In the church of Saint-Étienne in Bar-le-Duc's upper town stands one of the most remarkable sculptures in France. The Transi de René de Chalon, carved around 1547 by the Lorraine sculptor Ligier Richier, depicts the young Prince of Orange as a decomposing cadaver — not as a skeleton, but as a body in the process of decay, with dried flesh pulling away from the bones and one bony arm raised high to present the heart.
The sculpture belongs to a genre called the transi, a memento mori tradition common in late medieval and early Renaissance art, but Richier's work surpasses all others in its anatomical ambition and emotional force. The precision of the carving — tendons, knuckles, the hollow eye sockets — is extraordinary for its date. Standing before it in the dim light of the old church, even visitors unfamiliar with Renaissance funerary art tend to fall silent.
The church of Saint-Étienne itself is worth examining: a late Gothic structure with handsome stained glass and an altar that reflects the town's importance as a ducal seat. But the Transi is the reason to come.