The Turenne Lime

On 29 December 1674 the Marshal de Turenne stopped at Fontaine and took his officers' reports under this lime, with the village turning out to pay its respects. A week later he won the battle of Turckheim. By the following July he had been killed in action, and the tree kept his name. It still stands on the square that carries it too, beside Fontaine's town hall, about 20 metres tall over a base both of its sources put at more than 8 metres round. That figure is given as a floor rather than a measurement, and so is the age: over 700 years, with nobody offering anything tighter. It was already an old tree on the night the marshal halted here. France classified it on 15 April 1911, on artistic grounds rather than botanical ones, and as late as 2006 it was still the only tree in the whole Territoire de Belfort with that protection. The A.R.B.R.E.S. association lists it among the Remarkable Trees of France. It has needed looking after. Ice and storms tore at it in 1978, and in September 1985 a specialist, Francois Tarvenier, treated the roots, cleaned out the trunk, pruned it selectively and reinforced the structure. That restoration is the last published account of its condition we can find. If you pass through Fontaine, tell us how it looks now.