During four decades, Charles Badoisel painted and sketched the small village of Montreuil-sur-Maine located by the river Mayenne (and not the Maine), not far from the city of Angers. Right after his wedding in 1950, he often visited and lived in the family house of his in-laws which became one of his favourite week-end resort to escape the noise of the city.
He sketched the traditional family cottage located in the Pieuré courtyard, as well as its garden and the surrounding area. He loved to stroll along the river Mayenne, by its windmill, with its tide-gate and its replica of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes.
His fondness for the cottages of the Angers region with their distinctive Anjou blue-slate roofs, with their cherry blossoms, with the church of Saint-Peter, with the picturesque farm courtyards, the immense fields as far as the eyes can see once he would leave the village, became a limitless source of inspiration. His travels to this western part of France continued until the end of the 1980s when the family house was sold.