A new family bought an old house and plans to fix it up. A secret room that hadn’t been seen in 102 years was found during the renovations. What did they find there that made them so shocked?
There was no way for the French family who bought a house in the town of Belabre in the southwest of the country to know that they would be opening a door to the past.
A young family bought the house in 2020 after it had been empty for six years. It was built in the middle of the 1800s. As the couple started to fix up the house, they found a secret room that was blocked off with bricks. They were magically taken back in time when they broke the stone. Things that were more than one hundred years old were in the room.
The owners saw a uniform jacket in the middle of the room, propped up on a stand. Although moths had eaten it, it looked like it was just bought. On the table, there were many interesting things, such as guns, candlesticks, an ashtray, and old pictures.
Something else was a bottle with dirt in it. It said, “The land of Flanders, where our son Hubert Rochereau rested for four years.” Orders from the previous owner of this room were on the bed, and there was a big picture of a young man in dress above it. They didn’t know who this Hubert Rochereau was.
He was actually a captain in the French army during the First World War. In 1915, he rejoined the front lines. Hubert fought in the war for three years and died on the fields of what is now Belgium when he was 22 years old. He was first buried on the battlefield, but in 1922, his body was moved to the town where he was born.
Because Hubert’s parents didn’t want to go into his room again, they shut it off with bricks. After selling the house to a general in 1935, they swore not to break the bricks.
The house was passed down from the general to his children and grandchildren, who lived there for 70 years. The house’s most recent owner passed away in 2014. So the building was put up for sale.
The new owners didn’t know about the custom that goes back a hundred years. They want to make Hubert Rochereau’s room into a museum now, though.
