Chapelle-Mouliere / La Chapelle-Moulière / La Tremouille / Trémouille

Corblet reports an extremely curious "font" which was brought to the attention of the Société des Antiquaires de l'Ouest by Mgr. Barbier de Montault: it is described and illustrated in Corblet as a very small marble container with a hinged cover, with two round inner compartments, side by the side, and a smaller one in the sort of spandrel between the two. This one at La Chapelle-Molière was compared to another such container, originally from La Trémouille, Vienne, but now [ca. 1881] kept in the museum at Poitiers, and it was then established that both were 17th century "coffres à tabac" or "tabagies" . The one at La Chapelle-Molière was however being used "pour l'administration du baptême" and found that it could "contenir suffisamment d'eau pour les besoins d'une population restreinte." (Corblet, 1881-1882, v. 2, p. 143). [NB: it is unclear whether the illustration in Corblet, which is captioned as "Ancient fonts de La Trémouille", is really the 'tabagie' kept in the museum at Poitiers, or a drawing of the other 'tabagie' which was being used in La Chapelle-Molière as a baptismal font.]