arched span with moss-covered stones, it paralyzes their traffic. It disrupts their routines. It threatens their livelihoods. It is, in the words of a newsletter published by the mayor’s office, “a bridge too far.”
On June 4, the mayor, Géraud de Sabran-Pontevès, blocked a main road that runs under the bridge, which is about 22 feet tall, citing danger from structural weaknesses in the arch. The closure effectively cut Ansouis in two, making it impossible to drive through without an exasperating back-street detour.
It’s the third time in six years that the mayor has taken this extraordinary step, each time at the height of the summer tourist season. Local merchants say the closures deprive them of valuable traffic because Google Maps and other apps warn motorists about the disruption. Each time, the mayor has cited safety concerns.
“I take the risk of a stone falling on someone’s head,” Mr. de Sabran-Pontevès said in an interview, adding that regional authorities had ordered him to close the road.
Few people in Ansouis buy that explanation. They view the decision as the latest skirmish in a yearslong feud between the mayor, 83, and the castle’s owners, Gérard and Frédérique Rousset-Rouvière, who reach their property by a sweeping, serpentine road, lined with cypress trees, that runs across the bridge.
The mayor says that the bridge belongs to the castle, known as Chateau d’Ansouis, and that the owners should pay for repairs. The Rousset-Rouvières respond that the ownership is not legally settled and that in any event, it is the responsibility of the local authorities to repair damage to the bridge that has been caused by vehicles passing under it.
The bad blood goes back to 2008, when the Rousset-Rouvières, a wealthy couple with roots in Marseille, bought the castle from the mayor’s titled family. His forebears had owned it since the early 18th century, when the bridge was built as part of a grand new entrance to the hilltop estate.
“Everybody knew that he had a personal vendetta against the Rousset-Rouvières, and as the new owners of his castle, he wanted them to pay for something,” said Lionel Paillet, a retired Apple executive who has lived just outside Ansouis for 13 years. “Unfortunately, the village is in the middle.”
The mayor says revenge has nothing to do with it.
It’s the kind of tale that might have been grist for Peter Mayle, a beloved British chronicler of life in Provence — one that pits old nobility against new money in a sun-kissed paradise that has its dark shadows.
The de Sabran-Pontevès, whose roots in the region go back to the 12th century, were long the undisputed lords of Ansouis, a village of roughly 1,000 residents. When the mayor’s sister, Gersende, married Prince Jacques, the future Duke of Orléans, in August 1969, the guest list included Princess Grace of Monaco, the former Grace Kelly.
Mr. de Sabran-Pontevès was elected mayor in 1995 and has served ever since. Few question his contributions to Ansouis. He has redeveloped old buildings, turning the village into one of the most tourist-friendly destinations in the Luberon region.
But his seigneurial style rankles newer arrivals, many of them well-heeled people who buy vacation or retirement homes. They have little patience for the chaos caused by the closed road — vehicles honking, as they face off on narrow one-way streets — and the lack of a timely resolution.
“These are people who, because of their means, have always been used to getting everything right away,” said Mickaël Cavalier, a farmer and member of the municipal council who is close to the mayor.
Marc Philippe, a former executive at Google, who moved in four months ago with his wife, Caroline, said that Mr. de Sabran-Pontevès “still thinks of it as his village,” an assertion that the mayor did nothing to dispel in our interview. “These people have been holding my village hostage,” he said of the Rousset-Rouvières.
The loss of his castle dates to 2007. After he and his siblings squabbled over what to do with the place after the death of their parents, his sister triggered an auction by demanding that her three brothers buy out her share (they could not). Among the interested buyers was the fashion mogul Pierre Cardin.
The auction, in a wry bit of irony, was held in January 2008 at the Conciergerie in Paris, a former jail where Marie Antoinette was imprisoned before being guillotined during the French Revolution. Under the auction’s rules, there were three rounds of bidding that each lasted as long as it took for a small candle to burn through its wax.
The Rousset-Rouvières, who made their money in real estate, emerged victorious, surprising nobody more than themselves. They claim the mayor never got over the loss. “I will watch you until I die,” they said he warned them, a statement he denied making. One of the mayor’s brothers did not move out for two years.
The mayor said he did take offense that the new owners spread word that he had removed all of the castle’s contents after the sale, painting him as a thief. They denied doing that. But he described himself as “fatalistic” about the loss of the family seat. He owns two other chateaus, one in Normandy, the other in Burgundy.
“They still think I’m upset with them because they bought it,” the mayor said.
But, he added, “I don’t blame them for buying it.”
Relations were strained for a decade and broke into open warfare in 2020, after an oversized garbage truck scraped the bottom of the bridge, knocking some stones loose. The Rousset-Rouvières said they put up 58,000 euros, or $67,000, to reinforce the bridge temporarily. But they have refused to pay for permanent repairs, and they say the mayor has vilified them for that.
“The mayor, by designating us as responsible, made it very complicated for us in the village,” Mrs. Rousset-Rouvière said in an interview in the chateau’s dining room, which she has filled with 18th-century antiques.
The Rousset-Rouvières fought back in ways large and small. In 2022, they obtained a court ruling that said the damage to the bridge was caused by traffic, not by structural issues, like water seepage. That, the ruling said, made local authorities responsible for fixing it.
The couple patronize local shops, telling their side of the story to the merchants. They open the castle to the public, which helps tourism in the village. They agreed to hang a banner across the bridge’s parapet that says, in French, “Angry village — bridge closed, village sacrificed.”
The signs have popped up in shop windows around Ansouis, where merchants say their sales are down a quarter this summer compared with last year. Some of that is because of France’s heat waves. But some, they say, is because of the disruption.
Michel Régen, who owns a tobacco shop in the village center, said he was so frustrated by the impasse that he planned to sell his shop next year. “It’s six years that they’ve been securing” the bridge “and telling us that a big rock has fallen,” Mr. Régen said. “No, it’s not true. Nobody believes it.”
As is the case in many longstanding feuds between stubborn, well-financed antagonists, the ground truth is now buried under layers of litigation: claims, counterclaims, expert studies and tribunal rulings. After all the legal maneuvering, the question of who actually owns the bridge is still being contested in court.
The couple said their uncompromising position was driven not by bitterness but by an abiding love of their castle.
“When you are in love, you can’t see,” Mrs. Rousset-Rouvière said. “It is a house that has haunted me for a very, very long time.”
She added of the mayor, “He is not eternal.”
Mr. de Sabran-Pontevès jokes mordantly about his age, too. And he appears to be looking for a way out of the standoff. He told villagers in a recent letter that the district government had agreed to pay for temporary repairs to the bridge, which would allow the road to reopen on Sept. 21. A spokeswoman for the district confirmed it would take over the repairs.
The merchants were skeptical, noting that no work had yet been done. “I think he’s buying time,” said Alexis Hennequin, 33, who runs a grocery store and is also thinking of pulling up stakes.
The mayor professed to be unconcerned about a brewing rebellion. He said he would quickly win back the villagers’ affection by inviting them to a party under the bridge in September to celebrate the reopening of the road.
“I will tell them, ‘I love Ansouis, and I love you,’” he said. But, he couldn’t help adding, “I will not invite the owner of the castle.”
Giulia Imbert contributed reporting from Ansouis, and Ségolène Le Stradic from Paris.
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