Have you ever heard of Les Balances?

In a recent, routine survey and inventory of artifacts stored in the drawers of the Ohio Province Museum, a cache of glass plate lantern slides was re-discovered.  Uncovered in this cache was an interesting collection of slides of photographs taken from postcards labelled “Les Balances”.  Les Balances is the name of a district of Salzinnes (a former village that became a western suburb of Namur).  Little is known of the history of Les Balances.  Located upstream of Namur, a few hundred meters from the abbey of Salzinnes, Les Balances used to be a country residence of M. Comogne Barre.  It was most likely built in the first half of the 18th Century.  The lore of the naming of the property is that one of the Louis' signed a treaty in the house and refused to do so until all the lances and swords had been lowered.  Hence "Bas Lances" (low spears) was corrupted over time to "Les Balances".  The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur purchased the property around 1891-1892 and was primarily used as a country house for the boarders of the Mother House (3 km away).  The “country house” was actually a large Chateau with its own Chapel building, a lake and small island.  The Sisters who lived at Les Balances taught their classes at rue Juppin in Salzinnes.  After WWII, the Sisters sold the property to the city of Namur in 1949.  The proceeds were used to rebuild the boarding school on rue Julie Billiart, which had been destroyed in the 1940 and 1944 bombings.  The city of Namur razed all the buildings to the ground for development.