A History-curious Lunch after Coffee (with Hans-Jurgen, our history buff)

Hans-Jurgen, retired tour guide and walking history encyclopedia, will meet us at the coffee atthe library and then any history buffs will adjourn for you to enquire of Hans-Jurgen about his recommendations and coordinate together on what trips out of town, or walks in town might work.  We’ll need a count for the restaurant.

Here’s his advice about Angers.

“Long ago”, I wrote … I think the best way to present Angers to Anglo-Saxon visitors is with the help of two travel books, one by Henry James (A little tour in France – 1883-84), and the a less prominent author, Anne Hollingsworth Wharton (In Château Land -1911).
These travel books evoke the history of Angers, from an Anglo-Saxon point of view, they explain the reasons why Angers was known to them, and why they came (Henry James was very disappointed, Anne Wharton, on the contrary, spent several days with a party of Americans of Quaker – origin, and was enchanted); I can show you the hotel that they stayed in and that both authors praised.
They came to Angers because in the historical conscience of educated Americans the city is the cradle of the Plantagenet dynasty. Richard the Lion Heart being the grandson of a count of Anjou …
There even is a not very well-know play of W. Shakespeare (that must have been played more often in the 19th century), The Life And Death Of King John; the first act of the play is situated under the city-walls of “Angiers”.
All this can be read during a visit of the town, starting from the château and the tapestry (which is the “must have seen” of Angers).
There is another Shakespeare play featuring another Count of Anjou, René d’Anjou – Le Roi René – in his play Henry VI, situated at the time of Joan of Arc …