Saint-Loubès

Saint-Loubès, a wine village of the Entre-deux-Mers just northeast of Bordeaux, gave the cinema its first star. Gabriel Leuvielle was born here in 1883, in the hamlet of Cavernes, to a family of vineyard owners who intended him for the grapes; he chose the stage, took the name Max Linder, and by 1910 was the most famous screen performer on earth — the dapper "Max" in silk hat and moustache, the first actor anywhere whose name alone sold a film. Charlie Chaplin called him his professor, and meant it. Linder's life ended in tragedy in 1925, and Saint-Loubès received him back: he is buried in the village cemetery, and the commune keeps his memory as its proudest possession — the local heritage trail and commemorations lead, sooner or later, to the man in the silk hat.

The village itself is the Gironde at its most companionable: vineyards of the Bordeaux appellations rolling to the Dordogne's marshes, a Romanesque-rooted church remade in the nineteenth century, and the easy prosperity of a commune within the metropolitan orbit. Its cultural centre, La Coupole, is a stage of genuine capacity that hosts concerts, theatre and touring productions — the venue documented in the concert record — meaning that a village which exported the moving image still imports the performing arts. From Cavernes to the world and back: few places this size own a chapter of art history outright. Saint-Loubès does.